2024-03-15 13-07-19
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[00:00:00] Telling great stories is the foundation of all great communication, whether you're an author, a speaker, a coach, or an entrepreneur, speaking to groups or just one person. Learning to tell a story is a key to so many interactions, and it can be the difference between a boring and dry presentation or [00:00:15] conversation, and one that brings life and energy.
Yet so many people have never been trained and have no clue how to tell a good story. I've watched countless people train their presentations or even conversations through making Some simple to avoid mistakes. So how do you tell a [00:00:30] story and what the five critical mistakes you must avoid? Let's discuss.
[00:00:45] Welcome to the raw leader. My name is Simon Holly and my aim is for you to get your message out so that you can speak right, coach and lead with less stress, more clarity and greater impact. Thanks for joining me today. We are talking about five critical mistakes you [00:01:00] must avoid when telling a story. ~So let's get into it.~
But before we actually we do that. Have you seen my killer outline guide if you want to learn another key skill for communication is about how to write an outline. It saves time, it keeps focus, it gives the audience a roadmap. You can get it for free at the [00:01:15] rawleader. com forward slash killer outline. Go grab that.
And then come back here. So, when my wife and I first met, we had wildly different approaches to telling a story. Caroline could even take longer to tell the story than it took for the events to happen. Cause she would be like, yeah, and he's thought this and she thought [00:01:30] this. And then he said that. I was the opposite.
I could tell an entire day in three words. It was all right. I mean, I realized if I'm going to communicate, I've got to learn. If I'm going to communicate to my wife, I've got to learn. I've got to learn to do better than this. I've got to improve. And so I spent, uh, uh, a [00:01:45] number of years studying some of the best storytellers I knew.
And it utterly transformed my communication skills. It improved my marriage as well. I've got a cross cultural marriage. My wife's American. And we learned the hard way that America and the UK are two na nations separated [00:02:00] by a common language. There are so many difference under the surface. There was one time I was traveling to the US U the USA, we were traveling as a family and we went into customs. , you know, the American US customs can be a pretty well any customs a pretty scary place, but US customs is particularly scary. And it was like a overnight [00:02:15] flight. So it was early in the morning, we, that's my excuse. , we were tired and, uh, Caroline and the kids all went through with their passports.
And I, I got. I got there to the, to the desk and the guy, um, says to me, put your fourth finger on the scanner. And I, my brain was going slow. I was [00:02:30] tired. I was nervous. And I thought to myself, put your fourth finger on the scanner. And I was like, well. Um, in the UK we don't call the thumb a finger, so the fourth finger is your, your little finger.
Um, so that means [00:02:45] put your, your, your little finger on the scanner. Why didn't he say your little finger? I, I, I don't know. So I, anyway, I put my little finger on the scanner, he's like, No, put your fourth finger on the scanner. So I was like, your fourth finger, well, maybe in America they do count the thumb as a finger.
So I was counting one, two, three, four. So [00:03:00] that's four, your, your, so I was like, okay. So I was kind of trying to bend the finger back. And it's really quite difficult to do. But anyway, I managed to lodge the, the, my ring finger on the, on the scanner. He's like, no, put your fourth finger on the scanner. And I was like, [00:03:15] oh, your four finger.
He's saying four finger. So I was like, okay, yeah. So I put my fourth finger on the scanner. And he was like, no, put your fourth finger on the scanner. And I was like, Honestly, at this point I was like, I have got no clue what you're talking about. I didn't say that to him, obviously. I [00:03:30] just kind of, I'm so sorry, I just don't understand.
And I looked up at that point and looked at Caroline, and she was crying with laughter, and she just did this. Put your four fingers on the scanner. That's what he was saying. He didn't say a word for the whole [00:03:45] thing. four fingers on the scanner. So anyway, I got through it was one of our lessons of what a different culture America in the UK is even language is just so different.
So let me use that story to illustrate five critical mistakes that people make when they're [00:04:00] telling stories. Remember Goldilocks? She ate the bears porridge and one was too cold. One was too hot. One was just right. I can't remember who's was just right. I think it was little bears, wasn't it? Stories can be like that.
Like porridge, they can be too long, too short or just right. Probably the biggest mistake and most [00:04:15] common is telling the story too long or too short. It's the thing that Caroline and I both struggle. We've had to kinda meet in the middle, and probably if you tell stories too, too long until too short, you probably don't know that you do that.
So ask people who know you and they'll tell you the truth. Hopefully [00:04:30] ask them. When I tell a story, do I. Do I tend to tell it too long, or do I give you less details than you actually want? And to be honest, those of you who are long winded, start to read the signs on people's faces that you've been ignoring up to now.
The first mistake is the Goldilocks Dilemma. How long should your story be? [00:04:45] Get the length of the story right for the setting, the point you're trying to make. Is the story worth the payoff? Notice in my four finger story, I start right at the action. U. S. Customs. I don't tell you what year it was or what time of the year where we were going.
It finishes as the action [00:05:00] finishes right after the punchline. Notice I didn't give you my kids names and ages. That was irrelevant. I didn't tell you which airport it was or what I was wearing or how old I was or what time of year it was. Why? It's all irrelevant to that story. The critical key part of that [00:05:15] story was getting it the right length.
