“But I’m not a good storyteller”

Is this what’s holding you back from telling your story –

 

the belief that you’re not a good storyteller,

 

that you are not like that bloke at the pub who regales everyone with stories every time you get together,

 

that you are not like that speaker who enthralls everyone with stories of success and fun?

 

I have to say I am the same.

 

I’m not the entertainer.

 

I’m not the charismatic speaker.

 

And in all my public speaking training, I was encouraged to use facts, data, statistics, case studies and logic.

 

Until one day I stumbled into a course on storytelling for speakers and was instantly hooked,

 

hooked by the obvious power,

 

and by the fact that there was a formula for telling a good story,

 

a formula that has been used for centuries, and for which we are therefore wired.

 

And now, when I speak I feel so natural telling stories,

 

feeling the connection with audiences,

 

and seeing them resonating with each story and its message.

 

It’s just a matter of having faith in that formula.

 

Contact me if you would like to learn it, too.  It works magic.

 

 

 

Your failures, faults and foibles – Shameful or … powerful credentials?

I wanted to write to you today, about something that is close to my heart and drives much that I do for me and for you in speaking and story.

And I know, in this world, my world, where heart meets hustle, that it is a powerful way forward for anyone who chooses it.

It began for me, when I was presenting my first workshop on story after leaving behind the world of public speaking driven by rational over mythical, business-like, scientific over emotional connection.

I was outlining my own amazing discovery that we need not always present our credentials as successes we had achieved – our academic qualifications, our millions made, our published bestsellers. They have their place if artfully used, or for certain audiences, but in the main they are outflanked over and over by stories.

Stories that tell of failures, of faults, of foibles,

that share the shame and hurt, the downs and disasters, often of our own making

and, of course, tell of recovery and victory over the losses, of wisdom gained, or being gained.

For a story is of no use, then, unless you are in recovery.*

I saw faces light up in the workshop participants. I saw a new relaxation into something that was real and not part of the cult of faked confidence and credibility that they somehow felt they needed to take on in their speeches and presentations.

Success credentials

It was about that time that I coined a new tag line – “Shake off the fake and feel the freedom of real.”

Because in those moments of story, an audience is seeing hope, they may be feeling not so alone (“It’s not just me”), and you are giving them a way forward.

Storytelling connection

And if you are in business,

if you want to move hearts and minds

lead,

that is the power –

power with integrity

of pure credibility.

I learned once upon a time to keep a file of success – achievements, certificates, testimonials, and contributions. It felt good to look over it once in a while, but the idea of keeping a file of failures was kind of funny and yet something I now realised, was of real value. This is the basis of a story bank – your story assets stored for use – and for ideas – that will give you the presence and connection you need.

………………………………………….

* I wrote above

For a story is of no use, then, unless you are in recovery.*

And it is true with the word “then” added.

It is not always true, though, as I found out after that initial reaction from that workshop, other events that happened there, and my own reading and research.

The power of sharing those faults, failures and foibles and having them witnessed, without judgement, is immense.

storytelling overcomes shame

It leads to healing, to recovery, slow though it may be.

The witnessing again sends that message, “You are not alone.”

Yes I can teach you to hustle, if you must, to create change, whatever it may be with integrity and heart

my aim is to create a space for that witnessing to happen – perhaps one day outside of the field of public speaking – but now in public speaking training, having that witnessing as you try out speaking in a safe space, and because finding the story you need to speak with aligned authenticity can bring the healing too.

One of the most powerful quotes from Brene Brown is “Shame thrives in silence.”

……………………………………………

Let me remind you that public speaking blocks are not shameful and the story of your successful, confident, fluent speaking needs to progress beyond whatever blocks are holding it back, without shame, with hope, and growing confidence.

What’s your next step? Leading with storytelling for times of crisis, challenge and change

We all go through crises, major and minor, and for many the Pandemic has created crises, whether they be in business, in your career or in your personal life.

How can story be of help?

There are three reasons to use story …

All stories use crisis or challenge.  They have, for millenia.  We are wired for that.  So if we use story to think through, feel through, a challenge, it feels natural,

not a strategy imposed by some random academic or the latest, flavour-of-the-month change guru.

