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This week, Alex Love and Elliot Volkman shift our focus from people who navigate their own failures and challenges over to an expert who helps others do the same. Soft skills are often easy to neglect because it's hard to evaluate our communication skills when most of us are judged on specific outcomes rather than the work that leads up to it. And that’s where we turn to Karen Eber, author of The Perfect Story, who guides people and teams in mastering the art of storytelling.
Eber is an author, TEDx speaker, keynote speaker, and leadership development whisperer, who was kind enough to discuss the power of storytelling in leadership and communication.
TL;DR
Build rapport and trust to understand and address real issues in leadership.
Use storytelling to engage the brain, build empathy, and foster trust.
Tailor your storytelling to your audience for maximum impact.
Even in passive roles, you can add value by translating and contextualizing information through storytelling.
Producer’s Note
If you found Karen’s chat interesting, check out her latest book, The Perfect Story. While I haven’t yet read it myself (it’s next on my list), I immediately bought it after recording this interview. PS - No, we don’t do affiliate links.
Turning Managers Into Leaders
Eber shared insights about her unique role as a leadership development whisperer, explaining how she helps leaders and teams enhance their performance.
Karen's role involves understanding and persuading leaders to invest in and buy into new ideas.
Her experience spans across major corporations like General Electric, Deloitte, and HP.
Common Challenges in Leadership and Culture
Regardless of company size, revenue, VC dollars, industry leader, or disruptor status, each organization shares common threads.
"Work has just never been more complicated, especially if you're a leader...there are so many corporate initiatives or just company initiatives on top of it," said Eber.
Building trust and understanding the real issues are crucial steps.
Modern work environments are increasingly complex, especially for leaders.
Intentional weekly practices can improve team health and prevent dysfunction.
The Neuroscience of Storytelling
There is a vast difference between telling, showing, and engaging with your audience. If you’ve ever read a book and it goes into excessive detail about emotionless adjectives, and you struggle to connect with the information, that is a perfect example of why mastering storytelling is so important.
"If you kick the brain out of lazy mode by engaging the senses in the story...you are building the tension in the story," said Eber. "There is amazing neuroscience behind if I am telling a story, you naturally develop empathy towards me, and that empathy creates a release of oxytocin."
Engaging the senses in storytelling keeps the brain attentive.
Empathy and trust are built through effective storytelling.
The release of oxytocin helps create a bonding experience.
Tips for Better Storytelling
Eber provided practical advice on how to tell better stories and make them resonate with an audience.
“Stories start with audiences...you really want to ground yourself in who you're telling it to and what you want them to experience. If a story doesn't feel meaningful to us, then we tune out."
Eber went on to discuss that many people start with a goal in mind rather than the audience. When focusing on the outcome, but not keeping in mind how that outcome aligns with the audience, you are likely going to miss the mark.
Understanding your audience is key to effective storytelling.
Tailor your story to make it meaningful and engaging for the audience.
Use specific questions to guide your storytelling and connect with your listeners.
Adding Value in Meetings
Storytelling often feels like a one-way street unless the primary person has developed a pathway for others to engage in it. In its most simple form that can be questions and answers, but there are other opportunities as well, especially for the audience.
"If you could take what's being communicated and translate it through a story so that it does have meaning, you're immediately providing value," said Eber.
Rather than sitting there like a stone, you as an audience member have the ability to contextualize the information for your peers.
Adopt the mindset of a translator to make communications meaningful.
Role model effective communication by using storytelling.
Even as an observer, you can provide valuable insights and foster better understanding.
Transcript
Mastering Failing uses automated tools to create a transcript of our show. Please excuse any typos and hallucinations that we’ve come to love from our new AI overlords.
Alex Love: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Mastering the Art of Failing. It's been a hot minute, but we've had a lot of cool things happen in our lives. We've got babies, we've got more babies but we are, we are back with a new episode and we're doing something a little bit different today.
So typically we bring on, a really cool individual from All over the globe and different industries to talk about, a point of failure in their life and then how they've overcome that and what they've learned. But today we're going to try something different. So we have Karen Eber, and she is an author, a TEDx speaker, a keynote speaker, and a leadership development whisperer, which I do like that term.
