Storytelling Secrets That Captivate ANY Crowd

I was invited to give a talk on the Ted stage and I'm going through the talk and it's going fine and I round the corner to the last part and my mind just goes blank joining me now is Karen Eber Karen Eber Karen Eber Karen Eber you do not need an origin story as an entrepreneur the smaller more specific stories are what really connect with people every story is personal but personal doesn't mean private can you be vulnerable and be comfortable what's the worst that's going to happen nothing ask yourself whom am I okay disappointing today's guest is going to talk about story she's a storytelling expert and you know me I love a good yarn and anybody I can speak to who is an expert at this you know I'm going to have him on the show so uh please help me welcome Karen Karen welcome to the show can you please introduce yourself and in the spirit of the the subject B here can you tell us a story uh about who you are what you do I am Karen Eber I own a company called Eber leadership group that helps companies build leaders teams and culture one story at a time um a story about myself when I was about 5 years old I got my start in storytelling I have a brown eye and a green eye and in the right light it's very noticeable and this is something I've always loved about myself but I quickly realized that other people have no idea what to make sense of it and I could tell the exact moment where people notice because they their words slowly come to a stop and their eyes are going back and forth like their brain is trying to decide am I looking at her brown eye or her green eye and it it's just hilarious but the moment they stop talking I know it's coming cuz it's the same every time and it is did you know you have two different color eyes like as if I wouldn't know and so my response would usually be like no and then um then we go on this script oh I know a dog that has that like thank you I what do I do with that and uh what color eyes do your parents have do you see the same colors out of each eye or do your eyes give you superpowers and this thing that I love about myself and I always felt was something special to me became this burden because these interactions just depleted me and just left me drained so I got tired of them and decided when I was rather young and I had had this question for the many time to tell this story I would tell them well I was actually born with brown eyes and about the time I was 4 years old I was in my room coloring and I had that big box of crayons you know we have like the perfect crayons and the broken ones and the peeled ones and I was coloring dinner wasn't going to be for a few more hours and I was hungry so I dug into the box and I pulled out a green crayon and I sniffed it and it didn't really smell like anything but I took a bite and it was kind of interesting it was an interesting texture so I ate it and I liked it so much I ate every Green crayon in the box and the next day I woke up and my left eye was green and then I would be quiet and people would always like look at me sideways like she for real do I believe her what is that like what what do I do and I would let them off the hook and let them know I didn't e the crayon but it created a different Dynamic and a shift where we were both laughing and they would recognize that they had just asked me all these silly questions and it turned into a meaningful connection and so I realized like wow stories can take this awkward thing shift it into something that is more interesting and fun and is memorable because I have people tell me 30 years later they still think of me when they see crayons what a great story to start this conversation with I I I have come to to know two things one is uh perhaps we're all natural-born storytellers and kids like to make up stuff I don't want to say lie but we we like to fabricate things and the third thing I know about you is I think you like to play games with people cuz like it make you feel comfortable you would say something like wait a minute now you're like messing with my mind aren't you Karen games with me I've never been called out quite like that um there's a lot of Truth in that sure I am playful I would say there's also a sincerity and authenticity of I play in the right Spirit not to be manipulative um but yeah yeah I think that's fair I I feel seen there's a Picasso quote that I love and hopefully I don't butcher this too badly it's something like all children are born artists the trick is to remain one as an adult and I think across the board anytime you spend any time with kids they make up stories about everything about their parents about where they're from what they're eating and they have wild active imaginations something happens to all of us and that between that period in which you have this very fertile imagination and you you could see things that people can't see you can tell stories and it's becomes a very natural thing somewhere along the way we lose our ability to tell stories like what is happening to us what has happened to us in our mind and our in the way that we're socialized from 5 years old to maybe when we're 20 2 why do we lose the art and craft and the spirit and the passion of telling stories I actually don't think we lose it but we repress it we we fear I'm going to be judged if I tell this or you know we will casually tell it with friends we're out to dinner and we describe an event that just happened you you do that without a filter you're not worried what will they think of me and are is my story resonating the way we want we're just in the moment we're exchanging energy which is what story is but you move into settings that are maybe not friends and and environments that feel as safe but maybe it's a business setting or maybe it's something where you you I don't know feel like there's some stakes and nerve set in we start to feel like oh I'm going to be judged right on social media oh people are going to look at me and they're going to think something and well gosh do I have something to say here and is it meaningful and unfortunately we see other people do something that looks like it's with ease and assume I can't do that I'm not that good they can just clearly do this not recognizing that this is a skill that anyone can do but like anything it's understanding the steps involved and so I don't think that it's that people lose their ability it's that we keep telling ourselves like this is not the right context this is not the right place I can't tell a story here and there's some Neuroscience behind it there's a bit of the vulnerability of feeling exposed in front of people um but I think unfortunately we've socialized ourselves into thinking we're supposed to be specific people in different aspects of our lives and really like know so I I have a theory I have a theory and and with all your research and and how you've been talking about this I'd love to get your take on it theory is this is that in school especially here in America uh in in classrooms uh when you're asked the question you want to be brief and you want to be succinct we're rewarded for giving short precise accurate answers and we've also seen people go and ramble on about something we're like uh what are they doing and so that's distasteful for us and so we start to tell ourselves a new story that we only speak when we're spoken to and we try to to be as brief as possible and only give correct answers so we start to Veer away from storytelling so much that we when I say lose I mean lose the skill the practice the passion the energy and excitement and we yeah we also only feel safe to tell stories in Social Circles where that's expected and everything else seems like it's kind of out of bounds what what's your take on that yeah I support your theory I do think in school um especially the way it's taught you're right it is I'm asking maybe calling on someone in the classroom or asking people to raise their hands and I don't want you to tell me a story I just want you to respond and so we're shaping these answers to be shorter um although sometimes there's you know the written story we want you to submit but we're all judges of that on social media so think about you pull up whatever your preferred platform is Instagram Tik Tok LinkedIn it doesn't matter your tolerance for what you will sit through is really small and it got smaller during the pandemic and so if you aren't telling something that is captivating it's really hard to get that attention and because we've been taught you know just just the facts let's be cinct here don't ramble Johnny what's the right answer that does definitely have an impact where there's two parts just storytelling three three parts of Storytelling one is the story that I'm telling verbally or you know in writing one is the story I'm telling to myself that allows for me to tell that story and then the third is the story that's in the audience's brain that's going to be having their own thoughts and experiences as well too and that's a lot to navigate there's a lot of moments in that where it's so easy to say I'm just going to sit this one out I love telling stories sometimes they're not always true when I say