Storytelling

The Great Dictator

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I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone — if possible — Jew, Gentile — black man — white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness — not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men — cries out for universal brotherhood — for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world — millions of despairing men, women, and little children — victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say — do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes — men who despise you — enslave you — who regiment your lives — tell you what to do — what to think and what to feel! Who drill you — diet you — treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men — machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate — the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” — not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power — the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then — in the name of democracy — let us use that power — let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world — a decent world that will give men a chance to work — that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world — to do away with national barriers — to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Final speech from The Great Dictator Copyright © Roy Export S.A.S. All rights reserved.

The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first film with dialogue. Chaplin plays both a little Jewish barber, living in the ghetto, and Hynkel, the dictator ruler of Tomainia. In his autobiography Chaplin quotes himself as having said: “One doesn’t have to be a Jew to be anti Nazi. All one has to be is a normal decent human being.”

Chaplin and Hitler were born within a week of one another. “There was something uncanny in the resemblance between the Little Tramp and Adolf Hitler, representing opposite poles of humanity, ” writes Chaplin biographer David Robinson, reproducing an unsigned article from The Spectator dated 21st April 1939:
“Providence was in an ironical mood when, fifty years ago this week, it was ordained that Charles Chaplin and Adolf Hitler should make their entry into the world within four days of each other….Each in his own way has expressed the ideas, sentiments, aspirations of the millions of struggling citizens ground between the upper and the lower millstone of society. (…) Each has mirrored the same reality — the predicament of the “little man” in modern society. Each is a distorting mirror, the one for good, the other for untold evil.”

Chaplin spent many months drafting and re-writing the speech for the end of the film, a call for peace from the barber who has been mistaken for Hynkel. Many people criticized the speech, and thought it was superfluous to the film. Others found it uplifting. Regrettably Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940.


IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/

The CYSS (Craft your Signature Speech) Master Your Message 1 Day Bootcamp with Michael-Don Smith on 27 July 2019.

The Share Your Story — Storytelling Workshop with Michael de Groot on 20 August 2019.

Both workshops qualify for a £40 discount when you use the code SOSPODCAST upon registration and/or checkout.

Location: The Shakti Rooms, 3rd Floor Avebury House, 55 Newhall Steet, Birmingham B3 3RB


We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk. You can also find us both on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldonsmith and https://www.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk.

Do connect with us there also.

Michael de Groot, Michael Don Smith

The difference between a Speech and a Story?

[embed]https://anchor.fm/storyofaspeech/episodes/The-difference-between-a-Speech-and-a-Story-e4eg7o/a-ahmpbf[/embed]

Michael-Don does some fabulous challenges throughout this episode to hold us both to account when discussing the differences between a Speech and a Story. We go back and forth, running around the Rabbit Hole, deciding how we can differentiate them. Is a speech just factual? Is a story just a narrative with characters? Is there absolutely no storytelling in speeches?

We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk. You can also find us both on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldonsmith and https://www.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk.

Do connect with us there also.

Michael de Groot, Michael Don Smith


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What is a Story?

Story of a Speech Podcast

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In this third episode of the Story of a Speech podcast, we examine what a story actually is. What is the structure and it’s impact on the viewer/listener? Now because Michael de Groot is the resident storyteller, you will hear a lot of him in this episode, well of course it his specialist subject after all.

We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk. You can also find us both on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldonsmith and https://www.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk. Do connect with us there also.

Michael de Groot, Michael Don Smith

What is a Speech?

[embed]https://anchor.fm/storyofaspeech/episodes/What-is-a-Speech-e43m2s/a-afq82o[/embed]

In this second episode of the Story of a Speech podcast, we’re examining what a speech actually is. Now because Michael-Don is the resident signature speech coach, you will hear a lot of him in this episode, well of course it his specialist subject after all.

We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk.

You can also find us both on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldonsmith and https://www.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk.

Do connect with us there also.

Michael de Groot and Michael-Don Smith

Story of a Speech — Introduction

#SOS

[embed]https://anchor.fm/storyofaspeech/episodes/Introduction-e3vu1c/a-aeoltf[/embed]

Michael-Don Smith and Michael de Groot introduce the Story of a Speech Podcast. In this episode they introduce themselves, why they started this podcast and many other insights, ideas and discussions around the topics of public speaking, presenting and storytelling. We would love to hear your views, comments and ideas for topics in future episodes. Reach out to us via Twitter, @mdonsmith and @stayingaliveuk

As mentioned in the podcast if you wish to listen to Michael-Don’s full story, you can hear it on the #shareyourstory podcast.

