Tag Archive for: speaking

Your story. Your legacy

Public speaking and story – vital forms of communication,

– connecting, convincing

and

leaving a legacy.

I have long loved this from Neil Gaiman, storyteller extraordinaire:

I do love Neil Gaiman’s understanding of story … so much.

When I first saw this quote, I wrote …

This, in a nutshell,  I’ve just lately realised, is why stories have always mattered so much to me.

Libraries, books, stories are collections of what we know deep in our cells is treasure beyond wealth or money.

It is our creative stimulus, our survival, our reminders of why we exist and what is possible….

creative stimulus, survival, reminders of why we exist and what is possible.

There is so much we can discuss around that in terms of connecting/convincing, but let’s look at legacy.

What might be your legacy – the legacy of your communication, speaking and storytelling

and perhaps in terms of stimulating creativity, making meaning of existence, seeing possibilities?

And if that sounds a bit pompous, a bit beyond the realms of your everyday life, please think again.

If you are a speaker, if you are a storyteller, if you are a communicator of any sort, within your family, within your community, at work, in business you are influencing people whether you think you are or not, whether you choose to or not.

And that

might change a LITTLE piece of history,

or you might be able to contribute to one of the BIG movements for change that is happening around us right now.

How will we use story to be a part of the constant change that IS history, to leave even just a tiny legacy as part of it all?

I love the way we can use story, whenever we tell it, to encourage our teams, our communities, our audiences, ourselves, in fact,

to strive to

be the best of what it is that makes us human – to remind ourselves of that.

It can also show us our shadow side and how we need to work at accepting and working with that too.

If you are a change-maker, a history-maker – story is your most potent tool  !!

And I’m going to own that one!

You can too!

There is always some way we can make the world a better place, change our culture, inspire change and growth, if only through our workplace, our children, our incidental conversations.

Elon Musk, who is doing so much to move us forward in useful ways, is also aiming to take us to Mars, in case we need an alternative home to this one.

That’s altruistic perhaps, but let’s not contribute to making it a necessity!!

Whatever way we choose to harness the power of speaking and story, it will be our legacy – yours and mine.

My question to you today is …

What is the story you will contribute to our shared history?  What would you like your legacy to be?

Think about that as you go about your daily tasks.

Feel free to visit the comments below and let me know what you would like the legacy of your speaking and storytelling to be,

and it you do want to chat with me about using story to leave a legacy, find a time that will suit you here.

Ramping up your impact with the bigger story

Behind your business story your personal story, your leadership story, there is a bigger story.

 

 

Whenever we tell a story – in a speech, online, as a leader, as a motivator, we drop the energy, but increase impact.

If we do it well, we have our readers, audience, teams in the storytelling trance, in our story with us, following our lead.   Their brains and heart rates drop and they relax both their physiology and their resistance.

Nevertheless there is powerful impact happening with that storytelling, points communicated, minds moving towards change and messages embedded.

What we do after that can break the spell and undermine the success of our message or it can support it, build on it and add even more power.

Take your audience|readers|team out of the story trance and shift the energy and the brain patterns by introducing some left brain, rational support for the point you are making.

Tell the bigger story.

Why is this relevant to the times?

Why is this relevant to the industry you all inhabit?

Why is this relevant to your part of the world or your culture?

You are bringing yourself and your audience back into why this experience you have created with the story, and the message that is embedded behind it, is so very relevant and important to them on a much larger scale than their personal needs or wants.

They feel swept along in a movement far greater than themselves.

Then you can take them further along in the flow of your message.

“Always lead with a story,” they said. Not always the best advice for speakers

“Always lead with a story”.

I wonder who gave him that advice?

It sounds feasible, even powerful.

Stories ARE powerful.

They engage, build credibility, create an emotional tone, set the scene.

And all of those things are what is needed from a speech opening.

But they are not the only options for a speech opening, and sometimes they can be damaging.

Find out why and what to do about it in this article I wrote for the Pivotal Public Speaking blog … http://wp.me/p2V4KT-T7