not always true meaning there are some embellishments then there's a lot of editing and so every time I tell I'm telling a story about my kids or about my wife something is happening in our lives when they're there they have a different reaction than what the audience has and they laugh when they're supposed to laugh and they're like oh my God I can't believe you said that Chris they're having all the reactions I want them to have later on my son's like Dad that's not how the story went I'm like well that's your version of story and I'm on stage and I have the mic I will tell it my way and something like um a guy I talked to recently he said don't let ask you in the way of telling a good story can can we talk about that a little bit what's your take on MAR oh I hate that um so let's categorize let's categorize I do think that if you're on stage and you're doing a standup routine yeah you take elements from your life and you do embellish because in a comedy set you're trying to time it and have the right Cadence and work in something unexpected and it's the unexpected element unexpected phrase that is what's going to get the laugh and so sometimes you are going to take a story and you're going to exaggerate different pieces or you know work in something the core is there but you know you're being playful okay that's fine we're being entertained no one's feeling manipulated because we know why we're coming we know why we're there and it's your job you better make me laugh right that's one setting in a setting where you're telling a story maybe in business you should not make it up because think of a time when you have heard someone tell something that feels manipulated or made up so sometimes people say that about politicians or journalists or a cause like insert whatever and when you hear someone say something that feels not true your radar goes off and you're like M no I don't believe them and all trust is gone and then every experience you have is like I don't I don't believe them we sniff out when we make up things and so when you're not performing and having fun it's not not good to make it up because people sniff out that lie that mistruth that manipulation or they feel like they're being manipulated and then you lose trust there are certain things you change right sometimes I tell stories and I change company names I change people names I maybe change the day of the week like not the core plot points but things to anonymize or something like that but I hate that like don't get don't let data get in the way of a good story um your audience is going to know don't do that if you don't mind I'd like to stay here a little bit longer to find the more once discussion here because I agree and then I think maybe we both agree but we're talking about this slightly differently I think if you're on trial you probably shouldn't make up anything you should try to tell the truth as best as you recall and when I said my son's like that that's not what happened here's where I think he has his perception of what happened I have my take on what to happened and I'm going to tell the story the way I experience it that's true and authentic to myself but as a instructor I want to make that the lesson that I want to communicate to people resonates and hits really hard so in order to do that I might change sequence I might edit out the parts that this part isn't really driving the story or it doesn't heighten the contrast of the conflict and when I teach storyboarding and storytelling from a director's point of view and this could be fiction or nonfiction I always tell them you have to make me feel it so you have to dramatize the moments and you have to heighten you have to like slow time down tell me senses that you're experiencing otherwise it's just facts and just reading across a bunch of facts and it's not interesting to anybody so I'll pause there and just have you respond to that please I love this I love it's like um you're Ling the tennis ball and we're we're having our own legal deposition here uh fully support what you say a story is not a listing of facts it's not any of that I totally agree that you're going to tell your experience of the story and that's going to be different different than my experience of the story and that's why storytelling is personal because you are telling the story only you can tell even if you're telling someone else's story we're getting your perspective and that is key and there are going to be things that you leave out because they are not earning its place in the story where it's not moving it forward it's not contributing to the characters in some way it's just going to slow down the pacing of it and you may switch the sequence absolutely you know movies do this entertainers do this I do this in stories because it works better to build the tension across it because this is part of why it's not enough to tell a story the way you do is important so all of these are lovers you can play with to make the brain be more engaged but what I don't recommend people do is they just start manipulating a narrative that the audience is like no but if you take the movie um the six sense right that night shamalan movie that spoiler alert he's dead didn't it say you knew in the beginning that he died and you watched the whole movie there's no conflict there's nothing in there that is holding your attention what happens in the movie It's So compelling is you watch this whole experience and you think it's one narrative and then you get to the end and you find out Bruce Willis has been dead all this time he's a ghost and oh my gosh it's such a surprise and a building and releasing of tension that if you told it in a different order and you revealed those things earlier it would be a completely different movie and probably not a very good one so all of those are not only okay they're important to play with yes I think we're in 100% agreement about manipulation whether it's manipulating data that's truthful or making up random things to manipulate the audience that is not something that I'm opponent for so we want to put that aside so because people will recognize it uh we have pretty good radar when people are just making up stuff and you get called out later and when you when you find someone lying one time then you assume like okay is any of this true and it just starts to unravel pretty quickly but there's the experience of it how you feel about it and how you want to play up certain emotions and act out scenes in in your mind so that the audience can feel what you feel and re-experience that now in your Ted Talk you talk about this where if you tell a story it activates multiple parts of your brain maybe it uses the whole brain can you talk about the science of this yeah there's so many different pieces to the science but the first is that just from uh a real estate perspective a story is going to more dynamically engage your brain than just information or data when you're listening to information or data there's a small Walnut sized thing right above almost your ear that's called weikes area and this is as you are reading or listening to take in words it is comprehending them it is looking at them and saying yes we know what this is no we don't know what this is and it's truly just language processing and that is it but when you are more dynamically talking about walking outside on the beach and you feel the warm sand between your toes and the wind is blowing and you hear the the waves crashing on Shore almost like a symbol and and you can taste the Salt Air on your lips you start more dynamically engaging the brain and using much more surface area and what's really fascinating about stories is that they become artificial reality so as The Listener or the reader your brain activ mimics the storytellers meaning it will light up in the same patterns of neural activity as the person telling the story so this is why you sit in the movies and you are watching jaws and you know that that shark is going to pop up and you know that it what's going to happen but your heart starts like gracing in anticipation because you almost feel like you're the swimmer in the water your brain allows for you to feel like you are there in that experience which is so cool because we get to then think about what might I do in these situations which is great when you're you're teaching it's also connecting you to emotions so if you think about as you're taking information through your senses they are stamped with emotions these experiences are stamped with emotions and it's just like if you take a photo on your phone and you swipe up you can see the location the aperture of the f- stop the date the the size like everything about that photo is immediately stamped on it so if you wanted to recreate it you could something similar happens where as we're taking information through our senses as we have these experiences they get stamped with these emotions and put in our long-term memory so when we're going to make decisions our brain goes through this file of long-term memory experiences to say have we done this before is it related to something we have done before and it uses those to predict what we should do and how we