Where to get great stories - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

When I ask clients to share a story, to help us bring their presentation to life, they often give me a blank stare. I don't have any stories. I can't think of one story to tell you about this is how it works. When we're asked to bring up stories on demand. That's why in this lesson, I'll share ways to make sure you have stories available to you whenever you need them. One of my favorite ways to create a treasure chest of story options is what I call planting a. Story garden much like a real garden. You're planting the seeds long before you expect to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Also like real gardening. It can be fun once you create the time to make it happen and have a plan for how to do it. So let's talk about how to start your own story. There are three phases to the story garden process. First, choose your starting prompt to get your memory activated. I suggest choosing a place, a person, a phase of time, or even a concept. For example, a place might be your high school. A person could be your first boss. A phase of time might be childhood, or when you graduated from college and a concept might be. Morning routine. And then once you've chosen, how you're going to begin your garden, write that prompt on either a piece of paper in your notebook or the way I like to do it as to hang a large flip chart size post-it paper on the wall. So I can. Big garden, put a circle around that prompt on your page. If you've ever done mind mapping, think of this, like the beginning of your mind map placed your first prompt in the center of the upper right section of the page, giving yourself room to create spokes off of that central idea, kind of like pedals on a flower. Now you're just going to let your mind do what it's beautifully designed to do explore. Remember, make associations. So if you start with your high school as your initial prompt, you'd have that in the center of your. When you let your mind wander back to high school, you'll start seeing movies and people and different experiences. Anytime something feels interesting to make a note, draw a line from that center circle and write down a slug, which is just a few words to represent the story and then draw a circle around it. You've created your first flower from that initial prompt, any time you feel stuck, start a new flower on your page with a different prompt, fill up a whole page. That's how you plant an entire story garden. You don't always know how you're going to use these stories. When you do this process, I promise you will find connections and uses for these stories in so many ways. That you would have never expected now that you've created this rich story garden. So go grab a piece of paper or hang that large flip chart paper on the wall and plant your first story. Garden seed. Feel free to turn on some music or grab a snack. This is a fun creative process that will serve your speaking and thought leadership for a long time in unexpected ways.