Copyright © 2020 by Bernadette Jiwa

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www.thestoryoftelling.com/story-skills
 CONTENTS
Introduction Before We Begin
1 Be Where You Are
2 Find the Extraordinary in the Everyday
3 Harness the Power of the Particular
4 Speak from the Heart
5 Stand in the Audience’s Shoes
6 Give Your Stories a Shape and a Point
7 Speak Your Truth
Conclusion Before We End
Sources
Acknowledgements
 For my mum and dad,who taught me that the best stories are true.

And in memory of my uncle Larry, who introduced me to the power of

storytelling on the page.
 INTRODUCTION

Before
We Begin

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world.
ROBERT MCKEE
“Stories are our most persuasive
technology.”
 PPLAUSE ERUPTED AS Oprah took the stage. She was at the Golden

A Globe Awards ceremony to receive a lifetime achievement award in

front of an audience of the Hollywood elite. She adjusted her off-the-
shoulder black velvet gown and composed herself at the microphone, thanking
the audience while she waited for the applause to die down. Then, clutching her
award in both hands, she began her acceptance speech with this simple yet
powerful story.

In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in
Milwaukee watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th
Academy Awards. She opened the envelope and said five words that literally
made history: ‘The winner is Sidney Poitier.’ Up to the stage came the most
elegant man I had ever seen. I remember his tie was white, and of course his skin
was black, and I had never seen a black man being celebrated like that. I tried
many, many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid
watching from the cheap seats as my mom came through the door bone tired
from cleaning other people’s houses.

It took Oprah exactly one minute to tell this story. In that minute, she had the
audience in the palm of her hand. Now, I can guess what you’re thinking: Of
course the audience was mesmerised, because the words came out of Oprah’s
mouth. She’s a gifted storyteller. And while that is true, she wasn’t born with
more advantages, better story skills or more interesting stories than you. She
learned over time how to find, own and tell her stories well, and by doing so
became her most influential and inspiring self.
Stories are our most persuasive technology, and Oprah has learned how to
harness their power to have the impact she wants. That’s exactly what you’ll be
learning to do in this book.
Beyond Telling: Storytelling vs Story Skills
Storytelling is not just an art that professional writers need to master; it’s a skill
we can all hone to help us become better communicators or leaders, marketers or
parents. Most people reading this book are not interested in writing the next
blockbuster novel or screenplay. They want to develop the untapped skills they
can use every day to influence and inspire the people they love or lead, parent or
serve.
Becoming a great storyteller isn’t about simply learning how to leverage
stories to get attention or manipulate people. Being a great storyteller is about
learning how to build connection and trust with your audience. In the digital
media era, the focus has been on mastering the delivery of your words and your
story. And while the act of telling the story matters, it’s equally important to
understand how to craft the story in a way that engages your audience.
It’s often said that storytelling is a gift. What people mean is that storytelling
is an art reserved for the chosen few—the gifted, talented or anointed. In these
days of perfect prose rendered so by rounds of editing we never see, flawless
oration aided by invisible autocues and skilled TED producers, rehearsed for
months behind closed doors—it’s easy to buy into this myth.
But it turns out that storytelling is not an art, it’s an act. It always has been,
since the days when our tribal ancestors began to find ways to share with each
other what they knew to be wise and true.
I grew up in a house with no books, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any
stories. My parents were born into poor Irish Catholic families. They had ten
siblings apiece and left school with barely any formal education, in their early
teens. They got jobs on factory assembly lines to help support their families.
They never learned to express themselves in the written word, but there was
nothing to stop them telling their stories. As I grew up, those stories were all
around me in the ether of everyday conversations over cups of tea at the kitchen
table. Stories lived and breathed on the street corner outside our garden gate and
on the doorsteps of every home on our council estate where adults and children
gathered. I learned that stories are a potent glue that can bind or divide a
community. They are data that teach us emotional truths.

“Storytelling is not a gift we are born

with—it’s a skill we can learn to get
better at, with practice.”
The experiences we have are a blueprint for what we might do the next time
we’re faced with a similar challenge. The past is our patient teacher. Just because
something isn’t an objective fact doesn’t mean we can’t learn something of value
from it. We learn to love by having our heart broken. We learn to lead by seeing
leadership in action. We learn resilience not by staying upright but by falling
down. We become resourceful by doing more with less. My childhood
experiences taught me what it takes to be a skilled storyteller. Great storytellers
are not just good orators; they have acquired skills that enable them to engage
and enchant their audience.
Your great-grandmother couldn’t send a text or an email, but she had dozens
of life skills we don’t often use today. She knew how to build a fire. She could
knit and sew her clothes. She likely grew and preserved food. And there’s no
doubt she’d have been a better storyteller than you and me put together. She had
to be. Our ancestors needed to tell stories to gain the trust and cooperation of
others in their tight-knit communities. But not only that, they told stories to
make sense of their world and to share that understanding and wisdom with their
tribe.
 When you were three years old, you knew exactly what to say to get what
you wanted. But somewhere along the line, you became reluctant to use these
skills. We all did. Tales of con men and unscrupulous marketers, manipulating
people into doing things that were not in their best interest, coloured our
judgement about what it meant to be persuasive. Our culture taught us that
persuasion was a trick used by people with dishonourable intentions.
But manipulation isn’t a necessary by-product of persuasion. Being
persuasive can be a valuable skill used in the service of others to have a positive
impact. Like any tool or skill, its effect depends on how it’s used. Our intentions
matter. An axe can either shape something or destroy it, and persuasion can be as
much a force for good as for bad.
If we’re in the business of doing work that changes people’s lives for the
better, we must master the art of persuasion. If we want to forge deeper
connections, spread our ideas and help people make decisions they’re glad to
have made, then storytelling will help us get there. Instead of wondering how we
can convince people to buy our product, support our idea or even pick their dirty
laundry up off the floor, we could ask ourselves why they should care. Then we
can be more persuasive on purpose, with intention, and with our heads held high.

“The storyteller’s role isn’t to tell us

what happened, it’s to make us care
that it happened and understand why it
happened.”
I’m guessing that the desire to be more influential and inspiring is one of the
reasons you want to be a great storyteller. I don’t blame you. I feel that way too.
What is it about this thing we call an art that we want to master? The magic of
storytelling is imprinted on us from early childhood. It’s a superpower we bear
witness to, long before we have the ability to speak. We see the power of a
storyteller to hold rapt attention, to change a mind and win a heart. And we want
to own a little of that magic ourselves.
The job of the storyteller is vital to our culture.
We know that if we want to change something, be that a mind or a heart, we
need to gain enrolment from others and bring people with us on the journey. One
of the best ways to do that is by becoming a better storyteller.
Telling our personal stories can be hard. It’s an ironic and universal truth that
the story we know best is the story we often have the least confidence to tell.
The act of storytelling invites the storyteller to be vulnerable—to take a risk that
nobody will care to listen or, worse, that people will reject their story outright.
Great storytellers learn to put their heart on the page and brave the notion of
being good enough to reap the reward that lies on the other side of rejection.
What does it take to become a great storyteller? The answer is a lot of
groundwork before we get to telling a story. But in our culture, we tend to focus
on the telling part—believing that to become a better storyteller you simply need
to practise public speaking and body language skills. There’s more to great
storytelling than stage presence. There are things you need to know and do long
before you pick up your pen or open your mouth. That’s what this book is about:
the things you need to know and do to become a great storyteller.
Do you remember learning to ride a bike without training wheels? You might
recall the encouraging words of the person who ran alongside you. The sunlight
glinting on the spokes as the wheels spun faster. Perhaps you can still remember
the houses lining the street you travelled along, your heart pounding in your ears.
The exact moment you took off. The wobbling, the delight, and cheering as you
pedalled into the distance. One minute you couldn’t do it and the next you were
off. You had acquired a new skill and the confidence to keep practising—so you
got better and better at it.
 Learning to tell your story is a lot like learning to ride a bike. There are basic
principles and tools you can use to get started, and the more you practise, the
better you get. Story skills are as essential to storytelling as balancing is to riding
a bicycle.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD STORY AND A GREAT STORY?

A good story tells.

A great story engages.

A good story informs people.

A great story moves people.

A good story chronicles events.

A great story invests people in the outcome.

A good story changes how we think.

A great story changes how we feel and what we do.

You already have good stories to tell. It’s how you tell them that makes them
great. The goal isn’t just to deliver the information, it’s to capture the
imagination. We don’t have to be smart enough to manipulate people; we have to
be sincere enough to move them. Well-told, true stories are how we do that. But
how do we begin to tell them? Perhaps the better question to ask is: How do we
become the kind of person who can tell them?
Great storytellers develop a set of seven skills we can all hone.
In the seven chapters that follow, you will learn more about each of those
skills and how you can develop them to become your most inspiring and
influential self.
“The best storytellers are:
1. present
2. aware
3. specific
4. vulnerable
5. empathetic
6. intentional
7. brave.”
 1

Be Where You Are

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
MARY OLIVER
“Presence is a luxury every storyteller
affords.”
 Y HUSBAND AND I are sitting in our favourite café on a Saturday