Looking at a timeline of change can be a very cold, stark way of describing a series of events.

While we need to keep illogical emotion and angst out of decision-making, we do need to bring in the emotion of story because that is what resonates with people (including ourselves if we are doing this alone) – we make decisions based on emotion and then justify with logic when it comes to buying products, the same applies to understanding and committing to a way forward.

 

So whether you are leading a team, an organisation, a business or just your own life

 

and  when all the parts of ourselves, all our viewpoints and understanding,

or when all of the people involved in an organisation

tell the story they see as the best way forward, and hear others committing too,

the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts – connections are formed across a group that strengthen resolve, commitment and creativity.

 

 

your business, all of its parts, people and processes

your team or organisation – all of its parts, people and processes

your personal self – all of its parts, voices and processes

 

And there are three stories that we need to gather, identify and adopt across those part, people and processes

that are vital to creating response to challenges, change and crisis

– to creating a way forward,

the necessary pivot.

 

They are the stories

of continuity, – what we will keep

of creativity – how we will innovate and

of the crossing between past and future,

 

Today let’s look at continuity.

Too many companies and individuals react to a crisis or the need for change by immediately looking for innovation and creating a story of change, without looking at what could be carried forward.

What can we keep that has served well in the past and could be taken into the future?

When I lost my major sources of identity, usefulness and self esteem a few years ago and was left in a limbo of nothingness, I spent a lot of time (and continue now) looking for what I needed for a future that would give me those things back and part of that was going back into my story to see times and places where I felt most alive, most fulfilled, most hopeful and happy.

So if you are looking for the best of yourself, or your career or your organisation, ask yourself or your team

“Tell me about a time where you felt you were, or we were, at our best.”  Do it several times with slightly different questions and if there is a group, hear all of the stories, and listen for what is really important to the resilience of your organisation.

For myself I ended up with 4 words – Create . Explore . Connect  .  Story – Each had a distinct set of stories where I had been confident in myself, my identity and what I needed to do next

and those are the words that will define the stories of where I go now

and I have been expanding each of those ever since, finding ways to implement them.

Oftentimes, the stories are based on values.

The challenge faced by Patagonia, a company founded on climbing equipment, was created, in fact by their own success.  The owner and CEO Yvan Chouinard, loved the outdoors, surfing, rock climbing and was passionate about the environment.  He created his own blacksmithing business and forged the pitons used to anchor climbing equipment in the rocks.  His chrome-molybdenum steel pitons became popular and the Chouinard Climbing Equipment business grew from there.  Unfortunately, the pitons, hammered into the rock, were creating crack and further damage to the rocks.  He could have gone ahead, incredibly successful and making the money had had lived without for so long.  And yet the company decided to stop manufacture.  The value of respect for the environment was strong.  They developed instead, aluminium chocks, that could be inserted by hand without the hammering.  As Chinouard says on his website “This was to be the first big environmental step we would take over the years.”

 

Blackberry, on the other hand had a wonderful product.  It was strong, secure, reliable and government and big business trusted it and used it for those features.  Along came the iphone, a different product, serving a different audience, but exceptionally popular, and Blackberry reacted – compromising its basic reliability by trying to be a better iphone.  It tried to be something it wasn’t when its core strengths and market could have kept it in the marketplace.

So where have you been most aligned with the values and strengths that drive your business, your personal life, your career, that you will take with you into a new future?

What would your new future look like, feel like? Tell stories about a time where you saw that, felt that in the past.

“Tell me about a time where you felt you were, or we were, at our best.”  Do it several times with slightly different questions for example, around strengths, values, people and whether there is a group, or just you, hear all of the stories, and listen for what is really important to the resilience of your organisation.

And we move on, next time to the second change story – creativity and the stories that will drive that aspect of your response to crisis, challenge and change.

,

For Those Reaching for Something They Can’t Quite Grasp, Inspired by Trees

“for those who are reaching for something more but can’t quite grasp it, for those on their journey, not yet at their destination.”

