239. Storytelling for Leaders with Andrea Sampson

Discover the transformative power of storytelling with Andrea Sampson, the CEO of Talk Boutique and a TED-trained speaking coach, who reveals how mastering this skill can elevate your leadership and influence. Andrea shares her journey from a successful advertising career to becoming a TED speaker's coach, offering unique insights into framing complex ideas into engaging narratives. Uncover how understanding your audience and connecting through stories can drive action and create meaningful engagement, making storytelling an invaluable tool for leaders in any field.

As we explore the art of effective communication, especially within specialized fields like science and technology, Andrea sheds light on strategies to avoid jargon, use pauses, and employ vocal variety. We discuss the importance of crafting clear messages by focusing on a singular core idea, using signposting to guide your audience, and validating their understanding to ensure your message resonates. The episode provides practical frameworks like the story spine to turn mundane presentations into memorable experiences by connecting on an emotional level with your audience.

Andrea challenges the notion that some are not natural storytellers, offering simple frameworks and practical advice to help anyone craft compelling narratives. Learn how to engage listeners by setting the scene, building anticipation, and raising stakes to captivate your audience. Recognize the power of storytelling as an essential leadership skill, not just for entertainment but for inspiring action and growth. By the end of this episode, you'll be empowered to harness storytelling's full potential in your leadership journey and motivated to apply these techniques in various professional settings.

🌐 Connect with Andrea:
• Website: https://talkboutique.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acsampson/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisandreasampson
https://www.instagram.com/asampson/
https://www.instagram.com/talk.boutique/

Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
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Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Storytelling in Leadership
• 12:51 Effective Communication and Leadership Strategies
• 15:09 [Ad] Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
• 15:59 (Cont.) Effective Communication and Leadership Strategies
• 25:45 Crafting Clear and Impactful Communication
• 30:48 Mastering the Art of Storytelling
• 39:10 Building Anticipation
• 42:51 The Power of Effective Storytelling
• 55:48 Harnessing the Power of Storytelling

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

What if the way you tell a story could change everything, not just in business, but in life? Most of us know the power of storytelling, but we often don't consider ourselves to be a storyteller or even where to begin today. On The Leadership Project, we dive deep into the art and science of storytelling, not just as a skill, but as a transformational tool for leadership and influence. I'm joined by Andrea Sampson, CEO of talk boutique, and a TED trained speaking coach who helps leaders and teams unlock their communication potential. We'll explore the power of everyday storytelling, why it matters, and how you can use it to drive impact, engagement and change. Stay tuned to the end, as Andrea shares with us a much simpler framework that help us to unlock the power of storytelling. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Andrea Sampson. Andrea is the CEO and founder of an organization called Talk boutique, who help organizations with their communication skills to unlock the power of storytelling as a catalyst for growth and change, and that's what we're going to talk about today. Andrea is also a TED trained coach, trainer so, or speaking trainer. So, anyone that's looking to unlock the full power of public speaking, is something that Andrea has a specific role to do. But today we're going to take more about everyday storytelling that's going to be the focus, what does it mean to have storytelling in your business, and what is the power that that can unlock as a catalyst for change and growth? So Andrea, without any further ado, I'd love it if you would say hello to the audience and give us a little flavor of your background, your personal background, and what inspired you to do the work that you do today.

