The Power Of Story

Business legends use storytelling to

inspire, educate and motivate

By Carmine Gallo

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Ideas that catch on are wrapped in story. Stories inform, illuminate and inspire. Storytelling is something we do naturally. In fact, it’s part of our DNA. We are hardwired for story and we can prove it scientifically.

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Some studies show that at least 400,000 years ago humans gained control of fire. It’s an important milestone in human development. Sitting around the campfire, people began telling stories instead of hunting and gathering like they did during the day. Stories informed others about potential threats, educated them and ignited their imaginations. Stories do the same today.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson, best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies, gathers his team to share stories around a campfire at his home on Necker Island, British Virgin Islands. “Storytelling can be used to drive change,” says Branson. “Telling a story is one of the best ways we have of coming up with new ideas.”

Branson also plays host to a group of young entrepreneurs who have been invited to the island for a few days of fun, food and pitching ideas. The 10 entrepreneurs are the finalists for a competition called the Extreme Tech Challenge, which Branson has judged for a couple of years. The winner receives Branson’s funding and support. Speakers who grab Branson’s attention are concise (winning presentations are no more than 10 minutes long), they speak from the heart, and they use the language of narrative to spark Branson’s imagination with a villain (problem) and a hero (solution). Winning presentations end with a picture of a better world. Branson loves ideas that are pitched in the form of story because, like all of us, Branson is hardwired to love story.

Branson is one of 50 entrepreneurs, business legends and TED speakers I interviewed or featured in The Storyteller’s Secret, a book I’ve researched for two years to help business leaders understand the language of narrative and the role it plays in their success. I discovered that business leaders who are storytellers fall into one of five categories: those who inspire, educate, simplify, motivate or launch movements.

Storytellers Who Inspire

Storytellers who inspire embrace their own story of triumph over adversity and by doing so, they challenge us to dream bigger. For example, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz often tells the story of

growing up in a Brooklyn housing project and watching his family struggle after his father was injured on the job. They had no health insurance and found it difficult to make ends meet. The story underpins Schultz’ initiatives such as offering health insurance for all employees. Schultz, one of the great storytellers in business today, once said, “The more uninspiring your origins, the more likely you are to use your imagination and invent worlds where everything seems possible.”

If you’ve overcome adversity in your life, in your career or in your business, it’s important to share that story because we are hardwired to love rags-to-riches stories. And we love them because we need to hear them. We find meaning in struggle.

Storytellers Who Educate

These are the men and women who offer a new way of looking at the world, and they do that through the power of narrative. Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson has won cases he’s argued at the U.S. Supreme Court. He also received TED’s longest standing ovation for his “We need to talk about an injustice” speech at TED2012 in Long Beach, California. Personal stories made up 65 per-cent of Stevenson’s now famous TED Talk.

As another popular TED speaker, Brené Brown, once said, “Stories are just data with soul.” She’s on to something. Scientists have found that humans are essentially storytellers, which means we relate better to stories than to mountains of data. Effective educators use data to support their ideas, but they rely on stories to move people to action.

Storytellers Who Simplify

Storytellers who simplify are often entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson, who once said, “If your pitch can’t fit on the back of an envelope, it’s rubbish,” or Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who explains complex ideas simply, clearly and concisely.

In one presentation Musk introduced a home battery that stores sunlight and converts it to energy. The entire presentation lasted less than 20 minutes and Musk used short, simple words to describe the problem and the solution. The words were so simple, in fact, that his presentation could be read by a grade school student. Musk reads obscure Soviet-era rocket manuals for fun, yet he speaks to the general public in language the average third-grader might understand.

When Musk introduced the Tesla Powerwall in April 2015, he explained that…”

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The current issue is available for viewing only by Toastmasters members.If you are a member, CLICK HERE to login. You must enter your user name and password to view this month’s issue. (If you’ve never accessed it this way, your user name is the same as your member number, which is easily found on your Toastmasters magazine label.) If you would like to join and get access to the rest of this article and so much more, contact our Vice President of Membership.

Watch the video below to hear Richard Branson speak about how he heard about Necker Island when he was 27 years old and fell in love with it.

FINISH STRONG!

How to beat club officer burnout

By Maureen Zappala, DTM

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“It was 1997. The annual Cleveland Revco 10K race was days away. I thought, I’m going to enter. I think it will be fun! I’m not a runner, but how hard can it be? (If you’re a runner, you just rolled your eyes, right? You know where this is going.)

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The race-day weather was perfect, and the mood was electric. Thousands of runners crowded the starting line, eager to start the race. I was jazzed. The race started. I sprinted ahead with all the exuberance of a non-runner who had no clue how to pace herself. Halfway into the race, having fallen way behind, I thought I would die. This is the dumbest thing I ever did. I can’t finish.

