Ep. 27 The Storytelling Diagram - The Key to Emotional Connection

All right, Mark Brown, we had a great week last week talking about stageology, and this week we promised breaking down a story. And this is a super short story. But man, I learned so much from your coaching creating this.

Well, I appreciate it, man. I can't wait to break this down for our listeners. Let's do it, brother.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time, Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas, let's dive right in.

All right. If you want to be unforgettable, you got to tell unforgettable stories. That is what is essential. So stories, the heartbeat of presentations. But Mark Brown, how do you make a story unforgettable?

Well, as you and I both know, it's cool to have characters who are meaningful, who are well developed. And as we've always been taught, there has to be some kind of conflict with the characters. And I know in the last several years, as I've heard you tell stories and unpack them, you've got some really cool stories, even some simple stories with some powerful components, but when you analyze them, really show that the simplest of stories and the shortest of stories can be powerful, have emotional impact, and can be unforgettable if you tell them in the right way. What do you think, Darren?

I think I needed your help more than I ever knew back in 2001. So, Mark, when you know the story we're going to talk about when I go home to tell my parents I wanted to be a comedian, I thought this would be a great mini example. It's only a 17 second story, but there's so much packed into it in such a short amount of time. I thought if we teach them the story diagram that we've developed and in our part of our coaching and what we do. But I think it would be really helpful for people to understand the characters and what happens with the characters. And we know, we learned from Michael Haig that we must elicit emotion. Well, you can't elicit emotion in your characters if you don't even know what their emotions are or you didn't take the time to sit down and figure that out. But Mark, gotta tell us the truth. What was going through your head when I first gave you version 1.0 of let's just focus on this little story. Cause it would be too embarrassing if you told us.

Well, it wasn't embarrassing. I mean, it was a good little story. But you had to make some adjustments, in my opinion that'll make the characters come alive and increase the level of conflict and the emotion that we, the audience would feel as a result of what you did on stage. And I did, you know, make a couple of little suggestions that when we break them down for the audience or listeners today, they'll see how simple adjustments can take what could be a good story. But make it truly unforgettable. Because it's not just what you do, it's why you do it. And the results you get from doing it, it can elevate a simple tale to a powerful story. Let's hit it, brother.

Yeah. When I was passionate in my Delivery back in 2001 because my ego was going awry and I was a part time professional speaker, I did stand up comedy and I, I was passionate and enthusiastic and animated on stage, but I wasn't telling my stories right.

I appreciate you being honest about that because not everyone says I wasn't doing that well. But you did something that we talk about a lot, Darren, about being coachable and being willing to listen to what someone has to say based upon their experience and the advice they can give. So kudos if you're British or kudos if you're American. To you for being coachable. What were you learning at the time?

When I initially came to you, I wasn't very coachable. I just wanted a couple tweaks. I didn't know what it took to be unforgettable. I thought I just had to find that unforgettable story in my life. I didn't realize I could develop one of my stories to make it unforgettable. And Mark, when I brought you version 1.0 of this little story, it kind of sounded something like this. So I will redo it. Even though it was in a text format, I will redo it. And then you tell us what's wrong with this, what you saw. I love diving in deep to one little story. I think it helps people see the example. So when I first brought it to you, and I'm going to say it as I was reading it, let's say. So here's how it was. So I went home to tell my parents I wanted to be a comedian and they were speechless. They didn't know what to say.

And that was a story. Darren Went home to tell his parents you wanted to be a comedian, and they didn't receive it.

Well, it's quite factual.

My first thought was, okay, we don't know exactly what was going on in people's hearts and minds. We gather they were not happy about it because they didn't know what to say. Were they shocked? Were they angry? Were they. I couldn't see and I couldn't feel. And I go back to what Michael Haig, our story guru from storymastery.com tells us. The purpose of a story, however short, is to elicit emotion. And my first thought was, I can't feel any emotion because I don't know who these characters are. Because, Darren, you were reporting on something that happened at your house for all of 5.238-19706 seconds.

But, Mark. But, Mark, that was the facts. I told you the facts exactly. And I'm so thankful you don't have a sound machine.