So that's what we're Pretty cool. And she is here to talk about, I think her book, which is called the perfect story and give us a lot more tips on how to tell good stories to make us all much better communicators, which is something that we can all use. Karen, thank you so much for
Karen Eber: for having me.
Alex Love: Anything I missed in your bio? Anything, any other cool things that you want to add in for your
Karen Eber: Depends on what cool is. I think you hit the highlights. That works. I'm sure we'll unravel some cool things as we go.
Alex Love: Yeah, awesome. Sounds good. So thanks for joining us. So let's get, let's, let's dig right in. So what, what is a leadership development whisperer? I'd love to start
Karen Eber: It does sound really ominous, doesn't it? So I come from a career on both sides of the desk. I spent 20 years in corporations like General Electric and Deloitte and HP, where I was. A head of culture, a head of leadership development. And in these roles, you're working with the top leaders of the organization and you're trying to persuade them to make investments or buy into different ideas or move forward with things.
And I was given the term leadership development whisper because I had a knack for. Understanding what was important to them and persuading them to move forward in these different things in a way that probably made them feel like it was their own idea. And so that term stuck and it's a part of what I do now and the way I work with different leaders and companies and how they're building their leaders, teams, and culture and telling stories.
Alex Love: Awesome. I love that culture and, and, um, leadership development is a big part of the, my actual day job. So I'm really excited to hear some of your tips and things that you do with the companies that you work with. So let's, let's dig in. What's one of the first things that you will assess when you're walking into a new company and saying, Hey, we have maybe a leadership problem where we have a culture problem.
Something here is off. And we need to dig in to get to the root cause.
Karen Eber: Whatever people come and knock on your door saying they need help with is never what the problem is. And so it is first just trying to build rapport with them to have a relationship so I can ask questions and get progressively harder to get to what that real problem is. And most of the time I just start with, tell me what made you come knock on my door and then what are you hoping to achieve?
So a lot of times it's a leadership team that wants to step back and. Have an off site. And so they'll just say things like, we want to do some team building and I'll say tell me some of the things that you're working with and struggling on, then it'll become really clear that they don't have enough trust among themselves, or they just don't know how to team or they There's some blind spots that the leader has, or they just need the chance to step back and see what's working or not working.
And so I just get curious and ask questions. And at a certain point you hear enough things where you can hold up a mirror and say, there might be something different here. Let's look at it this
Alex Love: What are some of the most common sort of issues that you're seeing at these companies that you're coming into?
Karen Eber: way. I think we're. Work has just never been more complicated, especially if you're a leader, you are trying to lead a team and, and ever changing conditions in the economic climate that we're in. You are trying to figure out how do I. Bring together people with different skills and bring the best out of them often in different locations.
And there are so many corporate initiatives or just company initiatives on top of it. And then, we want to make sure people have some wellbeing in their life. And so you start laying on all of these things that are so complicated and leaders just. Don't know where to look or what to do and the things that can make the biggest difference, which is how you're shaping that day to day and what the things are that you're encouraging and discouraging.
They get pushed aside because, they're just getting this pressure to deliver and meet the deadlines and do, do, do, do, do. And so all of that stuff gets hard. And so what I work to do is help people realize how a little bit of intention and practice each week can make a difference in helping your team be healthy and not cross over into dysfunctional where you then need weeks and months of, of work to unpack what's happened.
Alex Love: Yeah, absolutely love that. And I think we all really feel that, especially in this post pandemic world where a lot of us, I'm, 100 percent remote. Still, our workforce has gotten more and more distributed, culture and sort of the vibe of our company is very important to us, but it is harder and harder and harder when work is always on because we're always at work, right?
This is my regular office. And there's never like a list, a short list of things to do and accomplish. So that makes a what are some of the questions that you will prompt with these teams to be able to put some of that intentionality behind how you're thinking about your day or forming your team or just moving forward in a more positive sort of
Karen Eber: I ask for things like tell me about your last team meeting. What did you discuss? What are the things you should have discussed but didn't get to? Let's talk about how you're making decisions. Like I just ask questions to get to the day to day of it. Ask the leader tell me someone you're proud of because I want to understand what That is and and what's motivating them.