Andrea Sampson: 2:04

Thanks so much, Mick. I am really honored to be here with you and your guests and to be able to tell you a little bit more about what it is that I do well, just to kind of give you that background of, you know, how did I get here? And I get this question a lot because, you know, I didn't come up through a traditional a traditional route. So my background, I spent most of my career in advertising, almost 25 years, working for some of the largest agency networks in the world on some of the world's most recognizable brands. I was a strategist and a planner, and you know, it was something I loved to do. It was strategy work, and I was always thinking deeply about consumers and why they make the buying decisions that they make. But I got to a point in that career, you know, when I went into that career young and, you know, still a little bit wet behind the ears, I truly, truly believed that I could make impact and change. And, you know, 25 years in, I started to really recognize that ultimately, advertising, while important, is truly a selling medium, and it's difficult to create any real impact through that medium. And I started looking for something else to do, and I found myself very fortunately in the TED world. I was volunteered as all tedxes are volunteer driven. I was volunteered as a speaker's coach. And I didn't even know what a speaker's coach was, but I certainly found that the skills that I had in advertising was everything I needed to be a great speakers coach, and specifically this requirement of understanding the consumer, or, you know, humans, really human behavior, and what it what in the TED world we needed to do. And I started working with these incredibly intelligent, you know, individual scientists, academics, technologists, people who were doing big work in the world who, quite frankly, I'd never heard of but wondered why I hadn't. But each one of them was coming to me with this big knowledge that they had and the requirement of doing a 612, or 18 minute TED Talk. And as you can imagine, you know, if you want to take your life's work and turn it into six minutes that that's challenging. And so I had this skill that I had learned in advertising about bringing things into what I call, in our advert advertising days, the key consumer insight. But in the TED world, what that really was, was an idea, and I was able to frame ideas in a way that created a succinctness that allowed for the story to hold that idea. And from that work, I developed that skill set, I created frameworks and tools around building stories that hold ideas so that we can tell the. Our corporate presentations, or the work that we're doing in the world in a way that holds our ideas so people understand it, so that those presentations feel more like stories and not the boring corporate presentations that many of us have sat through and walked away scratching our heads, wondering what we just heard. So that's a little bit of my background and how I got here.

Mick Spiers: 5:24

Excellent, Andrea, let me share some of the threads that I'm picking up from there. So first of all, as a brand strategist, as a organization looking to inspire people around a strategy, and in the world of leadership, which is where we come from in the leadership project. It is all about inspiring action, some kind of action, whether it's inspiring action around an idea from a TED talk, inspiring action around motivating buying behavior from the brand strategy point of view, or if we're in the business world, just getting our people from this great idea that the leader has had, the founder of that organization, where they've seen the top of a mountain that they want people to climb. It's about threading that through in a way that's going to make sense to people, capturing people's attention. One of the things that you really hit on there as a couple of times during your discussion, was about knowing who you're talking to. So whether you're a brand strategist knowing who my buyers are and what my buyer behavior might be, or whether I'm a TED talker who knows my audience about well, what can I do to captivate them with my idea in a way where they walk away remembering what I wanted them to hear. But if I'm not meeting them where they're at if I don't understand my audience, I'm not going to be able to do that. And the same applies for a leader. So the threads that I'm hearing here understand your audience, being able to cultivate your idea in a way that's succinct. You're talking about putting a year's work into six minutes, getting it to the point where it's succinct, and getting to the point where it's memorable. How does, how does that sit with you?

Andrea Sampson: 7:10

Yeah, absolutely, Mick. That is exactly it. And I think, you know, when I'm listening to you, what I'm hearing, you know, and it's something that we say a lot of you know, when we talk to leaders. To be a leader, you need to be a professional communicator. That's actually your job. And how do you do that? And I think one of the things that gets lost in leadership training often is that idea that your communications, the way in which you communicate, is going to drive everything you do from that point forward. So when you're inspiring your teams to, you know, as you described it, you know, what is that vision the top of the mountain? What is it you want people to get to? Well, that's probably one of the hardest things to get alignment on, because everybody has a different idea of what that vision actually means. And as a leader, it's your job to actually make sure that everybody doesn't have a different idea, that they have the same idea. And the belief is, well, if I write it in the way that you know, I want people to deliver it, then they should understand it. But what we know is interpretation and context are the two things that get lost in the building and the creation of these types of very complex and layered statements. And so this is where story comes in. And this is where as a leader, when you understand how to use story effectively, what you're doing is you're taking these deep and complex and layered statements, these vision statements, these mission statements, or these outcome statements that you want your team to be able to achieve. And by using story, what you're doing is you're adding the context back. You're giving back what you had to take out in order to create something that was succinct. And so story allows you to hold the idea inside an understandable carrier, so that people are motivated, inspired, and are aligned on what it is you want to do.