M afternoon. Couples are chatting over a late lunch of cheese and

wine. Families gather over coffee and cake, creating a buzz around
us. The redhead at the table next to us moves her chair so she’s angled not
towards the table but looking out towards the other tables. She glances at the
menu briefly and orders a pot of Earl Grey before reaching into her bag to pull
out a notebook. I watch her flattening the pages with the palm of her left hand as
she holds a fineliner pen in the other. Her gaze is directed towards the couple at
the table opposite, who are smiling into each other’s eyes as they clink their wine
glasses.
‘She’s a writer,’ I declare as we sip our coffee.
My husband humours me with a doubtful smile. ‘Not everyone who carries a
notebook is a writer,’ he says, patting his chest in the place where his notebook is
safely tucked in his inside pocket.
‘It’s not the notebook,’ I say. ‘Watch what she does.’
The redhead carries on observing the couple opposite. Occasionally her eyes
return to her notebook, where she hastily jots down a sentence or two. Every sip
of wine, placement of the glass on the table, touch of a hand on an elbow—every
gesture is recorded in her notebook. And I know for sure those details will end
up in a story or novel one day.
Now, I’m not saying you need to stalk the diners in every café up and down
the land to be a great storyteller. Neither am I saying that my interpretation of
events in the café that day was accurate. For all I know, the redhead was a
private detective gathering evidence about an extramarital affair. What I’m
pointing out is that the raw materials for storytelling don’t appear magically out
of thin air. You have to give yourself something to work with. The potter
wouldn’t dream of coming to her wheel without a lump of clay. And in the same
way, if you’re going to become a better storyteller, you need material to work
with before you can begin. Luckily, that material is all around you, often going
unheard, unnoticed or unremarked upon as you go about your day. It’s up to you
to grab it.
Choose Where Your Attention Goes
Attention is our scarcest resource. But you don’t need me to tell you that; entire
books have been written on the subject of distraction, digital minimalism and
reclaiming our time. The ideas in those books probably aren’t new to you,
because you already sense the fragmented nature of your attention on a daily
basis. You are a living, breathing example of the great social experiment of our
time, in our always-on world. We all are. But here’s the thing: we get to choose
where our attention goes, and that’s an important reminder for any aspiring
storyteller.
Presence is a luxury every storyteller affords. The skill that makes Billy
Connolly a great comedian is the same skill that makes Elizabeth Strout a
brilliant writer and Susan Cain an engaging orator. They choose where their
attention goes. They pay attention to the details that most people overlook.
Because they choose to be where they are, they find things worth noticing. They
use what they see, hear and experience as the raw material for crafting stories in
their jokes, books and speeches. They reflect the truth they observe in the world
back to us, the audience. And in turn we hail what they do as an act of ordinary
genius.
Be the Most Interested Person in the Room
Our shift from tight-knit local communities to a globalised society with an
individualistic culture has conditioned us to believe that the most interesting
people inherit the earth, or at the very least accumulate the most followers on
social media. When it comes to storytelling, though, it’s the most interested who
inherit the best stories. In our digital world, we spend a lot of time trying to be
the most interesting person in the room. Ironically, great storytellers are people
who successfully gather the raw materials for storytelling by observing and
absorbing what’s going on around them. The storyteller is most interested in
others and the fleeting interactions or small details hidden in plain sight.
When we assess storytellers, we tend to rate them on their performance and
delivery. We subconsciously monitor their body language and judge them on
their eloquence in the moment. But great storytelling begins long before
storytellers open their mouth or sit down to write. Their compelling narratives
don’t appear like magic out of thin air. They are grounded in the ordinary events
and happenings they see and hear around them each and every day. They pay
attention to the seemingly mundane or insignificant, and delight in the kind of
details other people overlook or ignore. The best storytellers have two
superpowers. The best storytellers are:

great listeners; and

first-class noticers.

In a fast-paced world, we’re so busy trying to get things done that we don’t
allow ourselves the time to slow down long enough to notice. Why just walk
when we can walk and listen to a podcast or an audiobook at the same time?
This habit of killing two birds with one stone is also killing our storytelling
potential. For every podcast we listen to on our walk, we’re forsaking the
opportunity to notice and ignoring a dozen potential stories. The truth is, you
can’t pay attention to two things at once. If you want to be a better storyteller,
you need to act like one and prioritise mining the everyday world for story
moments. Your attention belongs to you, and you have the choice to reclaim it.
The celebrated Irish writer Maeve Binchy once told a story of overhearing a
conversation between two women on a bus journey into Dublin. A woman was
telling her friend about her parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She was
heading into town to buy them a card. ‘Isn’t that lovely,’ the friend said.
‘Not at all,’ the woman replied. ‘They have a dreadful marriage. But you
know, the worse the marriage, the bigger the card.’
That snippet of conversation was the inspiration for Binchy’s bestselling
book Silver Wedding.
Gail Honeyman’s bestselling novel Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was
inspired by a newspaper article the author read about the problem of loneliness.
At the time, loneliness among people other than the elderly wasn’t a topic that
was readily discussed. Honeyman’s curiosity was piqued by an interview with a
young woman in her twenties. She explained to the reporter that she often didn’t
talk to anyone from the time she left work on Friday until she returned to the
office again on Monday. This story didn’t fit with the typical world view of the
isolated elderly person living alone after losing a partner or far away from their
family. The unanswered questions this article sparked in the author’s mind
became the inspiration for Honeyman’s protagonist.

“Story ideas are all around us.”

Even bestselling novelists draw inspiration from their everyday lives as a
jumping-off point for telling powerful stories. But, as you’ll hear me reiterate
many times throughout this book, you don’t have to be a professional storyteller
to harness the skills that help novelists, screenwriters and accomplished orators
tell better stories.
The writer Ben Herzog says his storytelling process begins by ‘wondering
out loud’. He once got an idea for a story when he caught sight of the Nike
swoosh on the side of his shoe while tying his laces. He began to wonder who
designed it, and then he was off researching his story. Herzog doesn’t just see
objects, people and places in his life; he thinks about their backstories and how
they happen to be where they are or wind up as they do.
Anyone who has read my blog over the years will have noticed that I tell a
disproportionate number of café and hairdresser stories. This isn’t because
Melbourne, the city where I live, has an above-average number of cafés and
hairdressers (though I suspect this is true). It’s because these are places where
unexpectedly intimate conversations happen and life unfolds. Whenever two
people interact, there’s an untold story waiting to be shared.
I’m not the only person to be inspired by these kinds of stories. Dr Joseph
Ravenell’s childhood memories about his neighbourhood barbershop became the
catalyst for a research project that helped more black men seek healthcare in a
setting where they felt comfortable talking about their problems. Here’s his story.

I can remember going to the barbershop with my dad as a kid. We went to Mr

Mike’s barbershop every other Saturday. And like clockwork, the same group of
men would be there every time we went, either waiting on their favourite
barber or just soaking up the atmosphere.

I can remember the jovial greeting that warmly welcomed us every time we
went. ‘Hey Rev,’ they would say to my dad. He’s a local pastor, and they treated
him like a celebrity.

‘Hey young fella, how you doing?’ they would say to me, making me feel
just as special.

The men would talk about politics and sports and music and world news,
national news, neighbourhood news. There was some talk about women and
what it was like to be a black man in America. But many times, they also talked
about health. The conversations about health were lengthy and deep. The men
often recounted their doctor’s recommendations to cut salt in their diet or to eat
less fried foods or to stop smoking or to reduce stress. They talked about the
different ways you could reduce stress, like simplifying one’s love life, all ways
to treat high blood pressure.

After he graduated from medical school, Ravenell became a physician and

researcher. When he began practising medicine, he was reminded of the stories
he’d heard in the barbershop as a child, about men dying from heart attacks in
their fifties. He knew that 40 per cent of black men had blood pressure problems,
but he also knew they often didn’t seek help or advice from their doctor because
of their fear and mistrust of doctors, who they felt often treated them with
disrespect. When Ravenell’s long-time barber, Denny Moe, named this fact in
conversation with him, Ravenell had an epiphany. What if barbershops that were
already community hubs could become places where basic health promotion
took place? Ravenell’s team went on to do blood pressure screening for
thousands of black men in more than two hundred barbershops. Not only did the
stories from his childhood give him a story to tell, they also propelled the power
of storytelling in the community, encouraged healthy living and helped him
connect with his life’s work.
When we’re present, we see stories all around us. We allow openings for
ideas to enter our imagination. We fill our creative well and find the impetus to
begin telling and learning from everyday stories.
YOUR TURN

How to act like a storyteller and reclaim your attention

See with your ears as well as your eyes.

Remove your earbuds.
Look up.
Leave your phone at home or switch it off.
Listen for stories in everyday conversation: in cafés and stores, on
public transport and at the dining table.
Talk to strangers.
Be inquisitive.
Stay curious.
Look for the unfamiliar.
Read posters, ads and notices.
Take a new route.
Discover something out of the ordinary on your usual route.
Carry a notebook.
Watch how people interact with their environment and each other.
Watch how people react to what others say.
Listen to a child.
Begin a sentence with, ‘So, tell me about... ’
Slow down.
Single-task; just listen, just look.

It isn’t that you don’t have any stories to tell. You just need to practise
finding them.
STORY SKILL: BE PRESENT

Choose where your attention goes.

Become the most interested person in the room.
 2

Find the Extraordinary in the Everyday

You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.

MITCH ALBOM
 “Ordinary moments make for
powerful stories. The challenge for
all of us is to find a small story worth
telling.”
 HE JOURNALIST IRA Glass once remarked, ‘Great stories happen to people

T who tell them.’ It’s also true that great stories happen to people who
look out for them. You become a good storyteller by being curious
enough to find meaning in the everyday—not just curious about events that
happen around you, but also moments that happen to you in your life every
single day.
When I work with clients and students who want to become better
storytellers, they often voice the same nagging doubt: I haven’t done anything
earth-shattering in my life. I don’t have an epic story to tell! Many of us believe
that we don’t have a big enough story to tell unless we climbed Mount Everest,
won the Nobel or went broke (and then made millions). I’d like to dispel the
notion that the only stories worth telling are about epic adventures.
I blogged for over a decade before I began writing novels and short stories. It
was a good discipline. Because I knew I’d be posting three times a week, I was
constantly on the lookout for stories to share. I’ve had a lot of practice at finding
meaning in the everyday—discovering stories that are hidden in plain sight, right
under my nose.
How many people did you talk to today? Or maybe a better question to ask
is, How many people did you choose not to talk to? In the 1970s, when I was
growing up, people talked to strangers. Conversations would strike up at bus
stops or while handing over change in a bakery. Not so much anymore. A few
months ago, my husband cautioned me about talking to strangers while we were
riding on the tram. ‘People will think you’re weird,’ he said. And he was right!
His words of warning were a reminder that often the only voices to be heard on
public transport these days are those of the mentally ill. The rest of us—the
apparently sane ones—spend our time stroking the glass-covered rectangles in
our hands, smiling into them as we scroll and swipe through the content that
makes up our digital diet, while pointedly ignoring everyone to our left and
right. Who are the weird ones?
 One of the things we’ve lost in the smartphone era is the stories that arose
from everyday conversations with friends and family or surprise encounters with
strangers. Now we prefer to text rather than call people. It’s just more efficient.
No more long, drawn-out conversations we hadn’t bargained for. We use our
smartphones and earbuds as shields against unanticipated interaction. Now we
can avoid making polite conversation with checkout operators or strangers who
cross our path. The price of this emotional distancing from others is a loss of
connection to our communities and ourselves.
Tell Small Stories
I’m about to help you challenge the misconception that you don’t have stories
worth telling. This might sound obvious, but part of the skill of being a great
storyteller is finding everyday stories to tell. Great storytellers are consistently
mining their life and personal experiences for stories, noticing the world around
them or researching other people’s stories. You need to spend time digging for
your stories before you can hone them. Oprah did just that for her Golden
Globes speech. That ordinary moment in time has become part of her origin
story.
Look for Ordinary Heroes and Heroines
We are used to seeing and hearing stories of high drama in novels and on movie
screens—Batman or Superman saving the day, rushing to the rescue of children
who would otherwise plunge to their deaths in icy waters, their school bus
balanced precariously on the twisted metal of a stricken bridge. But not every
story needs to be an epic tale of a caped crusader who saves the day or the world.
Some of the best stories are about ordinary moments in our lives that teach us to
be braver or kinder, more open-minded or loving. Many heroes and heroines
who cross our paths will never know that they made a difference to us. A teacher
who helps her students believe in themselves. A colleague who challenges the
status quo on behalf of the team. A partner who supports a dream. Our stories
help us reflect on the everyday events that make a difference in our lives and
reveal the best of who we are.
Build a Story Library
Before you can share your stories, you must identify, gather and develop them.
The best storytellers have a system for finding and recording the stories or
potential stories they hear all around them. Some writers, like David Sedaris,
journal every day. American novelist and storyteller Matthew Dicks chooses a
‘story-worthy’ moment from his day and enters it into a spreadsheet every
evening. You can use a pencil and paper or a notes app on your phone. Create a
story ideas folder on your computer or capture them in a notebook. You don’t
need to rely on your memory to capture the ‘story-worthy’ moments in your day.
In teams and organisations, it’s important to create a mechanism for sharing
stories. When companies think of sharing stories these days, it’s most often
through social media. But stories need to be told internally as well, to build trust
and pride, chart a path forward and learn from mistakes. Consider the ways you
can capture and keep your stories. You might have a monthly gathering where
you share customer stories and archive the best of them. These stories can be
used as research for innovation and in marketing. You can ask clients and
customers to share their experience of working with you. Feedback and
testimonials are a great way to gather stories about how your company makes a
difference.
Your stories can and should be recycled, told in different situations to a
variety of audiences. That’s why it’s important to discover and keep a record of
the stories you can tell and remind yourself when you should tell them.
Mailchimp, the email marketing service, is doing a brilliant job of sharing its
customers’ stories. They have an audiovisual content strategy, creating podcasts
and short films that showcase their customers.
While the story I’m about to tell you isn’t a work-related story, it is one that
almost got away, and that’s why I want to share it with you. It might have
remained a throwaway remark in a conversation if I hadn’t been aware that there
was more to the story.
My parents still live in Dublin, where I was born and raised. I haven’t lived
there for more than thirty years, but I know deep in my bones that Dublin is very
much a part of my story. I Skype Mum and Dad from Australia every week.
Skype is the only reason they have an internet connection, and it’s changed the
kind of conversations we can have. A few months ago, Dad told me a story about
his father that I didn’t remember hearing before. He happened to mention
something in passing during one of our chats about a song he remembered his
father singing when he was a child. Here’s the story that unfolded during our
conversation.

