Storytelling Allows You to Peel Back the Layers and Uncover Deeper Meaning
When you think about all the little things that have happened that dramatically changed your course in life, those small things start to have big meanings. Stories are a great way of showcasing how small parts of life can have significant impact.
This is the case in all parts of life. While major events obviously have significant impact, so do many minor ones. This can be true in cases of friendships and relationships being formed, as well as a variety of career and business decisions.
One small chance interaction can change your entire career path to something totally different, and that same small chance can also lead to a lifelong relationship being formed with someone.
Telling stories about this and explaining how each part of a seemingly minor event lead to something else that became a huge deal over time can help to motivate audiences to make the most out of those little moments.
Often times people in your audience can get overwhelmed thinking that they need to have some massive thing happen in their lives in order to change it for the better, but in fact, small random events can have the same impact, if not greater.
Storytelling is often crucial for explaining this concept properly. For example, if you bumped into someone in an elevator and ended up talking to them and were able to get a job interview out of it, that’s something that you’d want to elaborate on.
You’d want to talk about the fine details, perhaps what kinds of things the two of you talked about, and how the topic of the job arose in conversation. By explaining in greater detail and painting that picture, you can show how much you can do with these events.
Even if it’s not about a particular event, you can use this same train of logic to explain how acting a certain way or doing something small can have large impacts on people’s lives. Storytelling helps bind everything together to make it a cohesive story.
The benefit of doing this is that audiences will feel inspired and hopeful, hearing how something seemingly minor can have such long-reaching benefits. If you’re able to make your story particularly positive, that’s even better.
Help your audiences to make the most out of any situation. Not everything in life comes through difficulty alone, but they do need to learn how to take advantage of moments like that when they present themselves.
Storytelling Brings the Social Aspect to Otherwise Cold Communications
Many professional communications can be cold and uninteresting. Due to the nature of the interaction, most professional communications are stale because they just want to get the raw information and have any questions answered.
There are advantages, however, to being more open, warm, and welcoming. The other party in the business deal or communication is going to remember what you two discussed much clearer if it had a greater impact on them.
This isn’t to say that every interaction has to be life changing and go on for a while, but rather that using a little bit of storytelling can help make these interactions much nicer and have them feeling more like a social interaction.
When you’re able to really make a connection with someone like a prospective client who wanted to discuss something simple like rates with you, you’re probably going to become the first option in their mind.
It might not even be a conscious decision for them, but rather they just remember you best out of anyone. If you were to give a boring, rambling rundown of things like prices and rates, they might not remember you much at all.
It’s important to note that while you’re using storytelling to brighten up business related interactions, you cannot totally ignore the things that they’re there to discuss. If you don’t really give them the information they need, they’re going to be upset.
You might be able to weave the necessary information into the story somehow, or you may need to talk about it separately while using the storytelling to soften them up. Either way, getting that important business information in is crucial.
There are also going to be individuals you run into that simply don’t want the nice social aspect added to their business communications. While some people can appreciate that, not everyone does.
Some will want to get straight to the point, and when you find people like this, it’s best to go along more with their style so that they don’t get overly frustrated with you. The same types that don’t like to socialize usually also have shorter tempers.
While someone that likes socialization can also handle someone being cold, the reverse isn’t really true. Someone who’s all business does not want any amount of engagement from you, and trying to force that can make them have a negative attitude towards you.
Storytelling Has the Ability to Break Down Barriers and Misunderstandings
If communication is not your strong suit, you may have encountered situations where someone is listening to what you’re saying, but they simply don’t understand it. For one reason or another, the way you’re phrasing something doesn’t make sense to them.
This is a frustrating experience to have, because while it makes sense in your mind, their mind works differently. By utilizing storytelling, you’ll be able to circumvent misunderstandings and get through mental blocks.
Part of the reason storytelling is so good at helping this kind of problem is that it gives a better picture of the situation or scenario you’re trying to describe. For example, you might be trying to explain to someone why better online security is important.
If you just try and throw out terms and words at them that they might not know, you’re not going to get much of a response out of them. They don’t know what those words mean or what they do, or what the threats posed are.
However, if you posed it in a story and explained how someone wasn’t up-to-date on their security and someone stole a bunch of their company files, then they can more clearly understand what you’re talking about.
Even if the story isn’t exactly about what you’re trying to talk about, you can use similes and seemingly unrelated stories that actually parallel what you’re talking about. This is especially useful when someone has no remote idea about the topic at hand.
It can take far too long to try and explain every minute detail about a complex topic to someone, and even if they give you that amount of time, it’s unlikely to stick. By the end of the day, chances are they’ll forget most of what you said.
