Let's figure out how to use 3 easy storytelling techniques for presentations on this week’s episode of MasterTalk. Follow me on Instagram: @masteryourtalk
1. The 3 Challenges & Levels of Storytelling (1:21)
To get you started with storytelling, I believe the best way to teach is to help you craft the easiest ones. From personal experience, if you’re able to build really simple, stories that you can relate to and are passionate about, it’s going to be much easier to craft extremely difficult stories. These are the 3 easy storytelling techniques for presentations that should matter to you. Here’s an example from my business school days anyone can relate to: the classroom presentation.
Teacher gives you an assignment, you have to craft a presentation and present it to everyone else on let’s say a company but it could be anything really like a historical time period or your favorite fruit.
There’s 3 levels on how people approach stories.
Level 1 - Well, no story. So, the classic, Hi everyone, uhm, I’m Brenden and this is, eh what’s his name again? James, Cameron, and yeah we’re talking about charity:water and how to solve this problem.
Level 2 - Story sort of. charity:water is doing very well as a non-profit and it’s looking to grow into the future with this new technology and we’re here to help you achieve that goal.
Level 3 - The story. Scott, when you started charity:water 13 years ago, while working at nightclubs for a decade, you had a dream, a dream to create a nonprofit that’s just as passionate, and 13 years later, charity:water was born.
2. The Perfect Day Exercise (8:48)
Lewis Howes, the founder of the School of Greatness Podcast, has an exercise called the Perfect Day where you essentially write down what that day looks like for you. Are you on a beach reading books? Are you watching MasterTalk all day? Are you just travelling the world?
What’s particularly powerful about this exercise is anyone and everyone can do this without too much difficulty since you have some general idea or elements as to what that day would look like, BUT my caveat is very few of you can just say in excruciating detail what the day looks like from the food, the emotions, the taste, the people you’re with, the colors of the walls. The more detail you go into, the easier for you, it’ll be to weave in and create a strong story and then just practice it outloud simple as that. It's one of many easy storytelling techniques for presentations you can leverage.
That’s the difference between a “no story” and “THE story”, when I was reading the case, I didn’t just say oh Scott, I EMBODIED him in excruciating detail and it’s that detail, that made the story so memorable and is one of many easy storytelling techniques for presentations that you can leverage and use for your own.
3. Why I Won't Always Have Perfect Stories (10:15)
I want to end this discussion, not by giving you my “framework” to great stories, or my secret sauce, but rather conclude with why storytelling is so difficult for most people. Think about it, some coaches recommend humour when you’re not funny, others recommend stories that speak from the heart since only those can truly be powerful, others suggest to imagine a world filled with wonder. Anyways, the point being that storytelling is an extremely vague concept and this is why, everyone struggles in crafting good ones since the possibilities are literally ENDLESS.
It’s like if I told you to build something amazing that will inspire the next generation of thinkers and doers, but didn’t give you any sort of guideline on how to tackle it. That’s pretty much what storytelling is to most people. Everyone raves about how important it is, yet they aren’t even remotely good at it, all’s this to say is don’t stress about it, keep storyboarding, and you’ll be able to find a consistent story that you’ll love to tell. I hope these 3 easy storytelling techniques for presentations benefited you in some way.
If you enjoyed this week’s episode of MasterTalk, be sure to SMASH that LIKE button and SUBSCRIBE to the KZfaq channel as well. If you know one person that wants to create powerful stories, send them this video so that they can be one step closer to mastering their talk.
For business or one-on-one public speaking coaching inquiries, you can reach me at brendenkbusiness@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Maison Leporem for letting me use the space.
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