How to Master Storytelling as a Leader

To Influence people you must make them feel your ideas!

Follow Influential story structure:

1. Setup

Provides listener with context that sets the scene.

• **Ask your audience questions:**Questions are powerful because they create a curiosity gap.
• Place your audience in the scene: Your goal isn’t to retell; you want your audience to relive it with you.
• **Make the characters relatable:**To make a character relatable, you can compare them to someone your audience is likely to know.

2. Struggle

Describes the conflict and confrontation among the characters.

• **Make the problem seem familiar:**compare the problem to something your audience is familiar with.
• Replace ‘I’ and ‘we’ with ‘you’: for example “you see this all the time” instead of “I see this all the time”
• Use dialogue in the present tense: Dialogue makes people seem real — and people like to hear about other people. ‘I knew I had to do something.’
• Use specific details: in your story, you want to present real, observed values.
• Use the ‘dramatic pause’: It’s in moments of silence that the audience can really check in with their feelings.
• Ask the audience to feel and imagine: goal of story is to create an emotional impact, not just a logical one.

3. Solution

Is idea, strategy or product that helps the characters overcome the struggle.

• **Let someone else be the hero:**Don’t assume that you have to be the hero: giving credit for the solution to someone else can be a powerful way to come off as both humble and relatable to your audience.
• **Physical gestures:**Using motion — hand gestures, facial expressions, body posture, even just walking around — is an advanced technique.