You were a statistician giving me data and telling me in narration, basically reporting on what happened. I said, darren, what would happen, do you think, for the audience, if they could hear the words and feel the emotion that was going on in that room? So the first idea is don't always consider that reporting and using narration will be sufficient. Yes. When you tell a story, you are narrating a tale. You are. But if the characters are involved and they're meaningful characters, particularly they're pivotal characters, we want to hear from them. So give us the dialogue so we get a better feel of what was happening. That was my first suggestion. How do you feel when you heard that dialogue?

What? I just. It didn't register at all. I didn't even understand what you were really telling me because I thought, well, I told you the story.

But when you became coachable, you said, okay, I'll do it. Not too many punches were thrown that day. That day. Anyway. I'm just kidding, people.

Not too many implies there were.

But, yeah, I'm just kidding, people.

No, it was close. So, Mark, you taught me to bring us into the scene to let them hear the conversation. Now, what's fascinating about this, let's play the final clip and then we'll talk about the in between the adjustments you made. So we saw the or you heard the. Then let us show you the now, and then we'll kind of break down the how. So this is again from my championship speech. It's a tiny little story, but remember last week we talked about transition phrases. Here's an example of. I finished one story if you didn't listen to last week, go back to episode number 26 about stageology. And this is an example of a transition phrase. When I finish one story and then I go into the mom and dad story. All right, so here we go. Here's the transition line.

We also have friends and family that love us and don't want to see us fall on our face. Imagine my parents reaction when after stretching their budget to help me through college, seeing me fall on my face.

And then I come home, mom, dad.

I want to be a comedian.

I was met by silence.

They too are part of your process.

All right, so Mark, I noticed something else that I hadn't noticed in a long time. The setup to that setting up the pre story of my mom and dad had struggled to help me pay through college. That is conflict, that is tension, and that sets up the story in a very succinct way.

Yes, I did note that too. Imagine after stretching their budget to put me through college and see me fall on my face, that little phrase that line just said sets up their mindset when they hear your big plan, your big dream, your great goal is to be a comedian. And when you said, I went and told my mom and dad, I want to be a comedian. And they weren't happy. But the setup line tells us, okay, they have invested their life savings, their life in their son. And then you come back and he's like, mom, dad, how do I tell you this? So your attitude, your demeanor, hands in the pockets, the enthusiasm, all of that combined was part of the difference between simply narrating and becoming an enthusiastic character who wants to share with the people who he loves dearly what his big goal and dream is. So the whole package is not just the narration. It's the character, the emotions you had, the excitement you had, the background that they invested, all that was set up differently. And it made this a brief episode in your life journey that was previously was just a blip. I told him I wanted to be a community word, happy. It's miles apart. When you add the background and add the character, the hands in the pockets, the way you approach, the look on your face, and then you look on your face when they respond in silence, all of that is different than just you telling us. I told them I want to be a comedian and they were not too happy about it.

Miles apart, Absolutely. And Mark, one of the things that when you and I have been teaching and coaching at our events for years, we realized that to you and I, because we've been doing it For a long time, it's easy to see. But one of the ways Mark and I help people when they're looking at their stories is to almost break it down. And this is what we call the story diagram, the storytelling diagram, where we first say, okay, who are the characters? And when I teach this, I always ask people, who are the characters? And it's pretty simple. Mom, dad, and Darren. So, Mark, honestly, two of the characters never even say a word.

Yes, that is true. They don't say a word. But we have a glimpse of their mindset. Because of how you set up the introduction of mom and dad. That's key here.

So if you're looking at one of your stories that you want to help make it unforgettable, what we suggest is taking each character, whether they speak or do not, and lay out the characters. Then we ask you to look at what is the ending emotion of each of the characters. What is the ending emotion? So, Mark, in this story, what's the ending emotion of the characters?

Well, you tell us that you were met by silence and by virtue of the way your face changed and the fact that they said nothing, it suggests that they were flabbergasted. They were flummoxed. They were shocked at the choice you had made after the investment that they had made in you and your business. So I know use a big word, flummox there, but I just had to get.

Yeah, I can't spell that, so I'm gonna go with shocked.

You're gonna go with shocked. You're going shocked.

Okay. Flabbergasted. Is that a P H or an F?

Actually F F, L, U, M, M, O, X, E, D. I think it's F spelled flumax. Yeah, just totally bewildered. Bewildered is a good word also. But, yeah, they were shocked.