Instead, you can describe the different parts and aspects of a topic in the framework of a story that allows them to understand what it is without having to waste time trying to explain it technically.
Being able to get around situations where there’s either a gap in knowledge on a subject or someone just isn’t able to wrap their head around what you’re saying is so important, because it’s a major part of communication.
If it’s about an important or relevant topic, you need to be able to explain it effectively to anyone, regardless of their level of knowledge. By using storytelling, you can do just that, and prevent misunderstandings easily.
Storytelling Is Beneficial in Both Your Personal and Professional Life
In order to better utilize storytelling as a skill, it’s important for you to realize what it is at its very core: a social skill. In the same way that being able to hold a conversation and active listening are social skills, storytelling has many of the same benefits.
Just like any other social skill, it has a variety of uses in both personal and professional settings. Whether you’re trying to make friends or want to stand out in a job interview, it’s a very helpful skill to have.
Storytelling is particularly advantageous in both parts of life because the main benefits of it include getting people to listen better to you, and making people connect better with the things you’re talking about.
When trying to make new friends, storytelling is such a great skill to have, especially when you can put a funny spin on the stories you tell. People love listening to someone who can make them laugh with a good story.
You can also find storytelling useful in your personal life regarding things like parenting. You might find that your kids are more willing to listen to real life examples of why they should do things rather than being told “because I said so.”
This skill especially shines in professional settings. You will always remember someone who was personable and fun to talk to in a professional setting more than you do someone who is bland and unremarkable.
Being able to stand out among your peers is a key part of being in a job interview. You have to imagine that you likely have a similar background and skill set to many other applicants, so you need something to set yourself apart from them.
Naturally, you don’t want to be too overly talkative during a job interview, but when they ask you about why you want to go into a certain field or work at a certain company, you want to be able to give a compelling reason why that they’ll remember.
It’s also a useful skill to have when trying to get new clients to work with your company. Say you were working to manufacture custom desks for offices, and were approached by a prospective buyer.
If you’re able to be personable and relatable to them and tell fun stories about previous orders while also giving the necessary information, they’re more likely to remember you over someone who just coldly lists out pricing information and logistics.
Storytelling Isn’t Only About Things That Have Happened to You
While learning how to effectively tell stories, you might subconsciously limit yourself to only telling stories that have directly happened to you or that you experienced firsthand. This isn’t actually necessary to do, though.
You’re free to tell stories of anyone’s experience, as long as you do it right. While you can’t just make up stories about real people, you can still fabricate examples with made up characters and tell stories from all kinds of perspectives.
When you’re talking to prospective customers or clients, you can tell them stories about other customer’s experiences in coming to your company and having whatever they needed to be done well to inspire more confidence in them.
You don’t have to have been the one to help the client in the story, it could have happened before you even started working there. Just telling the story from that perspective, though, can help the current customer feel like they can relate.
Other employees’ experiences can have very valuable lessons in them that new employees can find helpful when dealing with difficult customers or tough circumstances by demonstrating how they dealt with the problems.
Just because it isn’t your story doesn’t mean you can’t tell it, especially if it’s going to help someone else greatly. You could have heard it from the source first and then gone on to retell it to someone else.
One great source of tons of stories is history. Historical figures have gone through so much in so many different situations that they’re bound to have stories that can be either inspirational or entertaining.
If you’re able to tell a story of a great historical figure that people can relate to, it really can help either get them through a tough time or even guide them towards a better path in their work.
The stories you tell don’t actually even have to be from real life or have happened at all. Ethically, you shouldn’t just throw out fake stories about real people, but if you make it clear that it’s a made up story about a made up person, it can still have a good purpose.
Made up stories can help illustrate a point by showing an example of how something might work, which can be useful if you’re going into a sort of uncharted territory. Not everything is going to have a prior example that you can cite.
Storytelling Isn’t About Perfection – It’s About an Epic Ending
Whether they’re telling stories in a social or professional context, many people are afraid of sharing their own tales of mistakes and errors. They don’t want to be made to look bad in front of someone they’re trying to impress.
However, this isn’t the point of storytelling. If you share your mistakes with others, but it culminates in a great ending showcasing how you overcame the consequences of that mistake and how you learned a lesson, that’s fantastic.
Showcasing your own mistakes is a great way to form a quicker bond with someone. It’s clear to the other party that you’re being honest by not trying to make yourself look perfect, which is something that they can appreciate.
You might know someone who, in every story they tell, ends up doing nothing at all wrong and someone else always messes it up for them. It’s clear that they’re lying most of the time and just not taking responsibility for what they’re doing.
