Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

One other aspect to the but-and-therefore principle: the power of the negative. Oddly, the negative is almost always better than the positive when it comes to storytelling. Saying what something or someone is not is almost always better than saying what something or someone is.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

• Repeated dialogue: The kid who arrives at my car accident swears.

If your audience can picture the location of the action at all times, you have created a movie in the mind of your listeners.

One of my favorite church signs that I’ve ever seen says: “Come hear our pastor. He’s not very good, but he’s quick.”

Asking a rhetorical question causes the audience to devise an answer in their mind. You have just turned your story into a Q&A session.

This is how to tell a success story: Rather than telling a story of your full and complete accomplishment, tell the story of a small part of the success. Tell about a small step. Feel free to allude to the better days that may lie ahead, but don’t try to tell everything. Small steps only.

Bruce Springsteen once said in an interview: “Most people’s stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography and they’re trying to create something that solves a series of very complex problems inside of them or in their history.”

It demonstrates your humanity, your authenticity, and your vulnerability. It’s a way to establish trust and faith with your students. It connects you to them.