Become a MASTER Storyteller

What are the elements of a story it’s not just you trying to be funny you’re not an entertainer you’re not Jerry Seinfeld or Garrison Keillor you’re not telling a story just to be telling a story when you’re giving a presentation.

The story has to be about a message of substance that’s important to you and also important and interesting to your audience.

They shouldn’t be wondering why you’re talking about it so that’s the first thing there needs to be a clear cut message about it next.

There needs to be a setting where were you.

Were you in your office or are you on an island where you trapped on an airplane.

This starts to motivate the memory and imagery in your audience as mind they can see it.

Next you’ve got to introduce a character.

Ideally you’re one of them but who did you have a conversation with.

Was it a client.

Was it a customer.

Was it a colleague.

Who is this other person next.

What was the problem.

All of us solve problems all the time.

Very few of us just go into the office sit there read a few emails and at 5 o’clock your boss says hey great day.

Didn’t want to bother you.

Go home early.

That’s not how most of us work in the real world.

We all have to deal with problems all day long.

We solve problems for other people.

So when you’re telling a story you have to list what the problem was explain it and then you have to recount the actual conversation that you had with this other person about the problem and then you need to let us know how you felt about it.

Were you bothered Were you irritated or were you annoyed.

How did you actually feel about it finally.

How was it resolved.

Every movie has some resolution at the end.

Some are messier than others but there is an ending there is a resolution that’s all the story is all of us tell stories all the time.

We do it with friends family.

We do it in the office by the watercooler.

We do it in chat rooms and over the phone.

And yet we stand up to give a so-called formal presentation.

The first thing many of us do we strip out the stories because we feel like we got hit the data points.

No if you really want the data points to stick you need to illustrate every single one with a story.

Now if you don’t have a story for that particular message that means you’ve never had a single conversation with anyone about this issue.

That should make you question is this really an important message.

If you’ve never had a single conversation with even one person about it chances are it’s not that important.

Leave that out and focus on something else.

So start to think about the stories that are going to illustrate your key points because that’s going to be the next exercise.