 

inspired by trees and living with uncertainty

 

a visual poem

 

This is theater artist, movement director, and Hatha Yoga teacher Andrew Dawson.  The piece was commissioned by the London International Mime Festival, filmed by Dawson’s son, Roman Sheppard Dawson, and featuring music by composer Jonny Pilcher

 

 

inspired by a line from a short lyrical essay titled “Close” from poet and philosopher David Whyte’s collection Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

 

2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.pngCLOSE

is what we almost always are: close to happiness, close to another, close to leaving, close to tears, close to God, close to losing faith, close to being done, close to saying something, or close to success, and even, with the greatest sense of satisfaction, close to giving the whole thing up.

Our human essence lies not in arrival, but in being almost there, we are creatures who are on the way, our journey a series of impending anticipated arrivals. We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity: an intimacy calibrated by the vulnerability we feel in giving up our sense of separation.

To go beyond our normal identities and become closer than close is to lose our sense of self in temporary joy, a form of arrival that only opens us to deeper forms of intimacy that blur our fixed, controlling, surface identity.

To consciously become close is a courageous form of unilateral disarmament, a chancing of our arm and our love, a willingness to hazard our affections and an unconscious declaration that we might be equal to the inevitable loss that the vulnerability of being close will bring.

Human beings do not find their essence through fulfillment or eventual arrival but by staying close to the way they like to travel, to the way they hold the conversation between the ground on which they stand and the horizon to which they go. What makes the rainbow beautiful, is not the pot of gold at its end, but the arc of its journey between here and there, between now and then, between where we are now and where we want to go, illustrated above our unconscious heads in primary colour.

We are in effect, always, close; always close to the ultimate secret: that we are more real in our simple wish to find a way than any destination we could reach: the step between not understanding that and understanding that, is as close as we get to happiness.

 

 

Communicating your authority Are you making these 3 mistakes?

When you have an appliance that is not working, you contact an electrician, or better yet, the service department for that appliance brand.

If you are ill, you contact a health professional.

When your electrician or appliance service person has finished their job, and you are chatting, and they (he/she) offer advice on your health problem, you will probably discount it

UNLESS

you don’t trust your health professional

OR

your technician tells you a story so powerful that you believe their advice.

There are three issues here – 

TRUST

STORY

and PERSUASION,

and that is what authority is all about, persuading your audience that you are credible and worthy of their time and attention.

They need to trust that you have the knowledge and ability, the character and the skills to be believable.  You need to establish your authority to gain their trust.

There are many ways, with varying degrees of success that we can all use to build authority, but there are three that really are mistaken ways to do it and I see them used quite regularly.

The first is to assume that listing achievements is enough.  For a small minority of audiences within a narrow field, it may be, and in certain cultures, but for most audiences, while a list of academic qualifications, or successes or achievements may be impressive as it is presented, it will quickly lose its power as the speaker moves through the levels of persuasion or explanation. 

Those qualifications, those character traits, those successes need to be woven into the presentation as support for the speaker’s points, arguments, message as it unfolds.

And yet, if it’s not done well, people become tired of a braggart.  Have you watched that incredibly ambitious person at work –  the one who is constantly self-aggrandising?  Establishing authority in the workplace is vital to growing your career and your leadership, but it needs to be done subtly.  Authority does not grow from that sort of neediness! 

I have been to business presentations where someone announces their massive success and then asks if I want to hear how they got there.  No, I don’t.  I want to know that you care about me and my problems and pain points and dreams, THEN you can sell to me.  WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) is a very strong motivator of attention in any audience, and if they sense this is no more than a one-way street to results for the speaker then they will tune out, lose trust.

Oftentimes, this is not that the speaker was a braggart.  Oftentimes it means either that they are relatively new to this, they know they need to build authority and are doing their best with lists of achievements – or are following a 

mentor’s misguided advice.  

 

 

Other relatively inexperienced speakers can head in an entirely opposite direction and feel too timid, lack faith in their credentials or don’t want to be seen as boasting, and consequently say nothing. 

 

 

The third mistake is not using story or not using it effectively.  Storytelling really is a powerful way to build trust and connection with an audience.  It works very subtly.  It gives meaning to a message, to a point you are making.  Your audience can see and feel what it is you have to offer working in their lives, see and feel your value.

