53. Five ways to power your storytelling
Yeh, yeh we all know storytelling is powerful, but do you know how to tell a cracking story?! In this ep I share five practical ways to power your stories to captivate your audience and next level CONNECT!
Transcript
"Storytelling is as old as the campfire and as new as Twitter", what a cracking quote from Richard Branson. "Storytelling is as old as the campfire and as new as Twitter." There's no question storytelling is powerful. And in this episode, I'm going to share five ways you can power your storytelling.
I’m Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast, no matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. So unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.
Welcome to episode 53 of That Voice Podcast. I'm excited to share five really practical ways you can make your storytelling better. But before we get into this episode, I'd love to ask you, would you like a place where you can learn how to speak confidently, where you have support from a bunch of awesome people where you pretty much have me as your on-call voice coach, then come and join us in my Members Only.
There's such a nice vibe going on. And if you like this podcast, you will definitely love my MO community. I also post you a little present when you sign up. So check out the link in my show notes and think about your favorite feel good song, because that's one of the questions I ask you when you get inside, okay, let's get into storytelling. Now, there are countless studies raving about the benefits of storytelling. Our brains are wired for story. We make sense of the world by telling ourselves stories about what is happening and why. And that's why we remember things so much better when delivered in a story form and nice stories make us feel nice and think about a social situation, maybe pre-COVID, but who do people listen to at parties and barbecues. It's the good storytellers, right? And we all know people who are bad at telling stories.
Anyway, if you're not using storytelling in your content, especially if you're trying to persuade someone, then maybe you should think about that. And there are heaps of great story structures. If you're stuck, you can Google it today. I'll share with you five ways to power your stories with that extra bit of pizzazz. And the reason I'm doing this episode is because my lovely partner, Patrick has been preparing to speak to a group of veterans at a war Memorial out at Collinton a little place in Southeast Queensland, Australia. And he's been on his computer, tapping away, doing all this fascinating research and then calling out to me while I'm in the kitchen, getting my, I don't know, 10th cup of tea to tell me what he found. And I was hearing a lot of names, a lot of dates, a lot of places, a lot of regiments, a lot of lists, but where was the story who were these men?
And Patrick said, Oh, but there's 42 men. I want to acknowledge them all. And this is where the first power comes in. Number one, the power of the individual. You've got to think about why you're telling the story. What do you want your audience to learn or to feel? And as people we connect with people, we connect with individuals, think of movies and documentaries. It might be about a big event or shine, a light on a widespread social injustice. But it's told to us through individual eyes, through actual people or characters for Patrick, the goal isn't for the group to memorize every name and place and enlistment date, right? That wouldn't happen anyway. Yes. Reading out the names will work beautifully if you want the group to reflect and remember. But if you want them to connect with the men, to feel their struggle, to remember their sacrifice, then it's much better to choose an individual story to do that.
And so instead of Matt Campbell, 1926, battalion deployed may 18, 1916 returned May, 2019, 19. We could say, I want to tell you about 19 year old, Matty Campbell, a 19 year old kid who worked here in Collinton on a dairy farm. He and his two mates landed in France on the 18th of May, 1916, the first time they ever left Queensland straight into the noisy chaos of trench warfare. So you see, we have a character. You might be visualizing a face in a place now to tell the story of the individual effectively, we need to move to number two, which is the power of a letting go channel frozen. Let it go, let it go. You'll never be able to share all the information you have or all the details you have on a story. So don't even try be brutal unless that piece of info feeds into your purpose for telling the story ditch it. The fact that you spilled coffee down your shirt on the way to your morning meeting might mean nothing. It might not. You have to scrutinize the content and ask, is this relevant to the purpose of the story? Or do I need to let it go? Let it go. Don't worry. I am stopping there with the singing. Okay. So we've got the individual character. We've ditched the irrelevant info. Now we move on to infusing flavor into the story by three, the power of the senses.
If you're struggling to paint the picture, go through the senses, ask yourself what were they or you seeing? I saw a sea of strange faces. What are you feeling? My heart was pounding out of my chest and I could feel the red rising up my face. What were you smelling? My sense of smell had gone. What were you tasting? My mouth was dry and salty. What were you hearing in the silence of the audience was deafening. I knew I had to break it, but I couldn't find the words. Yeah. I don't know what happens in this story, but you get the idea. Evoking the senses in your storytelling puts the audience there. And the added benefit is it helps you use more visual language. And when you use visual language like metaphors, your voice will naturally become more expressive too. And speaking of expressive, let's jump into number four, the power of the medium or the platform on a podcast. It's audio. Right? So let me take you to the African jungle.
Use the medium in person. You can story. Tell through gestures, facial expressions, props, costumes. If you've done my six week voice make-over or you're in members only, you'll see. I often throw on my eighties, flouro sweat bands when taking you to the speech gym for us, speech warm-ups. And if you're telling a story about a phone call, you can hold your hand up to your ear and just say the dialogue and then change which way you look for each character. And on video, you can do all these things and you can also use effects like virtual backgrounds to help tell the story and also create a sense of place. All right? So we've got the power of the individual, the power of letting go, the power of the senses, the power of the medium. And finally, it's the power of your never underestimate the power of a personal story to engage an audience and build trust. Now you might freak out and be like, Oh, I'm a private person. I'm shy. I don't want to give too much away. Look, I'm not saying reveal your kinky Saturday night shenanigans. Personal stories can be anything that you seen, heard, watched felt the idea is it's your story. And this goes for all your presentations, you should be the only one able to deliver it. It should only be able to be delivered by you, not a colleague, not me, not a robot, you, and the best way to ensure this is by infusing stories from you into whatever it is you're presenting or speaking about.
You mentioned at the start, why are you telling the story? Let's bring out the you, why are you telling the story? Just like the audience connects and remembers the story better. So will you, and if you're connected and present with your words, the listeners will be too. It's just this whole big party of fantastic connection. Amazing. And right now, if I told you about a girl who let go of life's worries, got in touch with her senses became a medium and sat down to do a reading for you. Then you might be more likely to remember the five powers I went through today. The power of the individual, the power of letting go, the power of the senses, the power of the medium and the power of you.
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