“
Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.
”
”
Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)
“
A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.
”
”
Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life)
“
It's important to remember that we all change each other's minds all the time. Any good story is a mind-altering substance.
”
”
Hank Green (A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2))
“
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tis-sues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.
And so on.Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done. If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
Just as with storytelling, so with life: it's important how well it is done, not how long.
”
”
Seneca (How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers))
“
Stories are not like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.
”
”
Tahir Shah (In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams)
“
Abel put his hands on her shoulders. "You're cold. You're shivering."
She nodded. "It's not important..."
"Sure it is," and then, in a very low voice, with a private kind of smile, he said, "Rose girl, I told you the branches would wither and you would freeze. You wanted to stay on board..."
Anna nodded. "I'm staying.
”
”
Antonia Michaelis (The Storyteller)
“
The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were the most important and most destructive force the animal kingdom had ever produced.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
What’s more important, is that you survived.”
“Why?”
The captain poured himself a finger of liquor and clinked their glasses. “Because survivors get to decide who the heroes are. And the villains.
”
”
Traci Chee (The Storyteller (Sea of Ink and Gold, #3))
“
Be an advocate for the people and causes important to you, using the most powerful tool only you have—your personal stories.
”
”
John Capecci and Timothy Cage
“
Without stories, we're all just lonely islands...stories let us see and hear and feel what someone else does...they build bridges to the other islands. That's why stories are so important. They create true empathy.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (The Afterlife of Holly Chase)
“
The reason it's important to believe in something, he said, is because you can.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
If every minute of time elapsed on the screen equals in length of time every other minute, and obviously it does, and if time on the screen equals importance to the audience, that is, one minute of screen time gives equal weight to the emotional, dramatic, narrative, and every other aspect of experiencing a movie as every other minute, and it does, then we know something important we need to know about screenplays.
”
”
Dan J. Decker (ANATOMY OF A SCREENPLAY THIRD EDITION)
“
Stories are the collective wisdom of everyone who has ever lived. Your job as a storyteller is not simply to entertain. Nor is it to be noticed for the way you turn a phrase. You have a very important job--one of the most important. Your job is to let people know that everyone shares their feelings--and that these feelings bind us. Your job is a healing art, and like all healers, you have a responsibility. Let people know they are not alone. You must make people understand that we are all the same.
”
”
Brian McDonald (The Golden Theme: How to Make Your Writing Appeal to the Highest Common Denominator)
“
Stories are important too. Stories help make sense of things. They make you believe you can do things. They help you imagine that things may be different, that if you just have enough courage... or faith... or goodness... you can change things for the better.
”
”
Kate Forsyth (The Wild Girl)
“
Kvothe continued, smiling himself “I see you laugh. Very well, for simplicity’s sake, let us assume I am the center of creation. In doing this, let us pass over innumerable boring stories: the rise and fall of empires, sagas of heroism, ballads of tragic love. Let us hurry forward to the only tale of any real importance.” His smile broadened. “Mine.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1))
“
A necessary part of our intelligence is on the line as the oral tradition becomes less and less important. There was a time throughout our land when it was common for stories to be told and retold, a most valuable exercise, for the story retold is the story reexamined over and over again at different levels of intellectual and emotional growth.
”
”
Wes Jackson (Becoming Native to This Place)
“
But forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which leaves you gasping from shock and laughing moments later: this is both the beauty and unique nature of her storytelling. With brilliance and courage, the author's brave and candid chronicle travels where no other memoir about mental illness and addiction has gone before. The Third Sunrise is an incredible triumph and Natalie Jeanne Champagne is without a doubt the most important new voice in this genre.
”
”
Andy Behrman (Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania)
“
My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn’t find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday. She was a chameleon, slipping into the personae of a privileged young girl, a frightened teen, a dreamy novelist, a proud prisoner, an army wife, a mother hen. She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her.
By anyone’s account, her existence had been full, rich, important—even if she chose not to shout about her past, but rather to keep it hidden. It had been nobody’s business but her own; it was still nobody’s business.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn— that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you’re a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale. (Introduction to Ender's Game)
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
“
The more important point is that the impulse to escape our lives is universe, and hardly worth vilifying. Inhabiting any life always involves reckoning with the urge to abandon it - through daydreaming; through storytelling; through the ecstasies of art and music, hard drugs, adultery, a smartphone screen. These forms of "leaving" aren't the opposite of authentic presence. They are simply one of its symptoms - the way love contains conflict, intimacy contains distance, and faith contains doubt.
