In this third episode of the Story of a Speech podcast, we examine what a story actually is. What is the structure and it’s impact on the viewer/listener? Now because Michael de Groot is the resident storyteller, you will hear a lot of him in this episode, well of course it his specialist subject after all.
In this second episode of the Story of a Speech podcast, we’re examining what a speech actually is. Now because Michael-Don is the resident signature speech coach, you will hear a lot of him in this episode, well of course it his specialist subject after all.
We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk.
Michael-Don Smith and Michael de Groot introduce the Story of a Speech Podcast. In this episode they introduce themselves, why they started this podcast and many other insights, ideas and discussions around the topics of public speaking, presenting and storytelling. We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk
As mentioned in the podcast if you wish to listen to Michael-Don’s full story, you can hear it on the #shareyourstory podcast.
You may have heard it before. ‘You are the biggest storyteller in your life’. And most of it are lies. Lies about the people around you, lies about the world around you and most importantly lies about yourself.
Our mind is incredibly creative but it’s also very stupid. Because of your own conditioning, you believe the lies you have been telling yourself. Those lies become your truth because you have been thinking them over and over.
And this is how the media, advertising and politics work. Say something over and over and eventually it becomes hard wired in your neural pathways, a physical connection is made between your neurons that eventually become your truth, your beliefs and now you behave and act upon those new beliefs (lies) you have been exposed to, either by your own thinking or someone else’s thinking.
You (and I) believe we have free will and of course we do not. Free will disappeared when they invented the mortgage. Landowners (call them banks) realised that if they gave you a loan to buy some land (house) then basically they can determine your behaviour and actions to ensure you pay back that loan.
Queue the Bank of England and now you have removed free will in the minds of the world’s population.
You believe you are the hero in your life, when in actual fact you are just a character in a script which has been written by the over lords (and ladies) that own you.
I wouldn’t wish to presume of course, I can only go by the fact that I’ve never heard anyone talk about it or even hear anyone consider assessing it.
Picture the scene.
Marketing lay out their stall for the forthcoming year. They present their plan to the board of directors and show them a multi-million dollar spend on advertising, inbound marketing, posters, flyers, influencers, social media ads, SEO, PPC etc, etc.
Queue script writer/storyteller and video director. They present their video episodes, which includes a story about the founders of the business, the early pioneer clients, their current clients, their staff and their own individual stories in life and work and best of all an episode about why the organisation exists, their passion, value proposition and their why.
Which one sounds more interesting to you? And which one will have longevity in the minds of viewers, investors, customers, brand fans and kids?
Yeah, I thought so. Why isn’t everyone doing it then? Why does everyone on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn promote their crap and I’m only calling it crap because as we all know adverts suck!
Allegedly 550k marketers on LinkedIn list ‘storytelling’ in their profiles. And yet creating content, case studies, adverts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest does not qualify you or me as a ‘storyteller’.
I’ve worked with advertising/marketing agencies and they still ask me to create animations that are explainer videos instead of stories. Bizarre and they’re supposed to be the ones that are good at storytelling.
It’s not just about the story either, it’s about how you dress it up. I am a follower of minimalism and one of The Minimalists, Joshua Fields-Millburn did a webinar on writing a few months ago (June 2018) and he explained it the best way I have ever heard it.
The first sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the second sentence, the second sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the third sentence, the third sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the fourth sentence…
You get the idea, every sentence has to be your best sentence in order to keep someone hooked. So when you’re writing a story script it would be a great suggestion to keep that in mind.
Put some characters into the story, real names, real personalities with a life and a mission. Make it relatable to the viewer, know your audience, you have to know your audience, better than they know themselves. If you don’t yet know enough about them then go and find out, lots of them are very happy to talk about themselves.
You are already the most powerful storyteller walking on the planet, the only problem is you don’t realise it yet. As you are reading this text, your mind is more than likely starting to wander in different directions, you may be reading these words for sure, but what happens to those words when they integrate with your brain is something totally unique.
The words you are reading will only make sense when they match up with the stories you have created inside the depths of your neurons, which of course reside in your brain.
All of us have the ability to make sense of things that are happening around us and we do this through capturing short stories about the times, places, people and things that we observe, including the words that you are reading right now.
You have to create visual cues in your brain for many things and when you add some emotion and feeling to those visuals it will have a better chance of hard-wiring there. When our neurons hard-wire they stay inside our long-term memory for longer.
Stories when told well, will engender some emotion and feeling inside of you and when it does, that’s THE most powerful way for it to lay down new memory neurons. Therefore when you share stories make them relatable, memorable, different, unusual and stand out.
I love the following quote, it’s the one I always recall when creating stories.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou
Movies are still the best stories ever told, because it activates pretty much all the important regions in your brain. When viewing even a fictional story on the screen, you can’t help being transported into the story and feel like you are the main protagonist.
Couple this with our human sense of fairness, winning and surviving and we will generally always be on the side of the main heroin, literally willing her to succeed in her quest.
Physically we will have similar feelings of fear, anticipation, worry, doubt and our motor cortex in our brain the part that’s governing the firing of our muscles are also engaged. Wonder why you may feel breathless or exhausted after watching a gripping, high action movie? You just starred in it. And because all of those factors you will want to experience more of it next time. We are addicted to the thrill of movies.
I often witness my wife Clair filling her eye ducts with water when there is a sad scene in a movie. None of the action is actually happening to her but because of one of our other major emotions ‘empathy’, we are now feeling what the starring character is feeling. So if they are sad because they lose their partner or their fellow warrior in a fighting scene and they show sadness, we feel that sadness too. Us guys can often hold on and keep a stiff upper lip but the ladies have a better empathy button and will feel their hurt at a deeper level.
