05-Week 4 - Email Story Wizard Workshop

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Welcome to the Email Story

Wizard Workshop!
Bonus Session #4
Bonus Session 4: Personal

Stories
Overall Roadmap
Session 1: Research/Idea Generation
Session 2: Writing the Email with ChatGPT
Session 3: Refining the Email
Bonus Session 4: Telling your own personal stories <= today!

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories
● I have inserted the “Style File” results into the original prompt
Here’s what we’ll be covering today:
● Q&A
● How to create an ongoing vault of personal stories.
● Knowing the elements every personal story should have.
● Using ChatGPT to generate story ideas.
● Structure of a personal story for your email.
● Writing the story with ChatGPT.
Preliminary Q&A
Question:
“Sometimes I stumble across a YT video or an online article that

contains an interesting story or one which debunks a popular myth - e.g.
the real reason cats' eyes were invented. And I think to myself, "That's
an interesting story; I wonder if I could use it in an email one day?”
But I'm not always sure how to take the story and hang a teaching point
off it. Is that the kind of thing ChatGPT could help with, do you think?”
Preliminary Q&A

How to create an ongoing vault of
personal stories
● See Endless Email Flywheel

Workshop, especially Lessons
No. 3 and No. 4

How to create an ongoing vault of personal stories
In a nutshell:
1. At the end of the day, file one “storyworthy” moment
from your day.
2. Identify the reason you consider it worth

remembering. (“I think this story left an impression on
me because [fill in the blank].”
(continued on next slide)


How to create an ongoing vault of personal
stories
In a nutshell:
(Continued from previous slide)
3. Identify the possible lesson or takeaway.
4. Ask yourself how this could apply to your

audience.

To summarize: Your story needs to have these 3
ingredients:
1. The details of what happened.

2. The impression it left on you.
(Its theme or resonance; Why is this story
important for you?)
3. The lesson, insight or takeaway. (Why is it
important for your audience?)

How to recognize even small moments as
stories
Example: Watching TV one night and seeing

a Ken Burns documentary and how the
stories made me want to buy the DVDs even
though I had already seen the film and I don’t
even have a DVD player anyway!

Why it left an impression on me: Because I’m a
tough sell! But they totally got me even though
they weren’t trying to. That felt like magic to me.
Lesson or takeaway: Stories can sell without even

seeming to try to.
How this could apply to my audience: My audience

is filled with entrepreneurs and business owners
who sell products and services. Obvious connection.

How to create an ongoing vault of personal stories
A crucial factor to remember:
To be a real story, the anecdote must have some sort of CHANGE or

SHIFT of some kind.
How to Let ChatGPT

Generate Your Stories
● Left to its own devices ChatGPT just makes up fictional
stories. It can’t know OUR stories. Only YOU can know
them.
● But we can get it to interview us to extract those stories!
● You just need to put it in the role of a journalist.
● I have a prompt for this . . .

What a story is NOT:
● It’s not a “process” or a mere “list of steps”

● It’s not just a funny thing someone said.
● It’s not just a crazy thing you saw.
● It is not just a series of narrative events, i.e. “this happened and then
this happened and then this happened.”
There has to be some sort of “VALUE CHANGE”

There's always a shift in value from one to the other.
What a story is NOT

Example No. 1
“I got a call from a police officer telling me if I didn't pay some old fines within
a week he would come arrest me. The total was $267.63. It was about 2 weeks
before Christmas so I was really sweating it. The very next day I got a check in
the mail for $267.63 for overpaid child support throughout the year. Craziest,
most unexplainable thing I've ever had happen to me.”
^ That's not a good story, it's just a coincidence!