You can show your own examples of mistakes and take responsibility for what went wrong, while also showcasing your own personal growth and the end result of the story, which ultimately will be you being a better person overall.
This kind of storytelling can be very relatable in a professional context. Many of your higher ups will have undoubtedly made similar mistakes in their time, and this can help establish a sort of back and forth where you both can relate.
If you’re talking to an audience, stories where you overcome some difficulty or imperfection are the best kinds of stories to share. Not only is there natural tension from you having to overcome the difficulty, but there’s also an inspirational message in it.
Instead of being ashamed of ever having made mistakes to begin with, be proud that you were able to evaluate your own mistakes and grow based off of that experience. It’s not something that everyone is able to admit.
Talking about mistakes and imperfections can also make you seem much more human and relatable to the audience. Instead of just being some person talking at them for a while, you start to become someone that they see themselves in.
A lot of people that present stories end up not being relatable, and audiences won’t respond well to their stories. By being more vulnerable and showcasing real life difficulties you’ve encountered, you’ll be much better off in storytelling.
Storytelling Is the Spark That Has the Power to Change Minds
Being able to convince others around you to see things in a different light is a skill that people work on building for years. It’s used every single day, both at home and in the workplace, and has tons of advantages.
Storytelling in particular is a very effective way of helping change people’s minds, because it provides them with more context as well as real world examples of why what you’re saying is correct.
When you present an idea to somebody, especially if it’s different or the opposite of an idea they’ve presented, they’re going to be naturally opposed to it. They might take the idea by itself and come up with the worst-case scenario of it in their minds.
However, if you’re able to present it within the context of a real world example where the idea you’re using did work, they may be able to see that it’s more likely to do well than the worst-case scenario they were envisioning.
For example, you might want to suggest that your company start having monthly dinners where the employees go out together and have a nice, relaxing evening. Some might immediately say that it wouldn’t do anything or that it would be a waste of funds.
If you can then back it up with a story of your experience doing that at a previous workplace, and show how it improved company morale and efficiency, then the naysayers might be more willing to listen.
Part of the reason that storytelling is so effective for influencing people is that it’s a much more engaging way of explaining the overall concept of something. While it’s more logical to go through the boring details, anecdotal stories are more interesting.
When people pay attention more because it’s much more interesting, they start to think more about what you’re telling them in a way that they can relate to. By having them think harder about what it is you’re saying, they’ll start to give your ideas more credit.
There’s also the factor of relatability. If you include parts of a story that many people will have experienced, they’re going to be more influenced by it because, even if just subconsciously, they’ll put themselves in the shoes of the person in the story.
Being relatable makes people drop their guard and opens their mind up, making them more receptive to new ideas. If they couldn’t relate in any way to what you’re saying, they likely wouldn’t understand what you’re trying to tell them.
Storytelling Should Contain Nuggets of Wisdom Your Audience Can Apply to Their Own Lives
One mistake that people often make when telling stories is giving a literal account of events that occurred rather than skillfully crafting a story that contains good pacing as well as wisdom that they can actually apply in real life.
Not only does your audience get no use out of you just saying exactly what happened in your story, but it’s also flat out boring. Rambling on and on, simply saying who did what is a surefire way to put your audience to sleep.
Instead of having your whole story lead up to one central point of knowledge at the very end, consider putting more useful information spread throughout. You should still build up towards a conclusion, but have little takeaways in the middle as well.
For example, if you were telling a story that was leading up to the point of how networking improved your career, you can put in little tidbits throughout the story about what mistakes you made first starting off and why those were bad ideas.
This allows you to give your audience even more useful information, and it also keeps them interested in your story more. They’ll get pulled in by you providing entertaining anecdotes that they can use in their own personal lives.
You’re going to want to really showcase exactly how you came to your final message or conclusion. Whatever lesson you’re trying to teach, you need to show the mistakes you made and how you came to learn that lesson, and what changed when you did learn it.
Sharing your own learning experiences is important, as it can help prevent people in the audience from making similar mistakes and help them get ahead in life, learning certain important lessons early on.
If your entire story is just an account of events that occurred, it can be difficult for people to understand what you’re trying to convey regarding what lesson they should take from it. They might even end up misinterpreting your lesson if you don’t specify it.
Your audience will also be so bored by hearing a bland recount of events that they likely wouldn’t even be listening if you did give one big final lesson. If you had tied that final lesson in at different points throughout the story, they’d be more attentive.
Look at the way you tell stories to judge whether you’re telling people things that have happened, or if you’re telling stories with events as well as lessons, side stories, plots, pacing, and so on.