My grandad, William, was a baker. He married the love of his life, Ellen, and
they had eleven children together. Tragically, my granny Ellen died, aged just
thirty-eight, soon after giving birth to her last child—a son my grandad named
Michael. My dad was ten at the time, and he remembers the nuns coming to their
house soon after Granny died, offering to help with the children. The nuns’ plan
involved splitting the children up and placing them with other families. Grandad
wouldn’t let the nuns past the front door. He politely refused their help because
he wanted to keep his family together. He did concede to his sister raising baby
Michael. But he cared for the rest of his brood with the help of his community.

Soon after Granny died, Grandad enlarged and framed a small photo he had
of her. That photo lived above the fireplace in his front room until the day he
died. Dad remembers my grandad singing an old sailing song to that photo,
sometimes through tears. The chorus went something like, ‘I’ll stick to the ship
that I love.’ That ship, Dad says, was the family.

Whenever my dad decorated the front room for Grandad, the only thing he
cared about was when Granny’s photo would be back in its rightful place.

When I got off that call with my parents, I couldn’t help thinking how easily this
story might have been lost. When we’re the most interested person in the room,
we discover the extraordinary in the ordinary. We dig a little deeper and find
meaning in the seemingly unexceptional.

YOUR TURN: HOW TO FIND YOUR STORIES

Make a list of firsts and favourites:

Recall your first day at school, first friend, first trip overseas, first
job, first kiss, first loss.
Write about your favourite uncle, your favourite place, favourite T-
shirt.
Use a life events timeline to map out some moments or memories
in your life.
Talk to your parents and grandparents, and gather stories from your
childhood.
Pore over old photos or yearbooks.
Look at the recent photos on your phone. Remember when you
took them and why.

Keep a journal for a week, and each night remind yourself of a

conversation you had with your child.

fleeting interaction you had with a stranger.
moment that made you see yourself or the world through new eyes.
 challenge you overcame.
hope you experienced.

Just listen:

Pay attention to the conversations around you.

When you ask someone how they’re doing, mean it. Listen for their
response.
Strike up conversations with people you meet.
Ask about what happened. This is especially useful when you’re
listening to children.
Invite people to tell you their story. They will.
Be present during conversations with loved ones.
And a final tip from the bestselling author David Sedaris: stop
making small talk.

How to gather and save your stories:

Carry a notebook or use a note-taking app for story gathering.

Build a story library to remember and record your stories.
Record the story source, and when and why you discovered it.
Integrate a story-gathering ritual into your day or week.
Think about when, why and to whom you should tell your stories.
Look through old photographs to remind yourself about what
happened on that day in that place.
Sort out the digital photos on your computer, adding notes on
people, locations and events. Print out a few special ones for
yourself and others.
STORY SKILL: BE AWARE

Tell small stories.

Look for ordinary heroes and heroines.
Gather and save your stories.
 3

Harness the Power of the Particular

In the particular is contained the universal.

JAMES JOYCE
“If you find your story reading or
sounding like a laundry list, then
you’re likely trying to cover too
much ground in too little time.”
 HESE WORDS OF wisdom from James Joyce are often preached to writers

T as one of the secrets to telling stories with emotional resonance. Joyce

believed that stories have universal themes, and that the more specific
we can be about the situations in which our heroes and heroines find themselves,
the more likely our stories are to resonate with our audience. He reminds us that
you don’t have to have lived in Dublin (where many of his stories were set) to
know what it’s like to experience the heartbreak of a woman’s unrequited love or
the devastation of a man who has given up on his dreams. If we want to tell
better stories, we need to reveal specific details that help the audience relive that
moment in time with the hero or heroine.
We commit the specifics of the story to memory. I remember reading a story
by the author Cheryl Strayed, written in response to a letter from a reader of her
Dear Sugar column. This story was later published in her book Tiny Beautiful
Things. In the story, Strayed expresses regret over how she reacted when she
received a gift from her mother one Christmas. The reader asked: ‘What would
you tell your twenty-something self if you could talk to her now?’ Here is
Strayed’s response:

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives
you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically
after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and
say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too
warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she
gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.
Say thank you.

Clearly, Strayed is a professional writer. But you don’t have to be a professional

to learn from her. Notice that what makes this story more powerful are the small,
specific details she remembers: the things she disliked about the coat and the
words she said to her mother. We feel the weight of her guilt and regret in these
details. We can relate this story to the moments in our own lives when we were
ungrateful or ungracious, and we internalise the lesson the story teaches us.
Say More with Less
What I’m about to say will sound like a contradiction. While it’s important to be
specific, it’s also important to be selective about the details you share in your
stories. The fastest way to bore your audience to tears is to give them a blow-by-
blow account of every single detail that happened as it happened. Sometimes we
are so preoccupied with the chronology of our story that we end up simply
recounting events.
Remember, you’re not giving a commentary, you’re telling a story.
What might work instead is zeroing in on a moment and using what
happened on that day, during that conversation, in that room or the place where
the story unfolded, to help the reader sense what it was like to live that
experience.
The writer Celeste Ng does this brilliantly in the opening of her novel
Everything I Never Told You. She shows the reader how much pressure teenaged
Lydia is under to succeed academically by sharing tiny details simply and
quickly:

Lydia is late for breakfast. As always, next to her cereal bowl, her mother has
placed a sharpened pencil, and Lydia’s physics homework, six problems flagged
by small ticks.

You can do this with small, factual details in your stories that create intimacy
with the reader or listener. Notice how good writers, comedians and speakers
drop specific details into their stories. They might not talk about going to a café
to buy a coffee; instead, they will talk about waiting in line at Starbucks for a
caramel latte. You won’t need to pepper every sentence with details, but
including some detail grounds your reader or listener in time and place, drawing
them into the moment with you.
Show, Don’t Tell
The most common storytelling mistake I see is the failure to help the reader or
listener experience the story. Your goal when you’re telling your stories is to
bring the audience on an emotional journey—not just a factual or chronological
one. Yes, the best stories are true. Great stories contain facts, but convey the
truth by helping the audience live it. You can help your reader or listener
experience the story by bringing them into the moment with you.
What do I mean by that? Start in the action. Think of every story you tell as
opening with a lead-in sentence, such as, So, there I was... or So, there they
were... Sometimes the lead-in sentence is spoken or written, but it doesn’t have
to be. Rather than telling people that events unfolded, help them experience how
events unfolded. Bring the audience into the moment by sharing sensory details,
and communicate feelings, not just the facts. Consider the example from Celeste
Ng’s work I gave earlier. The author could have told the reader that Lydia had a
pushy mother. Instead, she chose to show them with the tiny detail about the
reality that Lydia lived. So, the reader doesn’t need to understand physics
homework or have any experience being a teenaged girl; he or she will be
carried along by the feeling of disappointing your parents.
We can all tell stories about particular experiences in our lives that have
universal themes. Here is a story I tell from my childhood about failure and
resilience. This was the day I learned that failure is the flip side of ambition; in
order to have one, you need to experience the other.

The community fair is in full swing. Competitive gardeners and proud bakers
turn up in equal measure to show their handiwork. I have my eye on a prize. I
learned to bake at my mother’s hip and by the age of twelve there wasn’t much I
couldn’t tackle. This year I am going for it. I am entering the children’s baking
competition with the Strawberry Chocolate Box—a luscious creation I’ve seen
on the front cover of Woman’s Weekly magazine.

‘Just write down what you need on the list and we’ll get it when we go
shopping,’ Mum says in the days leading up to the fair. She doesn’t raise an
eyebrow when strawberries and good-quality dark chocolate are added to the list.
That week she spends a quarter of the weekly grocery allowance on the
ingredients for that cake.

I lock myself in the kitchen for two whole summer days and set to work. I
pick perfect rose leaves from the garden. I use a tiny paintbrush to painstakingly
coat the back of each one with chocolate, before peeling them once they’re set to
reveal perfect edible leaves. The sponge rises like a dream in the oven and each
ripe strawberry used to decorate the top is drizzled with even more chocolate.
The finished result looks just like the cake on the magazine cover—almost too
good to eat. And some would say, too good to have been made from scratch by a
twelve-year-old.

On the day of the competition we line up at the battered blue door of the
community centre to hand in our entries. Mum enters an apple tart and I am
competing in the open children’s category. The Strawberry Chocolate Box stands
proudly alongside the lopsided Rice Krispies cakes and fairy buns with their
wobbly icing. There is a lot of oohing and aahing over my entry, and more than a
couple of questions about how much help my mother has given me. But it seems
like there is no contest. Nothing can touch the Strawberry Chocolate Box.