Mick Spiers: 9:11

Yeah, really good on Andrea once again, some things that I'm picking up there is the world is full of situations where two people have had a conversation, they've walked away with a different understanding of what was just said. So it's about using story to bring that narrative back to a point where people are walking away with hopefully a more common understanding of what was trying to be communicated. They might still have their own individual perspective of that story, but we're bringing it back to a more common basis, so that people aren't walking away from a conversation with 17 different things that were discussed, and one person takes away two things, another person takes away a different three things, and they think they had a common understanding, only to come back later to. Find out that it wasn't a story I sometimes talk about. Andrea on the show is the Treaty of Waitangi, which is was documented in New Zealand between white settlers and the traditional Maori people of New Zealand. And it was signed in, I'm going to say 1856 or something like this. And you know what? Every, every year since, people have been arguing about what it meant. So if it had been encapsulated into a more a storytelling or a more narrative, we would have had a more common thread that people walk away with. How does that connect with you there?

Andrea Sampson: 10:36

Yeah, and that's exactly it. It is about creating that deep understanding of what it is that that you're actually agreeing to, you know, in the in the example that you just gave, it was, you know, here we have these two very disparate groups of people, each with their own beliefs and understandings, trying to come to a common understanding. Well, they don't have common backgrounds and understandings in order to bridge that. And so what would be needed, I guess, in terms of building that common Bridge is a story, a shared story, that they could align on and agree that that is exactly what it is we want, the words, what we know and and this is, I think this is one of the things that you know as a as a speaker's coach, as a thought leader coach, I work with words a lot, and what I'm always amazed at is how one word can have so many meanings depending on who you speak with. You know, because we bring our own baggage to the words we use. We think that everybody understands those exact words because we have definitions. We can look them up in the dictionary, but we use them differently, and that's probably what happened in terms of that particular agreement. You know, here were words, and again, we have two different, very different groups of people with not even a common language in some cases. And so story would have been what would have bridged it, probably in those days, if they could have agreed upon a story that had meaning for both of them. And so, you know, when we look at that kind of storytelling, we have to make sure that, again, we've got common understanding.

Mick Spiers: 12:21

Yeah, good. So really, key message I'm taking away already is about this common ground element to start with something that we could agree on, like to be able to have a common language, or a common agreement of, hey, we all want to achieve this, don't we? And now we've got something that we can start from, and then we can have the conversation. If I go back to some of the things that we said before, if we don't understand our audience, we can't find that common ground. Otherwise, we're just talking at people. We're not talking with people.

Andrea Sampson: 12:51

Well. And what I would add to that, Mick, is that, you know, even when we think we know our audience, you know, like we work with a lot of scientists and academics and technologists, and, you know, they tend to use jargon. And you know, often, when we're working with a leader within one of those industries or one of those you know, disciplines, they'll say, Oh, my audience knows this. They don't, you know. And the thing is, like, even if they do know it, what you don't know is how they see that thing. So it could be as an example, you know the world of acronyms, right? There may be 50 different acronyms within your industry, and people just start throwing them out. And what you're doing is two things when you do that. One is, you're assuming that they actually know it, which never assumed. But the second thing is, even if they do know it, it takes their mind a second to go, oh, wait a minute, what was that? I got to think about that as soon as they you've done that, they've missed everything else you've just said. And so you assume that they know this meanwhile, even if they do your whole message has now gotten lost in the need for that person to catch up with where you are, and so you create distortion. And so communicating, you know, this is one of the biggest challenges we have as communicators, is eliminating the distortion, creating the alignment, so that we can create the action at the end. So what we always have to do is first, and I think this is one of the things that is so underrated in communicating is, what is it you want as an outcome? What Why are you communicating today? Why are you giving this talk? Why are you standing in front of this audience? Why are you having this meeting? What is the intended outcome? When we know the outcome, we can then choose the language and the stories that we use to convey that to get us to that outcome, and we can check in with the audience to go. Is this understandable? Because here's where I'm trying to get you, but are you there? And again, from a leadership standpoint, this is so underrated. We think others know and we think we know our. Outcomes, but if we don't state them, we don't spend the time on planning it, we end up meandering, and that creates distortion.

