How to Tell Better Stories

So I was tracking the stats just this morning, and it blew my mind to learn that we gained 200, over 250,000 followers last year across all channels. That’s Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, the, the newsletter, 250,000 new followers. That is mind blowing. And if you’re here listening to this right now, like, you’re, you’re, you’re potentially one of them. So thank you. That means the freaking world to me. It’s absolutely incredible. But I wanted to share with you the one single skill that I believe has contributed to that growth the most, and I wanted to share some ideas around it.

That skill is the skill of storytelling. I focus a lot on telling stories in my content, in my videos, in this podcast, as much as possible, because I believe story is the source code of the human experience. It’s how we connect with other people, it’s how we transmit ideas, it’s how we make sense of the universe. So the ability to tell compelling stories that captivate, that engage, that make an impact, I think that’s one of the highest influence skills in the world, and I’m not the only one that thinks this. Steve Jobs said the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. And so I just wanted to share with you some of the lessons that I’ve learned about telling stories on the Internet over the last twelve months. So, number one is, the cardinal rule of storytelling is simply this. You have to make me care.

You have to make me care. There’s nothing worse than somebody who’s just reciting a chronology of events, and you don’t care at all, because you’re like, what does this mean? Why are you telling me this? What’s the value here? Why should I care? And what this often looks like is somebody’s just telling you what happened in their day, and they’re not telling you why it mattered. And so if you want to tell stories that captivate people and that actually get them enrolled in the story itself and resonating with it, you can’t just tell me what happened, you have to tell me why it matters. And you can be very explicit with this. I call this the two stories. Within every story, you have the external story, and you have the internal story. The external story is all about the things that happens, what the hero has to go do, but the internal story is why it mattered to you. What are the things that you internally had to struggle with as you were hiking up the mountain to slay the dragon? Right? And if you don’t focus, if you don’t tell that internal story, then you’re really just left with the whiz, bang boom, action oriented movie that nobody cares about what actually happens.
It’s entertaining, but you don’t actually care. And I think the key to telling great stories is to make people care. Okay. Number two is 90% of a great story is in the delivery. And so you should think just as much about the formatting, the pacing, the delivery as you do on the actual words you’re using. There’s a study a number of years ago called the morabian study, which found. I don’t remember what the numbers were, but it was something ridiculous. Like, 55% of what we communicate is nonverbal.
It’s through our body language. And I think that study was since debunked in many ways or called into question. But I do believe the general trend of it is accurate. Is that how we say things? Is what often gives the things we say meaning and value. Right. And so work on your pacing, your pausing, your ability to use white space if you’re writing. These are all integral parts of the story. It’s not just what you say.
It’s how you say it. Number three is that every story really just boils down to three parts. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And when you understand what each part of the story is supposed to do, like what it’s supposed to accomplish, you can craft compelling narratives out of practically anything. So, for instance, the beginning of your story has one objective. That is to get your audience’s attention, the middle of your story. One objective, that is to keep your audience’s attention, the end of your story. Again, one objective, that is to direct the audience’s attention.
So we have to get their attention. We have to keep their attention, and then we have to direct it. We have to tell them what to do with that. That’s either a call to action. I want you to go take this action next. Or it’s a thing we want them to remember. What’s the moral or the lesson here that we want you to take away when you understand and you start crafting your stories with that in mind? A lot of times we tell stories that are just entertaining, like, oh, this funny thing happened at work. Let me tell you, this funny thing happened at work.
And you start to go through the events of what happened, but it’s not as funny to the other person. Right, because. Because at the end of it, you just kind of go, yeah, I guess you had to be there, right. And the reason for that is largely because maybe you had a great way of getting their attention. This funny, crazy thing happened at work. You’ll never believe it. And the really crazy bits that were happening in the middle of the story, that’s crazy, too. But then you just kind of end on this lame note at the end, you don’t know how to bring it all together.
And because they’re not falling on the floor holding their sides in laughter, you are still kind of rambling on, hoping to not quite end the story until you find the way to get them to laugh, right. And then eventually, maybe they’ll give you a pity laugh. But most often, by the time you get to that point, the story is a real flop. So what we have to think about then is how do we hook the attention? How do we keep the attention, and then how do we direct it at the very end? And often, I’m just going to give you my favorite way for ending stories, which is something I call the tie down. It’s simply this. I share this with you because if you take that moment and just reiterate to somebody why you shared a story with them, even a story that is all about some funny thing that happened at work, and they’re not laughing, you could just be like, you know, I share those with you because I swear to God, when I walked into the office, I was in this terrible mood. But then seeing Ted from accounting with a flower pot stuck on his head, it changed my entire day around. And, yeah, hopefully that brings you a smile, right? Like, just really simple ways of ending a story is, like, very, very powerful.
Anyways, I got kind of rambly there. Anyways, here’s another one. Number, I don’t remember what number we’re on. We’ll just say number four. Great stories are about transformation, and that doesn’t mean it has to be a massive transformation. But by the end of your story, something has to have changed. If it doesn’t, then you really wonder, what was the point? You just gave me a list of events. And so in that instance of going into work, you’re kind of in a crabby mood.
You see Ted with the flower pot in his head. Now you’re in a good mood. Transformation. Something changed, right? If you were just in a crabby mood, you got to the office, you see Ted with a flower on his head, and you’re like, he had a flower pot on his head. You’re like, nothing really changed. Nothing changed, right? Like, he always had the flower pot on his head in the story. So something has to transform for it to be a good meaningful story. Let’s take one more little tip here.

I think I wrote out a list of 13 of these. So if you’re interested in reading the full list, go over to Twitter. Follow me at Anthony Vasino. You can see the full list of 13 little lessons, but this was maybe the most important one, is this. Never forget that the story might be about you, but it’s not about you. It’s about the audience. Your story is merely the lens through which they see themselves. And so when you tell a story, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

And the more that you keep that in mind, the better your story is going to be, the more it’s going to resonate, and the more they’re going to love it. So I hope these storytelling tips help you and bring you a ton of value as you’re out there, maybe trying to grow your brand on the social medias, or maybe you’re just trying to become a more persuasive, an influential communicator in your workplace, on your home life, wherever it is. So hopefully you got a lot of value out of this. Guys, we’ll see you in the next episode. Until then, stay happy. Focus, my friends.