Esther in Paris (not as glam as Emily)

Tip – Tell a story, paint a picture & share a memory. Stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone.

?Paris!

Last week I had the pleasure of working in Paris with two leadership teams from Fives group. It was outstanding.? We talked about presenting with impact and why storytelling is such a brilliant tool to captivate your audience.?

On of the group, Will, told a story of his wet and windy introduction to Paris and he shared this photo of the Eiffel tower above.? (By the way Fives designed the 2nd floor elevator in the Eiffel Tower – an engineering feat!)

Telling stories is the key to connecting with people. So on that note, I can’t resist sharing this….

A quick story….Paris, Poisson and it’s P*ssing Down?

Paris, Gard du Nord. It’s a wet Wednesday night. It’s the kind of rain you feel will never stop. I arrive on the Eurostar, coach 15. It’s?10.20pm.

Other passengers start filing towards the front of the train before we pull into the Gard Du Nord platform. ?That should have been the signal to move myself - ?the warning sign of the horrors that lay ahead.

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I get off the train, narrowly avoiding the GAP between the station and the train (bigger than the famous mind-the gap-London tubes).

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The station roof is leaking, and my hair is ‘styled’ for my big leadership day in the morning. I put my hood up because my umbrella is too difficult to handle.

I’m tired, it’s cold, I’m realising coach 15 is at the very back of the train and I have hundreds of weary passengers in front of me.

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I look for the taxi “sortie” exit and then I see it. A leaky roof with around 200 resentful people in the queue.

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What do I do? It’s now 10.30pm local time, it’s wet, it’s dark, my hair is still dry, so I start doing the maths…

I stand in the queue and calculate the time in terms of queue size, number of cabs and time …I wasn’t brilliant at maths A level; however, I do remember the Poisson distribution the equation to work out probabilities.?? I spend the first 10 minutes relatively optimistic as there are a few cabs waiting for the sodden customers to get in them (in a very disorderly fashion). I curse under my breath at the crappy system and think “Why doesn’t someone just direct the passengers into the cabs more quickly”.

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The occasional passengers drop out and give up waiting – oooh yes, less queuing for me…I re calculate my timing and start thinking about the equation I could use to work out the rest of my queuing time….in my head it’s less than an hour…

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This is what I was attempting in my head….The Poisson Distribution.

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And do you know how long I waited?

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One full hour. I got into my taxi at 11.25pm Paris time….I was wet, cold, exhausted, yet very relieved. My hair was dry…result.

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Do you have a recent travel story you’d like to share?? I’d love to hear it!

#Storytelling #PersonalImpact #Presenting Natalia Artemieva