So both of them were shocked. And then what's the ending emotion of Darren?

Well, when your face falls and you say by silence, then you mouth the word ouch, which showed that whatever enthusiasm you had quickly faded. You were probably saddened, disappointed, maybe a little embarrassed, maybe even ashamed. The beauty of it is the audience seeing it knows that the emotion that you had at the ending was not a very positive or pleasant one. And they may think he was ashamed or he was disappointed or he was embarrassed because his parents weren't reacting in the way you thought they would. So clearly, we can see a negative emotion from you when you go at the very end.

Yeah, when I ask audiences, I hear disappointed. Deflated.

Deflated.

Deflated. Especially as a Patriots fan, you're a Soccer fan. You didn't even know. Anyway. Deflate.

Deflate.

Yes.

Even soccer fans heard about Deflategate from your New England Patriots dude.

I love my team. I love my team. Even though they didn't win this year, still love them. All right, so, Mark, let's go back now. So we have the end emotion. Mom shocked, dad shocked, dad, Darren disappointed. So let's look at the beginning emotion. What's the emotion at the beginning of the story?

Well, when you said, imagine my mom and dad after stretching their budget to get me through business school and seeing me fall on my face. So you're going to approach him, and I'm going to come to their mom and dad. They're now curious to know what's next because they know that Subway has failed. But they see that you're enthusiastic and you're curious to know what's going on in his mind. Now, what is Darren's next harebrained idea? So maybe they're cautiously optimistic, but definitely wondering, what has he got to tell us now? So they were willing to listen. They were open, but probably a little bit cautiously optimistic, I would think.

And again, going back to that setup of telling the story of how they stretched their budget to help me through college, that is so important in just such a few words to realize and set the tone with where they're at now. Their kid comes home excited. How often does your kid come home excited to talk to you like that alone? Forget the backstory. That's rare from what I understand now, obviously, I am excited. So we have mom at the beginning, curious at the end, shocked, dad at the beginning, curious at the end, shocked. Darren at the beginning excited, and at the end, disappointed. Your thoughts on that, Mark?

Well, what is very clear here is an emotional shift for all the characters, even those who do not verbally speak to us. We see an emotional shift takes place, a revelation. And if a story does not have an emotional shift, I think you're leaving something on the table. The story is not well told. The story is not delivering the emotional impact. And I go back to what Michael Higgs says. The purpose of a story is to elicit emotion. And emotion comes when there is a shift or a change in a character from the beginning of the story. And generally, we ask for some kind of conflict. And towards the end, when it's resolved, if there is no shift in emotion, in condition, in mindset, in lifestyle, if there is no change, something's been left on a table, and maybe you aren't telling the story in the most effective way. That change needs to be evident, Jared.

Yeah, and it could be just you're telling a wrong part of the story. It could be there, but in your telling of it, we don't know. We weren't there. Just like when I told you the factual version of the story, everything else that happened and the emotions were in my head, but I didn't communicate it. And if you want to be unforgettable on stage, you've got to have unforgettable stories and you've got to communicate them, deliver them in an unforgettable way. Now, that doesn't mean overly dramatic. It means in a way that the listener can absorb the emotion, can relate to you.

Yeah, yeah. Because if we can have a connection to you, the speaker, that means we are now, quote, unquote, invested in the presentation. And when you think about it, you had an audience of adults at the Toastmasters International Convention when you were giving your contest speech. But it's quite likely that pretty much everyone there at some point has had someone approach them and they were curious and the result was disappointing or shocking. At some point, they have had in their own life a time when they were excited, they were anticipating something great. I mean, it's going to be great. They anticipated a response and the response that they got was not what they expected. All of us have encountered unexpected responses at some point in our life. And because of that common bond, we are able to emotionally connect and relate to what Darren went through. Oh, yeah, time I told my dad I was going to quit school and become a guitar player for a hippie group, whatever the case may be. I'm going to be a yoga instructor, which nothing is wrong with that. But that was not what the parent expected. So a similar emotion is relatable to us. And that's also great buy in, because now you become not only a sympathetic character, but one to whom we can relate. Speaking is emotional. You want to establish a relationship because from that relationship your audience is now more equipped, more open, and more ready to receive the gift you have for them and respond to your call to action. The emotion has to be there.