Tell me some recognition you've recently given. If there's one thing on this team, you could change. What would that be? I'll ask the team members. What is one thing that we should have stopped but haven't? And I find those specific questions really are of these stories. There are these moments of what it's like on that team in a given moment in a given day that something Tangible and tactical can be changed.
And so depending on whether it's the team overall or whether it's the leader, there's different questions that helped me get an idea of what is collaboration look like on this team? What is vulnerability look like on this team? Can we talk about mistakes and lessons learned and not blame each other or not get into a difficult situation?
We're really learning from it. What is accountability looking like and what happens when accountability falls aside? How are you intentionally Just building trust on the team. What are the stories you're sharing? I find so often with culture, everybody loves to hold up the company values of like trust, integrity, collaboration.
And that's lovely, but every company, military organization, like they all have the same versions of them and it just doesn't impact things. So I look for more of what is that daily expression of those and which ones are working and which ones aren't.
Alex Love: So it sounds like a lot of the things that you're trying to dig into require a fair amount of trust and probably psychological safety. Do you find that people are typically open to sharing their true Viewpoints off the cuff or is it something that maybe it takes a little bit of time for you to build relationships with to be able to get people to feel comfortable sharing maybe the, the more raw or accurate.
depictions of their, their day
Karen Eber: It's a two sided answer. As an outsider, when you are curious and you ask questions, people will answer things and tell you things because they're so happy someone is asking. But there is also a piece of every single team I've worked with, whether I was in the companies or as a consultant, every single team has said, Oh, we trust each other.
We don't have a problem with trust, but trust isn't just like I trust you and you trust me because if you aren't comfortable talking about this. So when you're having a conversation with someone who doesn't agree with a topic, and they're making mistakes, there's some challenges with trust. There's some things to strengthen.
And so it is really asking questions about specific situations that are almost what would it look like if you disagreed with this topic? That makes it safe for someone to share their opinion versus what's wrong with this topic, right? So the wording can invite the participation and make it easier for people to say, wow, if I was going to disagree with this.
I might say this or this or this, and it is, I joke, it's a little bit like show me where it hurts on the doll, show me what someone did to you on the doll. It provides this level of protection so that you can still participate. And then we get there. And over time, people do genuinely share A big part of that is storytelling.
I am really intentional about working it into different interactions so people learn about each other. There's amazing neuroscience behind, if I am telling a story, you naturally develop empathy towards me, and that empathy creates a release of oxytocin, which is the bonding neurochemical, and it sends this silent signal to your brain of, Oh, this person feels safe to be around.
And that leads to this increase in trust. So when you have an offsite and you get the chance to learn more about your teammates and things about their background and you come away feeling a bit closer to them, it's because of this. And so I'm really intentional about how do we create these moments for paired discussions and, and to learn about each other so that we are creating that rapport to have the hard conversations.
Alex Love: Yeah. I love that. Words matter. I think we both feel that as marketers and journalists that your word choices matter and help people feel comfortable or uncomfortable in a lot of situations, unfortunately, that is what people come away with sometimes in some of these, forced environments.
Team building activities. So let's dig into, you started to talk about storytelling. So that's really what we're here to talk about, right? So I would love to dig into the book, The Perfect Story and some of the highlights of the book and how we can all get better, I think, at building those moments for each other but then also being able to express our own stories and thoughts
Karen Eber: Let's go.
Alex Love: All right, where do we start? Where's the top? I wanna tell better
Karen Eber: Yeah, I'll tell you why I wrote the book because there are plenty of books on storytelling out there. But what I found was missing is that it's really not enough to tell a story. We have all sat through incredibly boring meetings where someone's telling a story or our relative at the holiday table that is telling the story that we're like, please don't tell this story again.
It's not enough to tell them we're not hardwired for them. The way you tell a story makes a difference in how your brain experiences it. And I felt like there's this opportunity to help people understand a little bit more about what's happening in the brain. When you tell stories to share some new science that is relatable.