Mick Spiers: 15:49

Yeah, there's some really powerful takeaways there. Andre and I'd like to pause for a moment and reflect on some of the things that you just said. Do we want the audience thinking about the thing that we just said, or do we want them listening to what we're saying now? And I've never thought about this from the jargon point of view. I've always thought of it from the power of the pause. And when you look at really effective public speakers, we'll talk about that for a moment. But I think this can apply in your one on ones as well. They do put effective pauses in because it allows the person the time to process what was just said before they focus on what you're saying now. And if we're throwing too much technical jargon, the person is still thinking about the thing that you said a minute ago, two minutes ago, they're not actually listening to you right now, and then you're going to get frustrated later, going, I told you all this. Why? Why? Why are you not picking up all of this. So human beings are terrible multitaskers. Let's give them the time to process. Let's break it down into language that's understandable, and give them time to process before we move on. Onto the next point. The other thing that jumped into my mind when you were saying that Andrea is also that usually the person that's doing the speaking has been thinking about this idea for six months, six years, their entire lifetime, the person that you're talking to is hearing it for the first time. So if you don't give them the time to process, you're also going to lose them. So this is a key takeaway for me at the moment. Then, when we get back to what you were just saying before, I think there was another very powerful part there before we start. What is my purpose of this communication? What am I trying to achieve? What do I want them to do? Think, feel differently after this conversation. How am I going to deliver that message with a powerful story. How am I going to check in at the end that it landed and that they are walking away with what I thought I wanted them to walk away with. So this validation check at the end is also something that I think that we miss a lot. How does that sit with you?

Andrea Sampson: 17:56

Yeah, you've just said so much. I mean, Mick, you clearly are a great public speaker with some of the knowledge you just shared. And I, because I want to go back to a couple things. You know, the power of the pause, whoa, like that is, we actually call it the speaker's secret weapon, really, right? The pause is that opportunity for us to really bring the audience in in a way that the audience is not expecting. Because what the pause does is it immediately forces us to look up and go, What happened, or what do I need to pay attention to? Or is there something here that I need to really remember? So the pause is, is so powerful in that regard and with that and, you know, looking at not just the pause, but our voice, right? And I think our voice is one of those things that we as, especially as leaders, we underestimate. We've got a whole vocal range. Like, you know, if you're a singer, you think about your voice. If you're a leader, you probably don't. It's like, Hey, this is my voice. This is all I got, right? Actually, no, I mean, I just put a bunch of inflection in my voice just right there. And why did I do that? I did that so that it allowed me to go into a little bit of a funnier stance. It allowed me to make a point. I slowed down. I sped up. I used techniques all through there. And as leaders, when we are conveying a message, we want to use our voice to give indicators to the audience of what to pay attention to. When I use the term audience, that audience could be an audience of one or an audience of 10,000 because audience is anyone who's listening to you. And so as a speaker, as a as a leader, it's my job to use every tool in my toolbox to make sure that those who are listening to me are getting the message. So the next thing you said was talking about that message that maybe I've been thinking about for my entire career, maybe that they don't have access to. They're hearing it for the first time. And here's the thing you know, having worked with literally 1000s of leaders over my career, here, the thing that it never ceases to amaze me is that when I ask the question of what is it you want to convey, the answer, I would say 99.9% of the time is usually a 15 to 20 minute discussion. And the job of a leader is to have that answer in one sentence, and once, that's a lot asking a lot, right? Because you go, Well, wait a minute, this is a really complex thing that we're trying to get a. Cross Yes, and you might only have five minutes to do it. So if it took 20 minutes for you to explain to me just what you want to say, how are you going to do that to an audience in five minutes? We need to be clear and succinct. The word choice needs to be very clear so the know what you want to say first is really important, and it's understanding your own idea, your own concept. What is it that you're trying to get across? And know it so well that you can do that in one sentence? No, that's a it's a dense and layered sentence. Let's be clear. It's it will require unpacking. But if you can say it in one sentence, where people kind of go, Oh, I've never thought of it that way. Tell me more. You've done your job, right? That's the key. So using the tools in our toolbox, from the standpoint of our voice, our body language, because that's another thing you know, we as leaders have an entire physical presence that is important, because how we show up in front of that audience is actually sometimes more important than what we say. Because if we're showing up and not using our physical presence and our voice, our audience starts to lose trust in us. They don't feel physiologically taken care of, so that they can help or hear the message that we're putting out there. And then what is that message, you know? And these are sort of the core components of public speaking or of message delivery, but it's what gets ignored because we're so busy moving on to the next, the next, the next.

