How to ruin people’s lives with your writing
Standing by the canoe, my friend P looks up the hill and shouts out, “You’re sure you don’t want to come?”
I look back down at him with a gnawing feeling in my stomach.
“Yeah, I’m just going to stay here and chill. Have fun!”
The gnawing feeling was there for two reasons.
First: guilt at not going on an adventure, when I LOVE going on adventures.
Second: because ALL I WANT TO DO is get back to reading — I had to know what happens next.
Frankie Scott’s book “Chasing Summer” almost ruined my camping trip.
The “almost” is only because I love camping SO MUCH that the parts when I was engaged in it (walking through the woods, swimming first thing in the otherwise-deserted lake, sunbathing on the Big Rock) were heaven. But I could have spent twice as long doing all those things if I wasn’t constantly squirreling away to the hammock or the small rock or my tent so I could just read three more chapters.
So how does the author…
How to write Presentations in five steps: my TRAIN Framework
When most people sit down and write presentations, their thought process is:
How do I get all of the information that’s inside my brain, and stuff it in the brain of my audience??
Not only is this a colossal waste of time, it’s also a colossal waste of opportunity.
Instead, I present to you TRAIN: a frame work that walks you through how to write presentations that don’t take you forever, engage your audience and actually drive them to action. I lay it out in this video…
How I promote live shows, a 10 point list (#2 is most important)
One of the things I teach in the Ethically Persuasive Communication workshops I run for companies is that, when you can tell someone at work, “I will save you time in your day”, they’ll be interested. In the spirit of that: instead of today’s mailer being a lot of paragraphs you need to wade through, it is a bulleted list.
HOW I PROMOTE MY LIVE SHOWS — ten steps
1. Post it online (socials and, ideally your website if that’s poss). Even if you don’t have a big following, you need a digital storefront window where people can learn about.
2. Wherever you share it, ALWAYS include these details:
Name of Event
Date of event INCLUDING…
Free Persuasive Presentation Checklist
Last year, what I teach to corporates dramatically changed when I realised one thing: You can be an amazing storyteller. But if you’re leaving certain elements out of your presentations? Doesn’t matter how good your stories are — they will NOT move the needle. If you actually want your presentations to land with your audience,…
Don’t make these 5 storytelling mistakes
Standing down the back of the room, I feel like my heart is going to burst.
In front of me are the backs of 120 people, all sitting in reverential silence, and in front of them, there he is — GLOWING on stage. Joy soars in my chest. I *knew* this is what he could do.
For over 13 years, I’ve been running my show True Stories Told Live.
As well as organising, hosting and promoting the show, I also coach all of the storytellers in advance. Some of them come to me with experience on stage; most of them don’t. One of my absolute FAVOURITE things is working with someone whose story has good bones but would have fallen flat without coaching, and taking it to a place where the audience is RAPT. Just like Steve in the story above (who made people CRY! My #1 metric!!!).
Over 13 years, I’ve seen the same instinctive mistakes happen over and over again when people bring me a story.
Here are the five mistakes people make the most, and how I help point them in a different direction:
1) Shrinking the story down
Most people come to me with…
I feel bad doing this, but it’s my favourite bit of the workshop
On stage at the front of the room, I’m scanning the people sitting at the tables closest to me; if I don’t find EXACTLY the right kind of person, this could go horribly wrong. Then I spot her: sensible looking blazer with cool, short curly hair, grinning at me. PERFECT.
I’m slap bang in….
Three steps to writing a story for the stage
My least favourite way to be introduced is, “This is Marsha, she’s a professional storyteller!”
I always jump in quickly with the correction, “—Storytelling Coach”. There’s a good reason for that.
As a storytelling coach (please pretend for a moment I’m not British or Canadian and don’t expect humility), I am excellent. Part of how I can say this with confidence is because I don’t totally know how I do it — my brain just constructs people’s stories for me in a way that works. The other reason I say this is from 13 years of doing it, and people telling me (or telling me how hard the audience cried when listening to their talk).
But actually being the storyteller? Not so much.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m fine. When it comes to actual keynotes or teaching-style talks, I’m great! But as a storyteller who is just telling a story on stage, I’m… average. Which is why I don’t do it very often.
BUT for reasons I can’t totally fathom, I have agreed…
Why did I keep this a secret?! (the woman who knocked me sideways)
Do you ever look back on something you did and think, what were you thinking???”
Twelve years ago, I went to a conference and had my SOCKS KNOCKED OFF by (read: sobbed uncontrollably during the performance of) a woman who I suspect is Not Of This Earth.
It was at a conference called Emerging Women. The headliner was supposed to be Dr Maya Angelou (!!); sadly she passed not long before, so she was replaced by Brené Brown (!!!). Danielle LaPorte and Eve Ensler (author of The Vagina Monologues and an absolute legend whose speech I can remember almost word for word) were also speaking. But I honestly would have paid the $1000 (early bird!!) ticket price just to see one woman.
I was reminded of this experience yesterday when she COMMENTED on an INSTAGRAM VIDEO that I MADE…
Not how I planned to become famous but oh well, I guess?
I have somehow landed myself in the middle of a good news story that’s already been published in one online paper, with serious interest from CBC (Canada’s BBC/NPR) — for their web, radio AND TV — as well as the Toronto Star (the most leftie* of our Canadian national newspapers, and therefore the one I read).
This has all happened because of a whim I had a few weeks ago. It is kind of delightful and honestly the news we need in These Times — partly because DEAR GOD THE REST IS GRIM, and partly because it is showing the power of community, which is the only thing likely to save us**. Here’s the story:
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I go down the weird secret corridor in my local mall…
“Roofman” (starring Channing Tatum & Kirsten Dunst) Review — I LOVED IT SO MUCH!!
In the dark movie theatre, my best friend leans over to towards me. He’s not usually one to talk half way through a movie, but he leans his mouth towards my ear and whispers,
“OW.”
I loosen my vice-like grip on his fingers and whisper back,
“Sorry!”
The hand holding was because I was very stressed. Five minutes later, my hand is over my mouth, trying to stifle sobs. Five minutes before, my hand had been on my chest, because I was melting at how lovely the scene was.
I hadn’t expected ANY of this.
Four months ago, I’d sent a text…