[embed]https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/podcast/2017/12/0031-michael-don-smith-speaker-trainer-and-business-master-coach[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2QD1jibiZE[/embed]

Michael de Groot and Michael Don Smith

But what actually is your purpose?

Hugh MacLeod

This for many of us is the question we contemplate for a lifetime. Often we align ourselves with the purpose of an organisation, a charity, a community and maybe even our own family.

And rarely do we get to fulfil our own individual purpose on this planet. Sure we may get some epiphanies along the way, when we say:

“I know what I’m here to do!”

And when we follow that calling, when we go down that route, that route which confirms to our minds what we’ve been put on this planet to do, we notice a small bit of doubt in the back of our minds that says:

“What if this isn’t it?”

That’s when the fear strikes, the fear that stops us from moving forward, the doubt that cripples us, that holds us back from being our true selves.

We’ve all had this feeling and even if you believe you haven’t been struck by this bug, I promise you, you will!

It’s okay, you are normal, you are part of the human race and I believe that we’re all put here to overcome that immense feeling of failure, that feeling of not fulfilling our true purpose, even if we think that we know what it is or was.

Let’s imagine, what if your purpose is actually to do exactly what you’re doing right now. I’m not talking about the work or non-work, I’m talking about what you’re doing right now in this moment.

In this moment you’re reading this article, correct?

Well that’s your purpose right now. Right now you’re reading the article, nothing else matters, that’s your purpose. When you finish reading the article and leave the screen to go and grab a coffee, then that’s your purpose now. And so it continues.

Your purpose are all those small elements of your life strung together into one long thread. The story thread of your life. If you want to innovate along the way by all means do that. Change direction with confidence, knowing that this is your purpose for now. I personally changed direction, pivoted into different projects about a dozen times. It’s only when I look back on those that I realise it was my purpose in those moments. Some worked out and many didn’t, but they all contributed to my story and made me who I am today.

Happy Innovating!

Michael de Groot


Poem by Nic Askew, which arrived in my inbox the day after I wrote this!

THE WHISPER AND THE ECHO

A man looked for meaning.
For his very place in life.

He searched high and low.

He’d often hear a whisper, calling
his name from the other side
of what seemed like a door.

A door that remained hidden
from his ability to see.

Frustrated, he’d knock on
everything that resembled
a door. Turning here,
and there. Turning
just about anywhere.

Then one day,
unannounced,
it opened.

And he realised that he’d been
knocking from the inside.
And that the whisper
had been an echo.

The echo of his own soul
reminding him that
he was already home.


Nic is a Former (Geographical) Explorer and (Business) Managing Director. Now an Educator and Film Maker. He is the creator of Soul Biographies (®), which includes the search for ‘The Soul of America‘. And the profound INNER VIEW Method. His work is in the arena of the Transformation of the Human Experience.

Alfred Hitchcock was scary!

Hugh MacLeod

You may have never seen a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, but most of us will know that he had a fantastic ability to scare us in his movies.

Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer, widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as “the Master of Suspense”, he directed over 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well-known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films.

We may not be like Alfred and we may not have the ability to write stories like he was able to. However we all are walking stories ourselves. We only have to be good at telling our own story.

Recently I attended a business event, where there were 3 keynote speakers and then those speakers were joined by another 2 business people to form a panel, which allowed us to ask questions of them.

I noticed that during the keynotes the speakers were very formal, business orientated and quite frankly boring.

But during the panel Q&A session they seemed more relaxed, were more authentic and actually often very vulnerable. They appeared more human, more real and not so fake.

Sorry, yes, their keynotes were fake and in fact most keynotes are fake. When you’re invited to do a keynote, you immediately feel that you have to impress the audience, share something so great about yourself so that the audience ‘buys’ you.

Actually being more human, authentic and vulnerable means the audience buys you instantly. Sure add some suspense like Alfred did, make them suffer a little, but do it in a way that’s real.

Happy screenwriting!

Michael de Groot

You may have heard it before?

Hugh MacLeod

You may have heard it before. ‘You are the biggest storyteller in your life’. And most of it are lies. Lies about the people around you, lies about the world around you and most importantly lies about yourself.