Sometimes serving as a club officer is a lot like my first 10K race. You think you know what’s ahead, but you really don’t. You feel inspired, love the camaraderie and have a vision of success. You sprint at the start, excited to do well. But halfway through the year, you’re weary, frustrated and alone. You think: I can’t do this anymore. You are burned out. You want to quit.

Maybe you’re the vice president education and you had no idea how much work it would take, or you’re the sergeant at arms, and lugging and setting up supplies each week has become a thankless struggle. You could be the treasurer, tired of chasing members for dues renewal, or the club president who lacks member support for your DCP goals. Perhaps you’re the vice president membership, but visitors don’t join, or you’re the vice president public relations and creating a club communications plan becomes overwhelming. Maybe your club is small, and officers double up on duties. Your life outside of Toastmasters may be over-busy, or a conflict within your club is draining your energy. So many factors feed into officer burnout. It’s no wonder that a number of leaders fizzle midyear and contemplate quitting.

But if you’re one of these people, think about what could happen if you don’t quit.

I finished that 10K race and I’m so glad I did. That day, as I crossed the finish line, I didn’t care that my time was abysmally slow. I was thrilled that I finished. It may sound trite, but finishing your officer year strong will give you a valuable perspective on your abilities, your influence and your inner strength that will come no other way. Author Napoleon Hill said, “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” The reward comes with staying in the race.

How Stressed Are You?

Volunteer burnout is just like work burnout. Although Toastmasters is a volunteer organization, the work can be just as stressful as in a job. Stress exists in a continuum. At one end is burnout, exhibited by severe symptoms such as lethargy, crankiness, insomnia and feelings of worthlessness. Near the other end is the less severe but more common relative—“brownout.” People who feel this are anxious, disengaged and disillusioned and often unaware of the value of their work. It’s a cognitive and emotional malady, one that affects relationships and attitude.

The U.S. coaching firm Corporate Balance Concepts polled 1,000 executives about job stress. They estimated that while a small percentage suffered from true burnout, closer to 40 percent suffered from brownout. It makes sense to assume a similar pattern exists in the volunteer world, even among Toastmasters club officers. That’s a lot of unhappy officers!

What Causes Burnout and Brownout in Toastmasters?

Many stress factors cause club officers to toy with the idea of quitting before their term is up. Do any of these resonate with you?

• With no tangible pay compensation, it’s hard to see the intangible rewards of serving, especially as the year progresses. If an officer does not see the significance of the role, or the clear link between the role and the bigger picture of Toastmasters, it’s easy to let apathy creep in.
• Some roles are more time consuming than others, such as the vice president education. That can be draining.
  – Some roles, such as sergeant at arms or treasurer, are less visible, and don’t elicit a lot of recognition. If members in those roles long for recognition for a job well done, they may not get it as often as they’d like.
• Club culture can create stress. Conflict between members is no fun. Lack of support from other officers, or little enthusiasm
  from club members, will cause an officer’s fervor to diminish. Poor communication within the officer team or unrealistic team goals almost guarantee burnout.
• The personality of the individual officer can contribute to burnout. They may have a hard time saying no, or may overestimate their time-management ability. They may struggle with delegation or be hesitant to ask for help. They may be perfectionists or have overextended themselves in areas outside of Toastmasters.

Why Push Through?

In spite of these factors, the rewards of finishing your officer year strong are many. No matter what club officer position you hold, or what the frustrations may be, if you push through to the end of June, you will…”

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THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE

The current issue is available for viewing only by Toastmasters members.If you are a member, CLICK HERE to login. You must enter your user name and password to view this month’s issue. (If you’ve never accessed it this way, your user name is the same as your member number, which is easily found on your Toastmasters magazine label.) If you would like to join and get access to the rest of this article and so much more, contact our Vice President of Membership.

Watch the presentation below, “Help More, Stress Less™ for Volunteer Managers,” presented by Dr. ck Andrade. The presentation begins officially at the 3:13 mark:

Meeting Theme: Motivation

Motivation: What Puts People In High Gear?

It may not be what you think

Meeting Theme: Motivation

A company hired a writer to boost its online visibility, but no one there had ever worked with a writer before. On the writer’s first day, his manager pointed to a work station and said, in effect, “Go to it.”

Without instructions or deadlines, the writer was free to add articles to the company’s website. He chose all his own topics and photos and made his own decisions on story length, tone, headlines and subjects to interview.

The result? In a year, the website’s readership went from zero to half a million. In the next six months, the website rose to the number one position in its field as the result of an online search on the web.

Later, a law firm made him an offer to double his salary. He took the job, but soon came to realize the new firm’s methods allowed much less creative freedom. Whenever the writer penned an article, one of the law partners would pull up a chair next to his and go over the copy, line by line, dictating things like paragraph length and photo selection. After two days at the firm, the writer quit and asked for his old job back.

What forces brought the first website to the top of its industry? And what forces drove the writer away from the law firm with its fat paycheck? If money doesn’t float everyone’s boat, then what is it that motivates people to do their best?

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