Storytelling Archive - The Art of Communicating

Do slides waste your time?

Think of the great presentations you’ve seen?
How many of them were great because of the slides?
And how many were great because of the story (and how the speaker told it)?

Personally, I don’t recall a single great talk that resonated thanks to the slides.

To be fair, great slides can amplify a great story.
But I’ve never seen them save a bad one.
In fact, beautiful slides have often sent me to sleep when the story was boring.

Compare this to the opposite:
A great story will survive bad slides.
A captivating speaker makes me forget the awful slides.

→ The crucial work is on the story.
If you find words that strongly resonate, that’s what sticks.
Slides are best thought of as an amplifier – not the presentation’s core.

What’s your experience with slides vs. story? (Hit reply, I would love to hear your anecdotes.)

Keep lighting the path!

PS: Plus, once you’ve nailed the story, it’s so much easier to create great slides that amplify the story (or have someone create them for you).

An unexpected moment

The most memorable speeches often happen in the most unexpected situation.

For example, when everyone’s prepared to endure 15 boring minutes that are just part of the protocol.

But the moment the speaker steps up, they feel that this time it’s different.

This time it’s not the usual bla-bla. It’s a deeply heartfelt story that touches a nerve. That makes the room fall silent. Everyone listening.

Over the years, more and more of my clients have decided that their year-end speech should be that speech.

Instead of running through milestones and vague optimism for the future, they wanted their’s to come from the heart.

They wanted to create a moment that has the potential to last beyond the actual speech.

This year I’m making this offer public. If you want to end this year with an unexpected moment that’s deeply heartfelt, we’re going to make it happen.

The Last Speech of the Year Session is dedicated to that moment.

Seats are limited and time’s running fast. But there are still a few spots left.

Keep lighting the path!

Stories that change the world

The stories that change the world are stories that get told.

No matter how groundbreaking your story is,
it can’t change the world until you tell it.

If you don’t tell yours,
other people’s stories will fill the void.

They are not flawless, either.
They are not perfectly eloquent.

But they get told.
That’s why they change the world.

The people behind these stories started to tell them.
Somewhere. Often in an unpolished form.

But they told it.
That’s why they change the world.

You can always polish it later.
Listen to the feedback and tweak it.

But you need to tell it.
That’s how you change the world.

So, what’s your story?
We’d love to hear it.

The better story wins

From a communication angle, influence is a pretty simple game: Whoever tells the better story wins.

It’s not the most accurate facts, the most complete analysis, or even the best intentions.

It’s the best story.

Which means that if you care for the facts, the analysis, and the intention, you need to get better at weaving them into a compelling story.

If you don’t, the facts remain facts etc. … while other people’s stories connect to the audience.

PS: We need, of course, an understanding of what makes a story “better”. Would love to hear your take on that!

The star of the show

The star of the show is not always the hero of the story.
In fact, in business, they are hardly ever the same.

The star might be Canva, the user-friendly graphic design tool, but the hero is the small business owner who becomes a confident designer.

The star might be Amazon Web Services, the scalable cloud computing platform, but the hero is the fledgling tech startup who becomes an industry innovator without the need for massive capital investment.

Or the star might be the famous public speaker who captivates the room with eloquence and insight, but the hero is the individual in the audience who sees a new path ahead.

Who’s the star of your show?
Who’s the hero?

The hero’s pedestal

Here’s a little secret for everyone who feels at least a little pressure when going on a stage to give a speech.

Everyone in the audience already has a hero: themselves.

They don’t show up to cheer for you.
They want you to cheer for them.

Which is pretty good news for you because it means that you can stop trying so hard to appear as the hero.

The hero’s pedestal is a notoriously difficult place to be at.

All eyes are on you.
Everyone expects you to save the world from evil.

Which means there’s a constant pressure of proving that you deserve standing up there.

Essentially, it creates a disconnect.

You, the extraordinary, stand high up on the hero’s pedestal while they, the normals, are down on the floor.

This disconnect isn’t just uncomfortable.
It’s a barrier.
To engagement.
To impact.
To transformation.

That changes the moment you switch your role to that of the mentor who helps the audience live up to the hero’s expectations.

When you frame your audience as the heroes, it flips the script on the typical speaker-listener dynamic. It’s empowering and ennobling for them.

Rather than ask “What will impress them?” you ask the (more important) question of “What will help them?”

It eases the pressure on you, because the focus shifts from proving yourself to aiding them.