Our mind is incredibly creative but it’s also very stupid. Because of your own conditioning, you believe the lies you have been telling yourself. Those lies become your truth because you have been thinking them over and over.

And this is how the media, advertising and politics work. Say something over and over and eventually it becomes hard wired in your neural pathways, a physical connection is made between your neurons that eventually become your truth, your beliefs and now you behave and act upon those new beliefs (lies) you have been exposed to, either by your own thinking or someone else’s thinking.

You (and I) believe we have free will and of course we do not. Free will disappeared when they invented the mortgage. Landowners (call them banks) realised that if they gave you a loan to buy some land (house) then basically they can determine your behaviour and actions to ensure you pay back that loan.

Queue the Bank of England and now you have removed free will in the minds of the world’s population.

You believe you are the hero in your life, when in actual fact you are just a character in a script which has been written by the over lords (and ladies) that own you.

Happy storytelling!

Michael de Groot

Have you actually compared storytelling with marketing?

Hugh MacLeod

I wouldn’t wish to presume of course, I can only go by the fact that I’ve never heard anyone talk about it or even hear anyone consider assessing it.

Picture the scene.

Marketing lay out their stall for the forthcoming year. They present their plan to the board of directors and show them a multi-million dollar spend on advertising, inbound marketing, posters, flyers, influencers, social media ads, SEO, PPC etc, etc.

Queue script writer/storyteller and video director. They present their video episodes, which includes a story about the founders of the business, the early pioneer clients, their current clients, their staff and their own individual stories in life and work and best of all an episode about why the organisation exists, their passion, value proposition and their why.

Which one sounds more interesting to you? And which one will have longevity in the minds of viewers, investors, customers, brand fans and kids?

Yeah, I thought so. Why isn’t everyone doing it then? Why does everyone on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn promote their crap and I’m only calling it crap because as we all know adverts suck!

Happy advertising!

Michael de Groot

Storytelling should be simple right?

Hugh MacLeod

When it comes to storytelling, we make it too complicated. We hear stories, narratives and anecdotes all the time, but we don’t turn around and say, ‘ah, that’s a story I am listening to or oh no, that’s a narrative or anecdote.

We just are engaged by what we’re listening to and we connect the dots in our brains in relation to what we have experienced previously. It’s almost impossible to create new neural pathways without referencing older neurological pathways that already exist.

For example whilst you are reading this, you in theory are creating a new neural pathway just with this short article. However the article can not exist on it’s own because you would not have any way of bringing it up from your memory. It has to be connected to something else that exists in your brain. You already have a neural pathway established which knows something about storytelling. For example when your mother or father told you a story, it’s likely that you will be able to recall what one of those stories were. Therefore you have some beliefs and opinions about stories already established. The neural pathways may be a pit rusty, but because you are receiving potentially new information about storytelling, you brain will attach the new information, the new neural pathway, to the old rusty pathway and refresh that part as well.

So now you have created more relationships to do with storytelling in your brain, which means whenever you hear, read or see something that mentioned storytelling you will be able to recall the whole lot in one go.

Clever or what?

But it’s the job of the speaker, writer, presenter to invoke this inside of you.

Without either a story, narrative or anecdote, which for me are all the same, you don’t have a chance to make the connections and therefore it will be totally forgettable.

Happy storytelling!

Michael de Groot

Do you call yourself a storyteller?

Hugh MacLeod

Yeah, me too, I pretend to be one also.

Allegedly 550k marketers on LinkedIn list ‘storytelling’ in their profiles. And yet creating content, case studies, adverts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest does not qualify you or me as a ‘storyteller’.

I’ve worked with advertising/marketing agencies and they still ask me to create animations that are explainer videos instead of stories. Bizarre and they’re supposed to be the ones that are good at storytelling.

It’s not just about the story either, it’s about how you dress it up. I am a follower of minimalism and one of The Minimalists, Joshua Fields-Millburn did a webinar on writing a few months ago (June 2018) and he explained it the best way I have ever heard it.

The first sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the second sentence, the second sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the third sentence, the third sentence you write is to make the reader want to read the fourth sentence…

You get the idea, every sentence has to be your best sentence in order to keep someone hooked. So when you’re writing a story script it would be a great suggestion to keep that in mind.

Put some characters into the story, real names, real personalities with a life and a mission. Make it relatable to the viewer, know your audience, you have to know your audience, better than they know themselves. If you don’t yet know enough about them then go and find out, lots of them are very happy to talk about themselves.