And you don't have to be as animated as I am to deliver the emotion, but you have to authentically feel it, to deliver it at whatever level you're at or whatever style your presentation style is. Because I've seen Brian Tracy, who is not overly animated, but delivers some powerful stories in a way that's just, you know, that he's developed and gotten so much funnier. I love him and everyone has their own style. But you got to be connected to your style. Now here's part of the key. You've got to identify the emotions to be able to convey them, but most importantly, to convey the shift of emotion. That's what we need to see. So I go from super excited to totally distraught to totally deflated, quick, in an instant. That's how the story played out. But I think most presenters don't take the time to identify the characters, identify the end emotion and identify the beginning emotion. And if we shut off the sound to a video clip of you speaking, would we be able to notice or identify or come close to what the true emotion of the character was and identify when the shift happened? And I think that's one of those things that it's a little bit of time. But the cool thing is when you nail a story when you know it, when you own it, now you just. You're in the moment and you just deliver it. You don't have to keep practicing it, just keep living it.

Don't retell it, relive it. I'll say it again, don't retell it, relive it. Because when you relive it, the emotion is. The emotion flows more freely when you relive it as opposed to when you retell it. Because when you remember the experience, you include the dialogue. You clearly define what the characters plural mindsets are, emotional conditions are. Then when the shift comes and the change comes and we see the ending emotion, it's that much more vivid and clear to the audience.

And notice Mark said something early on that I had my hand in my pocket. I took on the character. But when Mark coached me, he didn't say, okay, put your hand in your pocket. Okay.

Do this.

Okay. Make your eyebrows go really high. Like, he didn't beam from ear to ear. That would be too logical. And here's the key. It would look inauthentic, unnatural.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

And the audience could sense that. Mark. You know, one of my pet peeves is the word gesture. I hate gesture. I hate the word gesture because that's.

I'm not gonna say it.

That's a body movement that's choreographed to try and deliver a compelling emotion when you can't because it's a gesture. I love using the example of, like what Pixar has done in animated movies. They change the shape of the eye of the character. Two dimensional character on a screen.

Why?

Because the shape of your eye changes when your emotion changes. So when you and I are on stage, we need to do the same thing, but it's so much simpler if we feel the emotion and convey it in our own way. Like my scared might be different from Mark. You're scared but you have to deliver it your way. I have to deliver it my way. The key is the audience senses the.

Emotion and it has to be genuine. And the cool thing is the emotion again, hands in the pocket is very relaxed but mom and dad, you know, a little bit of attention there because you want to show your sighting news with them. But you also used your face to show the emotional shift when you were met by silence. And I do a similar, I use a similar technique myself and I talk, tell a story about somebody I met who was once very enthusiastic. And when I said, hey, you're going to come back and do it again and no, it's too hard, I'm not going to be there again. And just that movement of the face reinforces the emotional shift. So here's the thing Darren said earlier. We're going to share a 17 second story but it's not just 17 seconds of time. It's about the words he used, the actions he took, the way his body moved, the way his face changed, the way his voice was lowered. All those components combined make it more than just quote, a 17 second story. It was a mini experience of a very tense moment inside his parents home. That's how deep that was. It's not just 17 seconds on a script. So don't think of your stories as I need a two minute story here for my time budget. What emotion do you want to convey? What emotional shift do you want to share and how does that drive your story forward? And the story diagram shows you define the characters. What's their mindset, where are they emotionally in the story, what's their beginning emotion, what are their expectations? And when the statement that Darren makes comes, how are the emotions of each person shifted and how is that portrayed from the state, not just with the words used but the entire body, the entire being, the entire essence of who he is all came through in that 1/17 second space of time. It's much bigger than you may think on the surface.

All right, now that we've dissected it, take a quick look at it again, the 17 seconds.

We also have friends and family that love us and don't want to see us fall in our face. Imagine my parents reaction when after stretching their budget to help me through college, seeing me fall on my face.

And then I come home, mom, dad.

I want to be a comedian.

I was Met my silence. Yeah, Mark, I realized if you're listening to the podcast when, if you go check out the video on YouTube, you can see my facial expression change, which doesn't come through. But if you were listening carefully, you noticed there was a second wave of laughter. And that second wave kicked in when my face dropped.

And your voice also changed. I was met by silence, and they can't see that. But when you hear the voice, the volume change, you know, even the volume, the vocal volume change is also an indicator in this case of an emotional shift. See, there's so much involved in creating that emotional shift using that storytelling guideline, because the difference is emotion at first and emotion at last. And it's really, really interesting how you use all those tools to create that shift in the emotion. It's actually quite brilliant. And I did have a small part to play in that. Right, Darren?

Small part. I was just gonna say, do you know what the most important ingredient was, Mark Brown? You know, we've gotta find a coach to help us. We're too close to our own stories, no matter who that is. Now, obviously I'm partial to you. You wanna work with Mark Brown, go to getaspeakingcoach.com if you wa with them one on one. If you want to be part of our university, check that out. Stagetime University. And if you want to join us for Our March event, stagetimelive.com love to have you. We have so much fun together, so much laughter, and yet people leave with ahas.

You know, Darren, it's really very simple, you know, if you can make sure, first of all to set your story up so we understand understand the mindset of those characters, you'll be well on the way to creating unforgettable stories. And we'll break this down in greater detail. When do our Game Changers program? Can't wait to have people join us. Either live in person or virtually. I'll be really cool too, man. What do you think?

I think it's going to be fun. It always is. We've only been doing it for 13 years.

Yeah.

And I got an email, Mark, from Patricia Fripp, because this used to be called lady and the Champs. I got an email from Patricia Fripp, said, we've got an incredible lineup. And so I said, well, you're not going to be there, but we did the best we could, so we've got a great lineup. Mark, what are your final thoughts on the story diagram? Taking the time to break down your characters, their emotion at the beginning and Their emotion at the end.

It's very, very simple. You'll saw, if you watch the video, you'll see it's really three steps. It's the characters, the beginning emotion, and their ending emotion. What is not there which will be helpful is to properly set up the characters as Darren did. The brilliance of Darren's story is his parents never speak in this little story, but we understand their emotional mindset because he took time to properly set them up. And when he said, I was met by silence, he used a facial expression which told us through him how they responded. That's actually brilliant. But if you use a diagram, define characters so we know who they are and what they're thinking. Define their beginning emotion, how they're feeling, and then show the ending emotion at the end of the story. Then we get to understand more of what the characters were feeling, how they react, how they respond. And here's the bonus chances are from the story, you'll find yourself in one or more of those characters.

Yep. We all have different stories. We all share the same six emotions.

That's right.

And one important bit of clarity. We talked about three characters and their emotions changing in a story, one character must have a change of emotion, but not all of them. That was an example where all of them did. But that's not essential. One of them is essential. If the emotion of one character doesn't change, there is no story. But I tell a story of Vinnie Favorito, and I was at the back of a comedy club and a guy goes up on stage, kills it. I've been doing it a year and a half. It was his first night.

What?

My emotion changes dramatically, but his doesn't. So they don't all have to, but one must. Or we're missing something. We're missing something. And Mark, what would you say to somebody if they said to you, But, Mark, that seems like a lot of hard work to break down each character in all my stories. What?

Well, you know, again, it seems like a hard work, but if you don't forget, you probably live the story yourself. If it's your story, you've lived it. Okay, but until we really understand who the characters are, where they're coming from, mindset and emotion, you are minimizing or you're diminishing the impact of the story. And if you diminish the impact of your story, you are also diluting your message. And why are you there? You want to deliver a message to the audience that they can remember and act on. If you want to be unforgettable Develop the characters. Let's get to know them. Become the characters. Share their thoughts, their mindset, their emotions. Have the dialogue within the characters. Bring us there. Don't just tell us, take us there so we can feel it, we can experience it. Like I always say, don't give a speech or tell a story. Give an experience because that will make it unforgettable.

And remember, the work and effort you put in is multiplied by every person in your audience as well as every audience you'll be in front of the rest of your career. Those stories that we tell that are unforgettable, it is a little bit of work. We're not going to say it's not, but that work is worth it.

That's what it takes because it's worth it. You work it because it's worth it. Thanks Darren.

Nice. See you next week.

Take care.

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