This is not, lab coat and beaker and test tube science. This is relatable concepts that you then can start to see. Oh, I get it. That makes sense. If I'm intentional about some of these choices, that makes a difference in the story. So a couple of the concepts are that you want to kick your brain out of lazy mode.
So number one goal of the brain, keep you alive. Pretty important, right? And our brains want us to do the same thing we did yesterday, because guess what? It worked. We're still here, and so it's always looking for us to conserve calories because the brain is the stingiest banker that has a dedicated fund of calories for respiration and circulation and key bodily functions.
That you always need to make sure you can have and be able to run, but it's got this discretionary bucket for attention, for focus, for immersion, for engagement. And that bucket varies based on if you've slept, if you are fed, if you are hydrated. When you are watching a movie and you turn it off and you're like, I just can't get into this.
Or you give up on a book after a chapter or you drift off when someone's telling a story, that's your brain saying this is a great time to be in lazy mode. And so I'm still listening, but I'm not really engaging. I'm thinking about other things. And so it's. A waste of communication, but if you kick the brain out of lazy mode by engaging the senses in the story and making the person feel like they're there beside the character is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting you are building the tension in the story, exploring what that.
Conflict is, or what's at stake, you start to then get the brain to lean forward and spend calories and put in unexpected events. And so that's one of the principles of how do you kick the brain out of lazy mode and make sure it's saying, yeah, this story is worth some calories. Another concept is.
That we experience things in stories and part of your choice is, do you want your audience to feel a part of an in group so in groups are those that we share beliefs, values, experiences, or aspirations in sales? That's the I'll have what she's having. But there's also outgroups where we notice our differences, which charities do this so well.
They will tell the story of a person that lost their home due to a natural disaster, and they're struggling to get food, shelter, clothing, electricity. You're experiencing that story in electricity next to food and running water. And you realize how different your, your life is, and that sometimes prompts action.
And so another choice you have is what is this experience I want the audience to have? It's not just, I want them to feel something, but do I want them to feel a part of something or something they're aspiring to, or do I want them to notice their differences or both? In a job interview, you want the hiring manager to feel like you're a member of the in group and compliment what they do, but you also want to show where you are an out group member and bring different knowledge, skills, experiences.
So in the book, I explore these and a few other concepts to help you start to break down and recognize there are so many different choices that we can make and play with to make a story be that much more engaging and help get the outcome that we want.
Alex Love: I now have signs to back up why I fall
Karen Eber: You totally do. Or why a meeting or a presenter just doesn't hold your attention. It's not that you're not focusing. It's just that your brain is like, it's not worth the calories spent.
Alex Love: I love that. So how do you make it worth the calorie spend? I guess that's where we're going in terms of how do, how do we all improve our own storytelling and, and make people, wanna come along on the journey with us
Karen Eber: Yeah, there's several different things, but perhaps the most important is that stories start with audiences. If you start with the idea, It may not connect with that audience that you're trying to tell it to. And each time you tell a story, it might be different. And so each time you're telling a story, you really want to ground yourself in who you're telling it to and what you want them to experience.
So there's four questions. I love. For you to leverage, to do that. And this is no more than five minutes and it works for communications or storytelling. The first question is what is it that I want this group to think or feel? What's that internal experience I want them to have. Second is what do I want them to know or do as a result of the story?
What's that action I want them to take. The third is what is their mindset today? What's their understanding? And the fourth is what might be an obstacle in getting them to know, think, feel, or do what you want. And by starting here, you get a really good idea of who you're sharing that story with. So as you go to build it, you can be mindful to make it be meaningful for that audience.
Even if it's a story that you've told several times, you can take it and adjust it for people. If a story doesn't feel meaningful to us, then we tune out. But if we feel like it is directly designed for us, then that's going to make us pay more attention.
Elliot: Speaking on that, what if you're an audience member, you're part of 1 of those meetings, and you're just basically being talked at, but you don't really have a. seat at that table. You're absorbing it.
You can take some of that in, but let's say it's just completely invaluable for my role in a job and I'm just there because they invited and they don't really know how to manage meetings. It just spirals out. Is there anything that you could do as that person to speak up or speak to a manager?
