How to Tell a Great Story: A 5-Step Formula

hi i'm hillary at lighthouse communications recently i was helping our founder anne develop a story for new facilitators joining our team we use a five-step storytelling formula that i'm going to teach you today developing a story can be hard you um you but using this formula will make it so much easier you'll end up being able to tell clear and compelling stories we're going to go through each of the five steps as we watch anne tell her story the first step to any great story is dive into the action so many people start with a

lot of unnecessary context like i want to tell you a story about a time the x happened it was back in 2018. no wait maybe it was back in 2017. i guess it doesn't really matter ah don't do that to us just dive into the action and you can save all those extra details once you're into the story let's watch how anne dives into the action hey everyone welcome to the onboarding training in march 2020 covet hit and overnight threw me into a professional crisis and captures our attention right away we want to know what

happens next notice ann use what we call a time marker march 2020. now that's a vivid one we all have our own associations of what happened in march 2020 your time marker doesn't have to be that evocative but using a tie marker will definitely help you dive into the action examples of time markers include two years ago or last october or my first day on my new job the next step step two is show not tell share enough descriptive details so that the audience can really imagine being in the setting with the characters think about

what language you can use that evokes the senses sights sounds smells taste and remember the phrase specific is terrific let's listen to how anne paints a picture with her words precovet i had been teaching and presenting in person for years and i was confident i was at a place where i could walk into a room of 100 people present and feel totally at ease then overnight there i was staring at this computer in my home office trying to make sense of what was happening in the zoom room are people listening are they doing emails am

i bombing here what is going on so you've dived into the action you're showing not telling step three is build tension tension is critical to a great story it could be external tension between two ideas or two characters think of a reality tv show there has to be tension there for us to keep watching right it could be two roommates like each other or two roommates dislike each other or the tension could be internal something you're worried about stressed about or you're just not sure what to do without tension the story will fall flat your

audience is left wondering what the point is but with tension the audience remains engaged because they want to know what happens next a great way to find where the tension is is to ask yourself what's at stake for my characters what are my characters thinking what are my characters feeling and then a great way to show not tell with tension is to share the internal monologue that one of the characters is having after each class i would rush to read the evaluations hoping to get some sense of what they thought about me what they thought

of the experience and every time there was the smallest suggestion i would take it as a personal attack and i found myself ruminating over this feedback 12 am 1 am 2 am completely losing sleep then one day out of total desperation i call my friend lauren who's an executive coach and i told her what was going on i said lauren i don't feel like myself what should i do is there a coach i should work with a book i should read all right now the tension's reached a boiling point there's a climax and on the

other side is step four share the shift what shift or change has happened as a result of going through this experience remember any great story has transformation let's listen and lauren paused and she said and i don't think you need to do anything else you already know what you're doing but it does sound to me like you're putting an awful lot of stock in what people think about you rather than focusing on how the content will help the people in your classes and when she said that a light bulb went off of course that's exactly

what i was doing and in the stress of this crazy time i had lost focus in something so fundamental that we actually teach in our classes and sure enough once i started to make that shift to focusing on the students and helping them i did start to feel more confident yes anne had a realization that she was too self-focused so instead she returned her focus to helping the audience understand her message and because she did that she regained her confidence so now we're on our final step step five connect the dots by this time your

story is probably finished but you still need to tell your audience why you're sharing the story how is your story relevant to them how is your story relevant to illustrating your message the magic phrase to use that helps you connect the dots is i share this story because give them one or two sentences nice and slowly make that connection crystal clear don't make your audience work too hard to try to figure out what the connection is and don't assume your audience implicitly understands why you're sharing the story let's watch how anne connects the dots i

share the story with all of you because you're about to join lighthouse we're so excited about that and you're coming at a time when we are going to make another transition back to in-person facilitation and it is my hope that in this time this transition we can really support each other and help each other stay focused on what matters most and that is our content helping people so there you have it the five-step storytelling formula it works like a charm remember creating great stories takes practice contact us with questions thanks for watching if you like

this video don't forget to subscribe and like if you've got questions and comments feel free to leave those below and finally if you're interested in a training for yourself for your team for your company feel free to reach out at info lhctraining.com we'll see you in the next video