Now you can easily create and share engaging stories with The Brain Tamer's C.A.R. technique

"If you're gonna tell your life story, you gotta be honest, or don't do it."
R. Kelly, American Musician

Today, in corporate and professional speaking circles, storytelling is all the rage.

This come as little surprise to me. Humans have been communicating through stories since the first cave dweller put a flame to a twig. Let’s face it, humans are storytelling machines.

People tell stories in all kinds of settings other than after the daily hunt. They tell stories at parties, while networking, in meetings, when training, on sales calls, on the phone, over a meal, and especially during job interviews. Perhaps you do as well.

A story has the power to inspire, motivate and transform its listener. The goal of a story is to convey an experience of value from one person to either another person or to many people. The purpose of the story is to either persuade, inform or entertain the listener in the process.

Regardless of the setting, the basic structure of all stories is the same with a clear beginning, middle and end. When some people speak, it is not uncommon for their story to seem fractured with disconnections between the three basic parts making it difficult to follow and hold your attention. This most commonly happens when the storyteller jumbles the order of the events within the story. It’s similar to hearing the punch line before the joke.

The best stories are the ones we cull from our mind. They’re made truly engaging when the details they contain are placed in their proper and most effective chronological order. It really helps when you are constructing a story to have a method to guide you in this process. So, today, I am offering my C.A.R. Technique to help you create and share engaging stories with your listeners.

THE C.A.R. TECHNIQUE

Whether you look at your resume or a roster of clients, every instance of experience or performance tells a story. The story has elements common to all good storytelling. By using my C.A.R. Technique you will be able to quickly construct an engaging and meaningful story with relative ease.

What does C.A.R. stand for?

C.A.R. represents the three basic elements of every experiential encounter. They are:

• Challenge

• Action

• Result

By simply recounting these three basic elements you can craft a story that will engage your listeners.

Let’s look at each element.

CHALLENGE

Every fictional story ever written or told begins with the lead character having to meet a great challenge. Think about the experiences you have had in your life. Without over dramatizing it, everything you have learned or mastered began as a great challenge. From learning to walk to learning to ride a bike. From getting into college to finding a job. Each experience begins with the challenge. So, does your story.  So, begin your story with the challenge.

• Think about the challenge you had to meet.

• Think about how you would define the challenge.

• What were the circumstances that created the challenge?

• What was at stake if you did not meet the challenge?

• Why did you take on the challenge?

The beginning is where you build your listener’s anticipatory interest in how your story will end.

Once you have clearly established the intensity of the Challenge you will meet, you will want to move the story along by detailing the Action steps you performed.

ACTION

Every summer, moviegoers stream into theaters around the world to gobble up the latest action film. Action sells, because it tantalizes the reader, viewer or listener with the possibilities of human achievement. Through the action of your story, you will inspire your listener while demonstrating your creativity, resilience, and resolve. In your story, you may not save the Universe, but you may have surpassed a sales goal, or discovered a new process for doing something, or earned the loyalty of a customer.

Remember, in every story, it’s the action that captivates, inspires and engages your listener.

Once you have detailed the action steps of your story, it is time to bring it to an end with a triumphant Result.

RESULT

Think about the stories you’ve read, heard or seen. How do they end? Some stories might end with, “And they all lived happily ever after”. Others with, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” The ending justifies the meaning of the story.

Think about how you’d like your story to end. What is the one thing you’d like your listeners to remember about the story you are telling?

The ending of a story should represent a triumph of some sort. There are many varieties of triumph from the utterly spectacular to the completely amazing. The end of your story will detail the effect of the Result that came about due to the Action(s) you took to meet the Challenge you faced.

The Result need not be too long. In fact, the one thing you really don’t want to do at the end of your story is ramble on or rehash the story you’ve already told. Instead, think of how you can wrap it up in one sentences or two. Think about how you can summarize the story with a pithy line, turn of phrase, or tag line.

STAYING TRUE

American Musician R. Kelly said, "If you're gonna tell your life story, you gotta be honest, or don't do it."

One of my executive speaking coaching clients was asked to deliver the keynote address at a trade conference because he had written a paper about a technical process. His first instinct was to deliver a presentation detailing the paper with lots of slides that had a ton of detail on them. After working with me, he delivered a keynote that told the story behind the paper and the process. His keynote covered the Challenge he faced, the Action steps he took and the Result he achieved.

My client’s keynote received a standing ovation and he went on to speak and travel for many years based on this one success. He succeeded because his story came from his mindful truth. He engaged his listeners by sharing the truth of his story without the need to embellish beyond the actual and the factual.

YOU CAN DO IT TOO

Click here to download my C.A.R. Technique Worksheet to help you on your way to crafting engaging stories of your own. This worksheet will help you construct clear, concise and accurate stories to support your speeches, interview responses and networking conversations.