Mick Spiers: 22:22

Three powerful threads that I'm picking up here. Andre the first one, I'm going to use the word congruence. The second, less is more, and the third sparking curiosity. So when I, when I listen to you, let's, let's talk about the congruence for a moment. And I think this is one that we forget a lot. We go into autopilot. We might remember this when we go onto a stage for public speaking, but we forget about it in our daily life, whether it's our one on ones, with our team members, our team meetings, we forget about this, the inflictions of the voice. And I see this a lot, people communicating with an upward infliction at the end of their sentence, which is going to make people question the message, because you usually an upward inflection. Is usually a question. It's not usually a statement, right? So what am I using the power of my voice to be congruent with the message that I'm trying to get across my body language, if I'm talking about growth, am I? Am I using upward type. Am I standing in a way that looks confident, that looks confident that has gravitas, so congruence our body, our hand gestures, our voice? Is it congruent with the message that we're trying to get across? Less is more with all of the stories that we're talking about before, where people walk away with a different understanding of what was just said. The biggest weapon that we've got against that is less is more. To be able to take 16 ideas and bring it down into one. Remember sentence, and I think about famous quote from Mark Twain that says, I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time. So here's this long one. It does take time to be able to condense that complex message into into one sentence, but if you get it into one sentence, guess what? People don't have to remember anymore. They don't have to remember 16 things. They're going to remember one thing. And now you're on your way towards a conversation where they are walking away with the thing that you wanted them to walk away with. And then the one that really got my interest was spark curiosity. That if you at the end of it, at the end of that message that you've delivered, if they say to you, tell me more, you've captivated them. So it may not be that they walk away with the final message, but you've given them enough in that message that you've got a conversation going. How does that sit with you?