”
”
Leslie Jamison (Make It Scream, Make It Burn)
“
What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart until it's choked and overrun. The only person who suffers, when you squirrel away all that hate, is you....forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It's saying, You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
To my way of thinking, whether it’s a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you’ve got to care about the characters. You’ve got to understand the characters and you’ve got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you’re half-way home.
”
”
Stan Lee
“
Forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important.
”
”
Jonathan Gottschall (The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human)
“
But Andrew was right about one thing. Human beings need to tell stories. Historically, it's the quickest way we have for transmitting useful information to other members of our species. Stories are not simply nice things to have; they are essential survival tools.
And yes, the stories we tell ourselves are just as important as the stories we tell other people.
”
”
Hugh MacLeod (Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination)
“
Commentators frequently blame MMORPGs for an increasing sense of isolation in modern life. But virtual worlds are less a cause of that isolation than a response to it. Virtual worlds give back what has been scooped out of modern life. The virtual world is in important ways more authentically human than the real world. It gives us back community, a feeling of competence, and a sense of being an important person whom people depend on.
”
”
Jonathan Gottschall (The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human)
“
I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their madeup tales.
And so on.
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood, Yet, what a real living human being is made of seems to be less understood today than at any time before, and men - each one of whom represents a unique and valuable experiment on the part of nature - are therefore shot wholesale nowadays. If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Demian)
“
Joan was not only an actual human being but a most important one. A FEMINIST ICON WHO PROVED TO THE WORLD THAT WOMEN CAN ROCK EVEN HARDER THAN MEN. An innovator, an architect, a punk rock pioneer so powerful, she inspired generations of young women to pick up guitars and do the same.
”
”
Dave Grohl (The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music)
“
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
Guns discommode me. Their facility alarms me. Point and kill. Ruin someone's life. Remove at a finger pull deeply loved people, as important in their spheres as the sun in the sky. The very weight of a gun disturbs me-an insolent object, insisting on its own importance.
”
”
Frank Delaney (The Last Storyteller (A Novel of Ireland, #3))
“
Each of us has a story - a unique, valuable, integral part of the whole story of God. Your story is important. It matters.
”
”
Cindee Snider Re (Discovering Hope: Beginning the Journey Toward Hope in Chronic Illness)
“
But if we leave out some of the important bits of the truth – or choose to ignore them – then surely we are living a lie? And that is no way to live at all, is it?
”
”
Fiona Valpy (The Storyteller of Casablanca)
“
As long as we share our stories, as long as our stories reveal our strengths and vulnerabilities to each other, we reinvigorte our understanding and tolerance for the little quirks of personality that in other circumstances would drive us apart. When we live in a family, a community, a country where we know each other's true stories, we remember our capacity to lean in and love each other into wholeness.
I have read the story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys this delicate social net, brings all work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the "offender," and one by one they begin to recite everything he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate that person back into the better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why he is important to the life of the village.
I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and my purpose. I want to live with the opportunity for reconciliation. When someone around me is thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that creates the possibility of reconnection. I want to live in a neighborhood where people don't shoot first, don't sue first, where people are Storycatchers willing to discover in strangers the mirror of themselves.
”
”
Christina Baldwin (Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story)
“
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales... Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
And if someone were to ask, Noah, what’s the most important aspect of story? I would most likely answer, character, but I’m not sure that’s true, because my favorite books contain my favorite places. I do not say, I love Harry Potter, or I love Frodo Baggins; I say, I love Hogwarts, and I love Middle-earth. Thoreau’s Walden is less about the book, more about the pond. The woods. And so setting, I think, is the secret weapon of storytelling. I always want to meet new people until I’ve met them. I think if I spend enough time with a person so we get woven together like an old basket, eventually we’ll think in similar patterns until our various histories are apples and oranges spilling over the edge of the basket, and I think this kind of shared history is dangerous. I think it’s okay to recognize a thing’s faults and still like that thing. Because apples and oranges spilling from a basket can be beautiful too. I think I’m whatever personality hates personality tests. I think nostalgia is just a soul’s way of missing a thing, and like long-distance love, nostalgia grows deeper with time until the reality of what a thing actually was gets blurred to the point you miss the idea of the thing more than the thing itself. I like the idea of hot cocoa more than drinking
”
”
David Arnold (The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik)
“
Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future. I'm moving on to peace and happiness.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
The story hangs in the night air between them. It is very latem, and if father or daugther stepped to the window, tehyw ould see the Suktara, star of the impending dawn, hanging low in the sky. But they keep sitting at the table, each thinking of the story differently, as teller and listener always must. In the mind of each, different images swirl up and fall away, and each holds on to a different part of the story, thinking it the most important. And if each were to speak what it meant, they would say things so different you would not know it wa sthe same story they were speaking of.
