Bernadette Jiwa - What Great Storytellers Know: Seven Skills to Become Your Most Influential and Inspiring Self

Copyright 2020 by Bernadette Jiwa

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ISBN 978-1-77458-034-9 (print)

ISBN 978-1-77458-035-6 (ebook)

Page Two

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Edited by Amanda Lewis

Copyedited by John Sweet

Cover and interior design by Jennifer Lum

www.thestoryoftelling.com/story-skills

For my mum and dad,who taught me that the best stories are true.

And in memory of my uncle Larry, who introduced me to the power of storytelling on the page.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world.

Robert McKee

Stories are our most persuasive technology.

A pplause erupted as Oprah took the stage. She was at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony to receive a lifetime achievement award in front of an audience of the Hollywood elite. She adjusted her off-the-shoulder black velvet gown and composed herself at the microphone, thanking the audience while she waited for the applause to die down. Then, clutching her award in both hands, she began her acceptance speech with this simple yet powerful story.

In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mothers house in Milwaukee watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th Academy Awards. She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history: The winner is Sidney Poitier. Up to the stage came the most elegant man I had ever seen. I remember his tie was white, and of course his skin was black, and I had never seen a black man being celebrated like that. I tried many, many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid watching from the cheap seats as my mom came through the door bone tired from cleaning other peoples houses.

It took Oprah exactly one minute to tell this story. In that minute, she had the audience in the palm of her hand. Now, I can guess what youre thinking: Of course the audience was mesmerised, because the words came out of Oprahs mouth. Shes a gifted storyteller. And while that is true, she wasnt born with more advantages, better story skills or more interesting stories than you. She learned over time how to find, own and tell her stories well, and by doing so became her most influential and inspiring self.

Stories are our most persuasive technology, and Oprah has learned how to harness their power to have the impact she wants. Thats exactly what youll be learning to do in this book.

Storytelling is not just an art that professional writers need to master; its a skill we can all hone to help us become better communicators or leaders, marketers or parents. Most people reading this book are not interested in writing the next blockbuster novel or screenplay. They want to develop the untapped skills they can use every day to influence and inspire the people they love or lead, parent or serve.

Becoming a great storyteller isnt about simply learning how to leverage stories to get attention or manipulate people. Being a great storyteller is about learning how to build connection and trust with your audience. In the digital media era, the focus has been on mastering the delivery of your words and your story. And while the act of telling the story matters, its equally important to understand how to craft the story in a way that engages your audience.

Its often said that storytelling is a gift. What people mean is that storytelling is an art reserved for the chosen fewthe gifted, talented or anointed. In these days of perfect prose rendered so by rounds of editing we never see, flawless oration aided by invisible autocues and skilled TED producers, rehearsed for months behind closed doorsits easy to buy into this myth.

But it turns out that storytelling is not an art, its an act. It always has been, since the days when our tribal ancestors began to find ways to share with each other what they knew to be wise and true.

I grew up in a house with no books, but that didnt mean there werent any stories. My parents were born into poor Irish Catholic families. They had ten siblings apiece and left school with barely any formal education, in their early teens. They got jobs on factory assembly lines to help support their families. They never learned to express themselves in the written word, but there was nothing to stop them telling their stories. As I grew up, those stories were all around me in the ether of everyday conversations over cups of tea at the kitchen table. Stories lived and breathed on the street corner outside our garden gate and on the doorsteps of every home on our council estate where adults and children gathered. I learned that stories are a potent glue that can bind or divide a community. They are data that teach us emotional truths.

Storytelling is not a gift we are born withits a skill we can learn to get better at, with practice.

The experiences we have are a blueprint for what we might do the next time were faced with a similar challenge. The past is our patient teacher. Just because something isnt an objective fact doesnt mean we cant learn something of value from it. We learn to love by having our heart broken. We learn to lead by seeing leadership in action. We learn resilience not by staying upright but by falling down. We become resourceful by doing more with less. My childhood experiences taught me what it takes to be a skilled storyteller. Great storytellers are not just good orators; they have acquired skills that enable them to engage and enchant their audience.

Your great-grandmother couldnt send a text or an email, but she had dozens of life skills we dont often use today. She knew how to build a fire. She could knit and sew her clothes. She likely grew and preserved food. And theres no doubt shed have been a better storyteller than you and me put together. She had to be. Our ancestors needed to tell stories to gain the trust and cooperation of others in their tight-knit communities. But not only that, they told stories to make sense of their world and to share that understanding and wisdom with their tribe.

When you were three years old, you knew exactly what to say to get what you wanted. But somewhere along the line, you became reluctant to use these skills. We all did. Tales of con men and unscrupulous marketers, manipulating people into doing things that were not in their best interest, coloured our judgement about what it meant to be persuasive. Our culture taught us that persuasion was a trick used by people with dishonourable intentions.

But manipulation isnt a necessary by-product of persuasion. Being persuasive can be a valuable skill used in the service of others to have a positive impact. Like any tool or skill, its effect depends on how its used. Our intentions matter. An axe can either shape something or destroy it, and persuasion can be as much a force for good as for bad.