Facts inform, but stories change hearts and minds, about you, as well as your subject material.

That’s why I have finally put together a series of trainings on authority storytelling for you, so that you can not just avoid the mistakes, but maximise a very subtle, persuasive use of story to establish and communicate your authority and build the trust and engagement of your audience.


How to build a deeper understanding of, and faith in, your undoubted authority,
How to choose the most appropriate and effective stories to tell, even if you think you have no stories at all,
How to weave them into a presentation without coming across as boasting,  
and How to present the stories in ways that support the authority you seek to convey. 

You can sign up here >>>

(and yes it will be recorded, so you can register for the recorded version) 

I look forward to seeing you there so that you can speak to build your career, your business, your reputation, and most assuredly from a place of authority.

Introduction to Authority Storytelling
 

,

A New Year of story

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!

And I do wish you happiness

and peace

and joy

 and whatever it is that makes life worthwhile for you.

Because we will need it!

Because while resolutions and positive thinking are fabulous,

you and I both know that there will be breakages, down times, sometimes ugly times, and then, we will need all the happiness, peace and joy we can get.

There is, however, an upside of all of this

and my message to you today, at this time of year is a reminder that ….

We’ve all been through it, in one way or another…

breaking and growing stronger,
not by choice, usually.
 But when we share the story of that descent into broken-ness

and the rise out of it to become strong and whole,

whatever that means to us,

 it creates connections,

friendships,

maybe even a tribe,

with those who are breaking,

and those who have rebuilt.  

and it’s made so much more powerful

by the fact that

while we all break and rebuild, grow stronger,

each of us, you, me, we,

has our own unique way of breaking and recovering

unique. 

Of course that is part of the story you tell.

Your own story.

There’s a trendy word for it ..

“authentic”

which in ordinary language basically just means telling the truth!

Tell that truth, though, and you pave the way for connections that gives you leadership status and multiplied credibility and influence.

Just telling your unique lived experience   …  your story … being you.

This is our year, my friends

our year

to own our stories

to grow,

to share those stories

to prosper

to live stories worth the telling

and to make if only our own part of the world

the best it can be.

Let’s DO this

together!

Together.

Because when we are in the pits,

down,

learning the hard way,

those are the times to do two things

…  look towards the growth, the up times,

and the beauty (even if it’s only the next door garden’s geraniums!!) 

and

…. remember those connections, that tribe? 

It’s not just you telling them stories,

they are also telling theirs and

I know that in the hard times, the lost times, the despair time

if I turn to them and listen

I will, you will, find that connection,

see yourself in their stories

along with the ideas and models

that will allow you to access the inner wisdem

for re-writing your own story

… from them.

So yes

Let’s do this

TOGETHER!  

Once upon a time? – 5 inspired Ways to Start your Story

Stories are a wonderful tool for speakers, marketers, sellers, anyone who wants to communicate.

Stories are especially powerful if we need to influence, to lead, to establish ourselves as credible, an authority, the person to hire, to trust, to follow.

We know that, you and I.

And possibly the most potent part of that power is the beginning of the story.

The first line. The first sentence.

The start.

This is where we draw our audiences, our readers, our listeners into the story – establish the story trance with its power to take them with us, unresisting, and thoroughly engaged.

And for so many speakers, marketers, content creators, that potency is lessened or lost, mostly because they never realised the power they had there.

Maybe they gave it no thought, no preparation.

Maybe they followed in the footsteps of the latest superstar/formulaic manipulator.

Maybe they just didn’t know.

And it is difficult, even knowing that powerful potential,

maybe because we know how important it can be, to know how, where to start.

Before I give you five ways you can start your story, let me say that this is not where you start writing or creating the story, necessarily.

You need to plot out the story – use a storyboard if you need to. Plot it, then, according to the need you have for the story – the point you are making, the flow of the whole speech, piece of content, presentation.

At that point it may become apparent that you have a beginning for your story –

it may be the middle, a flashback, or the beginning chronologically, but it must align with the purpose and flow of the story.

The beginning should introduce a new world – the world you are taking your audience into.

It should do 2 of three things

1. establish your voice – introduce the tone of your writing/speaking

These are the first words of the novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabakov

“Lolita, light of my life; fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta, the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo.lee.ta.”