”
”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Queen of Dreams)
“
I would go to parties and say I was an editor, and people, especially women – and that was important to me back then – would say, “Oh, really?” and raise their eyebrows and look at me a little more carefully. I remember the first party I went to after I became a teacher, someone asked me what I did for a living, and I said, “Well, I teach high school.” He looked over my shoulder, nodded his head, said, “I went to high school,” and walked away.
Once I repeated this anecdote around a big table full of Mexican food in the garden at a place called La Choza in Chicago, and Becky Mueller, another teacher at the school, said that I was a “storyteller.” I liked that. I was looking for something to be other than “just” a teacher, and “storyteller” felt about right. I am a teacher and a storyteller in that order. I have made my living and my real contribution to my community as a teacher, and I have been very lucky to have found that calling, but all through the years I have entertained myself and occasionally other people by telling stories.
”
”
Peter Ferry (Travel Writing)
“
Stories were as delicious as food. As important as food.
Bella could not live without stories.
Stories were the greatest blessing of intelligence. They were food for the soul. They were medicine.
You could live a thousand lives through stories—and learn to shape your own life into a story of the best kind.
”
”
Dean Koontz (Devoted)
“
What if our myths and teaching tales had purposely led humanity to believe that it was the ultimate sign of strength to nurture and love? What if the urge to care for children and nature and each other had been chosen as the most important tasks of any society? What if care as opposed to conquest had been the marker of virility? What if resources were granted to the people most skilled at peace making, healing, creating and opposed to those with brute strength and a pension for violence?
”
”
Elizabeth Lesser (Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes)
“
Subplot is not one of the twenty-two steps because it’s not usually present and because it is really a plot of its own with its own structure. But it’s a great technique. It improves the character, theme, and texture of your story. On the other hand, it slows the desire line—the narrative drive. So you have to decide what is most important to you.
”
”
John Truby (The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller)
“
kindness is one of the most important things in the world but a lot of people seem to have forgotten that nowadays.
”
”
Fiona Valpy (The Storyteller of Casablanca)
“
The reason it’s important to believe in something, he said, is because you can.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
When developing a business story, keep in mind that the opposition character (shadow) is just as important as the audience character (hero) is.
”
”
Luis Cubero (Business Storytelling Guide: Creating business presentations using storytelling techniques)
“
Keeping your characters consistent and believable is a very important part of good storytelling
”
”
Anonymous
“
a journey becomes a pilgrimage as we discover, day by day, that the distance traveled is less important than the experience gained.
”
”
Ernest Kurtz (The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning)
“
But forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
Every great leader is a great storyteller.i And the first and most important part of being a great storyteller is knowing what stories to tell.
”
”
Paul Smith (The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell (Ignite Reads Book 0))
“
So that’s why I’m such a big fan of storytelling. I think the most important thing is empathy. And it’s less about ‘those people’. Because I think we’re all ‘those people’.
”
”
Jeannette Walls
“
It's important to understand the significance of how our society's origin story is based in blame. It's good to contemplate what our culture would be like if the first woman had not been branded as "second born, first to sin." How would things be different if humankind's first big mistake wasn't to follow the lead of the woman? And if Eden's punishment hadn't been subservience to Adam?
”
”
Elizabeth Lesser (Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes)
“
According to the storyteller, the wedding very nearly took place, but at the most important moment, a group of perjurers participating in the case suddenly went on strike, demanding a pay increase.
”
”
Aleksandr Kuprin (The Garnet Bracelet, other stories and novellas)
“
Fiction is very, very important," he said, his voice is rising. "Storytelling is how people learn. You get people to understand new cultures and other lives through stories. Made-up stories. Fiction.
”
”
Kristine Grayson (Wickedly Charming (Fates #7))
“
Part of dedicating your life to studying literature is realizing that storytelling is more than just make-believe and that make-believe is far more important that we all pretend -- make believe -- it is. One way or another books tell the stories of their readers. But telling our lives is not the same as shaping them, whittling them away. Suddenly Jill had lost control. Her books had taken over and were in charge.
”
”
Laurie Frankel (The Atlas of Love)
“
Will you be encountering each other for the first time through this communication, or do you have an established relationship? Do they already trust you as an expert, or do you need to work to establish credibility? These are important considerations when it comes to determining how to structure your communication and whether and when to use data, and may impact the order and flow of the overall story you aim to tell.
