Stories make presentations stick because they grab attention and work for every learning style. A salesman learns this the hard way, and a fable about a man, his grandson, and a donkey shows why trying to please everyone backfires.
I don't know if you've thought about stories. We all love stories and we all tell stories. We love to hear stories. But I don't know if maybe you've thought about how stories can really add power to any presentations, that, or even training that you're trying to do. And let's just look at some of the things that make stories, stories so captivating, so interesting, so intriguing, so delicious, to where it just arouses our curiosity and adds that sizzle, you know. Why is that? Well, first of all, the great things about stories is that, you know, when you do presentations, it's boring. It's a lot of facts and figures, hard to keep people's attention, but you're afraid about being asked questions. Here's a great thing. Telling stories, it's simple. You don't have to be the smartest guy in the world. You're not starting. It's not a debate, not a debate. You're not laying down the law. You're just telling them something, something to think about, allows their mind to spin. It's simple. The other thing is, it's timeless. These things don't change. A lot of times in big presentations, you're talking about facts, figures, features that change. Stories which get down to the use of this stuff for the impact of it, they never change. They're not going to be, you know, there's stories I heard 40 years ago when I got involved in management that, you know, you can still tell today. Like, salesman goes in to see, Wants to see the manager, and, and he's been having some hard times, and, you know, he just, you know, wants to talk it out with the manager. So he said, and the manager knows what he's been going through. So manager says, hey, can we get together and talk? I want, I've got a. Can we get together for a few minutes? I just want to tell you what's going on with me. And the manager says, no. And the salesman says, well, why wait a minute, don't you care about me? Don't you want to help me? And, you know, what's. What's the deal? And the guy said, no. He said, I don't mind hearing about it. I just don't want you to have to hear it all over again and, and see stories like that. There's things that make a point that never change. Timeless. And then you go in that it causes people to pay attention. You have their curiosity. Also. The other thing is, they remember, they also, they get fascinated because it fascinates them that they're going to hear something that fascinates them. You're going to find it relates to other things in their lives going on and then they're going to. It's easier to make the application with a story than some technical sounding thing out of a textbook. Another thing about stories is they have broad appeal across different ages, different ethnics. There's no male, female, there's no old, young, it's all people. Another thing is it has a way of reaching people no matter how they learn best. Some people learn great watching videos, the visual. Some people learn best reading, Some people learn best listening to the audios. Some people learn best by observing. But the one thing is everybody through life has grown up listening to stories and stories cover all the bases so you don't have to worry about am I reaching people? Yeah, you're reaching them because stories cut through all of those barriers and people can relate because they can see these situations, they have same emotions, they see this happening, they've had same experiences and it makes it come alive. The information comes alive and it's also more likely to be repeated and used because it's that word sticky. It sticks in their mind. So if you want to make your presentation sizzle, come alive, take a look at adding more stories to your presentation. I alright, let's close this out and let me show you an example of how stories make things come alive. I could make the point if I'm training kids coming up in the world, you know, they have an idealistic view and they get their feelings hurt. I could show them, make the point to them. Look, you can't please everyone. And I could come, you know, they, you could just see that written. You can't please everyone. There's just no way you can see that written in a book. That's just one of the bullet points under. You can't please everyone. And then there's cliches you hear about, you can't, you know, you can please, you know, like you can fool people, you can fool some of the people all the time and blah, blah, blah, blah. But you can't please people. Or you could tell a story to make the point. So here's the story of the old man and the boy. The old man and the boy. One day, this is the old man and the boy. One boy, his grandson. And they were out in the country. It was in the old country in the old days. They went to town, they needed to go to town. They lived outside the village. So the first day why happened was the old man and they had A donkey. And the first day, the old man rode, the old man rode the donkey and the young man walked. And they went into town and with a young man leading the old, his grandfather. And they went and got their goods. And as they left town, they could see the townspeople muttering among themselves. And then they overheard one, one of them say, can you believe that that lazy old man, he made that poor young grandson of his walk where, you know, he's older, he's done this more. That is a long trip for that young kid. That's just not fair, man. That's selfish. You know, if he really cared about the young kid, he would have let him rid. So that just really burned the old man. So the next day, next day, the young man, he rode and the old man walked because, you know, they just didn't. Didn't appreciate the abuse. And so he said young men didn't want to ride. He said, no, go ahead. So they didn't think anything about it. And when he came home and they were going back, the young man was still riding. They overheard some other townspeople saying, can you believe that? That lazy young kid, spoiled rotten. You think they would have trained that kid to have respect for the elders to where they would have given the honor and the protection to the old man? I mean, at his age, he shouldn't be having to be walking this young kid. I mean, lazy, spoiled rotten, pampered. He'll never mount anything. Well, they overheard it and it really stung them. And so they thought, you know, they had to come up with another solution. So on the third day, when the old man, the old man and the young man went to town, they figured they would solve the problem. This time they carried the donkey. Obviously, there's got to be a right way to do this. And as soon as, of course, they got into town carrying the donkey, everybody said, can you believe these two blithering idiots? They've lost their mind. See, folks, that's the way it is in life. No matter what you do, somebody's going to say, you're wrong. Mayor Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City, he said one thing. The first thing I learned when I went and became mayor of New York City was that if I passed out hundred dollar bills in Times Square, you know, to the homeless or the people in need, half of the people would say, it's not enough. What does he think he's doing? $100 is just going to get him started. You can't really do anything with a hundred dollars. Doesn't even know what things cost in New York City. And the others are going to say, why is he giving money? Why give anything to them? You're just going to make them lazy. You're going to reward them for not working. He shouldn't be giving anything away. So he said what he learned the first day he was mayor of New York City. You can't please everyone, so you just got to do what's right for yourself. So, folks, that's a little example of how you can make stories come alive or make your message come alive where people will remember.
