Never Tell Stories Like This...

You don't need to be a great communicator, to be a great storyteller.

But if you want to be a great storyteller, then you need to avoid these five traps that 99% of people fall into without realizing.

What I'm sharing with you today, I've tested in one-on-one situations to audiences of up to 30,000 people.

And after a decade of coaching thousands of people on communication, I keep seeing the same five mistakes repeated over and over and over again.

Mistakes that make you unlikable, forgettable, and worst of all, invisible.

And once you stop doing them, start to watch how differently people respond to you.

Trap number one, audience blindness.

This is when you get so caught up in telling the story that you don't realize the audience has checked out and are not listening anymore.

We all have that one friend where every time they share a story, you sigh out loud.

Because they take you on all these tangents that don't even matter to the point of the story.

This is the most common way the audience blindness shows up.

You drown the listener in way too much irrelevant context, causing them to feel confused, overwhelmed.

And as a result, they stop listening to you.

But there are two more ways audience blindness shows up.

See if you can spot them in this next interaction.

So anyway, I'm sitting there and out of nowhere, Caroline just walks in with this giant box.

And you know what Caroline's like.

And everybody's looking at me like I'm supposed to do something about it.

And it's weird because it's a Tuesday and no one even likes avocado in the building, right?

Wait, hang on.

Who's Caroline?

And what thing about the printer?

And and why are you telling me this?

I'm just here to deliver your package, can you just sign for this so I can get out of here?

Did you catch what it was?

You see, the second symptom of audience blindness is when you leave out essential context and details.

So the story stops making any sense to the listener.

And the third symptom, if you noticed, was he didn't have a clear point.

He didn't know how to land the plane, he just kept on rambling and rambling.

And if you go off on tangents like that, if your story doesn't have a clear point, and if you don't give key bits of context to make your story make sense, then they will mentally check out.

You have to paint a clear picture for them by giving them the right context, the details.

And you have to make it relevant to them by having a clear point.

So before you tell a story to anyone, ask yourself these two questions.

Number one, what context and details are essential for this story to make sense?

Question number two.

What's the one thing I want them to walk away with?

Then tell your story around that and cut out everything else.

Trap number two, achievement dumping.

This is when you're sharing your wins, your successes, and your achievement and your highlights, but you leave out the part that makes people actually relate to you.

Yo, Vin.

Dude.

Cabbage.

Good to see you.

Haven't seen you since boy scouts.

What's been happening?

Well, I just closed a small $6 million sponsorship deal.

It's no biggie.

It's just jump change.

Oh, cool.

What is the?

Oh, and I finally turned my one pack into a six-pack.

Check it out.

Oh, man.

You must have worked really hard.

And I finally got my dream watch.

Oh.

That's really nice.

To add to my collection.

Look at them.

Look at them, Andy.

Look how shiny they are.

Okay, let's be real.

I don't have a six-pack, I have all of them combined into one, a one-pack.

And I don't have six watches and I don't have a $6 million sponsorship deal.

Yet.

Apple, if you're listening, I'm looking at you for that $6 million sponsorship deal.

But notice what's missing from the example I shared before?

It was the struggle, the cost, the human part.

This doesn't necessarily make you unlikable, but people are going to roll their eyes at you.

People can't connect with your success, they connect with your struggle.

And that's a key point there you've got to remember.

When you only share the highlights reel without sharing the messy part, the human part that came before the success.

You don't come across as inspiring.

You come across as unapproachable, unrelatable.

Think about the best movies you've ever watched in your life.

You don't fall in love with the hero because they win straight away, you fall in love with them because they went through the struggle.

You you fell in love with them because of what they had to go through in order for them to win.

So here's how to avoid falling into the achievement dumping trap.

When you share a win, pair it with a cost.

Instead of I closed a $6 million brand deal, try this instead.

I closed a $6 million brand deal, but it almost didn't happen, I pitched three times, got rejected twice, and had to completely rework my approach.

And then by the third pitch, I was terrified, but I knew that if I didn't try again, I'd regret it.

One is an example of me sharing just the outcome.

And the other one is me sharing the journey that I had to take to get to the outcome.

That's what people connect with.

But here's the thing.

Trap two is just the surface.