Happy storytelling!

Michael de Groot

Stories

You are already the most powerful storyteller walking on the planet, the only problem is you don’t realise it yet. As you are reading this text, your mind is more than likely starting to wander in different directions, you may be reading these words for sure, but what happens to those words when they integrate with your brain is something totally unique.

The words you are reading will only make sense when they match up with the stories you have created inside the depths of your neurons, which of course reside in your brain.

All of us have the ability to make sense of things that are happening around us and we do this through capturing short stories about the times, places, people and things that we observe, including the words that you are reading right now.

You have to create visual cues in your brain for many things and when you add some emotion and feeling to those visuals it will have a better chance of hard-wiring there. When our neurons hard-wire they stay inside our long-term memory for longer.

Stories when told well, will engender some emotion and feeling inside of you and when it does, that’s THE most powerful way for it to lay down new memory neurons. Therefore when you share stories make them relatable, memorable, different, unusual and stand out.

I love the following quote, it’s the one I always recall when creating stories.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
~ Maya Angelou

Happy storytelling!

Michael de Groot

Thank you

I would like to express my gratitude to you as a follower in my network here on Medium.

I have no idea if you’ve actually managed to read my Typewriting publication, but if you have and you’ve engaged with any of the short articles, I truly appreciate you.

If ever you’d like me to write about something you are curious about, do reach out and ask me. I would love to practice my writing, research and analysis on topics my followers would like to hear more about. Topics, I am happy to write about are, storytelling, marketing, engagement, whiteboard animation, mindfulness and minimalism. But I’m happy to contribute on other topics too. I am never short on opinions or advice.

Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards, Michael

ps. I just discovered that I can send these letters to any followers of my publication on Medium. I assure you that I will not make it a regular habit to email and you can manage your email settings as well.

Story

Movies are still the best stories ever told, because it activates pretty much all the important regions in your brain. When viewing even a fictional story on the screen, you can’t help being transported into the story and feel like you are the main protagonist.

Couple this with our human sense of fairness, winning and surviving and we will generally always be on the side of the main heroin, literally willing her to succeed in her quest.

Physically we will have similar feelings of fear, anticipation, worry, doubt and our motor cortex in our brain the part that’s governing the firing of our muscles are also engaged. Wonder why you may feel breathless or exhausted after watching a gripping, high action movie? You just starred in it. And because all of those factors you will want to experience more of it next time. We are addicted to the thrill of movies.

I often witness my wife Clair filling her eye ducts with water when there is a sad scene in a movie. None of the action is actually happening to her but because of one of our other major emotions ‘empathy’, we are now feeling what the starring character is feeling. So if they are sad because they lose their partner or their fellow warrior in a fighting scene and they show sadness, we feel that sadness too. Us guys can often hold on and keep a stiff upper lip but the ladies have a better empathy button and will feel their hurt at a deeper level.

Happy watching!

Michael de Groot

90 Seconds

90 seconds for videos is too long. I remember when YouTube first came out and the limit was 10 minutes. We all cried in despair, we wanted more time. Think about it, our attention span is about 20 seconds. Therefore videos need to be just 20 seconds.

They need to get to the point quick and grab your attention even faster.

During our #dailycartoon series, our cartoons are just 20 seconds long. About the right length.

Do you have more to say? Of course you do, you need to make sure all your solutions are heard and as a result they will pick up the phone and call you, right? WRONG!

After 90 seconds you are totally forgettable.

So here’s my new formula and you can have it for free.

The best stories in Hollywood are told along a timeline of ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’. Okay so remember that.

  • 1st 20 seconds, chapter 1 — what is — current state, problem, issue and pain.
  • 2nd 20 seconds, chapter 2 — what could be — future state, happy place, no issues, less pain.
  • 3rd 20 seconds, chapter 3 — what is — other issues and pains, lay on more, because there are always more.
  • 4th 20 seconds, chapter 4 — what could be — even better future happy place, solved the other pains too.
  • 5th 20 seconds, chapter 5 — what is — if the pain continues and you do nothing, where will you end up in maybe 3–5 years time?
  • 6th 20 seconds, chapter 6 — now the hero, that’s you, saves the day and walks off into the sunset, into that super happy place, arm in arm, hand in hand, arm over shoulder, we looked after you and we saved your life!

