Why Stories Matter: Connect with your audience every time

February 28th, 2017

You know that thing that happens when you tell a story and someone says “Ooh ooh ooh that reminds me of a time when…”

and they tell a story that maybe doesn’t even really have that much to do with the story you just told, but there’s a thread, and that leads to yet another story, and the whole night you’re traveling through worlds you had no idea you were going to enter, and you go home changed.

That’s the magic of storytelling.

When you tell a story, you spark another story.

When you tell a story well, the distance between teller and a listener shrinks, and you enter a world together.

Like if you’re facing a big, freakin mountain and you have no idea how you’re gonna get up it… if I’m listening to your story I’m facing that same mountain with you.

My brain and my body will figure out how to get up that mountain too.

We climb that mountain together.

Engagement. Resonance. Empathy.

Imagine that. Stories can do that.

When you tell me a story I see new possibilities I hadn’t seen before.

And Lord knows we need all the new possibilities we can get right about now.

I get a window into a different reality, a different body living in a different world with different perspectives.

You get to travel to places inside and out that you haven’t been before.

Our worlds get bigger.

We get to show each other what we’ve figured out about how to be human.

Stories cross borders.

The borders of time and space as well as the borders between people.

They remind us we’re not alone.

We’re not alone! We have each other!

I don’t know about you but I can so caught up in that little dopamine hit of the tiny screen, but oh the connection that happens with a good story, when two actual living breathing human people tell one another stories? 

I’d take that over the tiny screen any day.

Stories inspire change.

Better than any other agent of change. (in my humble opinion)

Think of a story that made you lean in. A story that helped you understand. A story that made you laugh. A story that made you cry.

Yeah. That one. The one that changed you.

You can tell that kind of story.

Let’s tell some stories and change the world.

Telling a story is one thing.
But telling it well?
That’s a whole nother can of words.

(That was a typo. I meant to say worms, but I’m keeping it.)

Want help telling YOUR story? Let’s talk!