What a story is NOT

Example No. 2
“I work at a coffee shop, we got new drinks in and the first lady to try it sort
of just got this glazed look on her face and said ‘it tastes just like my wine,
but it can’t get me drunk’.” (The first half happy, second half very sadly) and
then she just walked away.”
What a story is NOT

Example No. 3
“I was walking my adorable tiny puppy along the road and a pickup truck
pulls over so the driver can get out and take a close look and grill me on
the breed mix (like people so often did when she was that small). After
he's got it out of his system he starts to drive back off, window rolled down
in the summer heat. I see him turn toward the passenger seat and hear
him say "honey, did you see the little dog?".”
What a story IS
Example:
“I worked at a restaurant my summer after high school. I met Kate Hudson, Bruce
Willis, Mark Wahlberg, and one day, David Schwimmer's agent. I know this
because the guy walked in in a smart looking suit with a bluetooth and announced
proudly, "I'd like to be sat outside; I'm David Schwimmer's agent." So I sat him at a
table outside. I asked him how many people would be in his party, and he didn't
give me an answer, other than alluding to that there may be a lot. So I put him at a
4 person table, and watched him sit and drink several cups of coffee and a muffin.
No one ever joined him. He left about an hour later and didn't tip.”
Okay, Now Forget

Everything I Just Told You!
We’re talking about EMAIL here, which

has very different aims and
requirements than novels, movies, TV,
theater, etc.
GOOD NEWS: You don’t have to tell complete stories in

your emails!
In many cases, you can just use story elements and get all the benefits:
● A snippet of dialogue ● A meme

● A quote ● An image
● An anecdote ● Something funny
● An observation ● A provocative question
● An interesting moment from
● An email from a reader
your day
● A personal insight ● A scene from a book or movie
Examples of “non stories”
Sally Field email: A single quote
● A famous moment I remembered that

I found interesting
● Extracted the topic of “likability”
● Asked myself, “How could this relate
to my audience and what they do?”
● Found a lesson to teach within the
topic
Examples of “non stories”
Conspiracy theory friend email: No story,

just an interesting character I know.
● An interesting friend of mine leads to

the topic of conspiracy theories …
● … which I used to transition to a lesson
on how challenging conventional
wisdom can work well in emails.
Examples of “non stories”:

Quora email: No story, just a HINT of stories. (And even that can be
enough :-)
● Quora email digest gives me tons of ideas for stories.

● Almost every one could be used to transition to a valuable
email teaching tip, or to sell something in almost any market.
Time to Get ChatGPT to Help

Write Our Stories!
● First, I’ll demonstrate by example.
● Then we’ll do one together.
Let me now show you the prompt . . .

Demonstration Time!
Live Demo No. 1
● STORY: A broken nose, career inspiration, and the woman

who would become his wife.
Live Demo No. 2
● STORY: Cookware birthday

gift story
Q&A

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www.imarketing.

Welcome to the Email Story

Bonus Session 4: Personal

Session 1: Research/Idea Generation

Session 2: Writing the Email with ChatGPT

Session 3: Reﬁning the Email

Bonus Session 4: Telling your own personal stories <= today!

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

Here’s what we’ll be covering today:

“Sometimes I stumble across a YT video or an online article that

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

● See Endless Email Flywheel

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

2. Identify the reason you consider it worth

(continued on next slide)

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

3. Identify the possible lesson or takeaway.

4. Ask yourself how this could apply to your

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

1. The details of what happened.

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

Example: Watching TV one night and seeing

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

Lesson or takeaway: Stories can sell without even

How this could apply to my audience: My audience

Bonus Session 4: Personal Stories

A crucial factor to remember:

To be a real story, the anecdote must have some sort of CHANGE or

How to Let ChatGPT

● But we can get it to interview us to extract those stories!

● You just need to put it in the role of a journalist.

● I have a prompt for this . . .

What a story is NOT:

● It’s not a “process” or a mere “list of steps”

There has to be some sort of “VALUE CHANGE”

What a story is NOT

^ That's not a good story, it's just a coincidence!

What a story is NOT

What a story is NOT

Okay, Now Forget

We’re talking about EMAIL here, which

GOOD NEWS: You don’t have to tell complete stories in

● A snippet of dialogue ● A meme

Examples of “non stories”

Sally Field email: A single quote

● A famous moment I remembered that

Examples of “non stories”

Conspiracy theory friend email: No story,

● An interesting friend of mine leads to

Examples of “non stories”:

● Quora email digest gives me tons of ideas for stories.

Time to Get ChatGPT to Help

● First, I’ll demonstrate by example.

● Then we’ll do one together.

Let me now show you the prompt . . .

Live Demo No. 1

● STORY: A broken nose, career inspiration, and the woman

Live Demo No. 2

● STORY: Cookware birthday

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