- Today, we're gonna talk about how to tell stories
in a presentation.
And joining me is my YouTube friend, Kit Pang,
so let's get into it.
(rock music)
If this is our first time meeting,
this channel is all about giving you the communication
and leadership tools you need to make an impact.
And today, our guest is Kit Pang, from Boston Speaks.
We'll be talking about how to tell stories
in a presentation.
But first, Kit, can you tell us a little bit
about your channel.
- Alex, first of all, thank you so much for having me
on your channel, your channel is one of my favorites
when it comes to communication, improving one's speaking.
So my channel, Boston Speaks,
is all about helping individuals like yourself
improve your public speaking to advance your career success.
- Kit, why don't you tell us
why you think stories are so important
when we're standing up and presenting.
- Well, sure, Alex, storytelling is one
of the most powerful state-of-the-art technologies
that I'm gonna say you can use in today's society.
We no longer live in the survival of the fittest,
it's whoever can get the ideas across in the meeting,
at home, is successful at the end of the day.
And storytelling is so important
because it's memorable, it's persuasive, and it's human.
You see, as human beings,
we are the only species to tell stories.
And this is what research have found.
When you wrap your facts or information around a good story,
it is actually 22 times more memorable.
And when you tell stories,
three things happen to your brain.
It releases dopamine, cortisol, and oxytocin.
Dopamine is the feel-good hormone,
just like if you go on social media
and people are pressing like all of the time.
When you hear a good story, dopamine gets released.
It also releases something called oxytocin.
Oxytocin is basically, in a nutshell,
they say instead of giving Cupid an arrow to shoot,
let Cupid release some oxytocin.
So oxytocin is basically
that relationship bonding love hormone,
so when you tell a good story,
people just can't help but just trust you more,
and they wanna bond and build relationships with you.
That's why, this research that have also said
that storytelling will make you more attractive.
And third is something called cortisol.
Cortisol is actually a stress hormone.
And that is good because,
whenever you want to get information across,
you have to make your information the most important thing
on your audience mind right now.
So actually when you release
a good amount of healthy stress,
people say, wow, this is actually really important,
why I really have to pay attention to it.
Just like Netflix, if you watch any Netflix shows,
you would not want to do work, you just wanna finish
that one-hour episode because it's got your attention.
It's hard maybe 'cause there's some stress that's happening
in the episode and you wanna keep on finishing it.
So, Alex,
you shared with me a story earlier
about a bad customer experience.
I would love if you could just share that
with your audience right now.
- Sure, I'll tell that story.
This past fall, I had a great experience renting a house
on vacation with my family.
And I wanted to give the property owner a five-star review.
It was a new property,
and I wanted to be one of the first customers
to leave a great review.
But the online system we were using did not allow me
to leave a review in an easy way at all.
This system is set up so it sends a one-time email to you,
and if you miss that email, you really can't leave a review.
And I'm 99% sure I never received it
because I was on the look out for it,
and I was checking my spam folder every day, nothing.
So I asked the actual property owner, "what should I do?"
And she said, "yeah, this system is really clunky."
So I got online, and I was chatting
with a customer service person about it.
I'm not saying it was Airbnb,
but it was one of those kinds of companies.
And I was chatting with them for over 20 minutes,
and he was not able to provide me another way
to submit a review.
The chat got a little heated, got a little emotional,
and I really wanted to do right by this property owner,
but in the chat the customer service rep
kept making it seem like I was the one at fault somehow,
like I had messed this up really badly.
But he finally admitted that he had no way
to re-send the email, to send me a link,
or anything like that
to allow me to post a review.
I was polite, but my point to the company
was that customers should not have to fight their way
through some system just to leave a review.
In the end, unfortunately, I was not able to leave a review,
but I did contact the property owner directly
and offered to give any kind of endorsement that I could,
that she might share on social media
and use however she wanted.
I still feel really badly for the property owner,
she did everything 100% right,
I just couldn't provide a review.
So that's my bad customer service story
that I told you before, Kit,
so go ahead and break that down.
- Well, Alex, thank you so much for that story,
I love that story and I wanna break down that story
and just tell everyone why that is a good story.
So, when you tell stories,
there are actually two types of stories.
One is a recap story, and one is a situational story.
What we wanna get into more
is actually that situational story,
because it's way more impactful.