should decide so we are making decisions subconsciously at an emotional level all at the point we're becoming aware of the decision that's already been made is when we apply rationalization and logic and so there's been a whole bunch of different experiments where they've been able to see neural activity happening subconsciously in the direction of the decision before the people even verbalize what their their decision was because this happened subconsciously based on our experiences the reason that makes storytelling so powerful if we're listening to data and we connect to the emotion of the data that's going to help us make decisions about it stories are connecting us to these emotions and these experiences even if we've never had them that are going to be impacting not only how we think about it but how we decide and so that's just the science piece of it of like how are we impacted by thoughts and decisions you could then get into all of the different things to look at in terms of how do you pull different levers to tell a story because it is not not enough to tell and the way you do it makes a difference and so there's a whole variety of things you could look at to really harness the brain and make sure it is captivated by the story there's a lot there for me to unpack and to try to summarize and process so if you give people data and if you're communicate let's say you're interested in having a conversation or communicating ideas whether you're an executive or a partner in a relationship uh whatever it is that you're trying to do recording a video for YouTube you're trying to get the person engaged with whatever it is that you're saying to help with understanding with retention recall all those kinds of things and if you don't tell powerful stories you're only using a small part of the possible hole of the brain and we as The Listener or the reader of the story if we're engrossed in the content whether it's a movie a novel a video or Workshop or a lecture that you're giving then we experience or re-experience some part of what you're telling I think you used this term before not today but is it the mirror neurons or something that's happening reexperiencing with the person is that the term yeah neural it's neural coupling where your neurons Mir the same activity yeah yeah yes which is fascinating and anecdotally speaking my wife and I we love to watch TV shows together she can't help herself so when there's like um a science fiction kind of Chase tense moment somebody's leaving something on the table she like put that away I'm like honey that's not relevant to the story it's okay if they don't clean up right there but she can't but she is experiencing it as if it's happening to her whereas I'm always pulling back like I I feel it I'm watching myself watching what's happening and so it's a very powerful thing that we can actually re-experience the emotions and the anxiety the stress the sense of loss when we're yeah engrossed in a really great story yeah there's probably one other thing that's happening like to use your example of your wife when we are watching a story listening to a story we actually do have release of neurochemicals that impact what we feel so there are at our most simplest level we seek pleasure and avoid pain the pain neural chemicals are your adrenaline and cortisol and these are released when your body says something isn't right and you need to focus and their whole purpose is to allow for you to focus on what's needed to respond so what probably happened in the situation with your wife is she started to feel really uncomfortable and her body was like we're going to release some cortisol here so you can focus because we think you're in this setting the flip side is true where we can also experience the pleasure chemicals which are your dopamine your serotonin your oxytocin these are released in moments of connection and bonding and so when I'm telling you a story you actually have an increase in empathy toward me but also an increase in oxytocin which can't be manufactured it can't be commanded it's a true genuine response to there's something here like I like her I I'm feeling empathy towards what she's saying and the fact that she's being vulnerable and sharing a story and the Brain will send the signal when it starts to have an increase in oxytocin that is this person feels safe to be around and it leads to an increase in trust so the very Act of someone telling a story can create this strengthening trust circle that has us feeling like this is why you feel a bond when you meet someone maybe or spend time with them there's a chemical reaction to it just like there's also a chemical reaction to when we're feeling uncomfortable and stories elicit that so we watch the movie and we feel uncomfortable because our brain is saying we are in this and we are uncomfortable or we get goosebumps in a moment because our brain is experiencing those like we get to go on these fun these fun uh chemical waves if you're a content creator if you're a thought leader if you're creating any form of content naturally the desire is to build a real Bond or connection with your audience with your community so they get a sense of who you are and your reluctance to actually tell your story is the very that's keeping them away from you you're building an unnatural barrier and subconsciously you're doing this when you talk about this I think you say there's three parts to every story there's the context the conflict and then I believe the outcome yeah there's fourth there's a takeway yeah there's a take the takeaway the takeaway okay the for the takeway that's that's important that we remember that I believe Robert mcke wrote in his book story no conflict no story I I really like to help people find the conflict in the story so I'm going to tee you up I'm I'm going to ask you this question and I would love for you to comb through your mind and tell us a story that we can't well we haven't heard from you before here's the here's the prop tell me about a time when you almost failed um before I do that I want to think on it for a second but before I do that I want to make sure we come back to the stories for entrepreneurs because there's an important thing I had to share it's really a point around entrepreneurs so ahead there is there is often this reluctance of I I don't know the right story to share for my clients or my customers or or I don't have this story about an amazing tragedy or a profound moment right that's often something that comes up of you know we we'll hear a keynote speaker tell this amazing story about losing a limb and summoning Everest and we're all like wiping our Tears like that's amazing I don't have any story like that you don't have to you do not need an origin story as an Entre R preneur and I realize this is a a confusing thing because we're always told like what's your origin story but there is rarely one story that sums up everything that you are as an entrepreneur and what you serve what you do need are the pain points of your customers the the punch them in the bruise moments the challenges they're facing the aspirations that they want to be a part of the smaller more specific stories are what really connect with people if you think of like Amazon if Amazon was telling their origin story they would be talking about well we got started selling books like okay but that's irrelevant to who you are now that's not important what's important is what you're doing now and as an entrepreneur your business evolves so much and even if the services don't change the way your clients and customers talk about their problems and challenges do so if anyone is an entrepreneur and they're thinking like gosh I don't have this really big origin story or I don't have an origin story you are absolved you don't have to tell this heart emotional gut-wrenching story for people to connect with you but these smaller stories these more specific things are going to have your your clients your customers seeing themselves in it and they're going to be the things that people notice and pay attention and you start to show yourself in those okay now before we get back to this question about you sharing a moment of vulnerability a time in which you almost failed I just want to remind her audience talking to Karen Eber she wrote the book The Perfect story how to tell stories that inform influence and Inspire it's out in Amazon on October 3rd so make sure if you're enjoying this conversation to go look it up and pre-order your copy of her book so is that enough time for you to think about a time which you almost failed I was hoping I was hoping I do have a talk on ted.com it um I gave it at Purdue University it was a tedex and it got moved to ted.com however I did another talk before this talk it was actually at Ted headquarters they were piloting a app for business is a masterclass app that taught corporations how to learn how to build a TED Talk and as a part of that experience they invited a few people to come to their headquarters to give feedback on the app and have a whole experience and um one week beforehand I was invited to give a talk on the Ted stage which I was like yeah at Ted headquarters sign me