Change Your Story, Change Your Life

VIVID STORYTELLING… …is not optional. If it ain’t vivid, it ain’t a story; it’s just an idea. Warning! This episode may give you awesome communication power. Can you handle it? Before we talk about vivid, let’s clarify what storytelling is for those of you who want to sell more products and services and/or influence people to act on your words. Think of storytelling as a journey for your audience that takes them from an undesired or painful before state, through an obstacle course, to strongly desired after state. You, the storyteller, are guiding and directing that journey. Your responsibility is to make it an authentic adventure of a lifetime. That’s where vivid comes in. You make your story vivid by using sensory language. Remember this easy rule. Use your senses, all five of them. Make your audience see, hear, smell, taste, and touch (feel) your story. When you do that, you speak to the heart; when you don’t do it, you appeal only to logic, to the head.