Storyworthy

Foreword

• "If I can recommend storytelling to you for any reason at all, it would be that storytelling helps you realize that the biggest, scariest, most painful or regretful things in your head get small and surmountable when you share them with two, or three, or twenty, or three thousand people."
• "The other reason I can recommend storytelling, and learning about it with the book you're holding, is that we're all disappearing — you, me, everyone we know and love. A little heavy for a foreword maybe, but when you tell stories, you do yourself a kind favor by taking a moment to write your name in the wet cement of life before you head to whatever is next. This is a much more selfless act than conventional wisdom would have you believe. It's a little like leaving a note in the logbook on the trail that others will be hiking after you, a note that might give the next hiker a clue."

Preface

• "You need not spend time in jail or crash through a windshield or have a fun jammed against the side of your head to tell a great story. In fact the simplest stories about the smallest moments in our lives are often the most compelling."

1. Finding your story

• "No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story." — Daniel Kahneman

2. What's a story

• "folktales and fables do not create the same level of connection between storyteller and audience as a personal story. I have never listened to someone tell a folktale and felt more deeply connected to the storyteller as a result."
• "Your story must reflect change over time. A story cannot simply be a series of remarkable events. You must start out as one version of yourself and end as something new. The change can be infinitesimal. It need not reflect an improvement in yourself or your character, but change must happen."
• Tell your story, not others. Or tell your side of their story. "There is immediacy and grit and inherent vulnerability in hearing the story of someone standing before you. It is visceral and real. It takes no courage to tell Pete's story. It requires no hard truth or authentic self."
• Storytelling is not poetry, not theater. People want to feel they are being told a story. They don't want to see someone perform a story.

3. Homework for life

• Homework: If I had to tell a story from today — a five-minute story onstage about something that took place over the course of this day — what would it be?
• "We experience moments like this all the time. This one may sound special and unique and maybe even beautiful, but only because I've crafted this particular moment into a story. In truth, these moments are everywhere. They exist in multitudes for all of us."
• "The problem is that we don't see these moments. We fail to notice them or recognize their importance, and when we happen to see one, we don't reach out to catch it. We don't record it. We don't save it. We fail to keep these precious moments safe for the future."
• "If I tell the story about the time I died on the side of the road and was brought back to life in the back of an ambulance, it's going to be challenging for an audience to connect with my story and me. It might be exciting and compelling and even suspenseful, but audience members are probably not thinking, "This is just like the time I died in a car accident and the paramedics brought me back to life!"
• "There's nothing in the horror of a car accident for an audience to connect to. Nothing that rings true in the minds of listeners. Nothing that evokes memories of the past. Nothing that changes the way audience members see themselves or the world around them."
• When we put our storytelling lens on, we look at misfortunes and mishaps differently. "What would have been just annoying and forgettable five years ago is now something that I've captured and will have for the rest of my life." He was talking about the story of his dog who caused him to be drenched but he remembered she is his best friend and is old.
• "In searching for stories, I discovered that my life is filled with them. Filled with precious moments that once seemed decidedly less than precious. Filled with moments that are more storyworthy than I'd ever imagined. I'd just been failing to notice them. Or discounting them. Or ignoring them. In some instances, I tried to forget them completely."
• “Five minutes a day is all I’m asking. At the end of every day, take a moment and sit down. Reflect upon your day. Find your most storyworthy moment, even if it doesn’t feel very storyworthy. Write it down. Not the whole story, but a few sentences at most. Something that will keep you moving, and will make it feel doable. That will allow you to do it the next day. If you have commitment and faith, you will find stories. So many stories.”
• “If you want to be a storyteller, this is your first step. Find your stories. Collect them. Save them forever.”