up the problem is I've had one week like most people spend six months working on their idea and I did you know I work so hard at it and I give keynote speeches it's something I regularly do I thought this is going to be great the day of you know the moments are are just ticking by and I'm counting down to get on the stage and finally my name is called and I get up there and I stand on the red circle and the opening story that I told the audience which was about 200 people laughs and so I immediately relax and I settle into this talk of like this is going to be good this is I'm on the T stage this is amazing and I'm going through the talk and it's going fine and I round the corner to the last part and my mind just goes blank and I didn't Panic no big deal I uh so in TED Talks there's no monitor like you you you see the same thing as the audience as as the speaker sees there's no hidden notes or anything like that so it wasn't like I could just go read a prompter or anything and I thought in my head as my mind's blank and the clock is sticking I thought you know in improv they tell you um when you lose your place you should look someone in the eye and so a friend of mine was in the second row and I I looked her in the eye and nothing so I look a stranger in the eye in the second row and I'm like nothing and so at this moment I remember the second rule of improv that is when you blank you should fall on the floor and I start looking at the Red Carpet under my feet trying to decide like do I need to fall on the floor here because at this point an uncomfortable amount of time has passed it's not a little bit of time it's an uncomfortable I'm still not panicking but my mind is blank and I'm trying to think like what do I do and then there's another piece of my mind the inner dialogue piece it's like this is not how this talk was supposed to go and um the audience at Ted events are very supportive and they started applauding and and the inner dialogue part of my voice said oh they're giving you pity Applause and that kicked my mind into gear and it said no no we're not done here and I just went and picked back up and I finished the talk and it was fine and I thought like okay I was counting the minutes to get on the stage and now I cannot wait to get off it and just go hide because this is not what I wanted I got off the stage and one of the 10ed employees came up to me and she said I really liked your talk and I was like like okay thanks you're just saying that she said no I did you recovered better than most people do and I didn't really hear what she said but in my head I felt that was not what I wanted to have happen I saw this experience going differently um I was so frustrated and and U was being unnecessarily hard on myself I really thought I was going to be able to go build an idea and I felt like I hadn't and a week later I was scrolling in LinkedIn and I saw a quote from my talk there was someone who had been there that I hadn't met at all but a week later he's putting a quote from my talk in there that he remembered and I thought that's really interesting because we didn't meet and he's remembering but like maybe I didn't fail and then I got invited back to give feedback on something else and is a part of the experience they toured the office for us and in one of the sections they said and this is where we edit the talks and I said what you edit talks and they said yeah of course people make mistakes all the time they blank on stage they lose their place they need to get W like all the time and that's when I realized what that woman had said to me of I really liked your talk you recovered Better Than People thought and so this thing that I thought was this failure and Incredibly you know painfully embarrassing to me which by the way all this was in my head turned out to be such a gift because I realized like this is all in my head and I did build an idea and I had this amazing experience so when I gave my talk at Purdue it was a completely different experience because I wasn't afraid of blanking to this day I'm Not Afraid at all because people didn't dislike me because I blanked it made me more real and human because of it I I have to ask you what are the lessons that you learned that so much of the story in your head isn't the one that people experienced that what you think is the worst thing possible is not at all like I was mortified that I blanked and what's funny is when I went back to Ted a couple weeks later or a couple months later someone who is in that session had seen my talk and when I first you know you're doing your greetings and shaking hands she quoted a line back to me and I had not met her that day either and she said you know I have been telling all my teams about this and how helpful I found it and I was like yeah but I blank she's like I didn't remember that and so the things that we fixate on that we think everyone is like pointing at and laughing at usually they are not and all of that stuff just makes you more human like there's not Perfection is this illusion not that I thought I was going to be perfect but like the things that we get hung up on usually just aren't true no one isn't looking no one's looking at you as much as you think there is a pretty common fear I think about public speaking of that very thing happening when you freeze in front of 200 2,000 people it doesn't really matter and then you can't recover you can so here's the trick right because it's the fear the fear is Amplified in our minds of like oh my gosh what am I going to do here's what you're going to do you're going to ask someone in the audience remind me what was my last sentence or you're going to pause and you're going to get a drink or you're going to make a joke and be like I am living everyone's worst fear I just lost my place no one is going to be upset because you lost your place they're going to feel bad if you quit and you don't continue but they're there to help you like no one's wanting to throw eggs at you and those moments are so real so try not to let it amplify in your mind and instead lean into it of like oh my gosh I am living everyone's worst fear I lost my place but fortunately I am still clothed you know because I think the second one is we have these dreams that we show up without clothes on um be real and just like ask for help oh that's right okay yep that's where we were okay Humanity wins we respond to the vulnerability and when you're real and you own it it's fine I have been witnessed to two dumpster fire talks where there was no recovery so I'm saying like it's it's a real fear it can happen it it's happened I witnessed it no recovery like they walked off the stage like what happened I to tell you what happened yeah I want to tell you what happened it's two times and I want to do this to scare people first and then you'll you give them all the tools that they need in order to have this happen to them the first time I'm pretty early on in my speaking career I'm in the green room and it's an outdoor venue somewhere in La I'm just like a year into public speaking I'm scared to death and I'm pacing like a nervous person like uh like my wife's giving birth or something so I'm sitting there and there's this woman and she was super confident and I was like don't don't mind me I'm just going to pay a Ren and try to figure out what the heck I need to say and she goes oh I don't get nervous about these kinds of things that is an OM I it's almost like you're invoking Murphy's Law exactly yeah right so she comes they play little music she walks out and it's just it's an intimate venue I mean we're talking about 50 60 people and somewhere in La it's it's outdoors and she comes out she's super confident starts telling her story it's like full of personality and then she freezes she goes wait a minute and she starts it again and stops and does it she does it three times and I think the first time we're like wo you got this second time it's like oh oh it's getting really awkward and and by the third time it's painful we're rooting it's painful and I'm thinking I'm going to speak next and I can't have this happen to me either so I'm going through my own psychosis right here I don't know how she ends it it just it's a it's a busted talk she talks about something else and is never able to to fully recover that's one I have even a worse one than this I was at a design conference and you know designers are not public speakers we we like to just make things visual you know and this person came on stage super super nervous and they were literally reading their entire keynote which you know you're not supposed to do okay and so as she's reading it there's a technical problem it's her keeto but she's like blaming the tech team this is all happening in real time on the stage it's horrific and we're going through this and the whole time I'm sitting there thinking just sng it who cares just move on it will it will it'll be okay so she tries it once tries it twice I think three times and then it just stopped and that was the end of her talk sometimes people get so regimented that they don't have the flexibility and I think the first thing is have a mindset that anything could go wrong so whenever I