When the big moment arrives, the two judges come forth holding a sheet of
paper with numbers of the winning entries carefully printed on the front. I crane
my neck and strain my eyes to see if I can make out my number through the thin
sheet of paper. They commend all the entries and begin announcing results in
reverse order. I stand patiently, heart pounding, waiting for my number to be
called. It never happens. The Strawberry Chocolate Box hasn’t won a prize. My
best efforts have failed. All my hard work is down the drain. The word is the
judges found it hard to believe that a child was capable of producing a cake this
polished without help. They don’t believe that this is my work. My cheeks grow
hot as we begin packing up the remains of our cakes. I don’t trust myself to
speak because I know if I do the tears will come.

Later, outside the hall, my mother turns to face me. She looks me in the eyes
and says: ‘Never be limited by the small dreams other people have for you.’ It
takes a few minutes for the words to sink in. I say nothing. I just nod. ‘Now let’s
go home and get the kettle on,’ she says, taking my hand. ‘We still have a lovely
cake to eat for tea.’

When we’re specific, we take our audience on an emotional journey with us.
They may not have experienced exactly the same challenges as us, but they can
relate to the experience of having tried and failed, loved and lost, pushed through
and prevailed.

YOUR TURN: HOW TO BE SPECIFIC

Start in the action.

Describe tiny, true details.
Zoom in on one small scene of a bigger story.
 Draw the reader or listener into a single moment in time.
Help the audience experience what the characters experience as
events unfold.
Ground the audience in time and place with locations, character
names, seasons and so on.
Paint a picture of what the characters in the story are seeing,
smelling and experiencing.
Describe emotions and reactions, rather than stating how someone
or something felt.

STORY SKILL: BE SPECIFIC

Say more with less.

Show don’t tell.
 4

Speak from the Heart

We think we tell stories, but often stories tell us.

REBECCA SOLNIT
“Great storytellers are not naturals.
Their story skills were not fully
formed on day one.”
 Y FRIEND MICHAEL Bungay Stanier has a theory about why Ireland

M turns out so many great storytellers. He reckons that the Irish

government has a secret breeding programme that allows anyone
born there to drink Guinness and tell amazing stories in a fantastically humorous
way. ‘It’s like the Jamaican sprint team in the Olympics,’ he says. ‘If there was a
storytelling Olympics, the Irish would be like the Jamaican relay team and win
all the gold medals.’
While it is true that in Dublin people will often greet each other by asking,
‘What’s the story?’, you can already tell just by reading this that Michael, who is
an Australian living in Canada, has debunked his own myth. But he is on to
something. The part he’s not got quite right is the bit about Irish people being
endowed with a storytelling superpower that is exclusively theirs. There’s no
such thing as a natural storytelling gene. If we Irish have any advantage, it’s that
we are practised storytellers.
There’s a distinction between natural ability and acquired skill. The skills that
make the great storytellers are curiosity and openness. Irish people are the
nosiest people on the planet. They’re not afraid to ask questions or strike up a
conversation at a bus stop or supermarket checkout. Irish people always want to
know your story. And, importantly, they are also open to sharing their stories. In
my experience, they are less reserved about revealing the small details of their
everyday lives to others, even people they don’t know.
On my last visit to my parents in Dublin, a stranger sat next to me on the bus
into the city. By the time she got off at her stop on O’Connell Street, I knew she
made this same journey every Thursday to the station. She would catch a train to
visit her disabled brother in another county. I learned that this was easier for her
now that her daughters were grown up. She showed me the library book she’d
brought to read on the train. Far from being the chore the weekly visit once was
when her kids were small, she now enjoyed the solitude of the journey as much
as the day out. I would never meet this woman again. I don’t know her name.
But I do know part of her story.
When I moved to a small Scottish town soon after I got married, those
random conversations with strangers who would happily reveal something about
their life at a bus stop was something I missed.
The comedian Billy Connolly, who is renowned for his storytelling, says he
was a storyteller long before he was a comedian. When I was growing up, I
watched Billy’s routines on television. I noticed that he often told slightly
different versions of the same story over and over again. When I eventually saw
him perform live in Australia, I realised that he’d perfected his stories with
practice.
Connolly says his stories often develop from a one-liner that gets a laugh.
That line makes it into the routine the following night and he keeps adding to it.
He learned the art of storytelling in the Glasgow shipyards, where he worked as
a welder. The older men would sit around during their tea breaks, when the hum
from the machinery died down, and tell stories. Decades later, he still remembers
those stories even though the storytellers are long gone. ‘They’re both dead, but
they’re alive to me,’ he says.
Great storytellers hone their craft by having the courage to tell unpolished
stories. They begin with rough first drafts and tell imperfect stories in
classrooms and friends’ living rooms before getting published or taking to the
stage.
When vulnerability researcher Brené Brown took to the TED stage in 2010,
she wasn’t a professional storyteller. She didn’t lead with facts and data the way
most scientists presenting their findings would do. Instead, she told a personal
story about having a breakdown and going into therapy. Brown later explained
that she thought she’d committed career suicide by confessing onstage to having
had a breakdown. In fact, the opposite was true. Her aptly named talk ‘The
Power of Vulnerability’ became one of the most-watched TED Talks and led to
worldwide acclaim for Brown’s work as an author and speaker.
I once watched a performance by satirist David Sedaris. He stood behind a
lectern reading his story. The only equipment he had onstage was the sheaf of A4
pages on which his story was printed and a yellow pencil. As he read through the
story, whenever the audience laughed, he marked that place on the page in front
of him. In that way, by taking a leap of faith and showing up with a story he
thought was good enough, he was able to make it better.

“Storytelling is not a gift or even an

art. It’s an act—a skill you can get
better at with practice.”
Every great novel survives multiple drafts. Memorable speeches are
rehearsed. It turns out that giftedness is a myth. There’s no such thing as a
natural. All the greats find the courage to begin before they’re ready.
Practise the Act
It’s all very well to know the steps to telling a great story; it’s another thing to
tell it. You master the art by practising the act. You have to get in front of people
and watch and listen for what resonates with them. We wouldn’t expect to serve
an ace or hit the perfect backhand without having practised. And yet, when it
comes to storytelling, we give ourselves a hard time for not nailing it from start
to finish the first time. Perhaps it’s because we spend so much time listening to
and reading other people’s stories that our expectations about how easy and
effortless storytelling should be are skewed. You could watch Roger Federer
return serves all day long, but that doesn’t mean you could replicate them. It’s all
very well to know the theory, but it’s only by implementing it that we get better.
We must practise the act to perfect our art.
Take a Leap of Faith
I’ve tried every which way to open this paragraph without referencing the
well-worn data about how many of us fear speaking in public. In the end, it
doesn’t matter what the statistics say if you already know this to be true for you.
Sharing a story, even with the smallest audience, is a vulnerable act because
telling a personal story means being open to generously giving the gift of
yourself to the world. For that reason, great storytelling requires a good dose of
vulnerability. In her book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown describes vulnerability
as ‘uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure’. She goes on to say that
‘vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and
creativity’. Storytelling is a leap of faith, a courageous act of trust in the reader
or listener—and, most importantly, in yourself. You must inch your way to being
braver—not necessarily by standing on a big stage in front of thousands of
people at first, but by finding opportunities to practise storytelling at every
opportunity without self-judgement. You must find a way to speak your truth.
Start before you’re ready. Trust your audience.
So now it’s my turn to be vulnerable and trust you, my reader, with two
interconnected stories I haven’t told before.

It’s the spring of 1988 and I am standing on the welcome mat outside the parish
priest’s house holding my fiancé’s hand. I have butterflies in my stomach. It’s
not every day you get to ask a priest if he will officiate at your wedding. This
was the church where I grew up. I was baptised there. The church where I sang
in the school choir at Sunday Mass. I let go of my fiancé’s hand and knock.
 Father R., in a red V-neck jumper and sheepskin slippers, opens the door a
crack. He doesn’t look happy to be disturbed but retreats down the hall to go get
his diary. We are left standing at the door. When he returns, he starts quizzing
my fiancé. ‘I don’t know you. Where are you from? What religion are you?’
When my partner answers that he was raised a Muslim, Father R. closes the
diary and looks me squarely in the eye. ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing?
What are you going to do when your children are abducted and taken to
Pakistan? I’d urge you to go away and rethink this decision.’ I am lost for words.
He closes the door in our faces. I stand rooted to the welcome mat and listen to
the sound of the sheepskin slippers shuffling back down the hall away from us.

Fast-forward to thirty-two happily married years later.

It’s just past 6 a.m. on what promises to be a gorgeous summer day. I’m at
the gym, standing next to my weights, ready for the class to begin. Some of us
regulars who always show up early are chatting with other members around us.
Words between two friends having a conversation next to me cut across the
space between us.

‘Stupid bloody Indian.’ I know immediately my friend is speaking about the

instructor teaching the class next door. ‘What did he say?’ I ask the friend nearest
to me, who was part of the conversation. She shakes her head and laughs,
unwilling to repeat the words. The man who uttered them can’t look me in the
eye. ‘My husband is Indian,’ I manage to blurt out. ‘That is not okay.’ An
awkward silence settles around us. My embarrassed friend’s partner leaps to his
defence. ‘That’s the trouble,’ he says, ‘nobody can say anything anymore. I’ve
been called much worse than that in my lifetime because I’m gay, and I don’t
care. I just brush it off.’ I fumble for words I should have. ‘That doesn’t make it
right,’ I manage to say before the class starts.
 For an hour, I am red-faced. Not just with exertion. I am angry and ashamed
of myself for not having the words that could change this guy’s attitude there and
then. I’m a writer, a storyteller. I should be able to find the words to obliterate
his world view and change his behaviour forever. But I don’t. A heaviness lodges
in my chest. I’m sad for the times over the past thirty years when words have
failed me in situations like this. I wish I’d said something when my then fiancé
and I stood on the doorstep of the parish priest’s house in Dublin decades ago.
When we stood there full of joy and hope for the future, asking him to marry us
in the church where generations of my family had been blessed in baptism and
burials, where I had sung in the school choir. I should have had words to protest
his refusal to marry us because of the colour of my fiancé’s skin. Instead, I stood
rooted to the welcome mat and allowed the priest to shut the door in our faces.

After the class, my friend asks if he can have a word outside. He apologises.
Tells me he shouldn’t have said what he did. But as I look into his eyes, I see
what he really means is that he’s sorry I overheard him. And now I am sad
because I know our friendship can never be the same again.