Traps three and four and five, they're way more invisible.

And they're the ones that are quietly killing your connection, even without you realizing it.

Trap number three, speaking from a wound instead of a scar.

I know this doesn't make sense right now, so let me explain.

This trap is about when you share more vulnerable stories.

Most people fall into the trap of speaking from the wound, meaning the pain when it's still raw, things that are still bleeding and that you haven't yet processed them and done the work to heal and understand what that pain even means.

And this makes it difficult to share these vulnerable stories because you will become overwhelmed by the emotion.

Whereas when you speak from the scar, meaning wounds have already healed, you can share with clarity, with perspective, and with emotional control most importantly.

You're able to guide the audience through the lesson without reliving the trauma in the moment and then making it a traumatic experience for everybody who was there to experience the story.

Let me share with you a story about when I got this wrong.

A few years ago, when I was teaching my communication skills workshop, I decided to share a vulnerable story about my grandmother.

But here's the problem.

I hadn't yet processed the emotions yet.

It was still completely raw.

And halfway through the story, I completely broke down.

I fully ugly cried, I couldn't breathe properly, I was hyperventilating.

I had to leave the class.

And while the students were really empathetic, sure.

But as a teacher, I'd failed them in that moment because instead of teaching them something and then being able to learn something from that experience.

They now felt responsible for comforting me.

And the lesson that I was trying to teach was completely lost because I lost control of my emotions.

It was supposed to be an inspiring story of love and triumph.

But instead, I turned the whole classroom into a therapy session.

Vulnerability is powerful, but unprocessed vulnerability feels like a burden to others.

When you share a story you haven't healed from yet, three things happen.

Number one, the audience feels responsible for your healing.

If you are still bleeding, people feel the pressure to comfort, fix and rescue you.

And because you haven't processed it, when you share a story without meaning.

The only thing people get from that story is the heaviness.

I mean, you've experienced this before.

Have you ever spoken to a friend who's feeling sad and when you walk away, the only thing you got from that was you now feeling sad?

And the third thing.

Now, all of a sudden, the person that's listening to you feels like they have to be your therapist.

Whereas the intention of you sharing that story was for connection.

And people didn't sign up to be your therapist.

Can you see why when you share vulnerable stories, you've got to do it in the right way?

You've got to heal from them first and share it from a place of control.

So, Vin.

How do you do that?

Well, I use a simple three-step framework I call TSL.

Test, stabilize, and then lead.

Now, test.

This part of it, you test in a safe environment first.

Share the story with your trusted friends in low-stake settings to gauge your emotional comfort level.

Can you tell it without breaking down?

S, stabilize.

Stabilize your emotions.

Practice telling the story until you can deliver it without being overwhelmed by the emotions.

It's okay to feel the emotion.

But you should be in control of it and not the other way around.

L, lead with the lesson.

Make sure when you tell the story, don't put the emotional experience itself on the pedestal, but rather make the lesson you learned from the experience the focus of your story.

Put that on the pedestal instead.

Think, what do I want them to take away when I tell these stories?

So again, with the wounds and scar metaphor, scars tell better stories than wounds.

And look, if you want to go deeper into the structure of your stories and communicate under pressure well.

I've recorded a free two-hour training where I teach you three powerful communication frameworks to help you speak with more clarity and structure and confidence so you can stop rambling and start connecting.

The link's in the description or you can scan the QR code to access it.

All righty, trap number four.

Making it all about you.

You, you, you, you, and you.

That's right, you.

Most people don't realize this, when you tell a story, your audience isn't just listening to see you in the story.

They're also trying to see themselves in the story.

They're asking themselves, can I relate to this story?

What can I learn from this story?

How does this story apply to me?

If your story only shows your experience without giving them space to connect with it.

They won't hate you for it, but they'll mentally check out.

Let me show you exactly what I mean.

So I went skydiving last month, and for me, it was the most insane experience.

I've ever had in my life.

Wow, I can't imagine what that's like.

Well, of course you can't imagine it, Peter.

Were you falling through the sky with me at a terminal velocity of between 55 to 65 meters per second?

This is so nauseating.

I have no idea what he's talking about.

I can't even relate to what he's saying.

What are these hand gestures that he's doing?

This is so confusing.

