3 Lessons to Improve your Story Telling
Whether it be networking, sales, public speaking, or first dates, the power of storytelling is profound. How many times have you heard someone else's story that has stuck with you forever? Many people in my age group can even repeat the plot of Harry Potter across all 7 books with an efficiency that would make our English teachers sing.
I often start my meetings asking for background information about the person I've met because I genuinely love hearing their life story. And believe me, everyone has an amazing life story. How many of my followers knew I am a triplet?
I've met a person that is a high level executive by day and martial art ninjas at night. Even an accountant that found their way to accounting from their love of dive tables and ocean topography when they scuba dive.
Amazing stories right? But both of those interactions started with the person giving a normal background about themselves about the college that they went to and what they studied. I don't blame them because this is the cookie-cutter mold often used in business. What I do blame them for is when I did some digging it seemed that I loved their story while they thought it was something people were not interested in.
Remember, we are the species that when a car accident happens on the other side of the road, we stop what we are doing to look, causing ridiculous traffic.
I wanted to write this with the purpose to remind people to share their stories!! Often times people will be delighted and inspired by what you have to share.
Lessons to share your story more efficiently.
1) Don't just list events, share how the events made you feel.
Think about what you do every morning and try to tell that as a story. Saying you wake up at 6 am and workout is dry and boring. Telling someone you wake up at 6 am to join your 10 friends at a CrossFit class that you have been going to for 5 years is far better.
2) Keep your story concise - Streamline characters and plot
Remember that we don't need to know the life story of all 10 of your friends at CrossFit class. Just let us know quickly why that group is important to you. Remember, while I think everyone is interested in hearing your story, you can definitely start speaking too long very quickly. Keep your story short and to the point.
3) Tell your Truth - I assure you, your story is already interesting. You don't need to lie to make it more interesting.
Sometimes people think that their life story isn't interesting enough and they want to lie to make it more interesting. If you start making up your story dozens of things can go wrong from forgetting minor details while you're telling the story or telling it a different way and it gets back to someone. Just don't lie. I promise, your story is interesting and people want to hear about it.