Later, his partner messages me to ask if things are okay between us. I explain
why I don’t agree with his view that I am being oversensitive. I text him a long
message saying that our words matter. My thumbs tap out the words that say it’s
not okay for people to abuse him because of his sexuality. I say it’s up to us to
create the future we want to see, and by saying nothing or shrugging it off, we
are complicit. And after I hit Send, I create my ‘if-then’ strategy. If in the future
someone says or does something that is racist, then I will say: ‘That is not okay.’
I will have faith in the power of those words to create a ripple effect, one
interaction at a time.
If we want to influence and inspire people, our messages must not just engage,
they must also move people to act or have a change of heart. Mutual respect,
understanding and trust are how we gain the commitment we need to change
things. We must show up with our whole hearts.

YOUR TURN: HOW TO SPEAK FROM THE

HEART

Become a kitchen table storyteller—tell powerful stories in

everyday settings.
Create a note-taking, journaling or story-writing ritual.
Start a blog.
Practise telling one small story every day.
Notice when you tell an unplanned story, and record it to tell again
later.
Consider how you could rework the stories you already tell.
Reminisce with family and friends.
Look for opportunities to insert stories into your everyday written
and face-to-face conversations.

STORY SKILL: BE VULNERABLE

Practise the act.

Take a leap of faith.
 5

Stand in the Audience’s Shoes

Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of
others and the stories they share about you.
SHANNON L. ALDER
“That’s what stories are for: to teach
us how to call on ourselves in good
times and in bad. Stories are a
compass for the heart.”
 NCE UPON A time. The four words that begin our earliest childhood

O lessons. Long before we know how to tell stories, we understand that

they are our teachers. We are transported to worlds where heroes and
heroines find themselves in specific circumstances, faced with choices that force
them to undergo change. And we learn along the way how we too might be
braver and more true to ourselves. We are the heroes of our stories—characters,
in circumstances, facing choices we must navigate. How we navigate those
choices and the outcomes we experience as a result teach us something about
how we can trust ourselves to do what’s right. Every day, there’s an opportunity
for us to use yesterday’s stories as wise counsel for tomorrow.
As I was writing this book, during the winter of 2020 (June here in
Australia), William (Will) Callaghan, a fourteen-year-old boy with non-verbal
autism, went missing on Mount Disappointment, eighty kilometres from
Melbourne. His family were hiking on a Monday afternoon when Will ran on
ahead, and they lost sight of him. That first night after he disappeared was one of
the coldest winter nights in Victoria. Everyone feared the worst.
When the story broke in the media, hundreds of volunteers showed up
offering to join in the search for him. Volunteers were told that Will couldn’t
speak but would point to his chest to communicate. They learned that he loved
the smell of bacon and onions and was a big Thomas the Tank Engine fan. After
two days and nights, the police and rescuers were growing more worried. Still,
they tried to remain optimistic. His mother, Carol, told the press that she wasn’t
one for praying but she was praying that day. She prayed that her son would be
found alive and well on this crisp winter Wednesday.
Around lunchtime, the news came that a volunteer rescuer had found Will.
He was a little dehydrated but conscious, and walked with the rescuer out
through the bush. When I heard the news, relief flooded through me and tears
welled up. I had not, like Will’s mother, spent two sleepless nights fearing the
worst, but I could empathise with an anxious mother praying for her son’s safe
return.
Princeton professor Uri Hasson’s research has shown that when we tell
stories, the brains of the listeners and the speaker synchronise. Stories literally
help us build biological and emotional common ground. It’s our very makeup,
our physiology, that enables us to empathise and be persuaded by stories. This
physiological connection between head and heart is the reason stories work.
The amygdala, part of the emotional centre of the brain, is our brain’s
gatekeeper. It’s constantly filtering signals and stimulating a response, preparing
us to react or respond—to flee when we’re threatened or empathise when we’re
emotionally engaged.
We prioritise information by subconsciously asking three questions:

Is this a threat?
Is this boring?
Is this too complicated?

The signal we get from our amygdala determines what we do next.

Neurotransmitters help us process positive and negative stimuli and prioritise our
responses accordingly. When we sense a threat, our brain is flooded with the
neurochemical adrenaline, triggering our fight-or-flight response. The
neurochemical oxytocin has the opposite effect, preparing us to tend and
befriend.

“Storytelling is a hopeful act. We all

carry the hope of being seen and
heard, of having enough influence to
 make a difference, of doing work that
matters.”
When we’re trying to influence and persuade people, our first job is to get
past the amygdala. The hands won’t do what the heart can’t feel and the head
doesn’t understand. That’s where stories come in. According to Professor Paul
Zak, ‘narratives that cause us to pay attention and also involve us emotionally
are the stories that move us to action.’
Every day we are challenged with earning the trust of the people we meet,
lead or serve.
When people are given the microphone or stand on a stage, they have our
attention, we listen. They have a captive audience for eighteen minutes, an hour
or maybe a day—if they’re lucky. Here’s the thing: you don’t need a captive
audience to be heard. You need better true stories, well told. You don’t have to
rely on luck to tell better stories; you can do it with intention and practice—by
design.
The world is waiting not to be held captive but to be captivated by new
voices—for the hopeful messages and stories each of us has to tell.
You don’t need permission to take the stage.
You need to practise telling stories that matter. In a world where attention has
become both currency and commodity, it’s tempting to believe there’s a direct
correlation between influencer status and impact.
The modern definition of ‘influencer’ is ‘someone who can persuade people
with their recommendations’. But it turns out that the people who have the
greatest impact are not necessarily the people with the most influence. Our
impact isn’t measured only in crude metrics like attention. Think about the
people who have had the most impact on your life—a patient teacher, a caring
friend or a wise mentor. These people likely made a difference with something
they continually did, not just something they once told you to do.
Even though nine of her children immigrated to England in the 1960s to find
work, my grandmother never travelled outside Ireland. She refused to try
cucumber, though my English aunt insisted on making cucumber sandwiches
whenever she came to visit. Even after her doctor told her cigarettes were bad
for her angina, Granny still smoked forty cigarettes a day, until the day she died
of a massive heart attack.
My granny didn’t see herself as the kind of person who would get on a boat
or try food she’d never eaten. And her enjoyment of smoking outweighed the
downsides in her eyes. Change making isn’t as simple as taking someone on a
journey to something different. Effective change engages someone in being the
kind of person they want to be. When you know who your people want to
become, you can tell a more relevant and resonant story.
Begin with the End in Mind
No story is for everyone. And if you’re going to make an impact, it’s important
to know who your stories are for. When we understand the audience’s world
view, we can tell stories that resonate more deeply with them. A world view is a
point of view, a way of seeing the world. World views are not formed objectively
and supported by facts; they are subjective, values-based reflections of our
experiences and beliefs. Our world views shape our attitudes and biases,
influence our decisions and guide our actions. If what people believe influences
their choices just as much as, if not more than, where they live or how much they
earn, then we need to focus our attention there. It stands to reason that you can
tell a more resonant story when you know whom you’re talking to.
What’s the message you want to share with your audience? How do you want
them to feel? Who might they become once you’ve told your story? What will
they do differently? It’s only by answering these questions that we can get to a
place of understanding how our message intersects with the audience’s needs,
wants and world view. That’s why beginning with that end in mind is key to
telling a story that influences and inspires.
The greatest gift you can give a person is to see who she is and reflect that
back to her. When we help people be who they want to be, when we help them
take back some of the permission they deny themselves, we are doing our best,
most meaningful work.
Give the Audience a Gift
Change happens when we prioritise impact over influence—when we use our
stories for good. We get to choose which matters most.
The promise of the digital age was the ability to more cheaply and rapidly
raise awareness of our value, our message or our cause. Digital media levelled
the playing field and gave all of us the chance to spread our ideas.
In some cases, the desire to quickly spread ideas has led to the misbelief that
to control the message, we must manipulate the story. But when we prioritise
being heard, we stop listening to the people we serve. We quickly lose ground
when we put self-interest before service. The opportunity to harness the tools
available in order to hear, not only to be heard, is open to all of us. We get to
choose how we take advantage of it.

“Stories are how we change things,

by taking the audience on a journey
with us and helping them to believe,
not just to notice.”
Our metrics of success are often the tangible—sales, clicks, votes, bums in
seats. They can be seen and touched, counted and compared. The intangible
metrics that are felt are harder to quantify. What are the metrics of belonging,
trust or true love? It is those intangibles—often only evidenced or experienced
over time—that are the backbone of strong relationships, communities and
brands. We have become impatient to see results. We don’t allow time to
cultivate a sense of belonging. So, we’re left to question: If it can’t be seen,
touched or measured, did it matter? And if the answer is yes, how do we account
for that which cannot be so easily quantified? That’s a question every one of us
must answer.
The writer George Saunders told this story as part of a commencement
speech he delivered to the students of Syracuse University in the summer of
2013, to explain his regret over his failures of kindness.

In the seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of
confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be ‘ELLEN’. ELLEN was small,
shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore.
When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand
of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored,
occasionally teased (‘Your hair taste good?’—that sort of thing). I could see this
hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down,
a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she
was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After a while she’d drift away,
hair-strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother
would say, you know: ‘How was your day, sweetie?’ and she’d say, ‘Oh, fine.’
And her mother would say, ‘Making any friends?’ and she’d go, ‘Sure, lots.’

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to
leave it.

And then—they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing.
 One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.

End of story.

Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking
about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I
never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended
her.

But still. It bothers me.

Saunders gave graduates the gift of a small story, reminding them that whatever
they achieve in life, however high they climb, they should remember to treat
others with kindness. When we’re empathetic, we tell our stories in the service
of others. We understand that our stories serve a purpose and we can tell them
from a place of generosity.

YOUR TURN 1: HOW TO BE MORE

EMPATHETIC

Be curious.
Listen, not to wait your turn to speak, but to understand.
Avoid judgement.
Ask questions.
Widen your circle.
Examine your biases.
 Read and research.
Get to know your audience.
Describe the change your audience wants to make.
Decide how you hope the audience will be changed by having
heard your story.
Watch and listen to how the audience reacts or responds to your
story as it unfolds.

YOUR TURN 2: HOW TO DEFINE YOUR

AUDIENCE AND YOUR GOALS

Knowing your audience will help you choose a story that will resonate.
You might choose to change the audience you’re addressing as you
workshop your stories later. But for now, consider choosing a story
you’d like to tell just one friend or colleague who wants to get to know
you or your work better.
Begin with the end in mind by asking yourself the following
questions:

Who is my reader or listener?

Who are they before they hear my story?
How are they changed afterwards?
What’s the change I hope to show them?
What’s the change they want for themselves?
STORY SKILL: BE EMPATHETIC

Begin with the end in mind.

