In this episode of the "This Moved Me" podcast, host Sally Koering Zimney introduces Chapter 18 of her Speaking Story audiobook, focusing on the crucial distinction between the "moment" (the raw story event) and the "meaning" (the purpose or lesson the storyteller wants the audience to take away). She frames this as the turning point from theory to practice in Part 4 of the series, emphasizing that leadership stories must be adaptable to different audiences and contexts. Sally shares a vivid personal anecdote about a harrowing scuba‑diving experience on her honeymoon, using it to illustrate how a single moment can be reframed to convey various messages—fear, courage, voice, or personal growth—depending on the audience’s needs. She then offers a “pro tip” that storytelling also humanizes the speaker, making them a three‑dimensional person rather than just an expert. A client case study follows, showing how a leader had to shift the meaning of her prepared story after a midterm election altered the audience’s emotional climate, underscoring the need for intentional, context‑aware storytelling. Throughout, Sally promotes her Unspeaker Simple Storytelling audio course and the Be Moved Institute, inviting listeners to deepen their storytelling skills. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage with the resources and reflect on what moves them.
Chapters
Yeah, that's what I meant to say. Here we are. Welcome, welcome team back to this week's story audiobook we are highlighting here on This Moved Me. Whether you are watching/listening, you're really listening on YouTube, or you are listening on your podcast feed, I'm bringing it to you free because I just want to get it in your hands. I just want you to have it. I, I, I just want this to be as easy as possible for you to leverage this tool to bring your story to life and to really take advantage of all the incredible magical power that stories have. And gosh, here we are, part 4. So if you, if you've been following along with us, maybe you've been waiting, you're like, "Ooh, part 4 comes out tomorrow." If that's true, you have 6 6 chapters to go through, essentially 6 episodes ahead of you here in Part 4. But maybe you're finding this in some future date and you've been rolling right along through this, which is fantastic. Either way, here we are, Part 4. And Part 4 is when we finally get to the place where we're starting to talk about the how. There's been a lot of why, a lot of theoretical grounding, some story, science, brain science, a lot of really important foundational pieces, but now we're in the how. Okay, like, how do we actually do this, Sally? And we start this chapter, chapter 18, with a distinction between the moment and the meaning. And whoop, this piece is so important. It's so important because telling a story is one thing, but because these are leadership stories, it's not just about the story itself, it's what are we going to do with that story? That's what makes it a leadership story. And what is so cool, and I think this is, I hope eases the pathway for you if you're like, "I don't know quite how to leverage this," is you can have a handful of stories in your arsenal. I really, I hate that word. Let's not use that word. You can have a handful of stories in your tool belt, toolkit, at the ready, on a Google Doc somewhere that you reference. You don't need 50 stories to make 50 points. You might need 5 stories, and each of those stories you can make meaningful to a particular audience given the context that you're in. So I've become really good at telling a handful of stories and thinking about it from the lens of the audience, like, how do I apply this? How can I make this meaningful for this particular audience in this particular moment. So we start this story— you're gonna hear— we start the story— we start this chapter by you hearing a story of a moment that happened in my life. And I don't like to relive this moment, I'm not gonna lie. It was a harrowing— it was a harrowing moment. Ugh, I don't like to talk about it, honestly, because it's still kind of with me. It's still kind of with me, but it serves My purpose so well in highlighting a story that may have, on the surface level, nothing to do with the meaning that you wanna make necessarily, but how you apply that meaning, how you can take that moment and apply a certain meaning or use the filter of that meaning and really extricate different perspective from that for your audience. Based on the context that you're in. And this is one of the pieces I think that is important that most of us, we don't get to this level when we think about storytelling. We're just like, "I'm going to tell stories and they're important," and we can sort of apply generic thinking around storytelling and get pretty far, but this is where you as thought leader becomes activated. And where that story will feel most personal, most resonant, most important, most empowering because of this distinction that you make between moment and meaning. Ooh, I'm so excited. I'm really delighted that you're here. So let's just dive in. Let's do this. Here we go. Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. This complimentary listening of this Speaking Story audiobook is brought to you in part by the Be Moved Institute, or as I lovingly refer to it, Be Me. Leadership almost always comes with a microphone, movers. Whether that's a meeting, a presentation, a tough conversation, a keynote conference opportunity that you have. I mean, even if you would never call yourself a speaker or a storyteller, you are one. You just might not have the tools that you need yet, or the support that you need yet. And that's why I created the Unspeaker Simple Storytelling Audio Course. It's like having me right alongside you on your walk or in the car on your commute, and it guides you through simple, powerful exercises to find the leadership stories that are already inside you and that will move your people. It's $49, but it's truly priceless, and I'm really excited to give you the opportunity to come join me over there. All you have to do is head to Sally-Zimney. Www.bethannemcclain.com/unspeaker to get started. And while you're there, join the waitlist for the Be Moved Institute, an incredible 2-day experience where we are giving corporate leaders the tools to present with power and clarity and authenticity and support. Now let's get into the chapter. Part 4: How to Create Your Leadership Story. Chapter 18: The Moment and the Meaning. I'm a swimmer, a really good swimmer, and for whatever reason, I'm terrified of scuba diving in the ocean. But there I was on my honeymoon many years ago with my husband, and he really wanted to go scuba diving. Maybe it was a naive sense of duty as a new wife, or maybe I was feeling brave and wanting to, you know, live a story-worthy life, but most likely I was drawn in by the bane of every Enneagram Seven's existence: "But what if it's awesome?" So I said, "Sure, okay." Oceans are sort of like space, like, what is down there? It is the great unknown, and I don't really have any interest in knowing