I have a confession to make. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you're this deep into the course already. Now, of course, you always can get a money back guarantee. But here's the confession. I don't really like stories that much. I wish we didn't have to tell stories.
It'd be much faster, cleaner simpler to just give people the facts in a presentation or take everything on a memory stick or an SD card and just stick it into people's brains to convey all the data. Here's the thing about stories though. I have found that there's absolutely nothing as effective that triggering the memory process in human beings. You can tell people what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told him doesn't really work. You can give people handouts, put a whole bunch of text on a PowerPoint screen doesn't really work if you're outside the classroom. Stories actually work.
I test audiences all over the world. And I can tell you, the only thing anyone ever remembers the stories, they don't remember the random fact the random concept, bullet points on the slide. So this is why stories are so effective. Being a little bit facetious. Earlier, I do like a good story. But I do recognize it's not the single most efficient way in terms of time of conveying lots of data.
That is true. But as a speaker outside of the academic world, it's not about how much data you convey. It's about what actually sticks. What can you get your audience to, not only understand, but to remember, so they can act on it. That's the real power of story is it allows people to remember it because here's what's going on. You are doing a typical speech where you're just putting out fact, after fact, data point.
People may be listening to you. They may be understanding some of them maybe even be writing it down. Although that's not that common. But you're doing all the work. They're just sitting there passively. The second you tell a story, you're now forcing everyone in your audience to do half the work, they have to go into their database of videos and essentially run a little movie along side because if we talk about an old grumpy man in the office has been there for 20 years, and all he ever says is negative things.
That's going to put images in your mind you're going to be running a little movie reel in it. So the speaker is now manipulated, and I would say, in an ethical way, there's nothing wrong or unethical about it, but the speaker has manipulated the audience. audience into doing half the work of running a little movie reel in their brain. This helps the understanding and the retention of the story but also the concept. And that's why stories are so important and that's why ultimately I do love stories.