Give the audience a gift.
 6

Give Your Stories a Shape and a Point

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you
questions to think upon.
BRANDON SANDERSON
 “Unlike anecdotes, stories are
constructed in a way that makes them
meaningful and memorable.”
 TORIES ARE LIKE oxygen, they are all around us—an essential part of our

S lives. They not only entertain, influence and inspire us—stories are
literally the making of us. Without stories, and the shared beliefs they
enable us to embrace, we would not be able to come together to create
communities and societies. Stories are the currency of collaboration and the
backbone of our civilisation. We can agree that stories are powerful enablers of
change and that we find great storytellers compelling. Scientists can even show
us how story affects our brain and our physiological responses.
We understand what a story does and why it’s important. But do we know
what a story is?
Here’s one way to think about it, and our working definition for this book: a
story is an account of a character, in a set of circumstances, facing choices, who
undergoes change.
The actions the character takes (their choices) to overcome obstacles and
resolve conflict change them, their world view and in turn the audience’s world
view. Memorable stories show us how challenges are overcome, how conflict is
resolved and how the hero or heroine changed as a result. The hero or heroine
doesn’t always get to live happily ever after in the material world, but they
usually experience a change of heart. In compelling stories, reluctant heroes and
heroines find the courage to love, lead and sometimes lose with grace.
All stories have a plot—the events that make up the story. Great stories also
have a particular structure, which causes a visceral emotional response in the
listener or reader—making the story more meaningful and memorable, and thus
effective. The information we give the audience must be released in a particular
sequence to elicit this response. As we’ll see, how we structure the stories we tell
changes the way the audience responds. We can intentionally craft our stories to
elicit that response in our audience. And in the end, isn’t that the whole point of
telling a story in the first place—to inspire the change we hope to see in the
world?
 In Toy Story, when Woody realises after Buzz Lightyear’s arrival that he may
no longer be Andy’s favourite toy, he is faced with choices that change him
forever.
In A Christmas Carol, when the ghosts confront Scrooge with visions of his
life, he chooses to change and becomes a more empathetic and generous human.
When the owl arrives with the letter from Hogwarts, Harry Potter is faced
with the choice of whether or not to embrace his identity as a wizard.
You can feel the effect of a great story. But unless you’re a professional
storyteller, it’s unlikely that you learned the secret to revealing the right part of
the story at the right time to elicit reactions in others. That’s what you’re going
to learn in this chapter: how to craft your stories so that they have a shape and a
point that captivates your audience.
Your story has one job: to be meaningful and memorable to your audience.
You do that by having a beginning, middle and end that as a whole engages the
audience, shows the hero or heroine’s challenge and describes the change he or
she undergoes. If the work doesn’t do all three of these things, then it’s probably
an anecdote, not a story. Think of these three principles as charting the emotional
path for your audience.
You need to ensure that in the beginning and middle of your story, your
audience has questions about what happened and will happen next, and that
those questions are resolved by the end of the story. The best storytellers don’t
conclude by explaining the moral of the story; they allow their audience to
experience an insight or epiphany through the story. When the bad guy in the
movie goes to prison, when the heroine sticks to her values and follows her
heart, when the hero follows the call to adventure, we see that being true to
ourselves in the face of adversity makes us step up to be kinder, more
resourceful and more resilient.
Once you learn to recognise the patterns in strong stories, you won’t be able
to unsee them. And soon you’ll be able to replicate them to craft your own
compelling stories.
Scaffold Your Stories
All stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. At the start of the story, the
storyteller engages the audience. In the middle, he or she shows the challenge
the protagonist must overcome. By the end of the story, the audience can see
how the protagonist has changed as a result. Particular details are revealed to the
audience during each part of the story. These three stages of the story chart the
internal and external journey you must take your audience on.
When I’m teaching story skills, I share what I call the 5 Cs of storytelling.
The 5 Cs give stories a particular structure that invests the audience in the
outcome as the story unfolds. They are: Context, Catalyst, Complication,
Change and Consequence. Think of these 5 Cs as scaffolding for your stories.

Context + Catalyst: The Backstory and Event

Here you introduce us to the hero or heroine’s world and show us how
something changes in that world. Your goal here is to engage the audience.
Capture our interest. We must know who, when, where and what. Draw us in.
Set the scene and make us care about what happens next to arouse curiosity and
surprise.

THE BACKSTORY AND EVENT: SHOW AND TELL

Who is involved?
Where and when does the story happen?
What does the hero or heroine want?
What changes in the hero or heroine’s world?

Storytelling is a combination of showing and telling. Telling is about the

chronology of events, what happens—the plot. Showing is the way we evoke
emotions in the audience, using sensory details and also by creating empathy for
the characters. Our goal is to help the audience understand what’s at stake and
experience some of what the characters feel in the moment.

Complication + Change: The Obstacle and

Transformation

We need to understand the problems facing the hero or heroine, and see the path
he or she chooses to overcome them. Engage your audience with the hero or
heroine’s struggle, both their inner and outer dilemmas. Don’t just detail facts
and events; demonstrate what’s at stake emotionally for them. Your goal is to
elicit empathy.

THE OBSTACLE: SHOW AND TELL

What’s the problem they must overcome?

What choices do they face as a result?
What decisions do they make?

THE TRANSFORMATION: SHOW AND TELL

How did the hero or heroine overcome the obstacle?

What path did they decide on?
What happened next?
What does the hero or heroine want?
What feelings do they wrestle with?

Consequence: The Resolution

The story’s resolution sparks an insight. Show your audience how the hero or
heroine’s fate, character or world view changed as a result of their actions. What
can we learn from their journey? Make sure your ending aligns with the goal you
had in mind at the start of your story and that it fulfils the promise you made to
the audience at the beginning. Your goal is to evoke wonder, hope or joy.

THE RESOLUTION: SHOW AND TELL

How have the hero or heroine’s actions changed him or her?

What can their fate and world view teach us about ourselves?
The Story Scaffold in Action
The purpose of your story is to get your message believed, not just noticed. We
create this kind of emotional resonance with people when we communicate a
truth they can apply to their own lives—a lesson they can take away or get
behind. What happened to the hero? What changed in the world as a result of the
events that unfolded? A great ending shows the hero/heroine playing an active
part in resolving their own internal problems, rather than being rescued by
someone else.
Let’s break this down by looking at a story example from Susan Cain’s
popular TED Talk on the power of introverts.

Context + Catalyst: The Backstory and Event

We are introduced to the heroine’s world and something that changes in her
world.

Susan introduces us to her family life and values, as she’s going to camp for the
first time.

When I was nine years old, I went off to summer camp for the first time. And my
mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like a perfectly
natural thing to do. Because in my family, reading was the primary group
activity. And this might sound antisocial to you, but for us, it was really just a
different way of being social. You have the animal warmth of your family sitting
right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventure land
inside your own mind. And I had this idea that camp was going to be just like
this, but better.
Complication: The Obstacle

The heroine is faced with a problem and a choice.

Susan is made to feel like the unaccepted outsider. So, she tries to fit in.

But the first time that I took my book out of my suitcase, the coolest girl in the
bunk came up to me, and she asked me, ‘Why are you being so mellow?’—
mellow, of course, being the exact opposite of R-O-W-D-I-E. And then the
second time I tried it, the counsellor came up to me with a concerned expression
on her face, and she repeated the point about camp spirit and said we should all
work very hard to be outgoing.

Change: The Transformation

The heroine decides on a path and a plan to overcome the obstacle.

Susan tries to fit in but doesn’t feel right about doing it.

And so, I put my books away, back in their suitcase, and I put them under my
bed, and there they stayed for the rest of the summer. And I felt kind of guilty
about this. I felt as if the books needed me somehow, and they were calling out
to me, and I was forsaking them. But I did forsake them, and I didn’t open that
suitcase again until I was back home with my family at the end of the summer.

Then she has her epiphany: She’s not broken. It’s society’s attitude to introverts
that’s broken.
Now, I tell you this story about summer camp. I could have told you 50 others
just like it—all the times that I got the message that somehow my quiet and
introverted style of being was not necessarily the right way to go, that I should
be trying to pass as more of an extrovert. And I always sensed deep down that
this was wrong and that introverts were pretty excellent just as they were. But
for years I denied this intuition, and so I became a Wall Street lawyer, of all
things, instead of the writer that I had always longed to be—partly because I
needed to prove to myself that I could be bold and assertive too. And I was
always going off to crowded bars when I really would have preferred to just
have a nice dinner with friends. And I made these self-negating choices so
reflexively that I wasn’t even aware that I was making them.

Now this is what many introverts do, and it’s our loss for sure, but it is also
our colleagues’ loss and our communities’ loss. And at the risk of sounding
grandiose, it is the world’s loss. Because when it comes to creativity and
leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best.

Consequence: The Resolution

The heroine’s character, fate, world and world view are altered.

Susan overcomes her fear of public speaking and accepts the call to spread the
message about the need to accept and create a culture that embraces both
extroverts and introverts.

So, I just published a book about introversion, and it took me about seven years
to write. And for me, that seven years was like total bliss, because I was reading,
I was writing, I was thinking, I was researching. It was my version of my
grandfather’s hours of the day alone in his library. But now all of a sudden, my
job is very different, and my job is to be out here talking about it, talking about
introversion. I prepared for moments like these as best I could. I spent the last
year practising public speaking every chance I could get. And I call this my
‘year of speaking dangerously’.

“The through line is the invisible

thread that pulls the reader or the
listener through the story, from event
to event.”
Use the 5 Cs to Outline Your Stories
You now know that effective stories follow a particular structure that elicits an
emotional response in the audience. You can use the 5 Cs to ‘scaffold’ and craft
more powerful stories.

EXAMPLE OF A FIVE-SENTENCE STORY OUTLINE FOR SUSAN CAIN’S STORY:

CONTEXT: Quiet girl from a bookish family is living happily in her ordinary
world.
CATALYST: She goes to camp with her suitcase full of books.
COMPLICATION: The girl is teased about her introversion.
CHANGE: She puts her books away and tries to fit in but doesn’t feel right about
doing it.
CONSEQUENCE: Susan overcomes her fear of public speaking so she can spread
the message about the need to accept and create a culture that embraces both
extroverts and introverts.

The through line is the invisible thread that pulls the reader or the listener
through the story, from event to event. You can think of the through line as your
story’s theme, conveying what the story is about.
When we look for common story themes, we immediately think about love,
good versus evil, redemption, courage and perseverance, revenge, and coming of
age. Even our small personal stories have a plot and a connecting theme. It’s
important to stick to your through line as you craft and tell your story; otherwise,
you risk losing your audience along the way.
If you’ve ever watched a movie where you felt yourself become less invested
in the story, it’s probably because it didn’t have a consistent through line.
Maybe, as you watched it, you heard yourself thinking, Huh, I thought this was
about overcoming the forces of evil and it turns out it’s a story about finding true
love. The through line serves as a promise you intend to keep, made up front to
the audience.
Of course, you need to know your through line if you’re going to stick to it.
It’s not enough to know what happens in the story; you also need to know what
the story is about and what you hope the audience will learn from it.
My husband, Moyez, often tells the following story, about his first day as a
doctor, to the medical students he now teaches. At its heart, this is a story of
becoming—the next step on the path to becoming what he’d been working
towards for many years.