get up to speak I always think like what happens if the my slides go which my slides are just images but you know sometimes in the course of an hour they serve as a cue to me of what's coming next and so it's like can I do this how would I handle this sometimes you have a outline of your talk in the wings that if you do blank you can go back as a reference and hopefully you never need it but it's there to allow you to regroup in the case of the first woman that just was restarting and and she had a mental block which that can happen right you are to in the seek pleasure avoid pain your body is in a little bit of pain right you're you have some adrenaline and cortisol going on when you are on stage no matter how seasoned you are that is a moment where your body is saying Focus pay attention and sometimes the way things are happen happening depending how much you've slept all of that your brain takes a moment to go offline as unfortunate as it is and so if you can't use a cue from the audience and say gosh I I blanked or whatever have something that you can refer to off stage that can allow you to regroup or choose to move on because in your first one the first second third time right the reason it was so uncomfortable for the audience is you were like you don't have to have this terrible experience you can move forward like let's talk about something else right and in both cases they just were so stuck on where they were they just ended it which is here's the reason never to do that because that trauma is going to live in your mind and you're going to beat yourself up for it over and over and over and 20 years from now you don't want to lie awake at 1:00 a.m. thinking about I'm so embarrassed instead be human admit it so I've seen TED Talks um I've been to Ted conferences where people like excuse me I need to go off stage and get a drink of water I've got to check my notes like all of that is fine there's humanness there but when you get so regimented that's when you lose your audience of you're just so stuck and so I'm a big fan of the what if okay night before what if my slides go out what if my mic goes out what if I bring people on stage what if they go off into a crazy Direction what if I blink what if I have a coughing fit this happened to me in the middle of a talk had a big coughing fit and um had to stop and get water just have be be flexible for these moments feel Amplified when we are doing presentations and everyone's looking at us right your body for some reason when your midsection is exposed we feel even more vulnerable it's why we love the fetal position cuz we're like protecting our midsection and so when you're on stage and there's nothing in front of you that's even more Amplified and that is inherently not not normal no matter how often you do this recognizing and being open to there's so many different ways this can go and knowing that in advance is key the reason that talk was such a gift for me is none of that had occurred to me and now I realize like it is totally fine it is totally fine to lose your place and pick back up just have a strategy and support to be able to make sure you are moving forward cuz you do not want to lie awake 20 years from now thinking about that embarrassing time on stage so you you done something you just raised the stakes because I thought I was going to scare our Audience by saying oh my gosh you can have a pretty bad experience it's possible and you're like well that's not even the end of it 20 years later you'll still be thinking about it so we need to be prepared there's a couple things I want to highlight that you said which is when things go wrong first of all you should probably not have the expectations that it's going to be perfect it doesn't need to be perfect and that's not even real to begin with but if and and when things go wrong for you just to kind of be transparent embrace the moment do what you got to do and just let the audience know hey I've I forgot what I'm talking about everybody I've lost myself in my own story remind me again where was I going with this that's a better story than the one I'm going to tell why don't you come out and we'll tell the story together you just have fun you just move on it'll be okay because the worst possible outcome is for it to scar you psychologically that you cannot heal from this and you'll deprive the world of your story your Insight your wisdom and your wit we don't want to do that clearly there's two things that that are success one is connection you want to have connection connection with the audience connection isn't you delivering the most perfect set of words so eloquently it is that you are real and they are responding to you and why they what you feel what they feel is real about you the second though is I just really care how you make them feel and that's what feeds the connection so if you make an audience feel really engaged in what you're story or caring about you or reflecting on something that's important to them it's far more enjoyable than then the speakers where like you don't feel anything and we've all sat through them we've all sat through like who picked this person this is awful or sometimes they'd say okay this isn't for me but other people are liking it but success is that where you can focus on this connection and how you're trying to help them feel the rest slides can go out lights can blow I had to do a keynote where I had been up all night with a stomach virus I am you know doing my best to keep it together I'm in a room in a city that is 90° and the air conditioning in the room is broken it is early in the morning where sunlight is just pouring into the room making it hotter and there are six industrial siiz fans going and because the sunlight is coming in and the slides were back lit you couldn't see them and so here I am fresh off a stomach virus in a 90° room with industrial siiz fans going and you can't see any of my slides and I have to figure out out how to project with the microphone to make sure we are still having this intimate experience and you know what they loved it it was not my most enjoyable experience but they loved it because none of that stuff matters when you do it right focus on your audience focus on connection focus on how you make them feel whether you're on stage whether you're an entrepreneur whether you're a leader whether you're telling a story in a setting those are the pieces that are going to make the difference okay I have to ask you something might be a little controversial I'm going to ask ask it feel free to navigate this any which way you want you you say that the purpose of a talk or is to build a connection do you find that the construct of how we give these talks is very artificial to begin with that it fights against our ability to be real what I mean is we want to be great we want to be able to organize our thoughts and write an outline and even write the stories and practice and I know Ted Talk you memorize your talk you give it and then you forget your talk so that you can tell it in a way that does doesn't sound memorized but as we've seen many people do before they tell the exact same story the exact same awkward pause the exact same laugh that's not real and on top of that in your story that you shared earlier for the 200 people that was some somewhat real and for everyone else that the vast majority of people see it it's edited so that's not even real so like we're we're feeding into this weird Loop of like what is supposed to be like and it's hurting us so we're like we have to nail every single beat there's no water there's no coughing you can't clear your throat how do you feel about that first of all my talk wasn't edited the one that's on head was in pure form you'll see my my stumbles which were totally fine I agree and I don't agree think of the um your favorite band who's your favorite band favorite musician right now I like 21 Pilots okay have you ever seen them in concert no oh yes I have yes I'm sorry what is the song you want them to play when you hear them in concert let's just say the the most popular song is blurry face and sometimes Tyler will sing it and sometimes he won't everyone though wants to hear a blurry face because it's a popular song and he's probably played it however many thousand times but you want to hear it you want to hear that live version you want to have that experience you've listened to the digital version hundred times but like no I want to hear it and every time you see them you want to hear it every time people see Billy Joel they want to hear him sing Pian man and he's probably on like his millionth performance now you don't want to hear him sing sing us the song on my piano like you want to hear him sing it like it's the first time he's ever played it and so there's something true with stories that we sometimes want to hear these Greatest Hits and we want to hear the live version of it because there's something really real and authentic about it but we want it to feel live and true there's this great Ted Talk by Drew Dudley it's about lollipop moments it's under five minutes well worth watching and he talks about this idea of how leadership can happen in these unexpected moments