Our Stories

Everything in our lives is a story. Every story has a point.
I understand that these are bold statements but I strongly believe that they are true. Any event in our lives, “big” or “small”, is a story, and every story has a lesson or a point. You may disagree with me and that’s OK. However, consider this: The point or lesson is not always obvious; it may not be life changing or even profound. The beauty of storytelling is that the point does not always have to be profound. Sometimes we need to make a simple, practical point and our story may serve as an anchor or a colorful wrapping paper to our point.
A good question may be what comes first, the point or the story? It all depends on the situation. Sometimes we need to make a point and are in search for a good anchor to support it. Sometimes we have a wonderful story and want to tell it everywhere to everybody, but what point does it make? To uncover the point, we need to work on our stories.
One way is to actually tell our story and ask the audience what they learned from it. I don’t mean a paying audience, unless the purpose of the workshop is to demonstrate this particular technique.
Another option is to record the story and then listen to the playback. This method may reveal some hidden jewels in our story.
A third option is to record our presentations in full and then listen to the audience’s reaction.
All these techniques require consistency. Do not be surprised if you discover more than one point and/or lesson in your stories. When you find stories that you like and enjoy telling, clean them up. By that I mean remove unnecessary and dull details. We will discuss helpful technique to do that in future posts.
When you tell your story, do not just retell it; rather, relive it. If you can do that, your audience will always enjoy hearing it, and you will always enjoy telling it. Tell your story and enjoy doing it. Have fun!