I’m taking my daughter to the doctor when she stops in the middle of the street and says, 

“Dad, can you pick me up?”

“What? We’ve only been walking for a few minutes, you can’t be tired yet.”

“I’m not, but I need to enjoy being picked up while I still can.”

“What do you mean, ‘while you still can’?”

“I make 6 years tomorrow. I can’t be picked up after I’m 6.”

I hear that and my heart feels tight. It’s like I am watching her childhood slipping away right in front of me. 

Takes me a moment, but then I say, 

“Monster, that’s silly. Of course you can still be picked up after your birthday. Come here.”

I pick her up and carry her for a few blocks before my arms tire. 

When we get home later, I tell my wife what Olivia said. 

“The poor kid, where did she get that from?” I ask. 

“From me. I told her that,” Patricia says. 

“You did? Why??”

“She’s getting too heavy, it’s starting to hurt my back.”

“Oh.”

Maybe I should’ve seen that coming. It was too specific a rule for Olivia to have made up on her own. 

But it didn’t come from me and, if I’m honest… 

I often forget my wife can also lie to our children 😅

Storytelling is about percentages 

The story above hasn’t been crafted – at all. No techniques were used, no skill was applied, no talent was needed. I didn’t have to shorten the timeline, none of the characters were omitted, and I didn’t do anything at all with the dialogue. It was super easy to write. 

That story wasn’t crafted, it was collected: it happened, and I kept it. It’s 99% ready, but I’m still missing the last percent that makes all the difference: why it matters to the audience. 

“…And the reason I’m telling you this…”

Yesterday I was in a masterclass about using humour from the amazing Andrew Tarvin, who has one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time, “The Skill of Humor” - 16 MILLION views and counting 🤯

He told us that one of the most important things when you use humor in a talk or presentation is to follow it with some version of “…And the reason I’m telling you this…” That is how you make sure you’re not being funny just for the sake of it, for entertainment only. Brian Miller, my partner-in-crime, said he does the same thing when he uses a magic trick during a keynote. And, as you probably guessed by now, that is what also needs to happen at the end of any story you tell. 

You don’t need to use those exact words, but what follows your story needs to connect it directly with what your talk is about, with the problem the audience has, or the solution you’re proposing. If you don’t make that last 1% percent clear, the other 99% won’t matter – they might even count against you. 

If you want to tell more stories, play the numbers to your advantage: 

Collect stories that are 99% there already, add the 1% your audience needs, and get 100% of the result with almost none of the effort. 

I always hated algebra and trigonometry when I was a kid… 

But this is some math I can do all day 🤘

-Francisco 

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