Reflection – Storytelling in Purpose Talks

Challenge & Selection

I’m applying the storytelling tool in a series of talks I’m conducting. In these talks I speak to  people of diverse origins and professional profiles about the seek of purpose in their lives, and I  give advice using some very interesting tools and fundamental questions I’ve researched about  the topic. Connecting with my audience and delivering a speech that makes sense is a must and  it is crucial in order to fulfill my main goal: to mobilize them to a positive change in their lives.

This tool is wonderful for what it brings to the table: the possibility of putting together logic,  emotional connection and a greater purpose. This makes it the right tool to deliver the message  I have in hand.

Application

I begin the talk with my own personal story, which contains a breaking moment that helps me  achieving a fast, deep connection with the audience.

The sequence follows with a series of questions, regarding the audience childhood hobbies, past  happy moments and memories, and key moments of their lives when they had to make difficult  choices, all of this in order to help them rediscover their natural toolbox and reconnect with  their childhood dreams.

Later I explain why is important to observe some key moments in their lives and I use some  neuroscience concepts to explain how our brain works, how it grows and why that is important  in the process of finding their personal answers. We know that delivering some data and hard  facts is a vital part of the storytelling tool, and the audience always appreciate it. Without a  doubt, facts help a lot in bringing a sense of reality to anything we tell to people.

I share with them some psychological testing tools that can aid and to the end, I deliver some  recommendations to help them take their own road to the seek of their purpose. Data, facts and  recommendation, that completes what the audience usually looks for.

Insight

The first big insight I got from the exercise was the tremendous impact that the initial emotional  connection has on people. It helps us get more of their attention and it keeps them engaged for  the rest of the journey.

Additionally, following the structure of engaging with the challenge, then involve people, show  the tensions and finally show them that there is a way through, that there is a way out, sets their  mindsets to a growth frequency. It helps tuning the audience to confront any upcoming  challenge regarding not only this, but every matter you use this technique for.

In Design Thinking, introducing a problem with this tool helps us putting a good context to the  challenge we meet, and serves as a powerful ally to set a common purpose. That paves the road  for faster, more agile design processes.

Approach

What I will add for future talks and future workshops, is Visualization. I’ve found that the  activation of the right portion of the brain helps a lot to see things “out of the box”, or how  Kaah Caputi says, “to seek the higher ground”. We can make great use of tools that encourage  us in the process of rethinking old problems and finding new solutions letting aside old mental  maps. Just as the storytelling tool helps us putting good context and connect with the big  problem, alternatives such as visual thinking can be great partners to deliver different  alternatives and conditions to any problem we may want to face through design thinking.

The reason I would add Visualization is that when delivering tools, it’s easier to correlate them  through visual thinking than doing it through simply speaking. It’s not that I will replace one for  the other, it’s just that I think they could get along really really well in what I do.