And then my cheeks were all like.

Oh, man, my life is amazing.

That's why I can't connect with any of my team members.

Because their lives are not amazing.

But you see in that example.

It's not a relatable moment.

Nothing is in it for them.

And they can't really see themselves in that situation.

Now, if you're just sharing that story to make your friends jealous.

Or to relive a fun moment, sure, go for it.

Sometimes stories are just for fun.

But if you're trying to truly deeply connect and inspire and influence the people around you.

You need to include them in the story and help them see themselves in the story.

So here's the fix.

When you tell a story, make sure you include these three things.

You in the story, your experiences, your identity.

Them in the story, the universal human moments that they can relate to.

What they can take from it, the value and the lessons and the insights from the story.

So let's let's redo that whole skydiving storytelling incident.

Wow, I can't imagine what skydiving's like.

Honestly, man, I almost didn't do it.

You know that sinking feeling you get when you're about to do something scary?

But then I remembered when you told me how important it is in life to do the things that scare you.

So that's what made me have the courage to jump.

And brother, you know that feeling of adrenaline, you of all people would love it.

Wow, now I can imagine what skydiving's like because you included me in the story.

Thanks, Vin.

Don't do it.

Don't.

Oh.

Oh, man.

Isn't that so much better?

Now there's a payoff.

Now there's something that they can feel and take with them.

Your audience doesn't just want to see you in the story.

They want to see themselves.

And they want to be able to walk away with something that they can then apply to their own lives.

Traps one through four, those make people zone out.

But this next one makes you unlikable.

Preaching instead of sharing.

This is when what you share with others feels like a bloody lecture.

Trust me, they hate it.

Here are three ways it shows up.

You lecture instead of relating to others.

You tell people what they should do instead of showing them how you struggled and how you figured it out.

Next, you literally become a parrot.

You repeat the lesson so many times that people just start to roll their eyes and go, oh my God, I've heard this a hundred times already.

Just take a look at which version makes me more unlikable.

The first version where I'm just becoming a parrot and trying to shove a lesson down your throat and make you listen to me for the sake of listening to me.

Or the version of me where I use a story and let the storytelling do the heavy lifting.

Where I let the storytelling do the influencing.

You should exercise more because it's healthy for you.

And if you don't, you're going to be unhealthy and that's not good for your health.

Get a gym membership, be healthy.

Don't be unhealthy.

Healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy.

There was a period of my life where I wasn't exercising.

For a whole year.

And I remember playing with my kids and just running around the garden with them, and then somehow as I lifted my son, I twisted my back.

And then my son was saying, Dad, let's keep playing.

And I couldn't because I was in physical pain.

And you know what that made me realize, it just made me realize that far out as I get older.

If I want to be there for my kids, if I want to play with my kids more, I'm going to have to start looking after my health.

I'm going to have to start going to the gym.

I'm going to have to start doing some weights.

And I I share this with you specifically because, you know, you've got three kids too, and as we both get older, I think it's so important for us to start protecting our health more and taking it more seriously.

You see that?

In one example, the first one in particular, I became an exotic bird.

While I still looked bloody marvelous, I was just trying to squawk the idea at the person non-stop.

In the other version, the influence there felt natural, it felt organic.

And the next one.

Guru energy.

This is where you talk to people as if you're a mere God speaking among mortals.

This is when you start to believe that your farts don't even stink.

And the worst thing about this is when you start to believe you're the best.

And this is when you become arrogant.

You talk different.

Whereas there's a massive difference between someone who's confident who speaks versus someone who's arrogant.

An arrogant person thinks they're better than everybody else.

Whereas a confident person believes that everybody and me included, we're all in the same playing field.

There's something I can learn from you, just like there's something you can learn from me.

And when you come from a place that's confident instead of arrogant, it has an impact to your delivery.

So keep the mindset of, hey, there's always something I can learn from others.

And that keeps us in confident delivery mode as opposed to absolute wanker delivery mode.

Knowing these storytelling traps is just one part of the equation.

The other part of the equation, you actually got to go practice the skill of storytelling.

This is the part that requires you to lean in.

This is why I recorded an exclusive coaching session where I break down seven powerful storytelling secrets with real students.

So click the video here if you want to level up storytelling now.