Why I Speak About Story

I didn't set out to be a speaker.

In fact, the first time I was asked to share my story, a well-respected woman approached me just before, with her narrowed eyes and slight curl of one side of her mouth. She looked me up and down and said, "Who do you think you are coming here to talk to us women? You're barely out of school and not married or a mother, and you're just getting started in life. What could you possibly have to share that would help us?"

Ouch, right? That one hurt. A lot! And although I did get up in front of those women to share my story, I allowed that woman's words to haunt me for the next 15 years. Every time I thought I might have some insight or wisdom to share with someone else, either individually or in a group, that "imposter syndrome" would rear its ugly head, and I'd keep my mouth shut.

Instead, when the opportunity to write fell in my lap, I jumped right on that path. Writing has always held a special place in my heart, and I'd still consider it my primary calling. But for too long, I hid behind the protection of distance between what I wrote and my audience.

After I had a few books and a couple dozen articles under my belt, the opportunity to speak came my way again. Although a part of me wanted to run the other way, I chose to step forward. It took everything I'd learned about communicating truth through story to figure out how to do it standing in front of a room full of people instead of alone at a desk.

Once I stood at the front, the small audience looking at me, I realized something.

The principles are the same. A room full of people responds to story the same way a reader does. The defenses lower, the attention sharpens, the emotional access opens. A well-placed story in the middle of a talk does what a well-placed scene does in a novel. It makes the abstract concrete. It makes the distant personal. It makes the truth become real in a relatable way.

I speak about story because story is what I know most deeply. It's also because the longer I've worked with it in fiction, content, or conversation, the more convinced I've become that it's one of the most powerful tools available to anyone trying to communicate something that matters.

Not just writers. Anyone.

The business leader trying to inspire a team. The teacher trying to reach a struggling student. The parent trying to explain something important to a teenager who has stopped listening to direct instruction. Story reaches where argument can't. It always has.

That's why I speak about it. When you understand how story works, it changes how you communicate everything else.

Has a speaker ever used a story that completely changed how you received what they were saying? What made it land? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.