”
”
Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals)
“
Miss Appleby, her library books, and her story-telling sessions were very popular with all the children in Heavenly Valley. To Nancy and Plum they were a magic carpet that whisked them out of the dreariness and drudgery of their lives at Mrs. Monday's and transported them to palaces in India, canals in Holland, pioneer stockades during the Indian wars, cattle ranches in the West, mountains in Switzerland, pagodas in China, igloos in Alaska, jungles in Africa, castles in England, slums in London, gardens in Japan, or most important of all, into happy homes where there were mothers and fathers and no Mrs. Mondays or Marybelles.
”
”
Betty MacDonald (Nancy and Plum)
“
You have a voice that is unique. You have stories that are worth telling. The world is full of stories and it’s very easy to feel like you are this small, insignificant storyteller. So I think that holding onto that faith in yourself and in the power and worth of your own stories - that’s something I always have to come back to between projects. Do I have something worth talking about and how do I convince myself to rediscover that belief and that faith in myself? Something that’s important with that is making sure that you write things that bring you joy and excitement because that leaves less room for the doubt to creep in. It’s all a mind game.
”
”
Claire Legrand
“
Storytelling is an important cognitive skill that helps us to understand concepts and apply logic. You can make a session interesting by telling stories to your students and assisting them in their imagination and learning.
”
”
Avijeet Das
“
Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.” I
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
The parable of the spider was not invented by Scott. There is a much older storytelling tradition, spanning many cultures, about their industry and perseverance. Spiders and caves come up again and again, often in tales to comfort children. One old fable has the holy family fleeing Herod’s men soon after Christ’s birth. They take shelter in a cave and a spider, understanding the importance of the child, spins a web across the cave mouth to make it look as if no one has entered in a long time. Overnight the strands are covered by glittering frost and by the time the soldiers arrive, the illusion is complete. Tinsel is hung on Christmas trees in memory of the crucial role played by another spider and another web.
”
”
Neil Oliver (A History Of Scotland)
“
But forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.” I
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
But forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.’ I
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
being relatable is so incredibly important. Important, and hardly new. Philosopher David Hume stated as much in the 18th century when he said, “Reason is the slave of the passions.” Let’s put it so my regular folks will relate: “Smarts lose to Feelings.
”
”
Randy Olson (Connection: Hollywood Storytelling meets Critical Thinking)
“
Storytelling is the way knowledge and understanding have been passed down for millennia, since long before the invention of written language. Storytelling is part of what it is to be human. And the best stories share our values and beliefs. Those stories are powerful. Those stories inspire. Those stories are both the source of our WHY and the fuel that keeps our WHY alive. That’s the reason companies that understand the importance of living their WHY make it easy for their teams to fortify themselves with stories.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Find Your Why: A practical leadership book to bring purpose to your team)
“
Memory is tricky-memory for certain facts and or details is probably more imaginative than anything, but the important thing is to keep the feeling the story has. I never forget that: the feeling one has of the story is what you must strive to bring forth faithfully.
”
”
Leslie Marmon Silko (The Delicacy and Strength of Lace)
“
She faces me. “I don’t know what this person did to you, and I am not sure I want to. But forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying, You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
And as always when you’re presenting numbers, it becomes much more important to craft a narrative. You have to tell a story. [See also: Chapter 3.2: Why Storytelling.] Your board isn’t in the business every day like you are—they can’t immediately understand the nuances or what the numbers actually mean unless you give them context.
”
”
Tony Fadell (Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making)
“
Probably the most important step in that argument is the final moral choice you give to the hero. A lot of writers make the mistake of giving their hero a fake choice. A fake choice is between a positive and a negative. For example, you may force your hero to choose between going to prison and winning the girl. The outcome is obvious.
”
”
John Truby (The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller)
“
I believe that we need good tale-tellers now, as much as we did when the oral tradition was the only way that they were passed on; that the active transmission of stories plays a vital role in the development of the brain. The quality of the stories that surround us as we grow up is vitally important to our well-being, in the same way as the quality of food and our environment. The most beautiful aspect of this shared story-telling - and we have great examples of this in Tales from the Perilous Realm - is that the collaboration and engagement between teller and audience means that they are embarking on a journey together, which can lead to the most unexpected and wondrous of places.
”
”
Alan Lee (Tales from the Perilous Realm)
“
You need to go to the ocean. Write the names of the things you’ve lost on stones you will find there and then cast them away into the waters. The ocean is big enough to take your grief and keep it safe for you, freeing up space in your heart for other things. The dreamseller says this is an important lesson for you to learn now and you must remember it. It will help you later in life.