Andrea Sampson: 24:44

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I mean, you know, so congruence, you know, couldn't agree more. I mean, this is look as leaders. It is the thing that I think we forget about the most, is we have to be fully congruent. And I you know, it's easier than what people make it out to be. Because, you know, we can make it really hard and go, well, oh, my goodness, I need to know what every body language, you know, gesture means. Sure I could teach you those things. But really, your body already knows. So just trust your body and see with your voice, like when we tell stories to kids, we naturally go into storyteller mode, right? And so, you know, suddenly we're acting out that all the players and our body is following it. Well, just do that in your in your day job, you know, tell stories and allow your voice to create the inflection that's needed. But also, if you've got something that you want. People to remember, think about the way in which you are delivering it. Now, I just did that. I just created a pause at the beginning and a pause at the end of that statement. I did that because I wanted that statement to be something that you paid attention to. And that's a great way of doing it, using the power of pause as the way to almost punctuate a statement. So congruence is something that is naturally within us when we allow it to come out. Succinctness is harder, and you're right. It takes time, but you get better at it. And here's the thing, you know, somebody comes to me with 16 ideas, and we need to narrow it down to one, and what I do, and what's important for most people to take away is that you actually don't have 16 ideas. What you have are 16 components of one idea. And so when you let go of the 16 and find the one, the 16 live inside of it, so you don't lose anything, it's that what we've done is we've created the highest order of it. So that is what in the in your final piece, is what sparks the curiosity. Because the audience wants to know the 16, but they can't remember the 16. They can only remember the one. So when we deliver the one, it sparks them going, but what about this? And what about that? And now you get to deliver all 16 of those things, but contextualized by the one idea, which is the most important thing. Because when we when we deliver, you know, when, when I'm working with anyone on any communication, that's the very first thing that I do is I create what we call a statement of purpose, or a core idea. And we're narrowing it all the way down into that and then once we have that core idea, then what we do is we break it into its component parts, and we find the key messages. And then once we've got the key messages, we build story on top of that to hold the core idea that leads to those key messages. And so what that's doing is it's allowing almost a sign posting for the audience, right? So when I'm delivering a story, I'm telling you a great story, and I at the end of that story, or somewhere in a tension point of that story, what I'm doing is I'm transitioning into my core idea, and that core idea is now aligned to that story, often in a way that you weren't expecting, but when you hear it, it suddenly is like, Oh, I never thought of it that way. That allows you to almost create a metaphor with the story. And then I take that idea and I break it down into a couple of parts, and I've signposted for you where I'm going now. And now the audience is like, Oh, I never really thought of it that way. And now I go into the first piece of it, and how you're hearing how I came to that, or why I know that, or what it is that I believe that helps you to then see it in that new way that I want you to see it. So by doing that work of creating that core idea or that statement of purpose for whatever communication you're doing, you're doing some heavy lifting, not just for you, but for your audience. And what it does for you as the speaker or the leader is it gives you a language to keep everything within for all your communications, because what we're really doing is looking at you as a leader and saying, What do you stand for? What is it you want your audience to take away, regardless of who they are or what they're doing, because you have something that you believe it's your area of expertise. You've got something about that area of expertise that is unique to you, and you've got a purpose as to why you do it. And those three things together are what create that core idea.

Mick Spiers: 29:24

I like this concept that you're using called sign posting on Andrea. So one of the things that will happen in in the audience, whether it's small audience or big audience, they're going to start with the question, Who is this person and why are they here today? And if we don't give them the signposts, they're busy thinking about that, not thinking about our idea. So I really like the sign post. So, so here's my sign post. Now I've got your attention. Now I'm going to build you to why, why that sign post is, or what that sign what it is that I'm trying to tell you, I really like this as well, right? Andre, we've got some really interesting takeaways already here. So having a clear purpose about the message that we're trying to deliver, using our techniques, our congruence, using pauses, you having the clarity of what it is that we want people to walk away with at the end, having some kind of validation message, or some kind of approach that we're going to check in to make sure that they are walking away with what we want them to walk away with. And you know, one on one that might look like, yeah, so what if we just agreed to or what was your biggest takeaway from today? And that can happen in a small group as well in a larger setting. It it might be a summary, or powerful summary that brings it together. One of the three. That we haven't fully unpacked yet. Andrea, and it can be a challenge for people, is people that think that they aren't storytellers, that how do I even start? I'm not a natural storyteller? That's the story that they tell themselves in their head, by the way, a limiting belief. But a lot of people don't believe that they are a storyteller. How does someone start if they don't consider themselves a natural storyteller.

