Some things are better left as a surprise

“Patricia, I can’t remember if I told you, but I sorted out a life insurance for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, now that we’ll have a kid I think that makes sense.”

“OK. So how exactly does that work?”

“If something happens to me, you’ll get about half a million euros, give or take some tax.”

She pauses for a moment, and says, 

“Is it working already? I mean, if something happened to you now would I get that money?”

“Ahm… well, I don’t… no, it wouldn’t, there’s some sort of waiting period before it kicks off… And, of course, if there’s anything suspicious about my death you might not get the money at all.”

“Ok. Got it.”

I swear she looks a little disappointed. 

I’ve heard that it’s normal to feel a little anxious during a pregnancy… 

I just didn’t think the one doing most of the worrying would be me 😅

Scary but useful

Patricia asked what was probably an innocent question (or so I’m hoping!), but it sounded quite sinister there and then. I did regret for a moment not leaving that insurance as a nice surprise…

But what can I use this story for? What point can it help make? 

My first instinct is that it will be about “surprise” or “something unexpected.” 

When I think more on it, all the below would probably work: 

• An unexpected reaction to something you did 

• The dangers of misunderstanding what someone means

• How worrying about can catch us off-guard 

• How incentives change behaviour 

Would any of these points be proven by that story? No, of course not. Apart from the first one, they might even feel like a stretch. 

But it would be a light-hearted way to introduce the idea, and give the audience something memorable. 

And that’s often all you really need a story to do. 

“I’m going blind!”

Here’s an example of from a TEDx talk I worked on earlier this year: 

Martin Lesperance’s talk is about purpose, and what makes us love our jobs.

We wanted to use his wife as an example: she’s an optician, which many people would consider a “boring job”, with little or no sense of purpose. Instead of going for some grand story, we used an everyday interaction with a patient who thought she was going blind, but had actually gotten her husband’s glasses on. 

(You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/s4l3VOVvjbU?si=5IYw8StjcA6a3Ubj&t=280) 

It’s one of the most memorable moments in the talk and, although it doesn’t prove anything, it brings to life the point of the talk in a way no statistic or explanation would. 

Not every story needs to be a huge epic. 

Not every story needs to be about life or death. 

Often, all you need is to bring a bit of humanity, a bit of a laugh to your message. 

And sometimes…

There’s nothing more important than that 🤘

-Francisco 

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 on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

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

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