182: MMM Q&A - How do I get better at storytelling?

Hey everybody and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. Episode 182, a mini Moved Me Q&A. How can I be a better storyteller? Oh, that is a great question. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney, together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world, and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful, that's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh, just waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey, movers, it's Sally Sally, welcome back to This Moved Me. Today on the mini Moved Me I'm doing with you today, I am answering your questions. It's Q&A day, and I'm really excited because I love Q&As. I get a sense of where you guys are at and how I can be helpful for you, and I feel like I'm really— I get to actually address a need and a concern. And so My friend Scott reached out to me, and I say friend, I've never met Scott. I've had Scott on the show, and Scott is somebody who has been very engaged, so thanks for throwing in your question, Scott. And Scott asked me, he said, "I wanna get better at being a storyteller with my talks. Any recommendations?" Well, Scott, as you know, this is a hugely important part of speaking, which is I'm sure why you're focused on it. And yes, there are tons of things that we can do to polish up our approach as storytellers. So here's the deal. I've worked with hundreds of speakers over the last 20+ years, and it has become really clear to me that you can have a brilliant idea, you can be the smartest person in the room, the most talented person in the room, you might even be the most experienced, quote unquote, or technical speaker, really polished, but if you cannot pull people into a story and make emotionally clear what is at stake, to let them into your experience or another person's experience, whoever's story you're telling, well, you are quite simply not yet a master-level speaker. You are quite simply just missing the mark because you are not moving your audience if you cannot be a really excellent storyteller. So it is a master-level skill. Storytelling is. So I'm gonna get master level with you, Scott, partly because I know you are a master level speaker. But it is really important to note that these things, what I'm gonna offer you, anybody can do. You don't have to be a really experienced speaker to do this, right? You can be a master level storyteller once you've unlocked master level storytelling. That's it, right? Regardless of where you are right now. Okay, so I'm excited about this because my hope is that we're gonna bring a little more nuance into the storytelling approach here. Okay, so recommendation number 1 is to get specific. Now this sounds really simple and no duh, and it's probably not even new advice for most of you, but I cannot get over how often people who say they're storytelling aren't actually telling stories. They're mixing up— they're mistaking talking about something that happened with storytelling, and they're very different things. Storytelling is recreating a moment that we as the audience get to experience with you as you're telling it. It's not a summary or an overview or like what can sort of feel like the abstract of the book. That's an anecdote or That's something else, but it is not storytelling. So getting better at storytelling means that you have got to focus on a moment in time. What happens before that moment, what happens after it, but it focuses on one moment. We slow life down for the audience for that one moment so we can, as the audience, see what is so important. What happened? What's worthwhile? What is momentous about it? And when I say getting specific, you can include in this recommendation also getting specific on some of the details of that moment, right? Of course, we talk about that a lot, like including the sights, the sounds, the smells, all of those things that can bring a moment alive. But first you have to get specific on what that moment is. One moment in time. Cue Whitney Houston. I want one moment in time. Yes, that is recommendation number 1. Let's get more specific. Okay, so if you're already doing that, excellent. But if you think you're doing it Take another look and see if you can focus in on one moment. All right. Number 2, make sure that we as an audience, let us see it, not just hear it. Because I think the magic of storytelling really lives in allowing us to visualize what's happening in our own brains. In fact, it's actually the key to people in the audience really remembering it and taking it in and being moved by it. So Carmen Simon, who— oh my gosh, I have been trying to get her on the show. We've been trying to schedule an interview for months. Carmen, it's gonna happen. Carmen Simon, she is like a neuroscience expert and uses that to help people create better presentations. She's brilliant. It's amazing. But I've heard her talk, and what she says is that our audiences are more likely to remember something if they can visualize it. And that's why those little details are so, so important. So for instance, here, I'm just making this up, but okay, I saw this man leaning against the wall by the ice cream truck eating an ice cream cone, and he was wearing this like bright aqua blue shirt, like the blue of the bluest ocean picture you've ever seen, and blah blah blah. Okay, so when I'm saying that, hopefully you in your mind are creating that visual image, right? So you can see it in your head. Now, as that man by the ice cream truck