”
”
Fiona Valpy (The Storyteller of Casablanca)
“
Over time, we asked writers like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Charles Perrault to publish the stories so they would live on forever. During that time, I realized how important storytelling is. While philosophy and science help enhance our mind and body, storytelling stimulates our spirit. It broadens our imagination, teaches us valuable lessons, shows us that things are not always as they seem, and encourages us to reach our greatest potential. With that said, I have a favor to ask of anyone reading this: Become a storyteller! Read to others the fairy tales in this book. Read them stories from another book. If you can, create your own stories to share. When you pass along the art of storytelling to your family and friends, you make the world a better place.
”
”
Chris Colfer (An Author's Odyssey (The Land of Stories #5))
“
The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, as old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled. They wrestled with mysteries and transformed them into myths which coded the world and helped the community to live through one more darkness, with eyes wide open and hearts set alight.
"I can see them now, the old masters. I can see them standing on the other side of the flames, speaking in the voices of lions, or thunder, or monsters, or heroes, heroines, or the earth, or fire itself -- for they had to contain all voices within them, had to be all things and nothing. They had to have the ability to become lightning, to become a future homeland, to be the dreaded guide to the fabled land where the community will settle and fructify. They had to be able to fight in advance all the demons they would encounter, and summon up all the courage needed on the way, to prophesy about all the requisite qualities that would ensure their arrival at the dreamt-of land.
"The old masters had to be able to tell stories that would make sleep possible on those inhuman nights, stories that would counter terror with enchantment, or with a greater terror. I can see them, beyond the flames, telling of a hero's battle with a fabulous beast -- the beast that is in the hero."
"The storyteller's art changed through the ages. From battling dread in word and incantations before their people did in reality, they became the repositories of the people's wisdom and follies. Often, conscripted by kings, they became the memory of a people's origins, and carried with them the long line of ancestries and lineages. Most important of all, they were the living libraries, the keepers of legends and lore. They knew the causes and mutations of things, the herbs, trees, plants, cures for diseases, causes for wars, causes of victory, the ways in which victory often precipitates defeat, or defeat victory, the lineages of gods, the rites humans have to perform to the gods. They knew of follies and restitutions, were advocates of new and old ways of being, were custodians of culture, recorders of change."
"These old storytellers were the true magicians. They were humanity's truest friends and most reliable guides. Their role was both simple and demanding. They had to go down deep into the seeds of time, into the dreams of their people, into the unconscious, into the uncharted fears, and bring shapes and moods back up into the light. They had to battle with monsters before they told us about them. They had to see clearly."
"They risked their sanity and their consciousness in the service of dreaming better futures. They risked madness, or being unmoored in the wild realms of the interspaces, or being devoured by the unexpected demons of the communal imagination."
"And I think that now, in our age, in the mid-ocean of our days, with certainties collapsing around us, and with no beliefs by which to steer our way through the dark descending nights ahead -- I think that now we need those fictional old bards and fearless storytellers, those seers. We need their magic, their courage, their love, and their fire more than ever before. It is precisely in a fractured, broken age that we need mystery and a reawoken sense of wonder. We need them to be whole again.
”
”
Ben Okri (A Way of Being Free)
“
how the foragers completely reshaped the ecology of our planet long before the first agricultural village was built. The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were the most important and most destructive force the animal kingdom had ever produced. fn1 A ‘horizon of possibilities’ means the entire spectrum of beliefs, practices and experiences that are open before a particular society, given its ecological, technological and cultural limitations.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
The master of the house was an elf-friend—one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer. He comes into many tales, but his part in the story of Bilbo’s great adventure is only a small one, though important, as you will see, if we ever get to the end of it. His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)
“
She sees that your heart is filled with grief. You need to go to the ocean. Write the names of the things you’ve lost on stones you will find there and then cast them away into the waters. The ocean is big enough to take your grief and keep it safe for you, freeing up space in your heart for other things. The dreamseller says this is an important lesson for you to learn now and you must remember it. It will help you later in life.’ While we were having a cup of mint tea and some
”
”
Fiona Valpy (The Storyteller of Casablanca)
“
When we left the dreamseller’s room, Nina told me the rest of what she’d said. ‘She sees that your heart is filled with grief. You need to go to the ocean. Write the names of the things you’ve lost on stones you will find there and then cast them away into the waters. The ocean is big enough to take your grief and keep it safe for you, freeing up space in your heart for other things. The dreamseller says this is an important lesson for you to learn now and you must remember it. It will help you later in life.
”
”
Fiona Valpy (The Storyteller of Casablanca)
“
interview 14 leaders from religions including Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Islam in an attempt to figure out the ten characteristics their faiths had in common. In order of importance, I found that they were: A sense of belonging; storytelling; rituals; symbols; a clear vision; sensory appeal; power from enemies; evangelism; mystery; and grandeur. When you think about the world’s most powerful brands—among them Apple, Nike, Harley-Davidson, Coca-Cola, LEGO—you realize they all make use of some if not all of these pillars.
