4spirit@gmail.com
Tell to Win by Peter Guber is about how to connect, persuade, and triumph with the hidden power of story. Everyone is in the emotional transportation business. Purposeful stories, those created with a specific mission in mind, are absolutely essential in persuading others to support a vision, dream or cause. Guber is from the movie industry and he has learned what works in movies, we can learn similar principles that work when we communicate to others with the power of the story. In any environment, place, you to can create a compelling story that connects and persuades.
The components of a good story, whether told in person, on a page or via actors, are challenge, struggle, and resolution.
First, get the listener's attention with an unexpected challenge or question.
Next, then give your listeners an emotional experience by narrating the struggle to overcome the challenge, or find an answer to the opening question.
Finally, galvanize your listeners' response with an eye-opening resolution that calls them to action.
From Guber's movie experience he says you are skunked if the three part story-listening experience is not delivered.
What fuels emotional transportation?
1. True heroes are sympathetic and recognizable characters. Your hero in the story is the conductor. The more sympathetic to this person, the more we feel bound to the story.
2. Drama gets your story moving. Once we have our hero, what keeps us spellbound is wondering what will happen next. Create tension between expectation and uncertainty. Emotional tension makes you think it might go this way, or go that way, so your listener hangs with you to find out. It's that we want something to turn out one way, but with the situation it could have several outcomes. This is emotional tension that keeps us in the story to find out. The "what happens next" is a compelling story telling component that keeps the audience glued to you.
3. Get people from "ah" to "ha." Or moving the emotional to the ahha, "I got it".This is what is going on and how it turned out.
4. Move from the me to the we factor. That the story is shared by the other person too. It now becomes a shared experience between you, another person or a group. The teller and listener feel the benefit of the experience. We align in interests and others know what's in it for them.
The meat of Win to Tell details the art of the "tell" which is ready... set... tell.
Ready... To tell a great story preparation is key. Do your homework and demonstrate authenticity and congruence, the rails which your story rides. Aim for the heart and emotionalize your offering. Be interested in what your listener is interested in. Then they will find your story interesting and compelling. Know your audience and what interests them. Be aware of your listeners' prejudices, pet issues. Overlooking this can hijack your whole story.
Set... your hero represents the point of view of your listener. He/she/it is the one your audience identifies with, the audience experiences the story through the hero. The call to action embraced by the hero will as well be embraced by the audience. Your hero is the person, place, product, or brand that enables your audience to feel the change promised in the story. Metaphors and analogies are great to use. In a single word, in a single image all the emotion and meaning can be delivered. Engaging powerful narratives from books, popular movies, history can emotionalize your call to action.
Tell! Present authentic, contagious energy. Your energy, that's real, is the catalyst for a great story. All audiences expect experiences. Being vulnerable is an asset, not a liability. Persist if you get a "no", and pressing on in spite of their fear ("no" comes from fear expressed in fight, flee, freeze) and change "no" to "on". Be clear on your goal, use inspiring stories, learn, refine and improve your story with each no. Rejection is just a sign to detour to find the better road to success. Your body talks more than your tongue. Be interactive, arouse curiosity, use props that support your story. Listen actively and responsively, be ready to drop your script when the situation calls for it. The audience needs to own it, so surrender control and proprietorship to your audience. The best raw material you have is your firsthand, witnessed experience.
To sustain a never-ending story, identify the essential elements of your story and the audiences who clearly echo the essence of your story. Multiply that by encouraging these audiences to retell your story through their own voice and through their own experience... their networks, relationships, social media of preference. State of the art technology has its benefits, although it's the state of the Heart technology that's the game changer when you can tell your story in the room, face to face.
More on Tell to Win at:
http://www.peterguber.com/
The Greatest Story Ever Told is a movie produced in the 60's. It was an epic portrayal of the life of Christ and why He was on earth... the son of God coming to earth in a human being.
It held all the intrigue of a great story. Jesus came with a challenge... to save mankind. He ran into struggles.... religious leaders conspiring to have Him put to death. Internal betrayal from one of his close associates.
And then the triumph. He was the only person ever to die, come back, and then leave again only to promise us that He would put in us the Same Spirit, that He had, to work in us continually. During the time on earth he deliberately set up a coalition of dedicated followers to spread the message He was sent to share and set up for all mankind.
He gave a bold promise... Jesus said He came to give life to everyone, and give it more abundantly than what we have now. He said that He was the way to this Life, He spoke the truth and showed how this world can work better. He was the light to see a better way. Our minds will be opened to see things like never before and get supernatural insights beyond our human ability. He said to believe in Him and He would give us all of this.
During the whole time while He was explaining how this would work, demonstrating how it worked by healing others and bringing grace into lives, a gang of holier-than-thou folks were out to get Him killed. Ironically, He never committed a real crime and beyond that, not one small sin that God would be opposed to. He was said to be perfect in His human relationships.
The whole time He kept dodging and having to outwit these scoundrels while setting up and training His team of special forces to carry on after He left the earth. He made a unique promise to His followers. That as a group, remaining unified, they would be like Him, with all the wisdom, power, revelation He had.
As the Greatest Story unfolded, He intensified His efforts to set up His Kingdom on earth, a Spiritual Kingdom, while He knew He was running out of time as these unscrupulous folks tried to capture Him and have Him killed. It was a race against the clock.
They finally caught Him and put Him to death after an unfair trial. Everyone thought His mission had been stopped. But He had the biggest surprise coming. After dying He came back and appeared to His followers, His meticulously trained associates, and gave them final instructions and encouragement to wage the battle of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and to follow His example in how to do it. He told them to wait for a while and the Spirit that was on Him would come on them and all the things He did they would do. Beyond that all who joined in the crusade through the centuries would receive what He left on them. They would do just like Him, be just like Him, and get results like Him.
It was an intriguing strategy that would not ever be outwitted by anyone. He explained further and pointed out that they would mature in this and grow beyond where He was on earth. Leaving His physical body, He sent back a Spiritual body, made up of "many ones" united, to become bigger than He was while in a physical body as just one person. He said that increasing power will be in this united Spiritual body, and through it His Kingdom, a kingdom like Heaven, would grow and mature more than when He was on earth.
The story doesn't have an ending. It continues on and never dies. It's a never-ending story with its plot still unfolding. Those part of it are alive today, and will live together forever, even after a physical death just like Jesus went through. It's a story that's still alive, the greatest story ever told is still in the making.
No comments:
Post a Comment