It's graduation day! In our season finale, I'm sharing real-world examples of how storytelling tools show up everywhere: in courtrooms, research labs, film sets, and more. Turns out being a better storyteller makes you better at a lot of things. And we say goodbye until next time. KIT!
It's graduation day! In our season finale, I'm sharing real-world examples of how storytelling tools show up everywhere: in courtrooms, research labs, film sets, and more. Turns out being a better storyteller makes you better at a lot of things. And we say goodbye until next time. KIT!
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(00:01):
Our first episode felt like the first day of school, and this feels like graduation. So just like graduation, this is when we ask ourselves what's next and why did I pay so much money for college? I'm Micaela Blei and welcome to the Story Letter, the podcast about telling better stories. I'm so glad you're here. Okay. It's the season finale of the Story Letter. We have spent nine weeks together learning how to tell better stories. I feel like we're probably best friends now, although if you're just joining us now, first of all, hi. Also, after you're done with this episode, you should go back and start at episode one because we have covered a lot. We focused on personal stories all season, but like I promised you at the beginning, these philosophies and strategies are flexible. So today, before we say goodbye, we're going to talk about how these storytelling tools can be used in all kinds of other places besides behind a microphone.
(01:03):
Let's start with a super quick review of where we've been so far. We started talking about why our personal stories matter and how to choose which stories we want to tell. Then we explored how to find new perspectives in old stories. Remember emotional timestamping? We learned how to take an idea and turn it into a story using the big three context, stakes and change. We talked about social drafting, finding themes in our stories to help us edit them using structure, that's my favorite, the story spine, and crafting endings that feel true even if we're not done with the story. And of course, last week I told you about Safe Conditions for Daring Decisions. This is one of those episodes where getting it down to 20 minutes or so was genuinely challenging because I could talk about this all the ways that storytelling shows up in the world for hours.
(01:55):
So we're going to do something totally new, which is instead of doing a little strategy conversation and then telling you a story like I've always done, today, it is all stories. I'm calling this Stories I Never Expected. Basically, I'm going to share the experiences of a few people I've worked with or that I'm related to who saw storytelling show up in unexpected places. They didn't set out to do it this way, but they found out that storytelling, specifically the tools we've talked about, made their work better. And hopefully with these examples you can start to see how you might use these strategies yourself, even if you're not in their exact situation.
(02:40):
Our first story is about one of my favorite ever story coaching clients. I first started working with Claire because she wanted to challenge herself to tell a story at a Moth StorySLAM. She had never been on stage and she had a pretty vulnerable story she wanted to tell, but she also wanted to figure out a way she could feel good telling it in regular life. Claire was a trial lawyer, so she wanted to just do something fun and meaningful for herself. And so we worked together on her story and on storytelling in general. We worked on this story together for several weeks and I gave her all the tools that we talked about this season. We talked about context and stakes and change. We talked about finding a theme so she wouldn't feel lost inside her story, so she knew which details she wanted to choose and so on.
(03:28):
Honestly, we had a great time. So we finished working on her story. There was a Moth StorySLAM coming up that had a theme that fit her story. So she went and she messaged me a week later telling me, you're not going to believe this, but I won the Slam. She also said she loved doing it, which– both of those things are incredible, right? She went from never having gotten on stage to telling a story so well put together and so authentic to her that it resonated with her listeners and it felt great to tell. And I congratulated her. I was so happy for her, and I figured that was the end of that. What more can I teach her? But a few weeks after that, she asked if we could meet again, and this time, not for a personal story. She had a mediation coming up.
(04:14):
Remember she was a lawyer, so she wanted to use the storytelling tools to work on her opening statement for mediation. She'd been thinking about all the strategies and she wanted to apply them to her work. And so we used the same tools. We figured out what context she wanted to make sure to establish so that everyone felt like they were on the same page even though these parties were kind of in conflict. And we talked about setting up the stakes for both sides, emphasizing that what we want here is an agreement, not a victory. And then we talked about what kind of change she wanted to underline what was possible if all this could get resolved. And she chose her details really carefully with this theme that we landed on of “we can work together on this.” And at the end of that project together, we also ended up rewriting her bio on the firm's website using story structure.