How might viewing your audience as heroes transform your next presentation? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

PS: This is a short excerpt from my free eBook “Speak Easy” with a simple 4 step approach to show up with more confidence. Download it here: https://michaelgerharz.com/speak-easy

Feels right

Some narratives just 
won’t go away.
Why?

The data is clear.
Yet people believe the lie.
But why?

Because it feels right.
That’s why.

—

People aren’t good at feeling data.

That’s why it’s hard to compete on facts with a story that resonates on an emotional level.

If something feels right, we’re pretty good at coming up with good reasons for why it is right. If something just is right but feels wrong, that’s much harder.

Have you had that experience?
How did you deal with it?

Finding the right words matters so much

Great storytelling fuels influence.
Which is good, bad, and ugly … some thoughts on how to deal with bullshitters:

If you manage to tell a story that resonates well with many people, you can make a huge impact.

The good is that this power is available to everyone.

The bad is that “everyone” includes the bullshitters.

The ugly is that bullshitters often wield storytelling as a tool to manipulate or mislead, rather than to enlighten or entertain. They shamelessly ignore the truth. It’s just not a concept that matters to them.

The only question that matters to a bullshitter is:
Does the story work to their advantage?
When it works it’s just fine. True or not.

Now, this is important to understand: They are not exactly lying. In order to lie, they would need to care for the truth. Which they don’t. They are simply not interested in the truth. They are only interested in achieving their goals.

Here’s where people get it wrong: They assume that bullshitters would be similar to themselves. That deep inside even a bullshitter would care for the truth. That they just need to be convinced of the facts.

But that’s not how bullshitters roll.

They don’t care about the truth.
Therefore, they don’t care about facts.
Therefore, they can’t be convinced by facts, no matter how hard you try.

Bullshitters care about whether it works. Nothing else matters to them. Again: They couldn’t care less about whether they are right or wrong.

If a story resonates, they will tell it.
If a made-up story resonates better,
they will switch to that story.

You shouldn’t treat them as similar to you. They are not. Unlike yourself, they have no sympathy for the truth.

The only thing that can make make them stop what they’re doing is when their story stops working.

And that, essentially, means that you need to tell better stories.

You need to find a way to tell the truth in a way that resonates stronger than the bullshitter’s made-up story.

That, I think, is the only way.

And it’s why – in times like ours – finding the right words matters so much.

Telling stories is something that bullshitters really excel at. You need to become better at it.

For example …
 … when bullshitters are extraordinarily good at making their audience feel heard, you need to become even better at understanding people’s struggles and desires.

… when bullshitters promise the blue from the skies, you need to become even better at finding words that resonate strongly but that are grounded in the truth.

In other words, we need to shift our focus away from trying to convince the bullshitter (which is never going to work) and onto the people we want to resonate with.

The more empathy we have for them, the better our stories can become.

The better our stories become, the better they can spread.

The better they spread, the bigger their impact.

That flavor of impact starts with empathy, honesty, and the will to find the right words.

If you care for the truth and want it to have impact, you need to care for finding true stories that resonate strongly.

What’s your strategy of dealing with bullshit?

The simple truth about storytelling

Contrary to what some storytelling coaches want you to believe, in the end there’s only one thing you need to understand about storytelling.

And it’s this question: “What happens next?”

I mean, of course, you can say a lot more about storytelling. The hero’s journey does work. “Show, don’t tell!” is useful advice. As is the three-act-structure and many other techniques …

But in the end, all of that is optional.

Because the only thing that matters is whether your audience is curious to learn more. If you nail that, it doesn’t matter whether it’s through the hero’s journey or some other fancy framework.

Storytelling really isn’t a mystical art locked behind gates of complexity. At its core, it’s simple, straightforward, and something anyone can absolutely do.

Just tap into your audience’s curiosity!

That’s it.

If your audience wants to know more, you’ve nailed it. Even if you’ve never heard of the hero’s journey or any other storytelling formula … when your story makes people sit up and wonder what’s next, you’re telling a great story.

“What happens next?” is the only questions you need to ask for that. The better you understand your audience’s needs, their desires, their questions, the easier it will become to find a compelling answer to that question.

If it’s using the hero’s journey, that’s totally fine (it means you’re using it right). But if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry! The more important information is to know your audience.

So, what is your audience dying to know?

If your story is messy

… don’t add more; find its heart and show that.

Take a step back, subtract the non-essential, and amplify the essential!

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