“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.” — Steve Jobs
We are drawn to stories from childhood through adulthood because they are engaging and captivating. Human brains are programmed to emphatize with the characters in the stories, to follow a sequence of events to learn from, and to witness the exciting journeys the characters embark upon. For a compelling storyteller to hold your attention, they must achieve what Liz Neeley calls narrative transportation,"We all know this delicious feeling of being swept into a story world," says Liz Neeley, who directs The Story Collider, "You forget about your surroundings," she says, "and you're entirely immersed." Storytelling is an opportunity to connect emotionally and to unleash our imagination, and as such is a powerful communication tool. So what is happening in the human brain when it is being fed stories? Studies have found, quite a few things that nourish our mind and body:
Our brains run on electrical pulses, so when we hear stories, the lights turn on. According to neuroscientists, "neurons that fire together, wire together". When we hear stories, neurons are fired and therefore wired, helping us feel connected. “Your brain responses while listening become coupled to my brain responses, and slowly they become more similar to my brain responses,” said Uri Hasson, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. In one study, Hasson’s team compared the brain activity of a storyteller with a listener using fMRI. The listener’s brain activity mirrored that of the storyteller’s with just few second’s delay. The synchronized activity appeared not only in basic language processing areas but also in high-level networks involved in understanding meaning. That is why stories are easier to understand and remember.
Stories have brought people together and helped them make sense of the world across cultures and time, and as such are a big part of human evolution. A likely reason for that is that telling stories recruits brain regions responsible for social interactions. Part of the mentalizing network — a group of brain regions employed to predict the motivations, emotions, and beliefs of other people — also comprises a “narrative hub” in the brain activated by telling a story. Stories serve as a “collective sensemaking process,” said Neeley, “Stories are the ways in which we knit together events, that we postulate about causality, that we resolve ambiguity. We identity who the heroes are and who the villains are.”
Another thing that stories do is trigger the release of oxytocin, cortisol, and dopamine in the brain. Oxytocin is known as the "love hormone" and is the neuro-chemical responsible for empathy and narrative transportation. The brain releases dopamine in response to an emotionally-charged event, resolution of conflict, or even recognition of pattern, creating a pleasurable response and ease of memory and recall. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is released when the brain experiences conflict which increases attention and memory. So when we hear a story, we are more likely to feel compassionate, kind, sympathetic and attentive towards what is being presented. To engage the listeners and help them connect to the cause / product / solution the presenter is speaking about, therefore, communicating through stories can be game-changing.
Talking about accomplishments, goals, struggles, aspirations, expectations, new initiatives through personal stories can be influential for leaders, salespeople, interviewees, etc.
Here are a few storytelling templates that can be used to structure your stories before a presentation, an interview, a talk, etc.
1. The Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey framework was popularized by Joseph Campbell’s mythology book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the framework, as the Hero traverses the world, they undergo inner and outer transformations at each stage.
The original three stages of the framework, as coined by Campbell, are:
The Departure Act: the Hero leaves the Ordinary World.
The Initiation Act: the Hero ventures into unknown territory and is birthed into a true champion through various trials and challenges.
The Return Act: the Hero returns in triumph.
In 2007, screenwriter Christopher Vogler expanded upon Campbell’s three phases, defining 12 stages that make up the story arc:
The Ordinary World. We meet our hero.
Call to Adventure. Will they meet the challenge?
Refusal of the Call. They resist the adventure.
Meeting the Mentor. A teacher arrives.
Crossing the First Threshold. The hero leaves their comfort zone.
Tests, Allies, Enemies. Making friends and facing roadblocks.
Approach to the Inmost Cave. Getting closer to our goal.
Ordeal. The hero’s biggest test yet!
Reward (Seizing the Sword). Light at the end of the tunnel
The Road Back. We aren’t safe yet.
Resurrection. The final hurdle is reached.
Return with the Elixir. The hero heads home, triumphant.
2. Opportunity - Challenge - Solution - Benefit - Value
This framework is most commonly used when speaking about a value proposition within a market place e.g. in the context of product sales, product launches, advertising and promotion.