I won't do his top justice but I'll give you the story of it best as I can he's talking about when he was in university he um went to where freshman come to register for classes there's a young woman who is at college for the first time and she's really nervous about leaving home and she's not sure she can do it and she's in the hotel room with her parents the night before thinking like I don't know if I want to stay here I don't know if I can do this and her parents said like just go if it's not for you we'll take you home but let's just go tomorrow and see and she's standing in line in this registration line with all the freshmen and in her mind she's like I can't do this I need to go and then this door flies open and this man comes out with this ridiculous hat and he's like this bundle of energy and it is true and he is walking around and talking to everybody there and he is I guess trying to raise money for a charity or hand out things for a charity and he goes up to the person next to her and he says give this lollipop to the beautiful woman next to you and the guy's like you know very shy and embarrassed he takes the lollipop he hands it to her she takes it and he's like look at that look at that one day away from home and she's already taking candy from a stranger whole crowd busts out laughing and something in her shifts and she goes from this place of like I can't be here it's like maybe this is going to be okay so he's telling this very adorable story and how the day he is leaving the university this woman comes up to him and tells him this story from a few years before he has no recollection of this event but she's telling him that he made such a profound impact on her staying and having this whole experience and how amazing it was and as she's turning to leave she says by the way you should know that I'm dating him now and you know we're engaged to get married from this chance encounter that he has no recollection of so he's telling this adorable story and you watch it and you're like it's so good every audience wants him to tell this story every time they hear him even though they've seen the video they want that live version of it because there's something about being present and hearing the live version it's like people saying like I got to see Beyonce live yeah you've seen all the songs you've seen the videos but there's something about the live thing so that's the you know part of the agree disagree but you don't want that live version to be so formulaic and route that it just just is like okay I could have just press play pressed play on a recording the finding what makes it true for that audience and feeding on the energy of that audience is what's going to make it so Dynamic and interesting it's okay to tell the same story it's okay to take the same beats but it can feel so formulaic that no one needs to be in the room for you to tell it one of the things I I i' love to talk about and encourage anybody who wants to make content be a public speaker is is to lean into the vulnerability of who they are I believe in Pixar 21 rules of Storytelling the rule number one is the audience admires you more for your struggle than for your success and we know this we feel it every time we hear someone talk about how they struggled and they say it in a genuine way not to manipulate you you just feel a greater connection and bond to that person yet here we are on social media here we are on public stages stages not being our not telling our story I have a couple of friends and they'll know as soon as they hear this episode he's talking about me isn't he so I will leave your name out of this but I'll say this and I would love to pick your brain to see what kind of advice you would give how you could help this person okay I think as we're condition not to tell stories and we want to keep things concise we're also sometimes conditioned or afraid that if we reveal too much about what it is that we truly feel or think in that moment that people will look at us a little bit disgusted like we're a total loser a failure we have dark thoughts and it's not within our best interest especially within a professional environment to reveal these things so my friends will tell a story and I know them so well I'm like why did you edit all the other part out in written form or in spoken form that's the part that I love and then I talk to the person she's European uh there is a cultural difference for sure depending on where you're in Europe and America for sure they're a lot more reserved and I said let me tell you your story back to you the way I know it I was makeup part that I don't even know and I tell it to her and she's like oh that's so good why can't I do this I'm like why don't you do this the whole point is for you to build connection and to be real and to show up as yourself help me understand why and what are some tools that we can share with people who struggle with this that they can overcome this the first is storytelling is always personal and it's personal even if you're telling someone else's story so personal doesn't mean I'm revealing my innermost secrets and thoughts and feelings and emotions it means I am telling the story and only I can tell this story in this way right you're bringing your perspective to it so every story is personal but personal doesn't mean private and each person has to decide what is private and that's going to vary person to person and there's a discomfort that comes with private that we often are like no no I'm not doing that so I worked with someone who um in a business setting was a only woman on a leadership team and was getting ready for a presentation and she said but I do not want to tell a story about my kids all of the people here have um kids that are older they weren't really active parents and I just feel like it's going to make them view me weak and I just don't want to do it and for her that was the private line it would like make her physically uncomfortable to do it so the first thing is figuring out for you what is personal and what is private that I don't tell stories about my family mostly because I just don't feel like it's right for me to try to represent them and and you know that's their privacy but I will happily tell you a story about a mistake or a failure that's not uncomfortable or private and there's reasons for that and so people have these differences so first thing is figure out where's your privacy barrier and just accept that it's going to be different for everyone and you shouldn't try to be someone else the second is that we will respond to vulner ability so if we are telling a story about a mistake like blanking on a Ted stage people have a lot of empathy for vulnerable moments if you look on social media the people that share a hardship a time a a true moment is when you get unfortunately the most views the most responses because this is what we respond to you often don't know though what people respond to the most until you test it and so my encouragement whether it's social media or a presentation is have a space safe space to test it so just like you did with your friend where you're like Let Me Tell Your Story back to you sometimes there's pieces of our story that we have no idea laying in a powerful way on someone because we're just living it to us it's every day we don't realize that someone says that is so cool so when you get the chance to test it you get the chance to understand what's resonating for you what is unique what should I lean into and those are going to give you the feedback because remember our inner dialogue is not as kind and probably not pointing out those things to us but someone outside of you can help you understand that and give you the chance to see so the higher the stakes the presentation build in time to test it understand how it's landing on others and what you can lean into to to tell more of I I want to ask you this question and I have many more questions ask you uh so if you can help me figure this part out can you be vulnerable and be comfortable because I feel like vulnerability is you have to step into the discomfort and to be uncomfortable to reveal something that you're afraid that people are going to have an opinion about you that might not be positive yeah I think you can but I think it's a skill learned right so I've made story Hing a very big part of the work that I do and on stage and so I will get like what you did okay I'm gonna ask you tell me a story you've never told before and think of it on the moment is it vulnerable yeah it's a little uncomfortable only because I'm like can I what what story am I going to tell let's get my brain going but am I comfortable in the moment of yeah I'm happy to do this let's figure it out okay yeah this is maybe awkward and hard and I don't know what's going to happen but I'm down to try because I've developed this mindset of what's the worst that's going to happen nothing so every keynote I give there is anticipation there is nerves there is my goal is always I want to create connection and and um help the audience feel something but also more importantly I want to make sure they're coming away with certain things I want it to be meaningful and