How would you help to go around that? Or is there a scenario where you can try to flip a switch in your own mind and be like, There might be something to actually take away from this. I'm just curious out of your perspective, like, how would you navigate that as the person just getting talked at?
Karen Eber: I think if you can adopt the mindset of translator, so if you're being talked at, odds are other people around the table are also not paying attention, not really gaining any resonating. And so if you could take what's being communicated and translate it through a story so that it does have meaning.
You're immediately providing value and role modeling a different type of communication, and this is what so it can be so awkward about storytelling because. In business settings, most people spend, two hours building the perfect set of slides or charts and they pick their favorite ones. Sorry.
They pick their favorite ones and they, they build this, great image and line everything up, but they spend five minutes thinking about what they're going to say. And we need to flip that. If you come in and you communicate with a story that leads to this idea, this takeaway, this action that you want, that is going to have so much more impact.
And it is role modeling a different type of communication and a different way of really. Connecting hearts and minds. And so if you're in the meeting as an innocent bystander, you can try to flip it and say here's how I think about this and share a story that can bring that aha moment for everyone.
And then you become known as that, and you will start to see more and more people adopting that style of communication.
Elliot: That is super interesting. I really appreciate this an optimistic approach. Instead of just sitting there as a stone just collecting dust and moss, so to speak you're able to add value, even if you might not feel like you have a role there converting and translating something into context for everyone else and providing value that will very quickly put a spotlight on yourself and, that shows off leadership skills.
So I really appreciate that perspective because you're basically highlighting that no matter what, regardless of the situation, even if you feel like you're just glossing over, there's still opportunities to come in and provide, more context to the
Karen Eber: And the flip side is you can ask a really thoughtful question that elicits a story. Okay. The person that is asking the thoughtful question that makes everybody in the meeting, pause and think, and perhaps even look at a different perspective is also adding incredibly huge value. And sometimes that question can be can we talk through an example of this?
Or when have you seen this happen? Or, depending on the topic, you can get that person to share a story, which is. Kind of what happens in job interviews, right? Tell me about a time you, that's what you're doing. And that can create a whole different dialogue, a whole different context.
Elliot: That is super interesting. I, I don't want to go spiral too far out out of the realm of where we're at, because it's just like really interesting. But I have a nagging question in the back of my mind. So in the context of storytelling, a lot of our audience are founders. Maybe they're crazy people like me who are pretend athletes that just grind themselves in the ground.
And it, it's a lot of these things are for your own personal use, but like to be able to explain what you're doing, why you're doing it, I think that has a lot of value. And for me, people are like, why would you run 100 miles? I don't know, I'm not exactly normal up there, something to that extent.
But if you want to actually convince people to maybe do it, think about it, consider it, how do you adapt just really basic storytelling concepts? And some of this is probably psychological not just putting yourself down and trying to minimize what you're doing. But how do you balance between just great storytelling, ego, and being able to help communicate exactly like who you are as a person so that other people are able to in return communicate effectively a
Karen Eber: let's take your example. It sounds like you're an ultra marathoner
Elliot: little bit.
Karen Eber: a little bit. I would say a hundred miles counts. So yeah. So I'm sure you get the constant reaction of Oh my gosh, why would you do that? That's so crazy. And there is definitely a physical piece to it and a challenge piece to it and something specific to running that distance that is meaningful to you.
But if we stepped back, there's also something about what it gives you as a person of taking on a challenge or we would be able to pull it up to an idea that's applicable no matter where people are. Even if they've never run a mile, they can then connect to that idea. And so you're now translating what you're saying.
Like for me, this is running an ultra marathon for you. It might be whatever it's trying to step back and see how can I take this. thing and this message that I want someone to have and have it be meaningful to them. So what happens when people hear you say this, is they're like, I can't run to the block and to the end of the block and back.
So there's no way I'm going to do this. And they just kind of like, good for him. That's not me. And what you want to do is step that back and say, but here's what that might be for you. Maybe you're a musician. I can't play a single note, but you can, whatever. Maybe you're whatever. So it's, it's in all cases, this is why stories start where the audience is of what is it, especially as a founder, as you're trying to so much of the work that we do is selling aspiration, selling peace of mind, selling making. Taking away problems, making things simpler and it's connecting people to that and getting really clear on what are the things that this audience might struggle with and how can I translate what I'm saying to that so that they don't see it as a stretch?