Thinks about it, 6 assets, drip feed campaign, stacking methodology, viewer is looking for the answer, waiting for it.

All educational, promotional, storytelling campaigns need to be told in 20 seconds video clips.

Happy storytelling!

Michael de Groot

Profile

I’m no author. I’d like to think I’m a storyteller but I’m more like a story facilitator, helping you to craft your best story and allowing your digital community to have a closer connection with you.

By far the biggest mistake I see people make is that they write profile summaries in the 3rd person, like they are a big celebrity and their agent has written a bio page for them. Maybe you’re a speaker and your agent writes it for you?

It creates such a distance between your reader, your audience and yourself, because it’s not personal and definitely does not create any sense of intimacy.

When you write a profile, bio or summary page about yourself, write as if you are sitting opposite someone, explaining your story. Of course share what you do in business, cool, but make it more personal because that’s the most interesting part of who you are.

Write WHY you do what you do, what circumstances, opportunities got you into what you are doing today or if you haven’t found what you wish to do yet, what is grabbing your interest the most, what aspirations do you have?

Share something personal about your life too, maybe how you have moved around, how that enabled you to see the world in a different light, what effect did it have on you?

Always write in the first person, ‘I’ instead of ‘She/He’.

Got it?

Michael de Groot

What’s your story’s formula?

Every great story ever told has a formula. These days we might like to call it an algorithm, a story algorithm.

Ever since I decided to major on whiteboard animation stories as my mission, I have been attracting more knowledge from the people in my network. 

One such attraction was Michael-Don Smith (Don), someone I’ve been connected to for 7 years. We met recently again at a networking event and he mentioned Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey (1949). And no I had not heard of it, remarkably!

(The word Hero in this article is being referred to a gender neutral form, which is allowed apparently, I looked it up!)

There are other story algorithms that came after, David Adams Leeming (1981), Phil Cousineau (1990), Christopher Vogler (2007).

And when I researched it, it made just perfect sense, something I naturally had adopted in my whiteboard animation stories for clients and now I had confirmation that my story approach was 100% correct. A polite pat on my own back and I know I have loads to learn still.

I will explain briefly. Every great story told tells the journey of hero. Their quest and their obstacles and villains to defeat. Pretty much like life itself really. Maybe that’s why we can all relate so well to stories. They all follow 3 basic steps and then more steps within those as per the table below.

But for us to really be drawn into the story, it will pivot back and forth between what is and what could be. There really is no point of a story to start with the hero, starting their quest, defeating the villain and then going back home. That would be too predictable and too easy. The hero will have several obstacles to face, making us believe that it’s almost impossible to come back from those. Every time the hero overcomes an obstacle or defeats a villain another one comes around the corner. 

We all love it that the hero has an almost impossible task to achieve and somehow, some way it manages to survive and come back from the dead, in some cases literally.

That’s why we all love movies so much, especially the biggest blockbusters, whether Star Wars, Harry Potter, Avatar and many many more. 

Now let’s take The Hero’s Journey into your own world. If you are in business or have a role in sales or marketing, your mission is to become a better storyteller. If you know that everyone and I do mean everyone loves stories then you already know that your clients will love stories too, it's a given.

We already know that most of us do not like the adverts and yes some of them are clever little stories too. Not all of them though, next time you’re watching TV just observe and count how many are stories and how many are just ‘buy me’ messages.

Awareness is the first step and although most of us are reluctant to change to start with, when we finally decide to change we will conquer our fears. 

Practice makes perfect.

Start by writing a short story about your product or service. Place a hero as the main character in your story, how was your hero affected by the problem or the obstacle being faced, present a couple more issues on top of the first one and then present how your hero overcame all of those obstacles by using your product or service. 

Often there is no need to share the full detail of your product or service and how it solved your hero's issue, it is enough to just imply it. Leaving people wanting more is often a good thing.

Try it out, send me your draft and I will be happy to critique it.

Success with your new story!

@stayingaliveuk

ps. Saw this great TEDx talk titled the magical science of storytelling

Why is Storytelling so powerful? And how do we use it to our advantage? Presentations expert David JP Phillips shares key neurological findings on storytelling and with the help of his own stories, induces in us the release of four neurotransmitters of his choice. Learn more in this 2nd TEDxStockholm talk of David's.

Why is Storytelling so important? Chapter 4 - The END

@stayingaliveuk

@stayingaliveuk

Now you know that everyone thinks in stories and that we all love them too. What do you think a marketer should be creating when they are promoting their product or service?