”
”
Martin Lindstrom (Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends)
“
By far, the most important distortions and confabulations of memory are those that serve to justify and explain our own lives. The mind, sense-making organ that it is, does not interpret our experiences as if they were shattered shards of glass; it assembles them into a mosaic. From the distance of years, we see the mosaic’s pattern. It seems tangible, unchangeable; we can’t imagine how we could reconfigure those pieces into another design. But it is a result of years of telling our story, shaping it into a life narrative that is complete with heroes and villians, an account of how we came to be the way we are. Because that narrative is the way we understand the world and our place in it, it is bigger than the sum of its parts. If on part, one memory, is shown to be wrong, people have to reduce the resulting dissonance and even rethink the basic mental category: you mean Dad (Mom) wasn’t such a bad (good) person after all? You mean Dad (Mom) was a complex human being? The life narrative may be fundamentally true; Your father or mother might really have been hateful, or saintly. The problem is that when the narrative becomes a major source of self-justification, one the storyteller relies on to excuse mistakes and failings, memory becomes warped in its service. The storyteller remembers only the confirming examples of the parent’s malevolence and forgets the dissonant instances of the parent’s good qualities. Over time, as the story hardens, it becomes more difficult to see the whole parent — the mixture of good and bad, strengths and flaws, good intentions and unfortunate blunders.
Memories create our stories, but our stories also create our memories.
”
”
Carol Tavris
“
I think of storytelling as a chance to know ourselves better, to really question wh oare are, where we've been, and who are want to be. Each person has an entire universe of stories inside of us. So my question to you all is, what is your story and how do you want to share it with the world? If you aren't ready to share tell your stories to yourself and let it nourish and guide you. Most importantly, your stories should please you and you alone. And when you are ready to share it, it'll be out there with other disabled narratives pushing back at that status quo.
”
”
Alice Wong (Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life)
“
I live, at all times, for imaginative fiction; for ambivalence, not instruction. When language serves dogma, then literature is lost. I live also, and only, for excellence. My care is not for the cult of egalitarian mediocrity that is sweeping the world today, wherein even the critics are no longer qualified to differentiate, but for literature, which you may notice I have not defined. I would say that, because of its essential ambivalence, 'literature' is: words that provoke a response; that invite the reader or listener to partake of the creative act. There can be no one meaning for a text. Even that of the writer is a but an option.
"Literature exists at every level of experience. It is inclusive, not exclusive. It embraces; it does not reduce, however simply it is expressed. The purpose of the storyteller is to relate the truth in a manner that is simple: to integrate without reduction; for it is rarely possible to declare the truth as it is, because the universe presents itself as a Mystery. We have to find parables; we have to tell stories to unriddle the world.
"It is a paradox: yet one so important I must restate it. The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth; but what we feel most deeply cannot be spoken in words. At this level only images connect. And so story becomes symbol; and symbol is myth."
"It is one of the main errors of historical and rational analysis to suppose that the 'original form' of myth can be separated from its miraculous elements. 'Wonder is only the first glimpse of the start of philosophy,' says Plato. Aristotle is more explicit: 'The lover of myths, which are a compound of wonders, is, by his being in that very state, a lover of wisdom.' Myth encapsulates the nearest approach to absolute that words can speak.
”
”
Alan Garner (The Voice That Thunders)
“
Reflecting on the creation of the songs and vocal performances, Peter [Schneider] speaks with respect and regret: "It's sad that Howard [Ashman] never saw the finished movie of Beauty and the Beast, because it's basically him. It was his conception, it was his idea, it was his songs, it was his emotions, it was his storytelling. Alan [Menken] was a very important partner in this: you can't discount Alan. But it was Howard's vision that made this all happen. And what survives is these characters and these emotions and these songs. They will be around a lot longer than we will. And given the choice, that's what he would have chosen to have survive.
”
”
Charles Solomon (Tale as Old as Time: The Art and Making of Beauty and the Beast (Disney Editions Deluxe (Film)))
“
I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down— the Goddess is offended … As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths.
”
”
Tori Amos (Tori Amos: Piece by Piece: A Memoir)
“
Viola Bai knew how to tell a story. She knew that all the violence is contained in the precision of a detail. She knew how to work the timing so that the bell rang just as the bartender was busy with the fly of his name-brand jeans. At that moment her devoted audience slowly dispersed, their cheeks red with envy and indignation. Viola was made to promise that she would go on with her story at the next bell, but she was too intelligent to actually do it. She always ended up dismissing the whole thing with a pout of her perfect mouth, as if what had happened to her was of no importance. It was just one more detail in her extraordinary life, and she was already light-years ahead of everyone else.
”
”
Paolo Giordano (The Solitude of Prime Numbers)
“
It is important," the man in the grey suit interrupts. "Someone needs to tell those tales. When battles are fought and won and lost, when pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang soughing, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role. That is your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you can shape it, boy...There are many kinds of magic after all.
”
”
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
“
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.
Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
”
”
Charles Warnke
“
What was it you told me Old Mongwe said?" she asked suddenly. "About guilt?"
"That it's useless." I sighed, remembering the hermit's opaque words: Guilt is self-centered, and leads only to destructive obsession. But conviction brings balance-a sense of purpose beyond oneself.
"And what you said," Kirah pressed. "When you convinced Thaddace to leave that prison?"
I blinked in confusion. She gripped my shoulders, hazel eyes alight. "It was important, Tarisai. You said you heard it from someone-someone powerful."
I remembered then-the voice from the shrine at Sagimsan, turning my limbs to water as the breath of the Storyteller swelled on the mountain air.
"Do not ask how many people you will save," I murmured: "Ask, the what world will you save them? what makes a world worth surviving in?"
"That's right." Kirah nodded fervently. "And what made Thaddace keep going-what made him try-it wasn't guilt. It was love." She reached out and squeezed my hand. "It was love, Tarisai.
”
”
Jordan Ifueko (Redemptor (Raybearer, #2))
“
A book is a real object, sure, but the form of the book is artifice, a product of industrial mercantile nations nurturing good little middle-class consumers, sheep who learned to do what they were told: turn the page, turn the page, turn the page. Hypertext, on the other hand, presents an antiauthoritarian alternative. Readers of hypertext aren’t passive consumers. They’re creators.” “And what do they create?” “Meaning. People can do what they want in a hypertext. There isn’t an overbearing author telling them what to think. They have the freedom to think what they will. What you have to understand is that information technologies are really just vessels for ideology. Print books are authoritarian and fascist. Hypertexts are liberating and empowering. I’m telling you, dude, traditional storytelling is dying. In the future, all the important literature will be hypertext.” “And this is what the World Wide Web is for?” Jack said. “Hypertext?” “The web seems good for two primary things, and the second is hypertext.” “What’s the first?” “Pornography.” “There’s pornography on the web?
”
”
Nathan Hill (Wellness)
“
Hardy reinforces his narrative with stories of heroes who didn’t have the right education, the right connections, and who could have been counted out early as not having the DNA for success: “Richard Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student. Steve Jobs was born to two college students who didn’t want to raise him and gave him up for adoption. Mark Cuban was born to an automobile upholsterer. He started as a bartender, then got a job in software sales from which he was fired.”8 The list goes on. Hardy reminds his readers that “Suze Orman’s dad was a chicken farmer. Retired General Colin Powell was a solid C student. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, was born in a housing authority in the Bronx … Barbara Corcoran started as a waitress and admits to being fired from more jobs than most people hold in a lifetime. Pete Cashmore, the CEO of Mashable, was sickly as a child and finished high school two years late due to medical complications. He never went to college.” What do each of these inspiring leaders and storytellers have in common? They rewrote their own internal narratives and found great success. “The biographies of all heroes contain common elements. Becoming one is the most important,”9 writes Chris Matthews in Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero. Matthews reminds his readers that young John F. Kennedy was a sickly child and bedridden for much of his youth. And what did he do while setting school records for being in the infirmary? He read voraciously. He read the stories of heroes in the pages of books by Sir Walter Scott and the tales of King Arthur. He read, and dreamed of playing the hero in the story of his life. When the time came to take the stage, Jack was ready.
