The first rule of Story Club is…

I start scrolling my LinkedIn feed and it doesn’t take long to see it:

“Let me tell you a story.”

I shake my head, keep scrolling and a few posts down I see “Story time!”

I probably pull a weird face, because Parsley, the cat, raises her head from the sofa and stares at me. 

She doesn’t like what she sees (she rarely does). 

I keep going, hoping I don’t find the third (and worst) offender, but there’s no escaping it: 

“Once upon a time…”

I get off the feed, consider daytime drinking, but settle for just being mildly annoyed. 

 I guess that means I’ve grown up 😅

The first rule of Story Club is… 

You do not say the word “story” (before telling one). 

The second rule of Story Club is you DO NOT say the word “story” (before telling one). 

Ok… but why? 

Here’s the thing: many adults believe fiction is entertainment. It’s not “serious.” It can’t teach us anything useful in real life.

I love fiction and I think that’s nonsense, but even I don’t want to hear fiction from Bob in Accounting when he’s delivering a presentation, or from some random person on social media. 

A story is not fiction - or at least it didn’t evolve that way. A story was a real-life example used to share what you learned, not something out of your imagination. But many people associate the word “story” with fiction, so that’s that. 

“Once upon a time” is even worse because it sounds like a fairy tale, which is fiction for children. But there is a more subtle issue with it that most people still fall for. 

Specific is universal

The original line goes something like “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.” In other words, “I’m not going to tell you when this happened, or where it happened.”

Back in the days people literally lost their heads for offending a king, queen or noble, it was probably a good idea to make sure none of your stories sounded real - even if they were! 

So if you want to make it sound like it never actually happened, be generic. Be vague. Make it sound like it might not be true. 

And if you want to make it sound real, it’s pretty easy: be specific. 

That’s why you say “2 weeks ago” and not “Some time ago.”

“I was waiting tables at a roadside diner just outside Jersey” and not “I had a low-paid job near my hometown.”

“I drove a crappy Fiat Uno” and not “I drove a crappy cheap car.”

We might think that being generic means more people can relate to it, but it’s the opposite: it doesn’t sound real enough, so they don’t look for their own version of whatever you said. Give them something specific, and they will (“I drove a crappy car too, but mine was a beat-up Chevy.”) 

The same goes for when you talk about the work you do: give specific details, so it sounds real. The fact they don’t match the exact details of your audience doesn’t matter - if they’re like them, the audience will do the work of tweaking what you said to match their circumstances. 

Specific is universal. 

So remember the first (and second) rule of Story Club, and don’t say the word “story” before telling one. 

“But, Francisco, what do I say instead??”

Well, grasshopper, that’s a story for another time 🤘

-Francisco 

PS. If you're into podcasts, my episode with the amazing Parker Worth has just come out. It's all about using storytelling to grown an online audience - Parker grew his to almost 50,000 followers in about 17 months!

You can check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking at a TED-style conference, we can find your idea, book the talk of your dreams and deliver it with impact

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

Thanks for reading! Reply any time.