From the beginning to the end of your story, my C.A.R. Technique can help you remain true to the details of your story while crafting an engaging experience for your listener. No speaker is ever at fault for being too truthful. In fact, there is no such thing as being “too truthful”, there is just the truth governed by a level of disclosure deemed appropriate to the situation.

When a speaker tells a story, there is only one way to tell it, honestly. As a speaker-storyteller, you will have to learn to trust the truth of your story as being important and impactful enough to warrant your listeners’ awareness, attachment and appreciation.

I trust you enjoyed learning about how you can use my C.A.R. Technique to create engaging stories for your listeners. Storytelling is a pivotal Content Creation skill enabling you to speak effectively as a thought leader, subject expert, or executive. I am grateful for your support as a reader of my blog and I welcome any comment on this post or suggestions you might have in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Build your persuasive speeches around the huge power of What, Why and How and you'll never go wrong.

Persuasion.

Have you ever considered the human predisposition toward persuading is most likely encoded in our DNA?

How else can you explain how children learn how to negotiate while building logical arguments long before they learn to tie their shoes. You might even get some negotiation and argument around “why do I gotta tie my shoes” as well.

The proclivity to persuade probably dates back to the first person to step up with an idea for organizing a tribe or convincing people to try something new.

“Hey everybody, instead of wrestling the sabre tooth tiger, maybe we could try poking it with a really sharp stick. A lot. All of us at the same time. I know Stumpy thinks it’s a good idea.” Not that I was there, but I’ve heard rumors.

For leaders and speakers, the ability to persuade through language is a fundamental aspect of their job. Persuasive speaking is a skill that, depending on the speaker’s objective, may use one of several distinct organizational patterns. But at its fundamental level, persuasion requires connection. Connection of the speaker to the needs of their audience, their current mindset and their exhibited behavior.

People can be moved to change by three influencers; what inspires them, why it motivates them, and how it can transform them. The surest way for you to connect your audience to your ideas is to build a pathway for them and share the What, Why, and How of your objective.

Let’s look at each of these influencers.

WHAT

When a speaker or leader desires to persuade, they must first detail a clear vision of the reason for the change they seek.

When you concentrate your initial comments on the What, you have opportunities to identify a host of conditions such as current state, short falls, expectations, disappointments, promise lost, etc.

This is where you can “shake up” your audience and begin to get them thinking about the ideas or solutions you will share. Taking the opportunity to tell your audience what is “broken” is the first step that inspires them to seek change.

The What section of your speech sets the stage for the Why and How sections that will follow by clearly aligning the expectations of your content with your audiences’ connection to your supporting points.

WHY

Lots of people hear lots of good advice every day, but never act on it. Why is that?

Most likely it happens because the good advice is not connected to a compelling reason to follow it. People need to feel there is a compelling reason to take action, to embrace change.

It is not enough to tell your audience they should follow your advice, you must detail for them the benefits your advice will deliver to them. Telling your audience about the best way to lose weight because it worked for you is a start. But telling them how it will change their lives by sharing with them how it will feel, how they will look, how their self-image will increase, etc.

Using a story or example that motivates is an effective way to visualize what your desired change can bring. Essentially, this is a great time to use imagination language. Phrases like What if or Imagine you are… can help you begin to guide your audience towards the shifts you are seeking.

Watch most any infomercial and you will see this strategy deftly delivered.

HOW

I have listened to a lot of motivational talks in my life. In many cases I am left with the same feeling. Emptiness.

While the speakers have been passionate, energetic, insightful and a host of other adjectives, many of them fall short of having the one thing I believe makes persuasive speaking effective - connection.

Many speakers simply forget to connect the What and Why to an executable How.

Advice is great, but without a strategy for implementation the receiver is left with trying to figure out the “How” by themselves.

Persuasive speaking is done to bring about change. Change is the pathway to a destination. The destination is Transformation.

Transformation is the object of every persuasive speaker whether they know it or not. And, if your goal is to lead or influence others, you’d be well served to master the transformative elements of any persuasive speech you plan to give.

POWERFUL PERSUASION

If you’re skeptical about this, all you need do is look at two of history’s greatest persuasive speeches, Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death and Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream.

Both speakers clearly detail for their audience the What (current state of things), the Why (a compelling reason for change) and the How (next steps to follow).

Perhaps this is why these two speeches are held in such high esteem by historians, educators and the public.

THE APPEAL TO INTEREST

A few blogs ago (Mar. 12 ’18) I wrote about WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

Every audience member has a reason for being there. As a speaker and leader, it would serve you well to understand what these interests are before you start speaking. No matter how clever your idea is or how revolutionary your strategy may be, if you fail to connect to your audiences’ interests you will struggle bringing about the change and momentum you desire.

