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The Art of Story Telling

Sunday, 28th February 2010

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I live my life through stories. I’m either telling them or collecting them all the time. Have you ever really thought about how powerful stories can be? I thought I’d explore the art of story telling in this week’s post.

Throughout the ages of time stories have been used to for a variety of different purposes. Think about it. Remember those bed time stories your parents read to you as a kid? The Classic fairy tales told by parents to their children all over the world in many different languages and environments, all had the purpose to make you fall asleep at night happy, content and feeling safe and secure.

Then when you were in school you heard stories about history that provide valuable clues to our past and why things work the they do in the present. More recently the Obama election campaign was filled full of stories of ordinary people that resonated with the masses because they could identify with the people in those stories. They are an amazing tool for conveying emotion, information, and valuable lessons in life. Stories allow facts to be palatable.

Consider the following. It’s a statistically proven fact that wearing a seatbelt can help save your life in a car crash. Over in the western world wearing a seat belt is considered normal behaviour but there are still a lot of countries in the world where people don’t bother. A major difference between these two behaviours is how the consequences of not wearing a seat belt are portrayed. In the western world our media is filled with car crash horror stories and the consequences of not wearing a seat belt, whereas in those other countries you never hear these horror stories and thus are less likely to think wearing a seat belt is important.

Story telling is also a very powerful tool to use when networking either in a business or social environment. There is nothing worse than two people meeting at a conference and having nothing to say to each other. Stories can really make or break a connection and so you really should get good at the art of story telling. When I was over in Thailand in 2008 for the HP Entrepreneurship Summit I got the amazing opportunity to make contact with Mechai Viravaidya aka “Mr Condom”. He’s an amazing man who’s biggest claim to fame was introducing condoms to Thailand and curbing the rate of unwanted pregnancies and the spread of diseases. Unfortunately that evening he was tired and perhaps a bit overwhelmed at the conference and didn’t seem to want to engage any of us sitting at his table. So during a break in the conversation I decided to tell him a really crazy story about condoms that I’d heard and after I’d finished telling the story he just stared at me. The rest of the table had their mouth’s open in pure shock that I would tell such a story. I just smiled back at everyone and then to my relief Mechai started laughing so hard that he nearly fell off his chair. He’d never heard anything like it in all of his life and immediately pulled out his business card to give to me. The POWER of story telling!

So here are 5 tips that will make you a better story teller:

1. Make sure your story is RELEVANT

There is no point telling a story that no one has an idea why you brought it up in the first place. So before you begin to tell your story make it relevant. Use phrases like “Speaking of , have you heard...” or “That’s like that guy who...”. Always put your story into context with the conversation at hand.

2.DESCRIBE the key points in detail

Start to describe the key points of the story including the setting, the people involved, the items used etc. This helps people imagine your story in their head and they can identify with you and your surroundings.

3.Go EMOTIONAL

Make sure your story includes some sort of emotion in it so that the person hearing your story is able to invoke that same emotion. It helps them to get involved with your story.

4.VARY your voice

There is nothing worse than speaking in a slow, monotonous voice when telling a story. If something exciting is happening speed up your pace and speak louder. When you want drama, slow it down a little and speak softer. You’re taking people on a journey so make them feel part of that journey.

5. SWAP Stories.

No one likes people who constantly talk and never shut up so get into the habit of swapping stories. Tell one. Listen to one. Tell another, listen to another. Aim to collect stories as well as provide them.

Now to put all of those into practice, a lovely friend of mine on Twitter - Kellie (@YaGirlKellz) posted a story last week that went something like this:

* * * * * * *


“so i went to go out for drinks after work with my friend last night and i didn’t get home until 230 smh....

oh but of course i have a funny story to go along with it. a guy comes 2 our table sets an apple down & says “did one of u drop this?” were like “um no whered u get that” he said thats my pickup line

hahaha.... the good old “did you drop an apple?” trick.... im sure hes gotten laid off that one before...

#wordsofwisdom after u say a pickup line, your next response PROBABLY shouldnt be “thats my pickup line”

* * * * * * *


What do you think? Now keep in mind that Twitter only allows 140 characters to be posted at the one time, so it’s a little hard to put together a great story but lets apply those 5 tips to Kellie’s story and see the difference:

* * * * * * *


Speaking of crazy nights, I went to go out for drinks after work with my friend last night and I didn’t get home until 230. smh. But of course I’ve got a funny story to go along with it. So we’re at this cocktail bar in the city, just chilling out at a table over in the corner. Usually the place is packed full of people but tonight there’s not many in there and the music isn’t too loud either so you can actually have a decent decent conversation with your friends, you know what I mean?

So my friend and I are chatting away on everything and anything and having a great time. It’s weird we haven’t known each other for long but you know how you can just click with certain people and end up really good friends? It’s like that. So we’re chatting away sipping on our cocktails and surveying the bar for cute guys when I spy this one guy walking over to us. He wasn’t that tall, had short blond hair, a little chubby but he was wearing the most hideous, dark brown shirt I’ve ever seen. Looked like he was still stuck in the 1970s and had no intentions of ever leaving! Right on cue “Play that Funky Music White Boy” comes on in the bar and it looks like he’s walking over in time to the music. CLASSIC! My friend and I burst out laughing.

So Disco Boy comes over to us and places an apple on our table totally out of the blue?!? and very slowly says in this REALLY deep...low...voice “Did one of you...drop this?” and I look over at my friend and she’s got the “what the hell!?!?” look on her face and we’re both totally confused. Why would a complete stranger come over to us and put an apple on our table and wonder if its ours??? Like why???

And you know how when you’re in weird situations your mind tries to rationalise things??? So my mind’s just gone into overdrive thinking that he’s spiked the apple or something crazy like that!!!

So finally I stumble out “um...no...where’d you get that?” and Disco boy looks at us both and all of a sudden drops the deep accent and says in a totally normal voice says “oh thats my pickup line!” And my friend and I just lose it and start laughing like crazy. Can you believe that??? That was his pickup line!!! Have you ever had anything like that happen to you???

* * * * * * *

See the difference between the two stories? Which one would you rather prefer to hear? Sure most of the details might be made up in the second story but the point of the story is still there and using those five tips help to engage the people listening to your story to give it more impact.

So your challenge this week is to take something that happens to you during the week and “story” it up Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! style using my 5 tips. Post it in the comments section below because I’d love to hear about your adventures.

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

inspire, story, stories, story telling, tips, presentation, networking

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