In this solo episode of the This Moved Me podcast, Sally Koering Zimney opens with a personal update about a cold, a new puppy named Bailey, and a recent trip to the Boundary Waters. She then promotes her upcoming free masterclass, “How to Captivate Your Audience with Story Without Feeling Like a Failure on Stage,” and mentions the forthcoming Speaking Story course. The core of the episode focuses on a common storytelling problem: speakers often deliver generic summaries or rants instead of anchoring their narrative in a specific, vivid moment. Sally illustrates the issue with a lacrosse‑ice‑cream‑truck anecdote, explains why specificity matters, discusses how a brief contextual setup can be useful, and warns against over‑specificity as an editing issue. She concludes by urging listeners to join the masterclass and promises more story‑focused content in the weeks ahead.
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Well, hello movers! It is Sally Koering Zimney here on This Moved Me, and maybe you can hear it in my voice, I've got a cold. A summer, end of summer cold. What? And of course I got it right before I went to the Boundary Waters last week. We got a puppy! Oh my gosh, you guys, we got a puppy! I'm so excited. If you have been on Instagram, you've probably seen some pictures, or Facebook, because I can't help it. I'm like such a proud puppy mama right now. Her name is Bailey and she is awesome. I know everybody feels this way. It's kind of like your kid. Of course your kid is awesome because it's your kid and you love them. And love is a little bit blind. We know that. But Bailey, truly, she is awesome. So, and she's so cute. Okay, enough about the puppy, Sally. I'm sorry, I'm a little bit obsessed right now. But there really, what I'm trying to get at is there has been a lot going on. I'm super jazzed about it all except for this cold. I'm not jazzed about the cold, but here it is. It's gonna kind of be with me. So I just feel like I'm a little bit like Phoebe in that Friends episode where she was just jazzy all of a sudden. I feel a little jazzy this morning, but I've got to just plow through and keep going because we have some really exciting things coming up for for you and you're gonna be hearing a lot from me right now because I've got this free masterclass that I am doing live. I've never done one of these exactly like this. I've done lots on Facebook, but this is different. I'm so excited about it. It is called How to Captivate Your Audience with Story Without Feeling Like a Failure on Stage. Ooh, that's a good title, I like it. I'm sure you know that feeling. We've all had that feeling to some extent, that, that just sink in your gut feeling that you didn't quite connect, things didn't click, that moment didn't land. You're not sure how to shape your story in such a way that it engages and resonates and really impacts your audience in a powerful way. I have been having so many conversations with these amazingly brilliant people who are out there and just feeling like something's not working. And here's the deal, getting things to work for you is my specialty. I particularly love to do that. So I wanna invite you all to join me for this free masterclass that is starting September 4th for a really limited time. Okay, there's gonna be 4 different dates and I'd love for you to join me. It's gonna be jam-packed with resources for those of us who want to move our audiences more and more efficiently. So there is one thing that you need to do to master it really well, and that is join me over at captivatemasterclass.com. Very simple. www.captivatemasterclass.com. I would love to see you there. Okay, now let's dive into this week's episode. Because yes, we are in the middle of our story-focused month as we prep for the launch of Speaking Story that's coming up. Oh my gosh, I'm not ready, but I will be. I will be. There's a lot to do. I am so excited about that whole course. But really what that means is I get to spend all this time obsessing about story, which I do. I just do. I think it's so awesome and such an important tool. So what we're gonna be talking about today is one of the biggest hangups that I see again and again and again with speakers of all different stripes and experience levels as they begin to develop their story. And I want to just get it out there so that even if you don't end up taking the course with me next month, you avoid this hangup because I I see it all the time, and that is we think we're telling a story, but that's not actually what it is. We end up instead telling essentially a generic summary. Mm, sometimes it's more of a rant, or it's kind of talking about something rather than setting into a particular moment, and that is really the key. Story can sometimes be this wide umbrella and category, and I think We're often calling something a story that isn't a story. So a few weeks ago on the show, I think I used this example. It's the difference between saying, "I used to play lacrosse with the neighbors and we always got ice cream after every practice," which some people would say is like the beginning of a story. But, uh, let's try it this way. One especially hot day after my friends and I were done playing lacrosse and we were walking home, we heard the music of the ice cream truck from a few blocks away. Now, that simple shift from this more generic talking about something to the specificity of one moment, just doing that opens the door to all kinds of things that I'm going to be talking about today. So it places it in one moment in time. If you can do that, you can avoid this challenge and hang up. And inviting in all of that specificity seems to only come alive when we avoid the generic summary that is not actually a story. It's why story is sometimes defined as a beginning, middle, and end, because it has to start somewhere. Now, when I say that, I'm not saying that it has to start at the beginning. It can start at the end if you want. It can start wherever, but it does need to start somewhere. Now, I do sometimes see speakers tell a generic summary before before they get into the moment or their specific story. And I do get the utility in that sometimes, like to continue with our example, you might say, I used to play lacrosse with the neighbors every day, and on one particularly hot day, we were blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now that's cool because it's setting up some important context that might be needed or helpful or useful before you dive into that specific moment. So don't worry about that. But as I talked about last week, there are times when it is just more artistic, powerful, interesting, intriguing to just start at the beginning of the story and leave some questions unanswered, right? Let people get a little curious. Now, I have to include this caveat, which is there is a possibility that we get too specific. But that's an editing issue and a topic for another day. Honestly, most of the time, the challenge that we have to tackle is to place our stories in a specific moment in time. Avoid the summary, avoid talking about something, and just bring us into the story. It's simple but really pervasive. So let's tackle it, shall we? Awesome. All right, that is it for me. Short and sweet one today. And just a reminder before I go, I would love for you to join me in the free masterclass, How to Captivate Your Audience with a Story Without Feeling Like a Forgettable Failure on Stage. Do you like all that alliteration? Ah, I do. Okay. Because of course, we— everyone says to me, "I know stories are so important, but I'm just not super confident in that part of my speaking, right? There's this art and craft to it, and I do a lot of winging it." I hear a lot about winging it, right? Somebody told me once, "I don't know how to take the audience on a journey and make it really compelling." And I get that, I get that storytelling can feel like this thing that belongs to actors, right? This other skill. So some people avoid it or they're doing it, but they know they're not doing it to the level that they could and they should, right? And they want to. So let's not let our stories fall flat, okay? Join me for this free masterclass. All you've got to do is go to captivatemasterclass.com. Super simple. Pick a date and time and I will see you there. Super excited. Thanks everybody. And we'll see you next week. Duh! Duh!