The first day of August is the worst day to end up in hospital in Ireland. That’s
the day all newly qualified doctors begin working on the wards with a mixture of
hope and fear.

I can still remember my first day. I donned my newly laundered white coat,
pocketed my stethoscope, my drug formulary and the Parker pen gifted to me for
my graduation by my proud parents. Fully equipped and more than a little
terrified, I headed through the swing doors into the surgical ward where I’d
spend the next three months of my internship.

I was met by Eileen Dorley, the nurse in charge. ‘Good morning, Doctor,’ she
said enthusiastically.

It was the first time anyone had called me Doctor. It’s a hard-won moment no
doctor ever forgets.
 ‘Good morning, Sister,’ I replied, as that’s what the nurse in charge was
called back then. ‘What can I do first this morning?’

‘Well, Doctor,’ she said. ‘You could start by prescribing anti-emetics for the
patients going to the operating theatre later today.’

I reached for the drug formulary in my hip pocket and hesitated for a moment
—my training had taught me there were lots of possibilities—then asked the
still-smiling Sister Dorley the name of the professor’s preferred anti-emetic.

‘That would be Stemetil, Doctor!’ she said, beaming.

I clicked the top of my pen and pulled up the first prescription on the pad. I
started to spell the word aloud as I wrote: ‘S-T-E...’ ‘M-E-T-I-L,’ she completed.
‘Thank you, Sister. And what dose does he like to use?’ ‘Twelve point five
milligrams twice a day, Doctor,’ she replied. ‘Just tick the “6am” and “6pm”
boxes.’ She paused for a moment, looking me in the eye. ‘The rest, Doctor,’ she
said, pointing to where I should sign my name at the bottom of the prescription,
‘is written on your name badge.’ She said it without a hint of sarcasm or
unkindness.

In the three months that followed, Eileen Dorley made it her mission to help
me transition from graduate to doctor.

It takes discipline to craft an outline and hit each of the 5 Cs of the Story
Scaffold, but once you begin applying these ground rules to your stories, you
will immediately see the difference, not just in how they flow but in how they
are received.
YOUR TURN: OUTLINE YOUR STORY

To outline your story, use the 5 Cs and the following questions:

What’s the connecting theme of your story?

Who is the hero or heroine?
What situation are they in?
What happens to them?
What do they do?
What do they want?
What’s in their way?
How do they succeed, or why do they fail?
How are they changed?
Why will the listener care about this story?
How do you want the listener to feel at the end of the story?

It’s only by being intentional that we can tell stories that are
emotionally resonant. Structure is the storyteller’s friend.

STORY SKILL: BE INTENTIONAL

Scaffold your stories.

Create an outline.
Stick to your through line.
 7

Speak Your Truth

All you have to do is write one true sentence.

Write the truest sentence that you know.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
“When we avoid speaking our truth,
we risk failing to contribute.”
 BOVE ALL ELSE, we humans fear being rejected by our tribe. We

A instinctively know that we need others to survive. That longing to

belong and be accepted has upsides and downsides. On the upside,
unlike other species, we have the flexibility to cooperate in large numbers
because of our shared beliefs— collaborating for the collective good. On the
downside, because we want to fit in or retain credibility and status, we often self-
censor. We have two choices, then: we can speak to be understood with the goal
of contributing, or we can obsess about how our performance is being evaluated.
The world doesn’t need billions of identical opinions and similar voices. We
need different perspectives, shared understanding and collective empathy. If we
are to create the bright future we want to see, we need to hear each other’s
stories.
Substitute the Fear
Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. You may not be familiar with the
term, but like many adults, you might suffer from it. We fear speaking in public
because we’re afraid of being embarrassed or rejected.
While it might feel safer to keep our ideas and opinions to ourselves, by
doing so we not only sacrifice personal and professional growth, we limit the
influence and impact we can have.

I’ll never forget standing in the green room at the Octagon Theatre, Perth,
waiting to go onstage to give my TEDx Talk. My heart was pounding. I was
petrified. There was no fluffing this. No room for ums and ahs during my
scheduled ten-minute talk that would be recorded and posted online. Right there
and then, those felt like the highest-stakes ten minutes of my career.

Outside, it was a typical Perth day, clear blue skies as far as the eye could
see, so I decided to duck out to the garden backstage to have some time to
myself. I stood under a giant gum tree with my hands on my hips, attempting a
power pose that might trick my physiology into calming down. I took a deep
breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, they were drawn upwards,
from the base of the smooth tree trunk all the way to its fragrant canopy. For a
moment, I forgot why I was standing there. I simply looked in awe at this giant
tree that had likely stood solidly on this spot for more than two hundred years,
nurturing wildlife among its branches, providing shade for the people who sat
beneath them. In that moment, I was able to substitute my fear for wonder.
Staring up at the expanse of blue sky between the branches of that tree reminded
me of the paradox of the permanence and impermanence of life and how little
time we have to make a difference. It reminded me to be grateful for the
opportunity to speak to the people who had come to listen. And to find joy in the
moment.

Experienced speakers and performers must also overcome the physical

sensations and thinking patterns that can prevent them from showing up to do
their best work. When author and speaker Simon Sinek realised before going
onstage that his self-talk was fear-based, he decided to replace the fear with a
positive feeling. Instead of telling himself he was nervous about the talk he was
about to give, he began saying he was excited to go onstage to speak to this
audience. Same physiology, different mindset.
Speaking of mindset, journalist Gal Beckerman has shared details about the
books famous people have on their shelves. Beckerman revealed that renowned
cellist Yo-Yo Ma has a 1980s title that was marketed as a guide to overcoming
stage fright and nervousness and realising your full potential. Just because Ma
has given thousands of performances in his lifetime doesn’t mean he was always
a fearless performer. You don’t have to be fearless to find your voice. You just
need to be a bit braver today than you were yesterday.

“We humans are the ultimate

paradox. There are two things we
want: we want to hide and we want to
be seen.”
Walk as Yourself
The legendary British actress Helen Mirren says the hardest thing you can do is
walk as yourself. She may have been speaking about acting when she said this,
but I think her words carry wisdom we can use beyond the stage.
Society conditions us to fit in from a young age. The way to fit in is to not do
anything too out of the ordinary. By definition, that means ignoring possibilities
and opportunities to explore different paths. But progress, fulfilment and joy are
by-products of exploration. Ironically, what the conformist world needs most
from us is to walk as ourselves. To contribute as only we can. To find our voice
and follow our path, then to shine a light for others as we go. It’s taken me many
years of working to find my voice to realise this.

The trouble started when I was turning twelve and just about to leave primary
school. Bear in mind that this was the late seventies—a time when, in many
schools, curiosity was seen as breaking ranks. What our teachers valued more
than the curious was the compliant. In other words, kids like me who weren’t
afraid to ask questions that might derail a lesson plan were a pain in the
backside.

One day, I raised my hand to ask a question the teacher didn’t have an answer
to. I don’t remember the question, but I do remember the reaction. ‘Who do you
think you are?’ she said. Her face was scarlet, her tone harsh as she marched me
to the principal’s office. Emboldened by the fact that I was soon to leave this
junior school for high school, I dug my heels in, declaring to Sister P., the head
teacher, that the accusation of ‘impertinence’ was unjust. This strategy didn’t go
well for me.
 My mother was summoned to the school the following day to be warned that
her daughter’s outspokenness would land her in trouble when she went to high
school. Sister P. left my mum in no doubt about what I must do to fit in. I should
learn to pipe down and avoid speaking up, because doing so would be
detrimental to my future. Mum, who never had the chance to attend high school,
relayed the message to me with concern in her eyes. The message came over
loud and clear: Don’t blow this opportunity by voicing your opinions. It’s okay
to have ideas as long as you keep them to yourself.

It was thirty years before I had the courage to begin putting my ideas into the
world again. I started blogging in my forties—sharing ideas about reclaiming the
humanity in business, and about the joy and rewards of getting closer to the
people we serve. It was a low-risk endeavour since I didn’t have any readers at
first. But the more I spoke my truth, the more I found people who believed what
I believed, the truer to myself and the better my writing became. The very act of
writing, of voicing my opinion and telling my stories, reminded me of what I
valued and who I was.

Over the past decade, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited and paid to speak to
audiences around the world. During that time, I’ve always been surprised by
how the voice of my inner critic has rarely aligned with how a talk or a
workshop was received by the audience. Of course, there is always room to grow
and develop as a speaker, performer or storyteller. We should see the gap
between the storyteller we are today and the storyteller we want to be as an
opportunity to grow rather than as evidence of incompetence. When we truly
show up in the service of others, we are doing our best, most meaningful work.
YOUR TURN: HOW TO SPEAK YOUR TRUTH

Declare the impact you want to have.

Look for opportunities to speak.
Reach for a positive emotion.
Silence your inner critic.
Reflect on what matters to you.
Ask yourself why you care about inspiring this audience.
Let go of the need to perform.
Adopt the posture of a communicator.
Choose contribution over perfection.
Show up in the service of others.
Be grateful for the opportunity to share your ideas.

STORY SKILL: BE BRAVE

Substitute the fear.

Walk as yourself.
 CONCLUSION

Before We End

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need
most in the world.
PHILIP PULLMAN
 “While stories have the power to
change other people’s minds and win
their hearts, they can also help us as
individuals to understand ourselves.”
 ANY PEOPLE READING this book will have bought it to learn how to

M have an impact on others—whether clients or colleagues, friends or

family, supporters or strangers. Maybe that’s why you bought it too.
However, it turns out that the journey to becoming a better storyteller affects not
just the audience, but the storyteller too. We tell stories to help us be better
communicators—when we want to deepen trust and connection with others, or to
convince them of our viewpoint. But as the saying goes, there are two sides to
every story.
Telling our stories can make us reflect on what really matters to us, so we can
engage more meaningfully with life. In other words, our stories often reveal to
us what’s in our hearts.
I wrote parts of this book during the quarantine period of the COVID-19
pandemic. This was a unique moment in time, when every single nation on the
planet was working to solve the same problem. A time when every global citizen
was urged to shelter in place. Each and every one of us was living our version of
a shared story. Even though we couldn’t gather together, we could still share our
experiences. One day, while I was doing research for this book, I came across a
TED Talk given by children’s author Oliver Jeffers. In that talk he spoke the

following words that really hit home for me:

We carry out our everyday routines and rituals according to the stories we most
believe in, and these days, the story is changing as we write it.

