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Unlocking the Power of Storytelling with Melinda Lee · Speak In Flow

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  Melinda Lee: Do you want to be an influential leader? A leader
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  that makes a lasting impact? A leader that delivers
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  presentations with flow with ease, and with memorability? If
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  you do, then you need to include stories. I encourage you to
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  build your skill of telling stories that matters, story
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  stories or your experiences. Yes, your presentations do need
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  to include facts, they need to include visuals. Don't forget to
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  layer in stories. When I say this to leaders, sometimes they
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  will often tell me Well, I don't want to include fluff. In my
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  presentation. story seems like I'm beating the bush, and I'm
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  just including fluff. That's some resistance there. That is a
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  way of repelling and not trying to build this powerful skill. If
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  you listen to every orator, powerful, great orator they are
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  including visuals, stories, details that tug at us details
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  that bring a multi sensory effect. And in a couple of
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  episodes back, I did a series a whole series on how to include
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  visuals, sound, smell, and touch within your stories. Then it
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  brings out your your lesson, it brings out what you've learned.
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  And it also connects you to the audience because you're sharing
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  a meaningful experience. And then you could tie it to a
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  lesson, tie it to a new perspective that you want them
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  to see. So I encourage you to go back and revisit those episodes.
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  But the reason why I'm saying this because I want us to be
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  that leader. If you're the leader that commands in your
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  presentations, you give only the facts, and you tell people what
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  to do, then so be it is that the leader you want to be it could
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  be a time and place for that type of style and approach. So
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  it behoves you to understand that the type, the time and
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  approach that I need as a leader right now, back, go forth and do
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  or for the most part, we don't, we don't have to be that way.
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  For the most part. Most of our timelines and sense of urgency
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  requires that we inspire our audience and motivate them, we
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  stir something up inside of them, so that they go forth and
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  conquer and move without you needing to demand anything.
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  Which means you include experiences and stories, because
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  it allows you to connect with the audience. Including the
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  details and multisensory effective. I mean, you have to
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  go overboard does not mean that you have to include a lot of
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  fluff, it just could be very simple. Including the sense the
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  aspect of sight, a visual within your story, you can set up your
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  story at the beginning with a powerful visual to bring people
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  in. And to do a visual you go from large to small, right?
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  There I am sitting in this gymnasium, right gymnasium, high
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  ceilings. There's basketball hoops on either side of the
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  court. And I'm in the bleachers amongst a large crowd, hundreds
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  of people. So in your visual, you can go from large to small.
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  I smell sneakers and sweat in the air from the running back
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  and forth of the players. There's a sense of smell using
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  smell including smell. What am I smelling? My nephew, fourth
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  grade nephew is at the free throw line. They had been
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  playing and it has been a intense game. They're a double
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  OT. Like they are tied. And they went into overtime twice. And my
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  nephew gets fouled. So he's at the free throw line. If he makes
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  these shots, we win. He wins. It's the championship game. He
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  grabs the ball, the tacky, smooth basketball, I can feel
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  the reverb, I can feel the bounce between his fingers. So
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  including the sense of touch, when you could touch you think
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  about texture. You could think about the shape or the time
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  pitcher, like including, I include texture, the shape, and
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  the temperature and temperature I didn't include in the
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  basketball but you can feel the round, smooth, tacky basketball.
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  So those are the aspects of touch. And then finally he goes
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  to shoot the ball. And he misses the loud sigh from our audience
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  of disappointment of fear. A huge sigh rumbles in the
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  audience. That's a set of sound, including sound. Just describe
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  the sound is it a worrying? Is that a thigh? Is it a thunder
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  loud thunderstorm, rumbling so using and you can look up online
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  sound, how to describe sound, how to describe touch, how to
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  describe a visual, so just get creative, but it doesn't have to
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  be overcomplicated. So my nephew misses that first shot. This is
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  his moment. He looks focused, he doesn't look bothered, he
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  doesn't even look nervous. He dribbles the ball, he shoots the
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  second one. And he makes it. So the crowd goes wild, everybody
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  stands up and screams. And people run out to the court, the
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  team members run out to the court, they give him a high five
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  and they hug him he's a hero of the day they win the
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  championship with that one point. It was amazing. He was so
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  focused, so present and just like what we want to be and who
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  we want to be in our talks in our presentation, we want to
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  stay focused, regardless of what is happening around us. The
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  pressure does fear. He just looked really calm. And he
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  looked like he was present in the moment. And that's the
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  opportunity that you can have when you're delivering your
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  presentations, calm, present, focus connected to your
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  audience, he was connected to that ball and that hoop. There's
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  that ball was going into the hoop. So I want you to remember,
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  when you go out to deliver your presentation, you are connected
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  to the audience, there's nothing else around you. And you're
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  focused on problem solving, you're focused on what can you
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  do to serve your audience? What can you do to connect to the
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  audience? Keep asking yourself that question. And that is what
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  you want to do shine a light on connections shine a light on
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  speaking and flow and not thinking about every single
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  word. It's more important that you connect more important that
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  you're focused on present with them. That is what matters. That
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  is what inspires telling your stories from the heart telling
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  your experiences and using them to share what you learned.
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  Right? That is actually the power of story. It's not because
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  Oh, it's another tactic or it's another strategy. I mean, that's
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  what we've done for for decades and, and aeons that's how we
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  pass our experiences and our lessons. That's what we do as
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  humans. So continue to do that continue to pass on your
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  experiences and your stories that are matter that are sacred.
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  This Was Your Life. So why not share your stories in an
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  impactful way that engages your audience connects you to them,
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  builds your trust builds your credibility, and again, helps
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  you make a lasting impression helps you be memorable. be
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  memorable as a leader be memorised be as a speaker. That
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  is where we're going. That's the journey that we're on. If you're
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  on board continue to just reach out to me continue to listen to
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  these episodes. Until I see you on the other side. I'm your
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  sister in flow. Take care