Correct! You guessed right... they tell stories.

Then there is just one final thing you need to be aware of and that’s ‘VAK’.

V stands for Visual

A stands for Auditory

K stands for Kinaesthetic

When you listen to or watch a story you are either taking in visual cues from the story or you are literally creating your own visual representation of that story. You will often relate it to yourself, i.e. you put yourself in the story as if you were experiencing it.

If the story has any audio, in the case of, say, a radio programme, a movie (video) or a podcast, then you’ve got an additional way to absorb the story more meaningfully. When you are reading a book and they describe sounds, then more than likely you will create that sound in your brain without actually hearing it. Do you ever wonder when you read a book, whose voice do you actually hear? In fact whose voice do you hear right now when you are reading this? Okay, I’m probably getting a bit deep now, let’s move on.

Kinaesthetic refers to learning something by doing it or feeling it. When it comes to storytelling it refers to how it makes you feel after hearing or engaging with the story.

Take all three together - Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic - and you have the best possible formula for the viewer to engage with your story. Tell an engaging storythrough visual graphics, add a voiceover with some music and ensure the story itself leaves them feeling an emotion and the story will literally wire a new neural pathway in their brains.

The END

Do you have any great examples how storytelling has won you business?

You can download the full story by clicking HERE.

#storytelling #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy #digitalmarketing #storyteller #visual #auditory #kinaesthetic #nlp

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Why is Storytelling so important? Chapter 3

@stayingaliveuk

@stayingaliveuk

It is said that narrative thought creates stories that are coherent of particular experiences, temporally structured and context sensitive (Baumeister & Newman, 1994).

On a day to day basis you take in millions of bits of data and in order to make sense of it all you literally develop your own daily story with all that data. 

You are actually the biggest storyteller yourself.

This means you are already very accustomed to stories and therefore anything that comes your way in the form of a story, you will accept quite readily and weave that into your own story with its own characters, outcomes and timeframes.

Let’s take your trip to the gym. Some of you go daily, 3 times per week or just at the weekend and some of you may not have made it yet.

However, we all have a picture of what a gym looks like. Lots of exercise machines, weights etc., maybe a pool, a cafe and many other amenities.

When you think about going to the gym you almost certainly create a short story in your brain. You see yourself getting up, doing whatever you do, changing into your gym wear, travelling there and doing whatever you like doing the most and travelling back.

You may not include the travelling part, you may just see yourself doing the exercise. Just enough to get you motivated to follow through.

Everything you think about, well nearly everything, develops in the form of a story.

What have you been thinking about lately? Share your answer in the comments below.

You can download the full story by clicking HERE.

#storytelling #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy #digitalmarketing #storyteller

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Why is Storytelling so important? Chapter 2

@stayingaliveuk

@stayingaliveuk

Telling stories isn’t always that simple though is it? Let’s take the scenario of a product or service.

This is what most people believe.

  1. You have to share what the product/service does.
  2. You must share how the product/service performs.
  3. You’ve got to demonstrate, through testimonials, how the product/service has helped others.
  4. You’ve got to give people an incentive to purchase your product/service.

Wrong! Your buyer will think, ‘so what? My problem is unique, nobody has my problem, I am the only one with this problem and I can’t see how your product/service will help me.’

The reason they come up with these objections is the fact that they haven’t emotionally connected with your company or product yet. The only way you can create emotion in anyone is to have them buy into your story first. This could be about you personally, your company or your product.

How interesting would it be if you told the story of how your product was created and road-tested. Even more powerful would be to share who was involved in the product creation and how long it took you to come up with the idea, prototype it and then manufacture it. How you got consumers of the product involved in testing it and giving their feedback. How the feedback made you shape the product/service and made it even greater.

You may remember Apple’s iPhone 4 ‘Antennagate’ a few years back where consumers had reported that the signal was poor when your hand obscured the antenna. In the end only 0.55% of buyers complained but Apple gave everyone free bumpers to stop them from obscuring the antenna. In an unprecedented move Apple showed us a strange room where the iPhone was tested. Not everyone will have seen it but it’s the only internal room that I have seen in Apple. It gave me a fabulous insight and increased level of trust in them. Apple never shared how the product performed, they just shared with us a story of how it was tested. Do you get the difference? 

You can download the full story by clicking HERE.

#storytelling #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.