(05:03):
It is the best bio on the site, honestly. So working with Claire made me realize all over again how much good storytelling is just good communication and good communication is good storytelling. She transferred her new confidence and narrative strategies right over to her work life. The ways we know how to make a personal story engaging to get a listener, to understand what we were going through, are the same ways we can get a listener to understand so many other things. Okay, so that's Claire. The next example is not a client, it's my brother. My brother is a computer scientist. I'm very proud of him. He's a researcher and also mentors grad students. So he's always helping people write up their research and give job talks and all these things. And when I was working on my dissertation about storytelling like a good big brother, he asked me about my work and I ended up explaining story structure to him, the story spine.
(06:02):
And he listened. He was interested, but he didn't say much. And then a couple weeks later, I got a text message from him out of the blue just going, tell me the steps of story structure again. So I just told him the steps, and later on the phone I asked why he'd needed them. I was hoping he was working on a story because I think he'd be amazing at telling these kinds of stories on stage. In fact, I think he should have a podcast. He's the funniest person I know. But he told me he'd been at a bar with his grad students and ended up showing them how they can use the story structure to explain their research because this is what he said once upon a time is what we had the knowledge before this research problem gets introduced. Then one day is when the problem is presented. Because of that, because of that, because is all the steps to solve the problem. Until finally is whatever ended up creating the solution, the moment things shift in the problem.
(06:58):
And then ever since then, there's a new problem to solve or areas for future research. It actually works really, really well. He says he thinks they can all be better writers and speakers with this, him and the grad students. So first of all, he finally understands what I do for work. That is really cool, but also this makes sense to me because stories are all about change and research is about communicating a change in our understanding. So of course a story structure with change at its heart would work really well for communicating research or problem solving. So he was seeing something that I've been learning over and over since I started this work. Anytime we want to take people along on a journey that we've been on, whether it's research that we did or an important movement we've joined or the origins of our company, story structure can do the trick.
(07:56):
So there's my storytelling lawyer, there's my brother. Next is the 16-year-old filmmaker. So very early on, years and years ago when I was just starting to do this work with high school students, we had a student in our afterschool program at The Moth tell a personal story on stage to her school about her family. The story basically was she had painted a dragon mural on her wall and she was scared she was going to get in trouble, and instead her father told her he loved it. It was a very beautiful story, kind of not a dry eye in the house when she told it in the theater. And of course, we recorded the stories so that the students could have them. And several months later, this student got back in touch and shared that she'd taken the audio file of her story and used it as the voiceover of a short film that she had made.
(08:45):
And she sent us the film. It was a gorgeous experimental short film. So first of all, what an amazing job, that you get 16-year-old short films emailed to you at work. But also, when I think about it now, it makes sense that a personal story could be the basis for a film like that– because it has structure built in. And it's also getting into what we talked about last week, those Safe Conditions for Daring Decisions. I don't want to tell all the details of her story, but it was very vulnerable. And so she's already thought a lot about what matters to her, what she wants to say and what she doesn't. So it's a great place to find an idea for a short film. And it was a truly experimental film too. It was beautiful, these images of her family in a very non-linear way.
(09:32):
So in that way, she kind of used the personal story as a safe condition for an even more daring decision. And I have to mention, because I'm so proud of her, she submitted it to the Tribeca Film Festival and she won. She won Best Student Film. I'm very starstruck about her. So while I'm on students, the other application that comes up with students a lot more than experimental film is students using their five minute Moth stories as the basis for their college essays. College essays are supposed to be 650 words, and five minutes of speaking is usually around that. And this is a kind of personal narrative we have to do so much, not just in school: college essay, cover letter about page, the first question of a job interview. All of these are ways that we have to be personal without being overly messy, that we want to present ourselves in a certain way, but we also want to feel like we're still being ourselves.