Elliot: That's interesting. I, I suspected you might go towards the audience again to reiterate that, which I. I really appreciate
Karen Eber: Can I tell you? Yeah, but let me tell you a failure since this is the topic, right? So when I was working in corporate, I was working on a leadership program for senior executives and it was on negotiations. And we had this whole day of learning all these different principles and how do you practice it?
And negotiations have a lot of emotions for people. They're often about money or stakes or things that feel Oh, if this doesn't happen, it's awful. So we have this whole day of learning. And then the course was in New York city. I brought in someone from the New York police department who specialized in hostage rescue and was involved in what became the movie dog day afternoon and stuff.
So he was in life or death stakes negotiating. Now, the principles he used was very similar to what they did, but what happened at this dinner as I'm asking him questions and he starts sharing stuff, the moment he starts describing how he's negotiating, trying to save someone's life, I lost the entire group.
Because they didn't feel like it was relatable to them. In my mind, this is so obvious. These are the same concepts, and here's how you do it in a real life setting. And to them, they were like, I'm just negotiating contracts. I'm not negotiating someone's life. I could never do that. And they just peaced out.
And what I realized is, oh, I should have translated. I should have paused in his story in different moments and been like, for you, this looks like this. It's the same thing. You And it didn't occur to me until the night was over and I think I probably made them feel worse about negotiating because they were like, I can never do that.
And this feels really hard. And I, I don't know what to do. And so that translation, even though the ideas are right, the message is right, all of that was right. That translation can be really key sometimes.
Elliot: All right. So not to get too distracted by this, but did they gloss over it? Because that sounds like such a compelling story. Like, how could you ignore
Karen Eber: know. I also learned not to ask someone what their funniest experience was because his idea of funny was not my idea of funny. I was like, Oh, that's not funny when you're talking about someone at gunpoint. So yeah, that was an interesting experience. I think they just people are very literal.
That's what I've learned, that even though you think the idea is here, and we're connecting it to this idea, and they're related, and this is not a big jump, people are going to be able to do it, that you're super literal sometimes, and you have to walk them over to it, and, and bring them closer. And I just didn't realize that that wasn't happening for them, that it just felt so overwhelming and insurmountable, instead of, in some of its mindset because if they went into the night and.
And thought, like, how might I take some ideas from this and apply it back? It would have been better. I think they were. exhausted from a long day and hard concepts. And then it just felt even harder and nobody was wanting to have a growth mindset. And yeah, that was good fun.
Elliot: I can certainly understand that. If you say the wrong word, people will get hyperfixated on it. And it's just you're getting distracted by something that's like the tiniest little pebble in the road, just move forward past it, let's look at the big picture. And it's so hard to do that. Because as you had mentioned, people take things very literally, like on the surface in black and white, unless you provide that context, which, again, I think we just drive it back towards the concept of storytelling, which might be another skill or tool in the tool belt.
Like how do you pull people out of hyper fixation when they're getting distracted by things?
Karen Eber: Yeah. And it's,
Elliot: And maybe it's as simple
Karen Eber: a little bit of art because you do want them to get a little bit hyperfixated, right? So if I'm telling you a story, You're going to experience that story, but it's likely going to create offshoots of your own experiences. It's going to prompt an idea of something related or something you might wonder about.
And we want that. We want that. Um, especially if you're, you're trying to help someone come and, And embrace new services or something. You want them to have that personal commercial going in their head. And so it's a little bit of art of how do we give enough and get really clear. It always comes back to audience, right?
How do we get really clear on who this is? I'm talking to, to put in enough specific things that they can relate to it, but not have so much that it just feels like I'm prescribing the whole story and they have enough freedom to have their own thinking in there.
Elliot: That's interesting. So I think another piece that I want to take apart, maybe like you can give me some like guesstimation, some ratio, a lot of people when they think about communication, they almost do it like to a playbook, scientific rules of you must do these things include these things. But a lot of it, Yeah.