starts doing something, you are imagining that happening. And essentially what we're doing is we're we're kicking in that part of the brain that mirrors our experiences. I have always called it the imaginative connection, and that's what you want to create with your audience. It lights up that brain in a very specific way, and essentially at the core of that is empathy. If we can visualize what's happening, that's when the lived experience of the audience member, right, because what I'm visualizing is gonna be different than the person sitting next to me and the person sitting next to him and et cetera, et cetera. That combines with the imagined description that the speaker's giving. It is so cool. It is so cool. I cannot even completely wrap my head around how it all works, but it is a co-creation. And stories are the way that we can co-create an experience. And as soon as that audience's brain is lit up, they are much more likely to take in your message, to remember what you're saying, to remember that story. Because I bet you can think of right now stories that you've heard, and they are based on an image in your head. So we as speakers have to create images in our, in our audience's heads. So help them see it, not just hear it. Okay, the third recommendation is something that, like I said, I think this is master level craft here, but I want you to play with past and present narration. And this can be really subtle, but it's the difference between a story feeling like it is happening right now versus something that happened in the past, right? Which makes a lot of sense. So you might be describing a moment that happened in the past, but when you get into that moment, you shift into present tense narration. Okay, so for instance, I'm just gonna share with you a little story, uh, about baseball, and, and I want you to hear the moment when I shift from past narration to present narration. Okay, so last week my son was playing his first playoff baseball game, and, and I was so nervous. Like, I'm one of those really, um, verbal moms. I mean, I promise I'm super positive and encouraging, but I cannot help but cheer. Like, stuff comes out of my mouth. I'm just always cheering. I can't help it. So playoff game, I'm feeling especially nervous, and I'm sitting on these bleachers at this big game, and there's these old, like, shoddy green bleachers, peeling paint, and— but it's this gorgeous night of baseball in Minnesota in the summer, and we are all really jazzed, all of us parents. And of course It's 2 outs, right? 2 boys are on, on the bases, and up comes my son. My son, who at this point hasn't had much luck in the hitting department. Oh my gosh, my stomach just kind of drops. And Luke steps up to the plate, and I realize he's standing too far out of the box. Luke! I'm screaming in my head, get closer to the plate! Get closer to the plate! But I can't, I can't yell at him in that moment. I can't do it. He will— it'll make him nervous. He'll freak out. So I get up from the bleacher, stumble down the bleachers, and just walk away. I realize I have got to get out of there. I am too nervous. I'm freaking out, and I don't want to make him nervous. He's only 10. Okay, I'm gonna stop there. That's, that's enough. So did you hear what I did there? Right? When you get to that big moment, you can slip in and out of present and past tense. And when you're in present tense, it comes alive as if it's happening right now. And it's good for the speaker too, because it helps the speaker key in as if it were present tense, but it also helps the audience see it as if it's happening right then. To. So play with past and present narration, and when you're really adept at it, you can slip in and out a lot, and you, you almost, you know, don't even notice it or don't even see it. So it can be really subtle but really powerful. Okay, the fourth recommendation I have for you, Scott, is something that I'm sure that you do, but it's just a really important reminder, and that is to edit with the audience in mind. And I'm not talking about um, just messaging and clarification, but I'm talking about details and making stories edible, memorable, meaty, juicy, right? Making them digestible for an audience who is sitting there listening to you. Because yes, there may have been 5 people involved in this story, but it doesn't mean that you have to include all 5 people in your story. Because we as speakers have to keep in mind the idea, the point, the truth, and how we communicate that cannot lose our audience in the process, right? So if the story takes place over 3 days in 7 different locations, it's just like, no, you cannot tell that story that way. You're gonna lose your audience in the process. So we have to give ourselves some permission to Edit with the audience in mind. And I realize I started these recommendations by saying that we need to get specific and use details, but of course, like any good thing, if you take it too far, it's no good anymore, right? So include too many details and you lost me. What don't you need to make the story work? What can you get rid of that still upholds the integrity of the story while also making it understandable and easily understood. Simple without being too simplistic and specific without being too detailed. That is the trick. That is the editing magic of storytelling, right? And, and editing can be the difference in all of this. In excellent storytelling, editing is the key. Okay, so edit imagining what it sounds like and feels like for your audience. Okay. And, and, you