The year was 1998. I was in Lincoln, Nebraska at the Cornhusker Inn just down the road from the University of Nebraska. I was traveling the country with my keynote: The Positive Power of Change. This particular event was the annual meeting of a mid-sized tele-communications company.
I had been hired to speak at the annual meeting because it was clear to the leadership team that something had to be done to address the issue of change in an upbeat and positive manner. The executive in charge of planning the meeting saw my promo video and chose me because he liked a couple of my stories. He also liked the subtitle of my speech – Get Over It. Read the rest of this entry »
In the January Story Theater Newsletter, I shared three of my Dreams Come True stories, and I announced a contest to submit your Dreams Come True story for the chance to win 3 hours of private coaching with me. Two winners were chosen: Andrew Fleming and Laverne Bisskey. Below is Laverne’s winning story.
Dreams Come True
by Laverne Bisskey
From the time I was a young child, I dreamed of traveling the world and doing humanitarian work. This was a strange dream for a child who grew up on a farm in rural Saskatchewan (Canada) and never even left the province until I was an adult. Read the rest of this entry »
In the January Story Theater Newsletter, I shared three of my Dreams Come True stories, and I announced a contest to submit your Dreams Come True story for the chance to win 3 hours of private coaching with me. Two winners were chosen: Andrew Fleming and Laverne Bisskey. Below is Andrew’s winning story.
Dreams Can Come True Despite Adversity!
by Andrew Fleming
As a young apprentice electrician driving around our small New Zealand town of Hawera in the early 90’s I started to dream about how I could own rental properties. I wasn’t earning much money and needed the thrill I got from barefoot water skiing, which I had dreamed about since I was 8 years old. My beloved sport took most of my money and focus through my twenties. Read the rest of this entry »
by Doug Stevenson – Creator of The Story Theater Method for Storytelling in Business
I always advise my corporate and private coaching clients to use personal stories whenever possible. Personal stories establish credibility by letting your listener know that your wisdom comes from your life experience, rather than from reading the latest book.
Personal stories also reveal something about you as an individual. The stories you choose to share, and the way you tell them, provide a glimpse into your personality. People like to know who you are before they decide whether or not they can trust you. Personal stories are a great way to build that bridge to trust. Read the rest of this entry »
As a proponent of the appropriate use of emotion in speeches and presentations, it’s been fun to see how, “emotion is the fast lane to the brain” is showing up on the campaign trail.
As the stakes get higher and the candidates get more and more desperate to create some space between themselves and their competition, the rhetoric has heated up. Romney is getting all red in the face. McCain is already red in the face. And Huckabee is cool as an ice cube in a glass of sweet tea.
Barack and Hillary are going at it with Edwards trying to get a rise out of either one of them. We all knew it would come to this didn’t we? What’s interesting is how anyone could have thought it would be otherwise. Whether the emotion is raw and angry emotion or teary and tender emotion, it gets people to pay attention.
The candidates can drone on and on about health care and immigration for hours on end, but what people are looking for is emotion. We get a handle on the candidates true personality by how they handle their emotions. Do they lose control, remain poised or give as good as they get?
We can get a sense of what a president would be like in a crisis by how they handle being attacked in a debate. Right now, the hottest emotional fireworks seem to be between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Do we want a fighter or a smooth talker?
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee never seems to get rattled while Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani enjoy the emotional give and take. John McCain has a tendency to smile when he’s mad, which makes him seem untrustworthy.
People want to see genuine emotion. Let’s see as the primaries continue, what role emotion plays in the results. My bet is on the candidates who aren’t so slick, but rather exhibit genuine emotion.
Would you like to hear me discuss my Story Theater Method? Click on the link below to listen to this audio podcast interview with Jason Steinle.
http://www.uploadexperience.com/blog/?p=111
At the recent ASTD International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, I had the privilege of presenting two workshops on Story Theater – Using Emotional Triggers to Compel Attention and Enhance Retention. Over 400 people from all over the world attended my sessions.
In my sessions, as in all of my train-the-trainer and leadership development seminars, I had people on their feet doing basic acting exercises to experience the power of acting out actions, reactions and interactions instead of narrating them. You should have seen the room. It was a wonderful explosion of creativity and enthusiasm. People were stepping out of their comfort zones and trying things that they’d never even considered before.
To all of the wonderful people, from Canada, Asia, Europe, South America, South Africa, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the United States that I met and had conversations with, thank you for being so generous with your praise and enthusiasm for Story Theater.
I look forward to a trip to Asia in 2008, including Hong Kong, the Philippines. Malaysia, India and Dubai. If you are interested in having me speak to your organization during my trip, please give us a call. 1-800-573-6196.
