Part 1 : Definining story and story telling.

- Samples of good story :

1- "The head of a nationwide sales force was preparing for her big speech to the troops at the
company’s annual meeting. One of the messages she wanted to communicate was that even in the age
of digital and social media, it’s still important to get out and meet with customers face to face.

Skeptics in the audience — and salespeople are notoriously skeptical — might question her credibility as
a messenger. After all, she’s safely ensconced in the executive suites. When was the last time she closed
a sale?

So she introduced the subject by telling a story about how when she first started selling she was
petrified of making cold calls — going from office to office and asking for their business. But she had a
technique for managing that fear.

Whenever she got to an office building, she would immediately take the elevator to the top floor and
start there. Because she knew that if she was on the ground floor it would have been far too easy to flee
after the first few rejections.

By directly addressing their major objection, she disarmed her critics. She showed some humility,
demonstrated that she had at least walked a few miles in their shoes, and offered a lesson on the
importance of persistence in the face of adversity.

Now they were more apt to listen.

Hers wasn’t the kind of story that knocks people out of their chairs, but it didn’t need to be. Major
movements often turn on a series of small moments. "

2- "In the early 2000s I started a second career as an actor. By day I was serving my business clients and
by night I was auditioning, rehearsing, and performing. For the longest time I kept these worlds
separate, thinking they had nothing to do with each other. But the more I studied and performed, the
more I realized that the worlds of business and acting were not so different.They both require you to
connect with an audience, to express yourself creatively and, most of all, to tell stories. As I often tell my
clients, if you want to stand out, if you want to be creative, stop looking at what other businesses are
doing, and start looking at show business."

"

3- "Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to
Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was
the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of
bumblebees on ‘em. “Gimme five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where were we ... oh yeah."

Q1- What is the usefulness of stories ?

Stories are the most powerful communication tool. They allow you to sway people opinion, influence
people to act or to stop acting in a more gentle and effective way.

Q2- Between telling stories or telling facts and data's which method is the best for understanding a
concept and for persuasion ?

Stories are better to convey the understanding of a concept and persuasion than raw facts and data.

Q3- How can you be a good story teller ?

You just need to know the right structure and process of story telling.

Q4- What are the two arguments explaining why story telling is so effective ?

They are the nature and the nurture argument.

Q5- What is the nurture argument explaining why story telling is so effective ?

Since childhood story telling is embedded in our subconscious, it has modified our brain to be
predisposed to think in story terms. This is why people spend time and money watching TV, going to
movie theaters and playing video games.
Q6- What is the nature argument explaining why story telling is so effective ?

Physiologically stories soften up the audience by releasing oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is related to
the feeling of empathy and a desire to cooperate.

Mentally we have a tendency to associate with the characters of stories and we experience the story as
if it was a real event happening to ourself. We put ourselves in the character shoes and start thinking for
them.

Part 2 : Building a story.

1- Building a collection of stories.

Q1 : what are the three points to follow in order to build a good collection of stories ?

Building a premade collection of story is important.

First, have a clear understanding of who you are and what your life mission is about — if you’re the
“quality” guy, you’ll look for stories on that topic.

Second, keep your antennae up, knowing where and how to dig for stories. TV, outdoor activities, books,
interviews.

Third, have a kind of system to store and retrieve your stories such as a phone app.

2- The preliminary work of story building :

Q1: When you sit down to create a story what are the 5 preliminary work that you must do ?
1. Determine who you are trying to reach (your audience) and find out as much as you can about them
in 5 steps.

Step 1- Figure out who they are and their mindset.

Step 2 - Figure out what does your audience want.

Step 3 - Figure out what your audience and you have in common.

Step 4 - Figure out what are your audience doubts, fears and misperceptions.

Step 5 - Figure out what do they strictly know.

2. Determine what you want them to do — for example buying your product, work more efficiently.
That’s the goal.

3. Think through the challenges that may get in the way of that goal you want them to fulfill — for
example lack of budget, outdated technology, distrust.

4. Find a real character who has overcome those challenge or create one and to which your audience
can relate to.

5. Make sure there’s a resolution to your story by listing the solutions to the challenges. Those solutions
will be applied by your character.

3- Decluttering the story.

Q1: What are 7 ways to focus and declutter your stories ?

1. Make the goal your filtering tool and question every detail of your story. Eliminate anything that’s not
mission-critical and keep the narrative driving ever forward.

2. Eliminate all the extra details when describing the background players.

3. Use brief details to set the scene, just give to your audience a sense of the time and the place.

4. Offer some sensory details to bring your story to life.

5. Simplify dates when they don't matter.

6. Make numbers more meaningful by rounding raw numbers and percentages.

7. Omit giving full names and full titles when they don't matter.

4- Building the story :

Q1- How can you describe the process of a unfolding story in simple terms ?

Character - goal - challenge - narrative. That's all.

A story is (1) a character in pursuit of (2) a goal in the face of (3) some challenge or obstacle.

(4) The narrative is driven by how the character tries to resolve that challenge.

Q2- What do you write within each of the 3 parts of a story : beginning, middle and end ?
In the beginning, you set the scene and introduce the character. Once done you introduce the challenge
which happens to this set and which put the story in motion.

In the middle, you develop how the character works in order to overcome the challenge and in order to
restore balance to the initial set by demonstrating a range of values.

In the end, you set the resolved scene and move forward on the moral of the story.

Q3- To make a story powerful there are 4 important ingredients what are they ?

1. Expressing facts through the narration of actions and events.

2. Embodying ideas within a relatable character.

3. Provoking emotional response and involving decision taking.

4. Conveying the idea of compassion, universal values and connecting people together.

Q4- What are the 5 fundamental questions to ask yourself when building the story ?

1. Is the character real and relatable to your audience ?

2. Between the character goal and the challenge that he faces is there sufficient struggle ?

3. Are the stakes involved in the story high enough to call the audience for action ?

4. Is the cause and effect relationship binding each element of the chain of events obvious enough ?
5. Does the story have an emotional center ?

Q5- What is the power of emotions in story telling ?

Emotion drives decision-making and they make informations stick with the audience.

The principle of empathy is the key, your job as a storyteller is to use the effect of empathy, you must
provoke an emotional reaction and you do so by exhibiting some emotion yourself in your story.

5 - Figures of speech :

Q1 : Why should you use figures of speech in your narrative ?

Figures of speech and evocative language such as metaphors, comparison and analogy fire our
imagination in much the same way that stories do.

Q2 : What effect do have evocative words and language on the audience ?

Use Evocative words and language to stimulate the Senses. For example a “sharp” increase is better than
a “sudden” one, “sunnier” is better than “promising”, “sour” is better than “negative”. The words climb
or soar are better than rise; grab or seize are superior to take; and hurl and toss are better than throw.

Q3 : What effect do have metaphor and analogy on the audience ?

Use Metaphor and Analogy to clarify and evoke feelings that bypass critical thinking.

For example, love is a “battlefield,” a shaky argument is a “house of cards” and a sensitive person is a
“delicate flower.”
Q4: What is the use of comparisons ?

Use Comparisons to Simplify Large Numbers.

For example, it was “as tall as a 48-story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of
this field.”