know, there's, there's a bit in there I'm going to come back to about the integrity of the story. Okay. But first I want to get to my last recommendation for you, number 5, which is to remember that you are the creator of the meaning of the story. And sometimes I think we get lost in the artistry of the story and forget that we're creating meaning from this moment for our audience. There is a purpose and a point, and as speakers, we're not just entertainers, but as speakers, that is our job, to create meaning that means something to our audience. So you get to draw out the meaning, to use the story for something. And the amazing thing is you, you could tell the same story and pull different meanings from it. To— gosh, I mean, more often than not, meaning is, is drawn from the very simplest things. That is the power of storytelling, to slow life down and take the little moments and find the insight and truth and meaning in it. And then offer that meaning up to an audience for their own taking if they so choose. Like, you get to shape it. As speakers and as people who want to get better at storytelling, we have to, in order to do this well, we have to pay attention, to take notice of the little and big things, to observe, to write, write, write, write, write, to write it down, to stay inspired to stay critical and sharp and reflective, to remember our stories so that we have something to draw from, right? That we are not just up there blabbing about nothing, but we are shaping something, right? And of course, we then get to share our stories, to create meaning and offer it up to the world. So that to me, those 5 recommendations, uh, I hope it's not just beginning, middle, and end and building anticipation and momentum, which I think we all understand and are really important things to do. But my hope is these are kind of next-level recommendations for you, Scott. And before I go, there's some great episodes that if you haven't heard are really, there's some really great insight in them about storytelling and stories themselves. So if you haven't heard them, I want to send you to go listen to my episode with Rita Borzma, which I think might be episode 1 or 2 or 3. It was one of my very first episodes. And in that we talk about this idea of story truth, So that is a phrase I think Rita maybe even came up with it, but she and I used to work together at an organization where we wrestled with this idea a lot. How do we take these ideas from our past and offer them up to young people in a way that's appropriate, that fits in a very tight time constraint, that is true and honest and authentic? Like, some of these things really pull against each other. And the really important conversations that I alluded to earlier about editing, like how do we maintain the integrity of our stories while still making them worth listening to? Because some stories are not going to work to be heard unless we change them a little bit. So I think it's a really important conversation for us to be having, especially if you want to be a good storyteller. So that is worth going and listening to again. Also Bob Trianski, his episode on the craft of storying I think is excellent. Geraldine Buckley, oh my gosh, she said honestly some of the most beautiful quotes that I've pulled from this show ever. Loved that episode. And Brett Trapp is one of my more recent episodes and I think that's a really incredible episode about how he brought his personal and truly transformative story to life, and he's really passionate about storytelling. So those are some really great episodes that I think will help in just upleveling our role as storytellers and keeping us sharp on the craft of it. But I want to end with this, because especially right now, I think storytelling is more important than ever. I believe that storytelling is ultimately the thing that might keep this country together. And I'm not trying to be dramatic, but storytelling has always been the thing that bridges divides. It's the connector. It is the birthplace of empathy. Empathy lives in our stories and in sharing them in a way that invites other people into it. And right now I am feeling like really sad about our country in particular and how divided it is, and it's striking me right now as incredibly cruel and hurtful. And so I think stories aren't the answer, but it's part of it. And as speakers and storytellers, this is what we need to be doing right now. And this is where I'm gonna try and start, is the storytelling. So thank you for telling your stories, for wanting to get better at them, because it's important. This is not just entertainment, but we can shape people's ideas, we can bridge it divides. So in our individual stories don't just live our individual experiences, it is our universal and collective human experience. So huge thanks to you, Scott, for sending me your question. Movers and unspeakers, if you have more questions for me that you'd like me to take on, just send me a DM over on Instagram @thismovedme. I would love to connect over there. I'm trying to be less like my 40-something self, like being such a Gen Xer. I'm like, I don't get it. Instagram is cool, but how do people do this? So if you want to watch me try and learn the ropes over on Instagram, you got to go check, check it out over there @thismovedme. I'd love to see you over there. But for now, that is it for me. Movers, unspeakers, keep Moving the world with your tongues. See you next week! Trying to come up with something brilliant of what you might say for key points.