Stories give our lives meaning. They make us wiser and more resilient. Stories
help us earn trust, deepen connection and create change. That’s the reason we
began telling them—to share and spread wisdom through our tribes. In my work
with creatives, entrepreneurs and leaders who want to get better at telling their
stories, I see patterns emerging. Those who have a mechanism for finding,
owning and sharing their stories build strong cultures and create change. I
believe there are parallels between what I’ve witnessed in organisations and
what I’ve discovered in my research into how stories make individuals and
communities stronger.
Weeks after his TED Talk, Oliver Jeffers posted the following story on
Instagram.

Around 3 or 4 weeks ago, I fell into a bit of a low period. After more than a
month of lockdown, I was feeling sorry for myself and suffocated being cooped
up with two small children and nowhere to hide. My TED Talk had happened
virtually and my Apple TV film had been launched—two of the biggest things in
my career to date, that were relegated to happening in a living room.

I knew these were silly selfish thoughts, but, still, I wallowed. Here I was
seemingly only wiping bums, taming tantrums and doing the dishes. Our year of
travel had been cancelled halfway through, and I felt frustrated that I suddenly
needed to work again, but couldn’t with two kids constantly needing my
attention. There was no escaping them, and I couldn’t complete a thought
without interruption.

At one point, I took them on a drive to give my wife some headspace when
an ad on a local radio station, Belfast 98FM, came on for a local restaurant, the
Speckled Hen, where they wished everyone well during lockdown, including the
line: ‘Those with young children, don’t wish it away, as they grow up too fast.’ I
looked in the rear-view mirror at their two tiny faces and I had to pull over to
wipe a tear or two away. Never before has such an awakening been hit over my
head with such a hammer. What was meant to be a 20-minute drive turned into a
2-hour rock pool adventure (ended only with the loss of a shoe... not mine) and
the appearance of an anchor into a swirling vortex with which to pitch myself
against. Thank you, Jim from the Speckled Hen, for the precise words at the
precise moment to sway a man for the better, and remember the little fleeting
moments.

“When we take time to reflect on and

then share our stories, we not only
experience personal growth—we
inspire it in others.”
The photo that accompanied the post was of his two small children staring into a
rock pool together, oblivious of the chaos happening in the world around them.
To date that post has well more than a thousand comments from people it has
inspired, thanking Jeffers for being vulnerable, speaking his truth and reminding
them what truly matters. That’s the power of one man’s everyday story in action.
Our stories show us who we are and what we want. In many ways, learning to be
a great storyteller isn’t just about being a better communicator; it’s about
learning more about yourself.
It turns out that storytelling rituals have an impact that goes beyond the
moment; they may also have a positive impact on future generations. Almost a
decade ago, researchers from Emory University published the findings of a study
about the impact on children of knowing their family history. Up until then, the
effect of intergenerational stories on children’s well-being had not been
measured. The Emory researchers set out to do that, using what they called the
‘Do You Know Scale’—a list of twenty questions about family history.
Unsurprisingly, they discovered that teens who knew more stories about their
extended family showed ‘higher levels of emotional well-being, and also higher
levels of identity achievement, even when controlling for general level of family
functioning’.
Following the publication of a New York Times article that mentioned the
study, the researchers were inundated with requests for the twenty questions.
Many readers assumed they’d make their children resilient by simply teaching
them the answers to the questions. But as Marshall P. Duke, one of the
researchers, pointed out, ‘Correlation is not causation. Simply knowing the
answers to questions will not produce the good outcomes. It is not what is
known that is the critical factor, but how the children came to know it. The
researchers believe the process of making time to sit with each other and share
stories is the causational factor.’
The bottom line is: we build more resilient families, companies and
communities when we know who we are. We become stronger and more
connected when we prioritise finding, owning and sharing our stories.
Dr Taryn Marie, an expert on resiliency, reminds us about the value of our
personal, lived experiences:

Every experience that we have in our lives fundamentally and forever changes us
in small, and large, ways. Therefore, once we’ve had an experience we don’t go
back to the way that we were before that experience. Resilience is about
understanding, making meaning out of what is happening, what has happened,
and allowing ourselves to be, again, fundamentally and forever changed in ways
that allow us to be both more compassionate and empathetic, and to have more
wisdom.

You can leverage storytelling to change the world for the better. In this book
you’ve learned that stories have a shape and a point—a beginning, a middle and
an end. What you will come to learn by telling them is that storytelling is two
parts courage and one part hope. It takes guts to find your voice and speak your
truth—yet here you are, open to learning the skills so you can get better. And
then there’s hope—the hope that we carry in our hearts, the hope that our ideas
will resonate and spread, that someone will care, that our stories will matter.

“Great storytellers know that story is

our most persuasive technology, and
they use it for good.”
The questions for all of us are: Why do we want to influence and inspire?
What impact do we want to have? By reading this book, you have given yourself
the opportunity to harness your stories to create the change you want to see—
whether that’s to see a light in your children or grandchildren’s eyes, to inspire
hope in the hearts of your team, or to build trust with your customers. Whatever
your reason, the world needs your courage and hope in equal measure now more
than ever.
Thank you for trusting me to be your guide. Your job is to be the hero or
heroine we need right now. You are a storyteller, if you want to be. Trust
yourself. Begin.
 Sources
Introduction: Before We Begin
In 1964, I was a little girl... Oprah Winfrey, quoted in Giovanni Russonello,
‘Read Oprah Winfrey’s Golden Globes Speech’, New York Times, January 7,
2018.

1: Be Where You Are

The celebrated Irish writer Maeve Binchy... This anecdote is drawn from
Knopfdoubleday, ‘Maeve Binchy—Secrets from the Writing Club’, March 8,
2010, YouTube video, 3:12, https://youtu.be/aT7s8tWf0K0.

I can remember going to the barbershop... Joseph Ravenell, ‘How Barbershops

Can Keep Men Healthy’, February 2016, TED video, 13:00,
https://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_ravenell_how_barbershops_can_keep_men_healthy.

2: Find the Extraordinary in the Everyday

Moth storyteller Matthew Dicks... matthewdicks.com/homework-for-life/.

3: Harness the Power of the Particular

I remember reading a story by the author Cheryl Strayed... Cheryl Strayed, Tiny
Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (New York:
Vintage, 2012).
The writer Celeste Ng does this brilliantly... Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told
You (New York: Penguin Press, 2014).

4: Speak from the Heart

It’s like the Jamaican sprint team in the Olympics... Michael Bungay Stanier,
‘How to Save a Story, with Bernadette Jiwa’, season 1, episode 8, in We Will
Get Through This, podcast, audio, 27:19, mbs.works/wwgtt.

They’re both dead, but they’re alive to me... Two Roads Books, ‘Billy Connolly
on the Art of Storytelling’, August 19, 2019, YouTube video, 0:45,
https://youtu.be/2HEh95icYPs.

When vulnerability researcher Brené Brown took to the TED stage... Brené
Brown, ‘The Power of Vulnerability’, June 2010, TEDx Houston video,
20:04,ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability.

5: Stand in the Audience’s Shoes

William (Will) Callaghan, a fourteen-year-old boy... Matilda Boseley, ‘William
Callaghan, Autistic Teenager Missing for Two Nights in Victoria, Found
Alive’, Guardian, June 10, 2020.

Princeton professor Uri Hasson’s research... Uri Hasson, ‘This Is Your Brain on
Communication’, February 2016, TED video, 14:44,
ted.com/talks/uri_hasson_this_is_your_brain_on_communication.

Narratives that cause us to pay attention... Paul J. Zak, ‘Why Inspiring Stories
Make Us React: The Neuroscience of Narrative’, Cerebrum, January–
February 2015, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445577/.
In the seventh grade... George Saunders, Congratulations, By the Way: Some
Thoughts on Kindness (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

6: Give Your Stories a Shape and a Point

Susan Cain’s popular TED Talk... Susan Cain, ‘The Power of Introverts’,
February 2012, TED video, 18:49,
ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts/transcript.

7: Speak Your Truth

Speaking of mindset, journalist Gal Beckerman... Gal Beckerman with Noor
Qasim, ‘The Celebrity Bookshelf Detective Is Back’, New York Times, July
27, 2020.

Conclusion: Before We End

We carry out our everyday routines... Oliver Jeffers, ‘An Ode to Living on
Earth’, April 2020, TED video, 10:30,
ted.com/talks/oliver_jeffers_an_ode_to_living_on_earth/transcript.

Around 3 or 4 weeks ago... Oliver Jeffers, (@oliverjeffers), Instagram photo,

June 12, 2020, instagram.com/p/CBV4s0zBw0D/.

Almost a decade ago, researchers from Emory University... Emory University,

‘Children Benefit If They Know about Their Relatives, Study Finds’, press
release, March 3, 2010.

Following the publication of a New York Times article... Marshall P. Duke, ‘The
Stories That Bind Us: What Are the Twenty Questions?’, HuffPost (blog),
May 23, 2013,huffpost.com/entry/the-stories-that-bind-us-_b_2918975.
Every experience that we have in our lives... Michael Bungay Stanier, ‘How to
Practice Resilience, with Dr Taryn Marie’, season 1, episode 1, in We Will
Get Through This, podcast, audio, 31:13, mbs.works/wwg.
 Acknowledgements
IRST, I WANT to thank my dear friend and colleague Seth Godin for

F helping me become a braver storyteller and a better teacher.

Thanks to every member of the Story Skills Workshop coach team,
who show up with their whole hearts to help others find and tell their stories. My
friends: Mark Dyck, Tom Huntingdon, Anne Roche, Luke Harris, Enrika
Greathouse, Cat Preston, Kira Higgs, Conor McCarthy, Paula Braun, Nadine
Kelly and Victoria Hefty—your work matters.
Thank you to the incredible students past and present of the Story Skills
Workshop who have trusted us with their stories.
Thanks to the team at Page Two Books for their enthusiasm, patience and
care at every single stage of the journey to bring this book to life. I wouldn’t
have embarked on this project without your kindness and support, Jesse
Finkelstein. Peter Cocking, I appreciate how the reader experience is at the heart
of your creative direction. Jennifer Lum, thank you for the inspired cover and
book design. Editors are the most underrated, necessary and caring professionals
on the planet. I’m lucky Amanda Lewis was mine. Thank you for being a
brilliant collaborator. This book is better because of you.
Adam, Kieran and Matthew, thank you for loving me and cheering me on.
You are the best part of my story. And to my husband, Moyez, my first patient
reader, who walks the path with me, always.
 About the Author
ERNADETTE JIWA IS a bestselling author and creator of the Story Skills

B Workshop—the groundbreaking online programme that has helped

thousands of people become their most influential and inspiring selves.
She grew up in Dublin, the storytelling capital of the world. Now she lives in the
world’s most liveable city—Melbourne, Australia. You can find her at
thestoryoftelling.com.