So what do I mean by recap versus situational?
If you wanna watch season three of Stranger Things
and you forgot season one and season two,
you might go on YouTube
and just watch a quick five minute, ten minute recap video
of what actually happened in season one and season two.
Usually, you do not get emotionally involved,
because it's a lot of bullet points.
Just like, for example, some people tell recap stories
like five years ago, I did this.
Three years ago, and then boop boop boop boop boom.
When you go into a situational story,
that's exactly what you did, Alex,
so I just wanna break that down.
First, is start it with a time and a place.
Even though, let's say you don't have to say it out loud,
we knew you entered a time and a place.
And then second, you were describing what was happening
around you.
And then third, you were talking about your reactions
to what was happening around you,
that is so important.
For example, you're talking about,
well, I had to check my spam folder,
or I had to talk to this person
for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, online.
And as you are describing your reactions to it,
we get to visualize that in our minds.
So when you're saying you wanna check the spam folder,
I can even see you going into the Gmail, your email,
and you go into the spam folder,
or you're going into that chatting online,
I can see a pop-up, that little pop-up on the website,
you're just chatting with that person.
Even though it's not the real thing that happened,
it's more powerful for the audience,
because we can visualize it.
A good story have all of these things every single time.
The time and the place, you're describing what's happening,
and the reactions to the things that's happening.
So if you have other people in your story,
you can say, he said this, she said that,
they were doing this.
And also, the fourth thing, is that the actions based off
of how you were reacting to the events,
what did you do or did not do.
When it comes to storytelling in business,
a lot of people feel like, well, I can't tell stories
because, what's the point?
Well, here's the thing.
Most of the time, they don't know how to connect the lesson
or the point to the audience
and making it important for the audience.
So, let's say, Alex, you have that great story.
You can take so many lessons from that story.
Your next step now to make this a really impressive story
is then to connect the dots for your audience.
For example, the next thing you could say is,
therefore, because I had such a bad customer experience,
the next time we do things, we have to make sure
that we all are on the same page, for example.
Or everyone gets clear communication,
or whatever the lesson that you got from your story.
But you have to connect the dots for your audience,
or else the audience won't be able to say, hmm,
how does that story match with why we're here today.
So to really make your story to the next level,
tell your experience, your situational experience
that you went through,
and then magically, you want to wrap everything up
with a sentence or two,
and say that's why it's important for you,
the audience today, or the lessons that I've tooked away,
and here's what you need to know about it.
- That makes sense to me, Kit.
And what do you say to people when they say
they don't have any good stories to tell.
- A lot of people ask me, I don't have stories, Kit,
what can I do to tell better stories,
or how can I find stories?
If you ever have that thought,
the first thing you have to realize
is that stories are all around you.
I'm not sure about you,
but have you ever bought new clothes,
or you got new shoes, or you just bought a new car.
And then you start noticing that everyone has that new car,
or something similar that you got.
It's the same exact thing with stories.
Right now, if you believe that you don't have stories,
you're not listening for them,
you're not looking for them,
because, every single day,
as human beings we go through life experiences.
Even when you're chatting with your friends,
or your mom, or your colleges,
they will tell you so many stories
and there are so many lessons from those stories.
So the best thing that you can do
if you want to become a better storyteller
is first start telling stories.
Don't care about how good they are, how bad they are.
I had a client ask me,
he was like, "Kit, I wanna become a better storyteller."
And I asked him, "well, are you telling stories right now?"
And he said, "no".
So the very first step
if you want to become a better storyteller,
believe you have stories, no matter if the stories are good,
or bad, just start telling them.
- Thanks for being on the channel and helping us out today.
Great advice on stories.
- Well, Alex, I wanna say thank you so much
for having me on your channel.
Your channel is one of my favorite
when it comes to communication and speaking skills,
so for the audience watching right now,
I would definitely say press Subscribe,
because Alex has great information
to help you improve your communication skills.
- Well, thank you for that, Kit,
and I would like to return the favor
and recommend that you check out Kit's channel.
The best place to start is watching his video
on the best hand gestures for public speaking,
it's excellent.
I'll put links to that video in the description below,
and also you can check out his channel, I'll pin his comment
to the top comment in that section,
and you can just click on his name,
it'll take you right to his channel.
And be sure to say hello,
so thanks, god bless, and I will see you soon.