Follow the simple formula of the three influencers:

1. Tell them What the current state is to inspire them to change.

2. Help them to see Why this appeals to their interest with a compelling reason

3. Share with them the next step on How they can achieve your desired change and transformation.

The next time you need to energize your “tribe” remember interest trumps intellect. Connecting to your audience’s interest is the key to getting them to embrace yours.

Please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague. As always, share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

What your audience remembers most.

“The audience remembers two things; the first thing it sees and the last thing it hears. So, first make a profound impression and second an ever-lasting impact.”

— Don E. Smith

Pop Quiz: How many chances do you get to make a first impression?

If you said more than one, go to the principal’s office.

In the art of speaking, you have two chances to make an impression; a first one and a lasting one. Many speakers I know work hard and long on their opening line. Crafting just the right combination of catchy phrase, teasing possibility, and creative nuance is no simple task. I applaud them for this effort. But sadly, for many of them, they are so concentrated on this one aspect they forget they are communicating volumes of information to their audience long before they even open their mouth.

It is clearly evident that your audience is most highly focused at two points in your presentation - when you are first introduced and, if you’ve managed to keep them focused throughout your presentation, at the end when you leave them with your parting thought.

You Cannot NOT Communicate

Communication is a constant process. Even when you think it’s over, it still goes on. And, in the instance I am referring to now, it starts before you may actually think it does. Because of this, it is important for you, as a speaker, to remember that your audience remembers the first thing it sees, which is you. Before you speak, you are the presentation.

The audience remembers and judges your credibility and authority on a variety of things. Among these is your personal presentation. Personal presentation attributes may include wardrobe, posture, facial expressions, eye contact, and confidence. If you take the stage with less than a sense of ownership it’s unlikely your audience will buy into what you are saying. No one trusts an unsettled peddler.

This does not mean that you should dress in formal attire for every presentation. Do so only when the occasion requires it. But it does mean, that whatever attire you choose, it should show a precise level of respect for your audience and the occasion. One rule of thumb is to dress at or one level above your audience. If they are wearing business casual, where a business suit with no tie. If they are wearing ties, you need to wear one too.

Don’t forget to do the rest of the stuff too. Because, as a speaker, you can’t control where your audience chooses to focus their attention, don’t give them a reason to stare at something else. So, shine your shoes, press your pants, and straighten your skirt. In other words, take a moment to look in the mirror and see what they will see. It’s hard enough these days to command an audiences’ full attention. The first impression you make can go a long way toward establishing the connection you will nurture throughout your presentation.

So bear in mind, the audience remembers the first thing it sees and the first thing it sees is you. Use this opportunity to make your profound first impression.

The Two Least Powerful Words in a Speaker’s Vocabulary

Building personal relationship is the primary function of communication. It is the primary function of any speaker as well. Sometimes when we speak it is easy to lose sight of this principle. Speakers often get so wrapped up in the essence of their pitch they forget about building the bond of trust central to all relationships.

I’ve seen it written lately that the two most powerful words in the English language are “Thank You”. I don't disagree. Nothing will help you build the bond of team work and cooperation more than acknowledging someone else’s contribution by saying, “Thanks”. When you’re speaking, saying “Thank You” is a patronizing and very insufficient way to establish the lasting bond. It offers your audience nothing and does very little to connect them to your content and purpose.

After all, in most speaking situations, it is unlikely that you will address the same people on the same topic with the same content more than once. In addition, there is very little of a participatory role for the audience to play in establishing a relationship with you other than being respectful, engaged and appreciative of your presentation. But, somehow, this does not stop a host of speakers from ending their presentation with the words, “Thank you.”

Since the evidence shows that an audience will remember the last thing it hears, doesn’t it make sense that the last thing ought to be of value to them. And that the thing of value, ought to relate directly to the topic, content and purpose of your speech.

So, how can you tell your audience how much you appreciate them and still leave them with a lasting impact?

The Last Thing You Want Your Audience to Hear

At the end of your speech, after you have reminded your audience of the purpose of your speech and all of the supporting points you covered in support of your purpose, this is the time you bring it to a close. This is the time to make your ever-lasting impact. So, say “Thank you” and then “Good Bye”.

Try something like this:

“I just want to take a moment here before my final thought to say “Thank you” for the time and attention you have given me during my presentation. It is truly appreciated.”

Take a moment to smile, make eye contact and nod your head in approval as you acknowledge your audience.

Then launch into your final comment. Make it a single, simple sentence that will button hole the importance of your presentation. And then, stop talking. Smile. Bow your head and look for the person who brought you to the stage.

You may get many or a few opportunities to speak. My advice is to make every one of them count to their fullest degree. Don’t give away the sweetness of the inspiration and expertise you bring to the stage by creating sour moments with a lackluster first impression and listless ending impact.

Making a profound first impression and an ever-lasting impact is totally within your control as a speaker.

Please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague. As always, share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer