How to tell a good ghost story (3 essential components)
As Rico is talking, I think, Oh I am SO glad I said yes to him running through this with me first!! I’ve been doing my live storytelling show — True Stories Told Live Toronto — for 10 years. It’s currently on 4-5 times a year, but there’s one show in particular that I look…
I beat myself up about this for YEARS
Standing at the streetcar stop, David smiles down at me and I smile back. But the pit of my stomach is clenched. I know today is the day I have to say something. **in a rush? In a VERY RARE MOVE, I’m running an open-to-the-public storytelling workshop *THIS* Weds Sep 27th 12–2pm ET (with replay…
What some of the most annoying people in my life have taught me
As he starts talking, my heart sinks. I’d chosen him specifically because I thought he was different from the others. And yet… here he is, doing the same thing they all do.
I’ve been going to a boxing gym on and off for a few years, but I only started taking it seriously this spring. To be clear: I have zero interest in ever boxing anyone’s face. But after a life coach I’d worked with suggested that I find a way to express some, shall we say, negative emotions I was experiencing — in a way that wouldn’t damage any of my relationships — I got back into classes.
I’m now going two to three times a week, and I fugging LOVE it. I have a running joke that boxing classes are my new girlfriend. When I’m in them, my internal monologue is usually THIS IS THE BESSSSSSSSST I WANT TO BE HERE FOREVVVVVVVVERRRRRR (I mean, those times when it’s not “wait! Was it jab-cross-left hook-right uppercut? Or jab-cross-right uppercut-left hook?” — I have horrible short-term memory for the sequences). When I’m not in a class, I am counting the hours until the next one, or feeling excitement when I see it on my calendar. When I’m rolling my wraps back up after a class, I think, “Soon, you’ll be back on my hands, under my gloves!!!!” This week, I was out of town in a different city. Driving around, I saw the sign for a (different) boxing gym and my heart LEAPT, in the way that only reminders of a crush can inspire.
I love everything about the boxing classes. Except for the Bro’s At The Boxing Gym…
How to tell stories about other people
You have three options:
1) Get Their Permission
Where I can, I try and do this as a matter of course — and ALWAYS with former clients. Not least so that potential future clients don’t get spooked that I’ll share all their secrets! If the story subject matter something heavy, you could offer to send a draft to the person before you publish/perform it. But usually, a simple,
“Do you mind if I tell the story about [thing we experienced together] on Facebook/on my blog/in my talk?”
should do.
2) Change identifying details
As I’ve talked about before, one of my storytelling rules is “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” By this, I don’t mean “lie to make yourself sound good,” but rather, “do whatever you need to do to make the listener feel the way you felt in that moment.”
You can also use it when you need to protect someone. There are a bunch of reasons why you might want to protect them. Maybe they…
The most ridiculous public thing I’ve ever done (My story for the Good Life Project podcast)
A few years ago, a conference I was going to asked us to pitch an “inspiring story.” I thought, What the heck have I ever done that’s inspiring…??? But then I thought, Oh, I guess there is that one thing, that I barely talk about because whatever, but I suppose someone might think of that…
How To Tell Great Stories — the MOST important thing you need to know!
If you want to be good at telling stories, there’s ONE thing you need to know above all else, and it’s what I talk about in this video.
Also, I dress up as Rocky, a hacky Parisian tourist and as everyone in The Graduate. So if you’d like to see (no exaggeration) the MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO I’VE EVER MADE , you’re in luck! Click on the play button here or read the transcript below!
Why the first 30 secs & the last 2 mins of anything are the most important parts (aka how to rescue a very public disaster)
Standing in the booth, looking out at the ten people awkwardly dancing in a space that was built for 400, I felt sick.
I’m about to tell you one of the most important pieces of information I know. Then I’m going to tell you the rest of that story in order to prove it’s true and to help you hold it in your brain (because that’s what storytelling does!).
Here’s the fact:
The most important parts of any talk, blog, presentation or podcast is…
When I’m feeling desperate about life, this is where I go
When I feel desperate, there are a few places online where I go looking.
I’m often not quite sure what I’m looking for because I’m often not exactly sure why I feel desperate, just that I’m in an emotional funk and I need someone to throw me a life raft. I feel certain that, if I read the right combination of words, the solution to everything in my life that feels confusing or unsure or uncomfortable will materialize in front of me, like a bonus in an 80s computer game.
Sometimes, I’ll scroll aimlessly through Facebook or Instagram. Sometimes, I’ll find people I know on Twitter. But usually, I end up at Heather Havrilesky’s Ask Polly.
Ask Polly (which I once wrote a blog about, here) is a long-form advice column. You may know that I have a mild fixation with the genre — it’s why I started running Yes Yes Questions, my own, quarterly live advice column. But Heather Havrilesky’s is like nothing I’ve ever encountered before, mostly because in almost every letter she responds to, she does a magic trick on my brain.
Pretty much every week, I read the latest letter and think, Well, that sounds hard for you, Stranger Who Wrote To Heather, but I can’t relate to your problem at all. I will read Heather’s reply because I like her writing so much. But there’s no way her advice will apply to anything I have going on.”
But then — half way through the response, I’m always like,
HEATHER HAVRILESKY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW????
Because how else could she possibly know eXACTly what I’m going through in my life at this exact moment???
The best part is, I know that this is a common experience, but not a universal one. I know it’s common, because HH has been writing Ask Polly for almost eight years, so it must be pretty popular. But I also know it’s not universal, because people are not that much the same. But Heather’s people are. People like me. People who read every single new column that comes out (and several back issues). And that makes me feel both seen and a bit special.
This is the alchemy that happens when you’re…
4 questions to ask yourself before you speak on stage
(AKA a resource I send to clients and potential clients that I never thought I’d share publicly but here we are :))
Glaring at her face on the video call, I stuck my bottom lip out.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled petulantly. “Do I even have to think about that?”
Michelle smiled warmly back at me. “You know you do,” she said. And she was right. I groaned.
When I found out that a long-time daydream of doing the closing keynote at Portland’s World Domination Summit was coming true, I knew I needed help. I coach speakers all the time, but writing my own talk felt like trying to cut my own hair without a mirror. I needed help. And I knew Michelle Barry Franco was the person to help me. What I didn’t know was…
Stop putting this in your stories. Just stop. ( + YYQ11 review!)
Two things! The first is what I’m going on about in the subject line. I went on my friend Matthew Kimberley’s podcast (after guests he’s had like John Lee Dumas, Amy Landino, Laura Belgray and Todd Herman) to talk about storytelling — but we ended up covering something I never have before:
What you should NEVER have in your stories. And, it turns out, I…
