Who enjoyed hearing some of these stories, wasn’t that something?
Who suddenly became more interested in a topic, even though you may not have been actually
interested in the topic beforehand, because you were just sitting around there when you
heard that story?
Are you beginning to get a sense of why the self-intro is important?
What is it that self-intro doing?
What’s it achieving?
I walked in your shoes.
I walked in your shoes, I know where you’re at, I’ve been there too.
It’s really, and I think Deedee really nailed it there when she said, it’s because you
can believe in it.
You can believe it’s possible for you.
You see, a lot of presenters have this really strange idea in their mind that you have to
present this God-like perfect image and if you’re God-like and your life is perfect
and everything is perfect and you’re perfect and your relationships are perfect and your
parents are perfect, everything is perfect, then everyone is going to love your message
because you’re perfect and the message has to be perfect as a result.
But in my experience, really what that does is it scares people off.
It’s like there’s no way I can live up to that!
Whereas, being flawed, being a human being, being someone who’s suffered, but despite
that suffering, despite that flaw, despite the fact that you’re incapable of doing
it the perfect way, you still somehow made it.
Isn’t that somehow something you can relate to?
Don’t you appreciate the person for being willing to be that, so you can be willing,
or so you can be inspired or even believe in the possibility for you to follow in their
steps?
Does that kind of make sense to you guys?
Yah?
A quick couple of comments in terms of how the exercise, what you’ve learned from it,
anyone?
What I found listening to other people’s stories is that it’s really involving.
What I mean by that is that you - when someone tells you a story you access, well for me
a visual, I create what they’re telling me.
So, that stimulates me and involving is the word I think, really.
Storytelling is the most efficient way of transferring information.
I don’t know if you know this.
If you tell something, if you give a list of data and you present the same data in the
context of a story, first of all, weirdly you need less time to get the same ideas out
and it sticks longer.
So stories are a very powerful vehicle for doing that.
We will do more of that.
There’s a kind of co-creation I think.
It is a kind of co-creation exactly; because what you’re doing with a story is essentially
you’re lending someone else your experience.
If you really can’t give someone an experience…
let’s say this is a military thing just for the sake of it and I can’t give you
an experience, a near death experience.
Why?
Because it’d be a bit dangerous to do that right?
Or even an adventure sport, let’s say, but it’s important for you to know about it
for whatever reason.
A story allows you to safely share that near death experience in a way that hopefully you
can relate to and hence be inspired by.
Because of the personal story I told it was much easier for me to talk and to speak out
loud why I’m doing it.
Yah, the message got across much easier.
It does because stories are a much easier vehicle for transferring messages and when
you tell real stories from your real life, which is one of the reasons why I was advising
not to make one up, is that you connect to the reason for you to be here in the first
place even more deeply.
So you have the T+ to start with, but even if that starts sliding off, as soon as you
throw in a personal story you’ll reconnect to that straight away again.
Because it’s you and its part of the stuff that makes you, you.
That’s very good, thank you.
The question what I think it’s important to be aware of that you don’t slide into
only personal stories.
Absolutely, because at that point you can become boring or become off topic.
The stories are there to support something.
The stories are designed to do something, and it’ll be different things they can do.
In this case, stories are designed to do what?
1.
Establish your credibility
Say okay, I can see why this person has the right to stand here and talk to me about whatever
the topic is.
2.
It’s another device for developing rapport
Human beings connect to human beings.
They do not connect to corporate images.
They do not connect to Mr. or Ms. Perfect.
They connect to other human beings they can relate to.
If you’re using a story in that way, great.
If you’re using stories to self-aggrandize or to take yourself on a trip down memory
lane to enjoy yourself and amuse yourself, or to show off or any of these other things,
then the purpose of the story is lost.
You’re now doing it for selfish reasons; you’re no longer using it to serve someone
else.
Does that make sense to you guys?