”
”
Carmine Gallo (The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don't)
“
Give the Audience Something to Cheer For Austin Madison is an animator and story artist for such Pixar movies as Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story 3, Brave, and others. In a revealing presentation Madison outlined the 7-step process that all Pixar movies follow. 1. Once there was a ___. 3 [A protagonist/ hero with a goal is the most important element of a story.] 2. Every day he ___. [The hero’s world must be in balance in the first act.] 3. Until one day ___. [A compelling story introduces conflict. The hero’s goal faces a challenge.] 4. Because of that ___. [This step is critical and separates a blockbuster from an average story. A compelling story isn’t made up of random scenes that are loosely tied together. Each scene has one nugget of information that compels the next scene.] 5. Because of that ___. 6. Until finally ____. [The climax reveals the triumph of good over evil.] 7. Ever since then ___. [The moral of the story.] The steps are meant to immerse an audience into a hero’s journey and give the audience someone to cheer for. This process is used in all forms of storytelling: journalism, screenplays, books, presentations, speeches. Madison uses a classic hero/ villain movie to show how the process plays out—Star Wars. Here’s the story of Luke Skywalker. Once there was a farm boy who wanted to be a pilot. Every day he helped on the farm. Until one day his family is killed. Because of that he joins legendary Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi. Because of that he hires the smuggler Han Solo to take him to Alderaan. Until finally Luke reaches his goal and becomes a starfighter pilot and saves the day. Ever since then Luke’s been on the path to be a Jedi knight. Like millions of others, I was impressed with Malala’s Nobel Peace prize–winning acceptance speech. While I appreciated the beauty and power of her words, it wasn’t until I did the research for this book that I fully understood why Malala’s words inspired me. Malala’s speech perfectly follows Pixar’s 7-step storytelling process. I doubt that she did this intentionally, but it demonstrates once again the theme in this book—there’s a difference between a story, a good story, and a story that sparks movements.
”
”
Carmine Gallo (The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don't)
“
The Leadership Seduction of storytelling invites self-pity, exaggerates one's importance, and encourages inaction.
”
”
Catherine Robinson-Walker (Leading Valiantly in Healthcare: Four Steps to Sustainable Success)
“
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
millennials are a median age of twenty-seven. There’s seventy-five to eighty million of us. We are now the biggest group of employees in the workforce. There’s more of us than boomers or gen X. We’re also approaching peak spending years. And so as a foundational part of the economy, millennials are by far the most important group for the next forty years. And so, as a business, that’s the group you want to build your audience around. When you look at Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, all of those—all of those great news companies have a median viewer above sixty years old. That’s median. That means half of them are even older than that. “We plan on growing up with our audience,” Alcheck continued. “The biggest innovation is actually improving the storytelling, improving the journalism. Our audience is maturing, is approaching a new life stage where it’s about getting married and having kids and thinking about the world differently than they’ve been thinking about it for the last decade. And so for us, a big part of what we’re doing is continuing—is a relentless focus on making our journalism better. And I think that’s what’s going to ultimately either keep people or people will leave.
”
”
Bob Schieffer (Overload: Finding the Truth in Today's Deluge of News)
“
Life is gift of god its beautiful enjoy a single moments of life.
In a life troubles are there but don’t worry keep going.
In this world everybody have good time bad time.
Most important is be ready to accept challenges.
In this life we should remember who support in our bad time.
I know nothing is easy to achieve anything its necessary to struggle
Without struggle nothing is possible.
I think we should live a happy life because once time is gone never come back.
Sometimes we think life is boring but it’s wrong life is not boring our thinking is boring
We are not taking interest in life so is boring.
We think we should always have a good time when our time is good we enjoy but when bad time
Come we are nervous why because we are loser we cannot face bad time.
Enjoy both days good days and bad days because good time is not fix its small happy but bad time is always there its teach us how to live life.
Author – Pradeep H Hivare
”
”
Pradeep H Hivare
“
Stories contain data. Filtered by choices. You learn what the storyteller values. What they think about others. Most importantly, what they think about themselves. Are they the hero? A distant observer? A victim?
”
”
John Braddock (A Spy's Guide to Strategy)
“
According to Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, a company’s purpose should answer the question, “Why do we exist?” Kelly adds, “We exist to connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel.”6 Only storytelling can rally passionate people around a common purpose. Each week Kelly gives a “shout out”—public praise—to employees who have gone above and beyond to show great customer service. Each month the Southwest Spirit magazine features the story of an employee who has gone above and beyond. Southwest highlights positive behaviors through a variety of recognition programs and awards. Finally, internal corporate videos are filled with real examples and stories to help employees visualize what each step of the purpose looks and feels like.
”
”
Carmine Gallo (The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don't)
“
because of the person’s body language and voice qualities. Afterward, we might be asking ourselves, what was the point of that story? Stories are always best when the story has a bottom line or point, or a comedic punchline, or a lesson to be learned; if there is no point, the story might not be worth telling. People will usually look for the bottom line or purpose of why the story was told in the first place. 10. Write Your Story and Cut It in Half Often, the storyteller gets too caught up in their own story and loses the listener’s attention. As a general tip, write your story the way you want it and then cut it in half. Keep the KISS philosophy in mind. It stands for “Keep It Short and Simple (one of the many variations).” Try to leave only the most captivating and important parts (using the 5 senses rule of thumb) of the story and nothing else. Some people emphasize too much detail that may be irrelevant to the story.
”
”
Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)