Master Story Telling In Your Pitch
Last year, I discovered a game-changing book on storytelling that transformed the way I tell stories. The book is called Storyworthy, written by Matthew Dicks. Dicks is a multi-time Moth StorySLAM winner. In other words, this guy knows how to tell a story (almost as good as RB😉) Anyway, I took a ton of notes when I was reading this book. Hope you all can take some nuggets from this when you're telling stories in your one-to-many presentations! P.S. Thank you Russell for this amazing community and the live event! 🔥 It's so fun and inspiring to watch a master at their craft. Notes from the book StoryWorthy: Goal: The story must move your audience emotionally. You connect with an audience by bridging the gap between you and another person through a space of authenticity, vulnerability, and truth. - The story must reflect change over time. - Nobody cares about drinking stories or vacation stories or the weather. - The dinner test: Your story should be similar to one you would tell at a family dinner. - Stories resonate with people when they hear secrets about others that they can relate to - All great stories have a 5 second moment of intense change. Every scene should bring clarity to that moment of change. This is the moment when something fundamentally changes forever in the main character - regret, fear, acceptance, despair, resign, life changing decision, fail spectacular, chooses a new path - The beginning always starts with the end. The beginning is the opposite of the 5 seconds of change. This is the story arc. Examples: I was once hopeful now I am not, I was once uncertain but now I am certain, I was lost now I'm found, I was angry now I'm grateful, I was single now I'm married - Decrease the amount of time between the beginning and end to simplify the story. Start with forward movement, moving through space. - Always provide a physical location at all times in the story. This creates a movie in mind of listeners. Cinema of the mind. No location means no story. - Don’t connect paragraphs, scenes, and sentences together with the word AND. No movement or momentum. Momentum is straightforward and unchanged. Instead, use but and therefore to create zigs and zags.. scenes work against each other. Constantly going some place new. - Failure is more engaging than success. Getting fired vs getting hired. Make yourself the underdog. Undermine yourself. Marginalize yourself. Share a highly flawed example of yourself. Step by step nature. Share the small wins. - Offer one granular bit of wisdom. Small, original, useful idea. Compelling wisdom and insight. - Raise the stakes. What makes the audience want to hear the next sentence? Who will the winner be? The reason audiences listen and continue to listen. What does storyteller want or need? What are they fighting against? How is this story going to turn out?