And that leads us onto a second critical mistake, which is this. Mhm. Unnecessary details. Unnecessary sub characters. We don't care about the fact that your aunt's sister was there also. I'm sure she's lovely. Is she critical to the point of this [00:05:30] story? No, just movies and books. You can only tend to cope with so many characters in the scene at one time.
And it's even more so with a story. Starting too far back in the past. Do you really need all that backstory? You probably don't, far less than you [00:05:45] think. Overloading the story with details. Was the dog there? What color is the dog? I don't care. Don't tell me about that unless it's absolutely key to the story and the dog features in the stories.
Ladies, we don't tend to care about what outfit you are wearing. Sorry, if you're in a group of ladies, they really do care. But if [00:06:00] you're in a mixed group, you know, perhaps cut some of the outfit detail. Or jargon or complex language. You know, when you know a subject really well, you tend to forget what's jargon and what's not.
I speak in a lot of churches, I forget that most people don't know that Matthew 16, 43 is [00:06:15] jargon. They, they don't know that it should be Matthew chapter 16, verse 43. They, I need to think that through when I'm communicating in that context. So the second mistake is to allow your story to be swamped with irrelevant details.
[00:06:30] Keep your story tight to the essentials. Keep key characters only in the story. If you don't be thinking through the story, and, what was her name again? And, she was the sister of my brother's niece's dog's uncle. Don't do all of that stuff. Just two characters, maximum [00:06:45] three characters. If you're at four,
Better to be a killer story, because most people can't hold four characters in their heads. Try to cut as close to the action as possible and, and only go back to the key time of the story and cut out all the other [00:07:00] irrelevant details. Notice also in my four finger story I varied the tone. The humour kind of worked.
The third mistake is, is the silent killer. It's the, it's the one where everyone's thinking it but you don't know what it is. [00:07:15] It's where you're monotonous, not varying your tone. It's where you're smiling when it's sad. I was once listening to someone tell a story, and they were telling it, as they were, as they were telling it, they were getting more and more excited, and as they got to the punch, punch line, [00:07:30] They were getting so excited, you could tell, to deliver this punchline.
And then, before they got there, I realized what the punchline was gonna be. And I realized also that the humor of this punchline was so, so inappropriate. And everything in me was like, please pull out, please don't go there, please [00:07:45] abandon. But they didn't. They were so excited, they forgot the audience, and they told it, and they thought they were gonna get thigh slapping laughter.
And it was, they burst out with this punchline, and literally, they laughed out loud, and the room was dead silent. It was horrible. I [00:08:00] almost tore the bottom out of my shoes curling my toes so hard. Inappropriate humour for the setting is another literal silent killer. So that's the third mistake. Silent killer, poor delivery, vary your tone, don't crack a joke at a sad story, make [00:08:15] sure the humour is appropriate.
And the fourth mistake is the missing link. What do I mean by that? There's just something missing from the story. There's no clear point, there's insufficient conflict, there's no tension, there's no emotion or [00:08:30] humour. Notice in my four finger story, it links clearly to the difference between nationalities.
There's tension as you watch me trying to work out what's wrong and you're not sure yourself. There's conflict with the sternness of the customs officer. You can probably relate to that. You've been through customs. There's [00:08:45] humour, and it's not just humour at others expense. It's self deprecating humour, which is, you know, British people love that.
Um, and you realise when you finally understand where the confusion was, there's a release of that kind of tension. The other thing was it was true. Now, you [00:09:00] cannot always have all of those elements in your stories, but you need a good number of them to make a story worth telling. If not, pick a different story.
Last mistake. Notice one thing I didn't do when I told you my four finger story. I didn't start by saying, [00:09:15] It's a really funny story. I was in a group one time and someone said to me, Simon, tell that really funny story that you told me. And I thought to myself, You just killed that story before I even started.
The last mistake is the grand over promise. Saying [00:09:30] things like, Oh, this really hilarious thing happened to me, absolutely sets you up for failure. Stories that start like that are very, they very rarely live up to their expectation. Clearly exaggerating is another huge, mistake in, in, in telling stories.
I was [00:09:45] with someone once who was clearly exaggerating right from the beginning of the story. And immediately, even though she said it was true, the story really didn't land because I just didn't believe it. And the other people who in the group didn't believe it either. There is a temptation, and we all do it, to [00:10:00] exaggerate a story for greater impact.
Just don't do that. If that becomes your reputation, then all of your stories will fall flatter than you want them to because people will just think, you know, he doesn't really tell the, she doesn't really tell the truth, he doesn't really tell the truth. It will, that will spiral in you into more [00:10:15] exaggeration, trying to get a bigger build up.
And I've seen people get into that loop. It comes from a real place of insecurity. You're gonna deal with it. Try and tell the truth and make it as accurate as you can. You're welcome. Not every story has to be a Mount Everest to achieve your aim. [00:10:30] So five critical mistakes to avoid when telling a story. I hope you found it helpful.
If you're on YouTube, let me know in the comments what mistakes you've seen if you're on podcast, or public YouTube and comment and also you can subscribe if you really want to help me. And as a reminder, if you haven't picked [00:10:45] up my guide to creating a killer outline, you can grab it at the rawleader.
com killer outline that is you can get it for free over there. Thanks so much for listening. I'd love to hear from you. Hope you enjoyed this video,
[00:11:00] Yeah.
