Sarah ArcherProfessional Speaker, Organisational Consultant & Coach, Lemon Squeeze Limited · International Speaker | Speaking Coach | Top 1% Podcast Host | Helping Organisations Unlock Business Transformation & Growth Through Strategic Storytelling | Helping Experts & Business Authors Nail th

Speakers Keep Making This Emotional Story Mistake

21 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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Sarah Archer says speakers mistake performing emotion for inviting the audience into a specific memory. The goal isn't to make the moment feel more emotional now, but to guide listeners to recall a personal experience that naturally evokes the feeling. Ask "What do we have to do to get the audience there?" not "How can we make this feel more emotional?"

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You're not asking the audience to believe it's happening now, you're inviting them back into that memory. Effectively, you're the narrator and your job isn't to perform the emotion, your job is to evoke the emotion in the audience. So whenever I'm working with a speaker or an actor or a comedian, the question I'm asking isn't, how can we make this feel more emotional? I'm asking, what do we have to do to get the audience there? So how do you do this?