valuable and so that is always there yet I'm also comfortable on stage to do this and have fun because if I'm not would be really painful to listen to It's possible to like balance that of yes this is not natural and I am feeling nerves and we go do this it's okay the thing is I always check people and I think I I live in a different world and realm that that you than the one that you live in I like that we can have a conversation see where we overlap and where there may be some differences whereas I work with mostly individuals and trying to help them lean into who they are and this is me just kind of changing the tone here a little bit which is I find that so many people that especially people that run in my circles they're so afraid of other people's opinions that they're always hiding they're always editing they're always censoring things and I tell them that's the best way for you to keep a distance from the audience you're trying so hard to build a connection with and so I'm on the other side like let's go for radical transparency speak your mind owe your truth and if people don't like you so be it not everybody's meant to like you and you don't like everybody anyways so it's okay I'm a content creator on YouTube and so I noticed something that's pretty fascinating that the videos that are highly produce appeal to a smaller segment than the videos that feel like it's just some cheap camera that they're using the exposure is wrong and it's handheld and it's not perfect that when we W perfect we'll watch Netflix we'll watch Disney we'll watch HBO or Hulu will we want real and want authentic we'll watch YouTube and Mr Beast deliberately tells his team cuz he can afford anything I want you to shoot a certain way and it doesn't look great but it looks real and we feel like there's like a real connection there and for me to be more attractive you got to be willing to show some ugly stuff and then you you're just going to own it and if you can own it no one can hurt you anymore so that's the angle which I take I know you want to say something so I'm going to shut up no I I'm in agreement but I here's a question that will set you free this is always the question I have people and they're like ask yourself whom am I okay disappointing when you're telling a story there is always an audience there's always someone that you want to know think feel or do something right you're trying to connect with them and not everyone fits in them to your point right there are people that fall outside of that in the business World sometimes there's a bell curve of people that we want to have here it and then people that are outside of it that it just doesn't matter um on social media there are your followers the people that you want to connect with and then there's the maybe the trolls like when you start to ask yourself whom am I okay disappointing well I don't care if the trolls are disappointed great that's no wasted energy for me their opinion doesn't matter I'm okay if this target population doesn't like me that's fine think of it this way um if I was going to your home for dinner what would you cook for me what would be your go-to signature dish yes my signature signature dish would be to go to the restaurant to pick up something and share it with you cuz I don't cook I'd probably pick up something really healthy um uh some kind of salad with some protein that's prepared very simply with really fresh ingredients and it's not fany but it's tasty and it's good for you nice I would love that it sounds delicious if we're in a room full of 100 people not everyone would love that because someone would say well I'm a carnivore and I only eat meat and I don't want a salad I haven't eaten a vegetable and whatever right and someone would say but I really want something salty and another person would say but I want Italian I had a salad for lunch there would be a range of opinions would you take that personally no yeah no cuz people have just have different preferences and it's the same thing when we're connecting you are not going to please everyone nor should you try so the sooner you can get more clear on who is it I'm okay disappointing because it doesn't matter then that's okay and it doesn't have to be this villain you know when I speak in different settings or when I'm posting different thought leadership on social media there's parts of the business world that I'm like it's okay if that doesn't resonate with you that's not really who I'm talking to because what is important to me is who I'm talking to here that's the one that I want to care about and make sure they get the message if I focus on that the rest doesn't matter so anytime you're feeling that uncom discomfort around like oh I I don't want to share I'm afraid it's got to be perfect just get really clear on who you're okay disappointing because then if you hear anything it's like okay that's fine I like that well I'm at that place where I've stopped caring about what people think I've gone through this pretty large Arc myself in terms of caring only about what people think and not having any of my own identity and feelings and just being super intense and uptight to to this other thing I'll share this with you my friend was totally shocked I'm on tour in Europe and I'm doing a series of full- day workshops and I tell my my crew hey I shouldn't have eaten this thing for breakfast I usually don't eat breakfast my stomach is just all acid right now and it's not good I might have to do some damage in the bathroom and they're like shocked like I'm even telling them this I said in case something goes wrong I'm going to point to you and you just need to come on stage and keep running the workshop I hope that doesn't happen but it there's a probability it will happen and my friend nod like I got you you you I got you don't worry and I I said to her should I tell the audience this and she's mortified just like do not tell the audience you have potential problems with your stomach and I'm like okay I walk up and I said hey everybody welcome I just need to let you know something I ate something for breakfast and I just told them exactly the same thing again and then they laugh but you know what I got to tell you that put me really at ease I won't share all the Gory details but it put me at ease and so I wasn't thinking as I'm talking like you know you get that cold sweat and you're like I need to leave but I can't cuz it's really awkward and how do I tell the audience I've already prepared them for it and just by saying and speaking it to the universe I'm like cool and turns out I didn't have to go to the bathroom it was totally okay and then later on my friend comes up to me he's like Chris I wish I had that bravery to say those crazy things you do it and people love you for it but I can't do that there's this kind of rule of exception like you're the exception to the rule like no I'm not you could do this too what are your thoughts on that yeah I it's all relatability right people were like oh he's having a real moment and okay oh gosh that would suck to be him right cuz this is what happens when you share stuff like that people imagine like what would that be like oh my gosh okay yeah you do what you need not everyone's going to have the same Comfort level there's nothing wrong with being real in those moments we all have bodies and we all all have life and have circumstances and you know the reality happens and it worked really well for you I'm I'm trying to be mindful of time I realize we're a little bit over I want to ask you one more question but I want to remind our audience before I ask you this last question I've been speaking to Karen Ebert she's written the book The Perfect story how to tell stories and inform influence and Inspire it's out on Amazon it's out on Amazon October 3rd it's like less than a month away be sure you go check it out you get it now you can pre-order now show up on your door October 3rd yeah and you won't have to sweat it at all like unlike in my story I sweat in the storm I want to ask you this question and highlight from the book people think they don't have stories I have nothing interesting to say no one will care about my stories you write you could build a toolkit to create endless story ideas so if I'm a person like I have no stories I don't what to tell about I I don't know what's talking about right now Karen yeah how can you have endless story ideas okay so let me put you on the spot again I'm going to ask you two questions one is intentionally vague and hard just answer best you can first question is tell us about your childhood I've had a really rough childhood as an immigrant to this country as a refugee fleeing Vietnam I've always felt out of place it's like the Eternal A Stranger Comes To Town we didn't speak the language we didn't understand the culture and I was the subject of a lot of ridicule and I felt it and I internalized this negative external talk into negative internal talk so for a period of time up until about 17 or 18 I was ashamed to be who I was I had a lot of identity conflicts and I've worked really hard to overcome those things well thank you for sharing that and you gave a rich answer um most people struggle