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Engage Your Audience: The Power of Kinesthetic Narratives with Melinda Lee · Speak In Flow

• 0:01
  Melinda Lee: Welcome to a speak and flow podcast episode. Dear
• 0:05
  listeners, I am thrilled that you're here, I have a story to
• 0:09
  tell you what happened the other day, I was walking in my house
• 0:14
  barefoot on my soft carpet. And then Ouch, I stepped on
• 0:18
  something so sharp, and almost felt like a small piece of
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  glass. It was so sharp, it sent a signal a stinging feeling into
• 0:26
  my feet and up my legs and I fell to the floor because
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  they're hurt so much. Have you ever felt that when you
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  accidentally stepped on something and it hurts so much
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  the stinging sensation that you fill to the floor?
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  I get to tell you this because I want to share my experience. And
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  I also want to highlight how we can use the sense of touch in
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  narratives. So that you can share your personal experiences,
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  share professional experiences, share experiences that will
• 1:02
  resonate with your audience and also bring them in to your
• 1:08
  speeches, your presentations and keep them engage. So the reason
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  why this sense of touch is so important in our narratives is
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  because it is powerful. And it's also underutilised. Not many
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  people will use this technique in their stories, but yet it is
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  so powerful. Think about it. Our skin is one of the biggest
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  organs, it is the biggest organ, it spans our entire body.
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  And we use it to get to know the world around us. We use it to
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  understand the world around us. My bearded dragon is actually my
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  daughter's bearded dragon. I love this. His name is mu Shu,
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  just like the beard or the red dragon and Mulan. So we named
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  him mu Shu, because he's also a red bearded dragon. He's so
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  cute. I never thought I love a reptile so much. But he's so
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  cute. And so he will go around and use his tongue sticks his
• 2:03
  little tongue out to try to get a sense of the world around him.
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  If he doesn't know what it is, you're sticking the tongue out
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  to try to figure it out. Alright, so that's what we do,
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  as humans will touch something to try to figure something else
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  out to try to understand. And the three things that we want to
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  learn that we get to learn is, as soon as we touch something,
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  the nerve endings send a signal to the brain. And that starts to
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  question what is the shape? What is the texture? And what is the
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  temperature? So when you think about that way, you can always
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  ask yourself, when I'm in the story, what do I want to
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  describe, I just described the temperature, the temperature,
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  the texture, or the shape.
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  And you want to describe Well, first you want to understand
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  what the purpose of your story and what the story is trying to
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  do, what is what is the reason for the story so that you can
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  therefore understand what details to include. And then
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  from there is the details of matter are important, then you
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  include the sense of touch. And, and you include you can include
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  really quickly in a easy simple way, texture, temperature, or
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  shape, and include the ones that people are familiar with. For
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  example, I grabbed the sponge. So what texture is a sponge? If
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  you think about it, ask yourself what is that texture? It's a
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  little it's rough, it's not. So you could describe when I grab
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  the rough sponge or a cotton ball, what is the texture of a
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  cotton ball soft I grabbed the soft sponge or the soft cotton
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  ball. So, resume are thicker, about different examples of
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  common feelings, common senses of touch, that people can
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  immediately get the sense of, they immediately understand when
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  I stepped on the greedy sand that people immediately can get
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  that. So describing textures, the hot plate can immediately
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  get the temperature of that. Or the we talked about texture, we
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  talked about temperature. And now we talk we can talk about
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  the shape, right the shape of the hot plate, the round plate.
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  So those are the three things that our brain wants to
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  understand. And it's an opportunity for you to describe
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  using the sense of touch, texture, shape, and also
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  temperature and then expanding that even more. Think about if
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  you want to highlight a character or the environment or
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  an emotion even the sense of touch can elicit even more
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  Mission. Let's go with character first. I'm thinking about a
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  beach, a surfer? How can we use a sense of touch to describe a
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  surfer? As he was walking along the gritty beach, the sand on
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  the gritty Beach, he used his hand to comb through his long
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  silky hair. So you can start to see the character and he took
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  his surfboard and went out to the waves. So you can start to
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  see the character, we're developing the character using
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  this sense of touch. What about the sense of touch with emotion?
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  How can we use the sense of touch to describe emotion? Let's
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  say I want to describe a warm feeling a warm, loving feeling.
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  I think about hands I think about when people are holding
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  hands, the warmth of her hands. When he grabbed her hand, he
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  felt a sense of warmth and immediately calmed his anxiety
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  or nerves for the day. Her hand was like a lifeline, the warmth
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  of her hand.
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  The sense of touch with connection and emotion. And then
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  finally, using the sense of touch to describe an
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  environment. I did that briefly with the with the beach, the
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  gritty sand the surfer, what about the when you're in a
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  forest, and you want to describe walking along the soil or the
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  ground? What does it feel like to walk on soil? Moshe, as I
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  walked on the mushy soil, if you're running out of ideas on
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  how to describe what that sense of touch what you're feeling, go
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  ahead and type it out into Google, Google Chat. UBT will
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  have lots of ways to describe what you're feeling, the sense
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  of touch. And then you'll spark ideas, to be able to create a
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  narrative describe exactly how you're feeling what you're felt,
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  so that it also elicits the emotion, the visceral feeling
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  within others. Right, describe it versus saying it. This
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  describe what you felt using details using visceral words,
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  kinesthetic words. Mushy CTA, numbing, cold, hot, so we're
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  going into temperature warm. And if you need some help, I've got
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  a speaking sprint bootcamp where you can practice how to use
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  descriptive storytelling, and flushing out ideas, flushing out
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  ways to to talk about what you're feeling, what you're
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  smelling, what you're touching, and what you're seeing in the
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  speaking sprint. So I invite you to join us, but continue to
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  speak continue to describe your experiences and the details of
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  it using descriptive storytelling. And that will
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  bring in a multi sensory effect within people because they will
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  conjure up different feelings, different visceral sensations,
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  and keep them engaged. So that therefore it helps solidify your
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  message. It also brings it back home, they cannot wait and they
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  cannot stop listening. They cannot help but see things and
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  hear things and feel things. And so that's super fun. It's so
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  powerful. And so I encourage you to continue practice. Join me in
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  the speaking sprints. And until next time, I'll see you on the
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  other side. I'm your sister in flow. Take care