(10:32):
And this is where storytelling can save the day. In these kinds of narratives, it's so important to be clear about stakes and change and context and to build a narrative so that people can see your perspective and find a theme that shows the reader what you want them to see about you and choose the moments and the details that serve that theme. And there's also the mushier question, which parts of my life do I want to share in this context? How do I present myself in a way that has shaped but not rigidity, that I can be honest but not feel like I'm giving away everything? And this is one of my tallest soapboxes, which is that I think practicing personal storytelling makes it easier to figure out the line between public and private in a way we can feel good about being ourselves in a more protected or intentional way.
(11:26):
Because when you're telling a personal story, all you're doing is deciding what to keep and what to leave out for now. How to answer questions without compromising your privacy. Okay, here's my final story. I had a really close friend a few years ago who's a CEO, and she had just been let go from the company she was leading. There were all these board politics and they wanted her to do some kind of shady things, and she refused, so fired her, and it knocked her on her ass. I remember going out to visit her and she had all these questions. What was she going to say when she started taking meetings again, and how was she going to tell people about what happened? And also how could she make sense of what happened even before she told people she felt really uncertain. And being a CEO, you need confidence.
(12:15):
You need to make quick decisions with certainty, and her confidence was really shaken. So she asked me for advice because she had a feeling this was about being able to tell the right story about it, both to other people and to herself. And we went through all the tools, but the most helpful tool was theme. We put her experience of this particular job into the context of all the other great work that she's done, and we found themes that allowed this not to be the worst thing that ever happened and the end of her career, but instead an example of a way that she had acted with integrity similar to other times in her life that she had chosen to act with integrity. It's a really vulnerable thing to talk about the end of a job, to talk about a transition like that. But in that moment, she needed to be able to tell a story to herself.
(13:05):
So she also used the tool we've got about endings, of navigating an ending when the conclusion isn't pat or when you don't know what the ending is yet, because it's easy to think that when you lose your job, the end of the story is, I lost my job. But that doesn't have to be true. It depends on the story you tell. And she was able to say, “here's what I hope is going to happen,” or “here's what I'm going to be doing moving forward.” And that made it possible for her to see her own path as longer than just this one job. After that, she was able to take meetings with confidence. So those are my examples, and I want to say there are so many others. There's podcast producers making pitch decks that take you on a journey, and Girl Scout chapter Presidents telling stories that lay out the stakes for kids in the US, and my own dissertation, which I shaped like a long story because that's what kept me going. Storytelling ends up being the common link between so many kinds of communication where we want to be understood, we want to be seen, we want to have impact. We want to convince someone, because a good story gets people to see things from your point of view. It lets them imagine new things. It keeps them engaged, and that's just good communication.
(14:28):
Okay, that's it. You're graduating. There is one final application of storytelling that might be more important than all the rest of it. Being a better storyteller makes you a better listener because when we've told a lot of stories, we start listening for these things for stakes and change and theme. Understanding how all this stuff gets put together means that we can hear it in other people too, and we can appreciate where other people are trying to be vulnerable with safety, where other people are letting us know what's at stake for them or letting us know what change they've gone through, what change they're hoping for. There's so many off-label uses for storytelling, but I think listening is my actual favorite one. You get to be a better friend and family member and partner and colleague, and just person in the world. So here are your final prompts, and yes, I am still giving you homework even though it's graduation day.
(15:29):
Your assignment is to listen to someone else's story at a party on a date whenever, and see if any of these elements come up. See if you can recognize any of them and see if they help you understand them a little better. So if you want to keep working on your stories, I've got good news. This is not goodbye. You can subscribe to my newsletter, which is also called the Story Letter, where we will keep exploring storytelling together. You can also work with me. I do story coaching and workshops, and I would love to help you with whatever story you're working on. Basically, please keep in touch. I will miss you too much otherwise. This episode was written and hosted by me, Micaela Blei. It was produced by Laura Boach. Theme music was the Duke of New York by Adrian D. Walter. I'm Micaela Blei, and this has been the Story Letter Podcast. I'm so glad we did this.
OUTTAKES:
Okay. I know I already said goodbye, but my producer wants me to tell you to please stay subscribed because there's a possibility that I do get to do season two. And if I do, I want all of you to be there. Okay, thank you. Bye.