to answer that we're going to come back to this tell me about a sound or smell that reminds you of home there's a smell that it's from Green Bean or bean and it comes from it's usually served inside of pastry and it's a little bit sweet and it's uh it is is a thing I connect to Lunar New Year and it's something you have like once a year so anytime I have this green mung bean it takes me right back there to my culture to a very special time because as a child Lunar New Year meant you get money you in red envelopes so it was like the best time ever were you wearing new pajamas no no that wasn't part of you're year okay um so what we did there is I asked you a question that was really broad about tell us about your childhood and you answered really well of you were talking about being an immigrant and what that felt like and being an outsider um what happens often when I ask this is most people struggle to answer they will say usually like the the location they grew up in maybe how many relatives were around in the type of housing you were able to give a rich answer it was still really br broad though of broad brush here here's what that was like we would have to dig in more to get stories cuz there's so many in there because childhood spans so many years what happens when I ask this is your brain says like where do I go which file do I pull from to answer this when I say what sound or smell remind you of home you immediately went to that mung being and Lunar New Year and being a child and getting the red envelope and all the excitement and so there's probably 10 different stories from Lunar New Year to eating them to like all of that right so I use this example because an endless toolkit of stories comes from constraints the more specific prompts you ask yourself the more specific questions the more constraints you put in place the more ideas that come we think to come up with an idea we need a blank slate in as much Open Space in Time what you really need are constraints because it's these constraints like the sound or smell that is going to help your brain say oh sure I know what file access and dig in and see just like the prompt you asked me was great it was a constraint tell a story about a time you almost failed well now my brain starts going through well what are some failures what are some almost failures let's think about this versus you know tell me about work right the key to building a toolkit of endless stories is working through constraints around your professional experiences your personal experiences around life adventures you know think about um something you should have gotten rid of but you just can't part with what you want to do is build this list maybe it's a podcast you love or an article you read or a museum you love going to or a concert you want to build a list of these things that you connect with that are ideas without worrying about where you will use them you're not building a whole story you're collecting these fragments because what happens when it's time to tell a story is you start reading this list of prompts and asking yourself which one of these helps me build build this outcome that I want for the audience and it's going to help trigger ideas and sometimes it helps you prompt whole new story ideas so the key is to put constraints in your path by asking specific questions about specific settings and you will be amazed how many stories emerge do you have a collection like a a book of stories that you've written and how do you organize that if you do and how can we start that process yeah I have a couple different lists so I uh I keep in Google Keep I keep a running list of ideas because when I walk I will often get a bunch of ideas and by putting it there I can access it on any device and I'm not having to transfer it I have a master spreadsheet where I will then have a running list because that you know Google keep isn't good to have 200 and so I will then go through and transfer them into Excel and um look through them and just keep adding to it and it's usually more prompts for me of you know fragments and stuff that I put together and I just regularly go through couple every couple months and stuff just to keep it manageable from the different lists but that works really well for me the key is you want to have a place to capture it because if you are on a walk and you get this idea and you think like oh I'm totally going to remember this by the end of the W no you won't you want to spend your energy on coming up with ideas not thinking about where to put them so have a place to capture it it could be pen and paper it could be a Post-It it could be an app it could be something online um and use whatever works for you but have a dedicated place and having a a book of stories or a bank of stories is your insurance policy against those blank out moments when you freeze on stage because talks you have to memorize stories you just have to remember and just giving yourself a prompt like tell that time when when Karen asks you this question and that's all you really need cuz it's part of you it's part of your life and you could be tell tell a story sometimes you tell it better sometimes you tell a little bit worse but you don't have to memorize these things and as one Storyteller to another what is your preferred format of telling stories do you like giving talks or do you like Fireside AMA style where you can just be pretty loose about what kind of story you want to tell for how long I love all forms and it's different things for different ones so I tend to think my stories through writing first um it's how I do my thought leadership you writing and paper writing typing helps magical moments where you see stuff come out and you're like where did that come from and that is usually different then when I'm telling a story on the Fly I do a lot of work with seite teams and in different sessions and stories come up I don't play on them they come up and that's fun because it's very much in the moment you hear something you know a story that can help that I think in stories cuz I've done this and so I can kind of almost visualize and see and those are always great cuz you know you're hitting something right on for that person at the time and then I love Keynotes because it is informing it scale and it stories its scale and there's a really interesting energy shift that can happen in a room and um create a moment that is really special that often doesn't replicate on video this is one of the things like about TED Talks that are hard the feeling in the theater the day I gave that talk was really interesting and pal it's fine the video is fine but it's a different feeling in the room and so that to me there's always a lot of magic Creed there that's fun so I get different things from each one and love all of them Karen it's been a real pleasure talking to you thank you for sharing some of these ideas and indulging uh some of my questions here I know that we've only barely just touched the tip of the iceberg if people are interested in in your book The Perfect story what can they look forward to and they can pre-order the book right now available on Amazon what are some of the big ideas and then we'll wrap up there I am trying to evolve the the conversation on storytelling to help people understand a little bit of the science and so this is not put on a lab coat and sit down for a science lecture this is done very relatably but I want people to recognize what's happening in the brain and more importantly what do you do with that when you're telling a story which that isn't really out there because understanding certain things and the choices you can make and how it will impact the brain in the story is a lot of power that is going to make your stories more Dynamic so the first part of the book talks through this it's light it's fun there's some great stories that punctuate it and then it takes you through the full process this is a master class in storytelling for how do you find ideas tailor your audience put a structure in place make sure you're engaging the brain sequence the story if you tell stories with data it takes you through that it goes through things like sequencing it avoiding common mistakes making sure you're not manipulating with your story and navigating the vulnerability and even how are you using your body as a part of your storytelling and the end of each chapter has this fun interview viget with people that tell stories in different ways so there's a physician there is a neuroscientist there is a person that writes stories for video games an improv comedian the TED Radio Hour podcast host a co-founder of Sundance if you love The Moth we have an executive producer of The Moth in there so each of these people across so many different Industries and fils and they give you a sneak peek into their world that just help you see there's so many different ways to do this and it's a fun little punctuation mark on each chapter thank you my guest has been Karen Eber her book is called the perfect story you can pre-order right now on Amazon and go do that I'm sure you're going to learn a ton of things thanks very much Karen hi I'm Karen Eber you are listening to the Future