it. So again, why was I going scuba diving? I was nervous, but you know what? It was a great lesson in marriage. It's really important to him, I thought back then. Compromise and making it work for each other and blah blah blah. And who knows, maybe I'll think it's awesome. The first moment I got a sense that this scuba diving adventure was going to be a harrowing experience was on the boat ride over to our diving spot. After I had told the instructor I was an adept swimmer, and because everybody else in the group had scuba dived so many times before, the instructor decided to skip the part where he would train us in the pool. Instead, he would do a truncated training in the ocean. What? And there I was as he was explaining how to breathe underwater on the way over in the boat. I remember flying across the Caribbean on the catamaran, soaring across these huge waves, and the instructors flipping through this big chart saying, "Okay, well, first you're going to hop into the water, and then you're going to take out your breathing apparatus, and then you're going to put it back in." 'And if you can pass that, then you can go on the dive. If you can't, you can't.' I was like, 'I'm sorry, what? We have to take out the breathing thing in the water? Isn't that how you stay alive?' Breathing thing is not the technical term, but I'm pretty sure the instructor knew what I was talking about. At that moment, I thought, 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this.' But of course, nobody else is freaking out, and so like a good Midwestern girl, I just rolled right along in the boat, internally freaking out. Eventually we found our spot in the Caribbean Ocean, and I looked out over the boat into a vast view of water. Just water. There better be something amazing down there, I thought, because right now I do not want to do this. Everybody else got in the water, did their pretest. They took their breathing tubes out, put them back in, no problem. Even Andy hopped in the water, passed his pretest, and so everyone was treading water about 10 or 15 yards out from the boat waiting for me. I was the last one to go. Andy swam up really close to the boat and I tentatively got in the water. As I slid in, my eyes must have been huge because Andy kept calling out to me, "Sally, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. You can do this." I will never, ever, ever forget forget the moment when the instructor put the weights on my waist so that I started to sink. I was holding on to my mouthpiece like it was my only tie to life, which is exactly what it was. As I started to sink, the water rose above my mouth, then my eyes, and then my head, and all I could think was, "The body cannot breathe underwater. This is wrong. Get me out of here. Get me out of here." It was a harrowing experience. I mean, I was nervous, but I didn't think It would be scary, but it was scary. I held on to the instructor's wetsuit for the entire first dive. While we swam around, I kept one hand on him and the other on my breathing mouthpiece. It stayed that way until about halfway through the second dive. Yes, I went on a second dive. On the second dive, I finally let the instructor swim about 5 yards away from me. I sort of remember seeing some sort of cool things. I vaguely remember some fish and a sunken boat. By the end of it, I was like, "Maybe I would do that again in my lifetime." P.S. That was 20 years ago, and I have never gone scuba diving again. So here's what's cool about this story. When I speak, I share it to do all kinds of different things. I share it to talk about fear, I share it to talk about using our voice. I share it to talk about trying new things. I share it to talk about what happens in our bodies when we're afraid or how we sometimes respond in surprising ways. There are a lot of things I can do with this story. As you think about your story, you might use it in different ways depending on who you're talking to, where you are, and what message is most needed. To help you decide which story to share, as well as what you want to say about that story, you want to think about two things. The first is the moment, in other words, the story, and the second is the meaning, in other words, what you want to do with that story or how the story can connect with your audience. With the scuba diving story, you have the moment, which is me scuba diving. And then you have the meaning, which is the point you wanna make from that story based on the context you're in, who you're talking to, what they need. In this case, the point may be about fear, courage, or using your voice. Let's pause for a moment and do a pro tip. There's an important additional benefit to storytelling I wanna point out. When I share this story of me scuba diving, you also get to know me a little bit. Through the story, you get to peek into me as a 3-dimensional human being. Here's me struggling. Here's me freaking out. Here's a sense of my relationship with Andy. You get to know me more so that I become more of a fully dimensional human being for you instead of just an expert out front who might be difficult to relate to. I become a person who I hope you feel more connected to now. Okay, back to the moment and the meaning. This distinction between the moment and the meaning is powerful and important, and it's what makes a story about you matter to your audience. Here's another concrete example. One of my clients was preparing for a big summit on equity that she was speaking at. We had been working on stories she might tell, in other words, the moment, and answers she could give on this panel. A few days before the summit, my client and I realized this event would take place 2 days after a big midterm election, and whatever happened during that election would change the conversation in the room. It would change how people would be feeling in the room. It would change the questions that would be asked and the concerns of the audience, and it would require me and my client to adjust what the audience really needed to hear from her. In other words, the meaning. Our job as leaders and speakers is to be intentional about not just the moment, but also the meaning we're creating. The craft of a great story requires our intentionality about both aspects: how we bring this specific moment to life and how we're gonna make that moment meaningful for that particular audience. And that can change dramatically depending on what what you need, what the audience needs, and what that moment calls for. So how do you prepare for the specific context? How do you adapt your moment so that it creates the meaning your audience needs? That's the end of this chapter of Speaking Story. If you want to keep listening ad-free, you can find the full audiobook on Audible, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. And if this chapter stirred something in you, if it, shall we say, moved you, let me suggest that you start with the Unspeaker Simple Storytelling audio mini-course at sally-zimney.com/unspeaker. All right, movers, This moved me. What is moving you? See you next time.
