Good storytellers are great learners

Quote of the week

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” George Shinn 

Good storytellers are great learners

Storytelling—engaging and useful as it is—requires you to continuously hone your craft. Even for great storytellers standing still is not an option, as audiences (that’s you and me) can tune out easily.

In the era of streaming, as viewers we have enormous choice. Yet on any evening, each of us continue to have a hard time finding something good to watch! And this in an era of vast budgets and large number of uber creative folks out there producing content.

In past issues we’ve said storytelling is all about your audience, and that storytellers are good listeners so in this final issue of 2023, beyond stating that good storytellers are great learners, we’d like to share three sets of resources that can help you become even better storytellers.

Resource #1: Newsletters

In our personal and professional lives, we need to tell stories in a wide variety of circumstances. Whilst all storytelling builds on some immutable principles, the needs of a particular situation—a eulogy, or graduation are likely to be very different than a presentation to a CFO, or fund-raising pitch to investors.

So no surprise, that a variety of writers focus on very specific niches of storytelling. Here are three very creative newsletter publishers who take very different tacks to their specific types of storytelling. We’ve found them to be not just useful, but fun and easy to read and implement.

• Analytic Storytelling with a stated focus on helping people presenting complex, technical, or abstract topics in each issue they provide one tip that’s readable in under 2-mins and ready for implementation. Arnaud and his team are Netherlands based and bring their distinctive brand of humor!

• FP&A Stories - The Newsletter for Financial Storytellers is exactly what its author Soufyan Hamid claims. It seeks to help financial professionals become better partners through storytelling. Belgium-based Soufyan loves coffee as much as finance!

• World Builders - Nathan Baugh’s newsletter, whilst not as narrowly focused as the previous two, brings eminently actionable nuggets in each issue for its readers. Nathan does with deep dives into story structure, their construction and world building. An invaluable resource.

Resource #2: Communities

Great as newsletters or videos are for learning, doing things with others, aka a community is priceless. Three such communities you’ll find invaluable are:

• ToastMasters If you could tap into only ONE resource, then I’d encourage that you pick this. ToastMasters is a community, a school and an endless resource all rolled into one. And there’s likely one around the corner from you.

• The Moth The Moth is true stories, told live and without notes. What began as intimate session in NYC has become an all-American phenomenon with a growing global story section. Its a great resource that can be had online, remote or in person.

• Shut Up & Write While not strictly a storytelling community, SU&W is as it name gives away a writing community, one in which you do as their name says, not socialize, not talk, but write. As we teach in our Persuasive Storytelling course, at the heart of a great story well told is a script. If like me you too are the type to “wing your story” I’d recommend you try this. Its global and so there’s one near you.

Video

As in our regular newsletters, our final resource in this edition is a are three video channels, in keeping with the three newsletters and three communities, we shared. These video channels we believe will help you up your storytelling game.

• Charisma on Command Not the first resource that comes to mind, if you read their stated purpose “to help you learn how to be more confident, how to make people laugh, how to be more likable.” However his breakdowns such as Presentation skills and Persuasive speeches make this gold!

• The Nerdwriter Creator Evan Puschak describes the channel as “puts ideas to work.” I’d rather label it as “helping us make sense of things.” While he covers a wide range of topics, starting with something like “How Louis CK Tells a Joke” will get you started on an amazing journey of discovery and learning.
  

• Vlog Brothers John and Hank Green (the brothers in the name) having been “Raising nerdy to the power of awesome,” in their own words. If you have never encountered them, their website can be downright confusing, so a good place to start may be John and Hank Explain. Their entire Crash Course series is worth bingeing on.

Here’s to a happy, healthy and fulfilling new year in 2024!