Opportunity: The dialog begins by describing the business opportunities that target customers are looking to capture, such as being able to save time, save money, increase revenue, decrease cost, do more with less, do the things they’ve always wanted to do without hassle. (e.g. you want to exercise to be more fit - opportunity)
Challenge: The second stage is describing the various challenges the customers are likely to face on their journey. This stage identifies customers’ real pain points and issues in a creative and attention-grabbing manner. (e.g. you want to exercise - opportunity - but you are short on time - challenge) The challenges are naturally defined so that the seller / presenter can solve them with their solutions (e.g. technology / products).
Solution: The opportunity and the challenge together form a conflict / a constructive tension (see challenger sale method) which is an obligatory component to set the scene for a classic story. Given the conflict presented, the listener is now feeling disappointed, perhaps a little nervous and hopeless. That’s when the presenter presents a solution that provides the perfect match between the customers’ needs (the opportunity) and the challenge. (e.g. you want to exercise - opportunity - but you are short on time - challenge, we bring your favorite yoga and pilates teachers to your living room / your office / wherever you may be through Zoom - solution)
Benefit: The solution stage is followed by describing and itemizing the key benefits of the solution in a way that resonates with the audience. If possible, best is to go heavy on the economic value of the benefits. (e.g. you want to exercise - opportunity - but you are short on time - challenge, we bring your favorite yoga and pilates teachers to your living room / your office / wherever you may be through Zoom - solution. It’s cheaper, you don’t have to commute, you can do it wherever you are, you have access to 100 different teachers from around the world. - benefit)
Value: The story ends by painting a picture of what the future will look like, if the audience decides to take action; how better off they will be should they get on board with the solution presented. In this step, the presenter describes the earned business value (if and when the listener embarks upon the path laid out in front of them) using detailed, numerical and tangible data. Providing examples and telling success stories about similar customers / listeners that have already made the same choice always provides a powerful conclusion. (e.g. you want to exercise - opportunity - but you are short on time - challenge, we bring your favorite yoga and pilates teachers to your living room / your office / wherever you may be through Zoom - solution. It’s cheaper, you don’t have to commute, you can do it wherever you are, you have access to 100 different teachers from around the world. - benefit, the customers who have signed up to this solution have saved $x / year, have taken x classes / year on average, have done x more hours of exercise than the previous year when they didn’t have a subscription, report on feeling more healthy and energetic - value)
3. Freytag’s Pyramid:
Freytag’s Pyramid is a dramatic structural framework developed by Gustav Freytag, a German playwright and novelist of the mid-nineteenth century. He theorized that effective stories could be broken into two halves, the play and counterplay, with the climax in the middle. These two halves create a pyramid or triangle shape containing five dramatic elements: introduction or exposition, rise (a.k.a. rising movement), climax, return or fall (a.k.a. falling movement), and denouement or catastrophe.
Introduction: where the story introduces important background information
Rising Movement: a series of events to build up to the climax
Climax: where the story gets turned around and there is a conflict / tension introduced (usually the most suspenseful bit)
Falling Action: action continues from the climax towards the catastrophe
Catastrophe or Denouement: ending the story with a resolution, catastrophe or revelation (Freytag mostly focused on tragedies and hence the resolution / the moment of catharsis is called a “catastrophe” in which the main character is finally undone by their own choices, actions, and energy. The modern interpretations of he model also include Denouement as an option in this final step to include happy endings as well as unhappy ones)
Freytag’s pyramid can be most useful when telling a tragic story or one with a negative ending. It can also be complemented by a lesson learned. E.g. Bob was very smart and rich. He built an empire for himself. He did not care about anyone else. One day he needed something. Noone helped him. He was depressed and lonely. He died alone. Bob was my grandfather so I learned that being selfish is not a good quality, money does not solve problems and so what I do is something different…
4. The Pixar Storytelling Template
Emma Coates at Pixar came up with this story framework in a legendary presentation she was giving about the amazing storytelling in Pixar movies. The framework (below) can be used when explaining the impact of a life event, a lesson learned, a turnaround story, a coming of age story, a new product launch, market disruption story, etc.
The 6 steps in the Pixar Storytelling template is:
Once upon a time there was ____________
Every day ____________
Then one day ____________
Because of that, ____________
And because of that, ____________
Until finally, ____________
Some good storytelling examples:
Poo Pourri - At a Party
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