Is empathy and emotion and the senses, how, is there like a ratio that you would include of you sometimes just isn't in a book. It's just what you feel and what you sent. How, how would you balance between the scientific components of communication and just like the human elements that some people ignore?
Karen Eber: there's a need for a skeleton and then from there you can go beyond that. So in storytelling you really don't often notice when there is a structure, but you notice when there isn't. And so many people hold up structures like the hero's journey, which the Star Wars films were based on, which is a really complicated multi 13, 14 step thing.
And it's a very prescriptive type of story. And it's actually a very limiting type of story. Some people hold at Pixar and again, same thing, like a very specific type of thing. I prefer to go to a basic four part structure that allows for you to it's if you're cooking something, it allows you to organize the ingredients.
So you can then choose what meal you're going to make. Cause when a story doesn't have structure, And you're just going off of all the other pieces. It sounds a little bit like this. I went to go meet my friend yesterday for lunch. And was it Monday might've been Monday. Cause it was raining and I was wearing my yellow dress and I had to go back and get my umbrella.
And no, I'm pretty sure it was yesterday. Like we've all sat through versions of this story where you're just like, please get to the story. Can we fast forward? And what's happening is so genuine. The person is trying to put themselves back in that moment so they feel it, so they can communicate what happened.
But as the listener, I don't need any of that. I need the basic pieces. So a four part story structure can help where you're setting the context, or you're at least outlining the context of what's the setting, who are the major players, and really why should the audience even care? You're going to describe the conflict, which is the heart of your story.
This is where something happens. There's there's tension to be resolved. And by the way, conflict doesn't have to be noisy and get people screaming or, big explosions like in a Marvel movie. Conflict can be. I'm here, but I want to be there or I'm having, I'm not in alignment with my values or I'm having tension with someone.
So conflict is that heart of what is at stake. Outcome is the third. So what action happens because of the conflict? And the last one is takeaway, which is what is that idea that you want the audience coming away with? Okay. The cool thing about the takeaway is you can then map that back to what you said you wanted the audience to know, think, feel, or do, and you should be able to see that you're doing that.
And if you're not, you have to go back and rework your story.
Elliot: I will say I think you incidentally painted my nightmare scenario, but instead of it just being 1 person, they like, cannot grasp the structure of the story. It's 2 of them and they just are in sync. Just trying to like, sync the story up and I'm there absorbing information. Please shorten it. Get to the point.
But I, I do think there's Yeah. Somewhere in between there's like this space where if there is someone who just gets straight to the point, you miss all the color, but somewhere in that magic center point where you're able to lock people in, hook them with information, and then it gives an opportunity for engagement for people to ask extra background question if you want to know what specific day and what it's felt like and all those other things.
But yeah, that was that's an interesting
Karen Eber: For those that tell not enough detail, you're just listing events and that's not a story. That's when I was a child, there were these things called slideshows where people actually projected an image on the wall and they were like, we went on vacation here and we did this and this and this, and you're like, It's so boring, but the beauty of the four part story structure is it's a skeleton.
You're going to expand that to add in details, to add in emotions, to put in different things. You're going to play with the order. You can build on it, but what it gives you is a chance to organize what are the major pieces of this so that I have clarity on it and I can tell it easier. And as the audience, it's easier to follow.
Alex Love: you guys have been talking a lot about preparation and parts of stories. How much of this can you really, truly do on the fly in kind of the situations that you're just talking about right when someone walks up to you and you're like Oh, I have this thing.
I want to talk to them about Clearly I didn't have the five minutes right before then to like prep all of these pieces of it This is just an off the cuff conversation meeting a new person seeing a friend. What have you? How can you get a little bit better or what's the condensed version? So that we're not awkwardly standing there trying to like You know, rip out these pieces of my brain and communicate something, but like in, in genuine conversation versus some of these more scripted or prescribed moments
Karen Eber: Yeah, you definitely can. I think of it as a continuum of the spontaneous conversations, the coaching conversations, the, it popped into my head in the moment. You're going to do those real time. And then of course, the higher stakes, you're going to spend more time building and practicing if it's a presentation or something.
