As a designer, there are some occasions that I need to present myself and my works in front of others. Due to my shy and reserved nature, I was not good at confronting the public and exposes my own ideas to them, I am that kind of person who tended to hide behind.
However, I honestly started to feel the urge to be a good storyteller and I admire those who do when I am stepping out of my comfort zone to present myself to job recruiters, career mentors and fellow designers to get noticed.
If you are not a designer, there are still numerous occasions that need a good story: a toast at a wedding; a casual speech in front of team members; or simply a presentable& stylish social media profile.
Telling a good story is definitely not easy to me, and requires tons of practice. I also tried to find some shortcuts or formulas for good storytelling, and here is what I found.
According to Josh Campbell, a professional storyteller from Memphis, TN, telling a good story is not really about tell a good story, it's to avoid a bad one. The seven ingredients of a good story are:
Be prepared, but not too prepared. - Agreed, but I don't think this rule applies to job interviews. Practice always makes perfect when it comes to business occasions and interviews.
You don’t have to be funny, because you are not. - That's a relief to know. 😂
Name names. - My take is to add more credibility to the story. Be bold to name out the names that should be named.
Make peace with your story before you get on that stage. If they feel sorry for you, they are thinking about you and your well being and not your story. - Not everything is about YOU, stay neutral.
Don't rob them of that by telling the moral of the story. - "There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes."
Skip boring details. - Boring details exhaust audience.
Don't offend you audience. - Keep some respect in mind.
*Break the rules. - all rules could be broken if necessary, all depends on the specific story that you are trying to tell.
Filmmaker Zach King empathises the importance of how the modern technologies could add value to story telling.
As long as you have an idea that you want to realise, you shall utilise every resources and materials that are possible to be gathered to realise it. For example, with the modern technologies such as smart phones, digital cameras, various editing software and video sharing platforms, filmmaking is more accessible than before. Zach's creative short videos attracted 1.1 million followers and all he uses for producing are his iPhone, a digital camera, a laptop, and his creativity.
Think out of the box and be wild!
Presentations expert David JP Phillips's share might be my personal favourite one among all three videos. He vividly introduced several hormones in human bodies and how they will affect our emotions ——
The more emotionally invested you are in anything in your life, the less critical and the less objectively observant you become.
There are hormones that triggers good emotions, which is the Angels cocktail – Dopamine, Oxytocin, Endorphin
Dopamine
Focus, motivation, memory
Build suspense, launch a cliff hanger, cycle of waiting and expecting
Oxytocin
Generosity, Trusting, Bonding
Create empathy for whatever character you build
Endorphin
Make people laugh
Vice versa, there are negative hormones that leads to bad emotions, David JP Phillips calls it: Devil’s Cocktail - Cortisol, Adrenaline
Example: A sudden loud and disturbing shout.
High concentration of these leads to intolerance, irritability, uncreative, critical, memory impairment, bad decisions...
During the video, I was indeed emotionally "manipulated" by his stories.
In the end, his suggestion for those who want to be great story tellers is practicing one story for each hormone and use whichever you want your audience correlate to create the desired effect. Which of your stories made people laugh? Empathise?
In a nutshell, functional storytelling is the key to success!
Thanks for watching, hope we can all become a good story teller than we were!
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