2. introduce the character

Elizabeth Gilbert at the start of her TED talk, “Success, failure and the drive to keep creating” began,

“So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads”

3. The conflict/story thesis

Sylvia Plath from “The Bell Jar”

“It was a queer sultry summer, summer they electrocuted Rosenberg and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York”.

or

Amy Mullins in her TED talk “The opportunity in adversity”

“I’d like to share with you a discovery that I made a few months ago while writing an article for Italian Wired. I always keep my thesaurus handy whenever I’m writing anything,but I’d already finished editing the piece,and I realized that I had never once in my life looked up the word “disabled” to see what I’d find.”

You will notice that they are introducing,

allowing a peek,

stimulating the appetite for more,

rather than giving large amounts of information.

Ok, here are

Five ways you can start your story

just five of the multitude of possibilities

that can stimulate your creativity, open up some options for you to consider.

1. Action  

Make it small.

From Elizabeth Garver’s book “The Body Shop”

“My mother had me sort the eyes”

2.  Description

From Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections”

“The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love seat.”

3.  Flashback

Anand Giridharadas’  TED Talk “A tale of Two Americas and the mini-mart where they collided.”

He begins, “Where are you from?” said the pale, tattooed man,

the beginning of a story of a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart that shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker, that leads into a parable about the two paths an American life can take, and a powerful call for reconciliation.

4.  The unexpected

Ian Banks “The Crow Road”

“It was the day my grandmother exploded”

or George Orwell’s “1984”

“It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13.”

 

5.  The truth

From J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan”

“All children but one grow up.”

 

Many of these are examples from books, so they probably would not apply to your content or presentations, but,

and especially if you are using your own story,

they will give you some ideas of how you could extract the same sort of situation or description from your own experiences.

 

And a final thought – as with any speech, presentation, story, piece of content,

you will walk away and come back to it with a fresh mind

and probably change the story entirely.

 

Enjoy!!

 

 

 


— 

 

There’s more to shining your light, as a leader, a model, a speaker, a trainer, a coach, than being radiant

Are you a radiant being?

Would you describe yourself as radiant?

 

I don’t and I’m not. Not always.

 

Sometimes, when I am excited about something, I suppose I could be described as radiant, and it’s how I feel.

 

But sometimes I am rather less than excited and radiant.

 

There have been times in all of our lives, times that we would probably rather forget,

times that we would prefer not to share,

when we were certainly not excited and radiant.

 

And yet, if we tell that story, share it, that story of being bored – we get results way beyond just radiating excitement.

 

Others can accept their boredom more readily.

 

We create deep connections with potential friends, clients, partners based on this shared experience,

and the vulnerability we show.

 

And if we tell the story of what we did with the boredom,

then we give others a lesson they can implement –

our children, our students, our audiences and clients,

more motivational than any theoretical presentation,

or simple, unequivocal instruction,  could ever be.

 

Are you a leader, a speaker, a trainer?  Tell that story!

Are you designing a legacy?  Tell that story!

Are you looking for your lost mojo, resilience, strength?  Tell that story!

 

,

Make me the hero of your story

Tell me a story and

I will relate to your hero,

be your hero,

learn from your hero’s journey.

If the learning is irrelevant and I cannot continue to relate,

the story is lost,

wasted.

 

Make me, (and I am

your client,

your student,

your prospect),

my possibilities,

my needs

and my problems the prototype for your hero

whether that hero be a raccoon, a robot or a real person,

and I will relate,

I will follow you through the story and to the inspiration, persuasion, learning that you want for me.

, ,

Speakers – build your brand using stories

Stories are a subtly powerful way to support your speaking outcomes.

You can use them to support the points you want to make, but you can also use them to position yourself in the eyes of your audience.

When you speak you need to be seen as an expert, though an approachable expert, and the audience needs to understand you and your why.

They need to know why they should listen to you and why they should do what you expect from them at the conclusion of your speech.

You also have an opportunity to establish yourself and your brand in their memories, through the power of storytelling.

Here are 4 specific ways you can use storytelling to build your brand…  Read the article at my public speaking blog