This cake will make you a better person (or at least a better storyteller)

I’m at a festival, and my friend Lizi walks back from one of the food stands with a strange look on her face. 

“What’s up? Didn’t find anything you fancy?”

“Did you see that chocolate cake they have?”

“Yeah, that looks really tasty, I’m thinking of getting some in a bit.”

“There’s a hair on that cake. A huge disgusting hair.”

“What?? Oh crap. That’s awful! Should we say something about it?”

“Hm, maybe we should…”

But we don’t. After a while looking to see if anyone is buying the cake, I get fed up and say, 

“Alright, this is ridiculous. We’ve spent the last half-hour worrying more about someone eating that hair than enjoying the music. We should just tell that guy about it.”

“Ok.”

“You discovered it, so you tell him.”

“I hate you.”

So we walk up to the food stand and she tells the guy. He says nothing, picks the hair off the cake and says, 

“It’s not a hair. It’s a purple thread, it fell from my hat.”

We both look and he’s indeed wearing a purple hat that looks a bit frayed. 

“We’ll have a slice then.”

While we eat the cake, I think how much better it would be to talk to people properly instead of immediately assuming they’ve done something wrong–and judging them for it. 

I just think about it, because if I say it out loud my wife or my kids might hear it and expect me to actually live up to it. 

I can’t have that 😅

You need these two things first

When you tell your friends a story, the only thing that really matters is that it’s about something interesting. Maybe it’s weird, maybe  it’s funny, maybe  it’s unexpected. That’s enough. 

If you want to make that story amazing, there’s all sorts of techniques you can use, like making false predictions, building tension or opposites. 

But when you’re using storytelling in either a business context or in a TED-style talk, what you need is different. And it’s only two things: 

• Understanding 

• Authority 

Or the way I like to think of them (superhero nerd that I am): Pain and Power. 

Do you understand the problem your audience has? Can you empathise with their pain? Have you felt it yourself, or watched it happen to someone personally? 

If that’s a “yes,” then you can definitely talk about it.

Once that box is ticked, have you got any authority to actually suggest a solution? Have you got the power to fix it? 

And you don’t need to have solved every problem yourself; you can often get enough authority from having messed up and knowing what not to do. Or from researching how other people have solved it. 

Everybody does it 

Founders tell the story of how they realised something was a problem in the world, and then how they started a company to fix it. 

Coaches tell how they were struggling with something, got over it and now teach other people to do the same.

Keynote speakers talk about how they came across a problem and often follow that with stories of how other businesses have solved it. 

Just about every superhero movie introduces a new character by telling us how they got their powers and what pain they lived through that makes them motivated to help other people. 

Those are the things that your story cannot do without. All the fancy techniques in the world won’t help you if your audience doesn’t feel understood and believe you can help them. 

So when it comes to using storytelling to engage, influence or inspire anyone, show you felt the pain first, then prove you’ve got the power to do something about it. 

Got those sorted? Great. 

Now you can put some effort into telling a brilliant story 🤘

-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 ;-)

Thanks for reading! Reply any time.