So on the fly you want to use that for part story structure. You want to describe the context of the story. You want to describe the conflict. You want to describe the outcome. You want to describe the takeaway. And when you're doing it, just hold in your head what is one specific detail I can put in here?
Instead of we had dessert, we had butter pecan ice cream. That's going to be a little more memorable. You want to put in one specific thing that engages the senses. So you're now giving a, an easy way for someone to follow and listen. And you're putting in just a couple of things that make the brain say, wait, what, what did they just say?
That's really interesting. So the more you practice storytelling, the easier that gets. The more easily you'll slide in some of these other things. But when you just want to tell a story impromptu, context, conflict, outcome, takeaway, it'll help you get through it in a more organized way and make it easier for the audience to follow.
Alex Love: Yeah. I love that. I took my daughter to the gym this morning for the first time and we met a retired fire chief who then thought it was like an interesting moment to tell me how many babies he had delivered in his career. And I was like, I didn't experience that with her, but I I'm glad to know that you are trained in Fairfax County to deliver babies if I had needed that service.
But anyway, yeah, people pick some, some random things to spout facts to you. But I will probably never forget him and now he knows your name. So every time I see him at the gym, I now know,
Karen Eber: There you go, right?
Alex Love: Awesome. So we're coming up to the end of our time. So I want to make sure that we've covered, all of the basics and, and all of the important pieces of storytelling. So what haven't we talked about yet that you feel is really, really critical for our listeners to, to understand and get a grasp of
Karen Eber: Yeah, we've touched on the basics, right? Start with your audience. We have talked about use a structure and then start to expand it. We can talk about where you find ideas, as you move through life, you're going to notice all sorts of things like this fireman in the gym. You're going to notice maybe a documentary that you watch that was really intriguing to you.
You're going to think about your life your professional experiences, your personal experiences. What is that thing you should have gotten rid of, but you just can't part with, you're going to think of your clients and the questions they ask or the things that they aspire to. And what you want to do is have a dedicated place to capture these ideas and to start to build this list before you ever need to tell a story, your mind will be more relaxed.
It's going to be more creative. And then when it is time to tell a story, you can go down that list of ideas that you have and ask yourself, which 1 of these will allow for me to build a story that will. Do what I want, that that audience to experience using the using prompts are such a great way to get there when you think, I don't know what story to tell.
It's because your brain doesn't know which long term memory file to access, but prompts help you dig into some of these different things. And so it's a great thing to define a place and start that list before you ever need it, because it will make your storytelling easier. From there, there's, endless pieces around how do you tell stories with data?
How do you tell stories with your body? How do you get the vulnerability to be something that you navigate and avoid manipulating? And those are all different things I touch on in the book to help you get more comfortable as you become a better storyteller.
Alex Love: Karen, it's been amazing listening to you and I've learned so much. If people want to learn more or they want to connect with you where can we find you online?
Karen Eber: A R E N E B E R dot com, from there you can find information about my book, The Perfect Story. I have a brain food blog that every couple weeks I share different story based articles about how to tell stories, how to build leaders and teams and explore the world of entrepreneurship.
Elliot: Amazing. First of all Ari Block, thank you for connecting us with Karen. Cause when we hear about authors and all that, it's always interesting to see like what will come from it. I have a entire bookshelf about branding, storytelling, communications, and you've simplified it in such a simple way.
It's easy to understand way to absorb that, I I'm immediately going to buy your book. Not that I wasn't going to anyways, but I know that that will add a lot of value to what I do. So for our listeners, the founders, the folks who are trying to accelerate their careers, one of the largest blockers that I've always heard from executives is that they feel like soft skills are just.
a barrier, you can learn all the technical trades, all the information and structures and processes, but just be able to communicate tell a great story is the distance between moving like an inch and a mile for most things. So I am super interested in digging through that. Hopefully we can even revisit Some of those outcomes once I've been able to absorb that.
But Karen, thank you so much for being here sharing a bit about your story with us, and hopefully people will pick up that story and accelerate their careers and maybe get their next seed round.
Karen Eber: Thank you for having me.
Mastering the Art of Storytelling with Karen Eber