Andrea Sampson: 31:03

Yeah. And I would say again, you know, given the people we work with, that's pretty much the come from place for everybody that I work with, very few people will come and going, I'm a great storyteller. Most of them say I can't tell a story to save my life. And the thing about story is that you're not born a story. Some people are, let me sort of reference that some people are born storytellers. Like I grew up in a family of storytellers, and so that's something that's been part of my life, but no one taught me how to be a storyteller. And I think one of the challenges that I found in my own career was that, you know, people can relate to this sometimes, you know, imagine that you walk into a cocktail party, and there you see somebody who's, like, telling stories, and they're, they got a proud of people around them, and everybody is laughing. And, you know, you walk up and you think, Oh, I got a great story. I'm gonna, I'm gonna join into that conversation, and and you tell your story, and it kind of falls flat, you know, like, you're like, Oh, what happened? Well, the reality is, is that you missed some of the elements of story. And this is what people are so afraid of, right? Because unless we've been taught how to be a storyteller, we don't actually know what elements are important and what aren't. Now, there are many, many, many different frameworks out there for storytelling, but I find that because we're working in a corporate or a, you know, a more professional setting, many of them are just too complex. I mean, the hero's journey is fantastic, but it's 16 components to telling a story. None of us are going to remember that, and, quite frankly, we don't have the time for it. So what I use, and this is not proprietary to me, although I've made it somewhat proprietary, just with the way I apply it. There's a little framework out there called the story spine. It's a really simple, simple way to tell a story. It's five steps and and what I love about it is that it Well, first of all, it's memorable, like you can, I can, I can do five steps. That's pretty easy, right? So the five steps are, you start with the environment, where's the story taking place, right? So, and environments are really important, because when we are telling a story, we want to bring the listener in. So we don't want to be outside of that story. We want to be first person telling that story as if we're there when we bring the audience into that story and we describe the environment. So, you know, maybe I'm telling you about, you know, it's a cold and snowy day. I'm in Canada, so right now, it's been snowing all day, and, you know, it's a cold and snowy day, and it's one of those days where you walk outside and the hairs inside your nose freeze and you can smell the snow in the air. Now, if you've ever been to Canada or any place that's cold, you'll know exactly what I mean. And even if you haven't, you can imagine it. You're probably like, oh my god, the hairs and your nose freeze, really? So what, what I've done is I've brought you into an environment. You're there with me, you're hearing so we want to use an environment. We want to use language that evokes brain activity. Why? Because our brains love story, and when we've engaged the brain, we've engaged the listener. So using sensory language immediately brings your brain online, right? So sight, smell, touch, taste, sound, what can we give them that brings them into our story. So the environment, that's number one. Number two, who's in the story? The characters, who are they? Characters have names. They have little back stories. Now we're not going to tell a whole lot. We might be saying, I'm here with my friend, Mick. Mick and I have just met, but clearly we are kindred spirits. We both love words and we both love leadership, and we are learning from each other. So now we know a little bit about the two characters in this story. Then we go on to what we call the third part, which is the issue conflict or opportunity. This is why you're telling the story, and this is, if I go back to that cocktail reception, why most people go go wrong, because they miss the first two steps and they jump right into the other thing that's happened the other day. This thing happened to me. Don't do that, right? You've given away the whole story by doing that right? Build up to it. What's the environment? Who's in the story? Now, give me a little glimpse of it. Don't tell me the whole thing, you know, the other you know, the other day, Mick and I were discussing the podcast and what we were going to do, and we found that, you know, my technology wasn't working with his technology. Now that could be, you know, the conflict, and it's enough of a conflict where we go. Oh, that's a problem, right? There's a conflict within the story. But here's the key. The fourth point is where you as a storyteller really shine. And that fourth point is what we call the raising of the stakes, or the tension point in the story. And this is what every good storyteller knows how to do so the other day, this thing might have happened, but then there was an and then moment what happened that we have to solve that. And then moment is where you get your audience leaning in. So the environment engages the brain. We get them imagining what's going on that the characters help us to relate to who's in that story, the issue, the conflict or the opportunity, gives us a glimpse of what's going on, what's happening, but that end, then moment, gives us a real tension of, oh my goodness, what's going to happen when you get the audience to that point, You now have the ability to deliver more than just that tension point, because what you've done is you've got your audience to an emotional reaction, and that's what you want. And in that emotional reaction, this is the moment where, if you are using story as a way to deliver your idea, you deliver your idea right then and there. Because what you've done, as I said, you've got them emotionally connected. They are emotionally engaged, and you now are delivering something that is maybe outside of what that story was about, but related enough where they're like, Oh, I see what you just did there. Now suddenly it's a metaphor. And if you are using story as a way to, you know, deliver an entire presentation or a communication, pull back on the ending of that story. What you can now do, because now you're like, you've given yourself enough sort of material that you can keep that story going, because you could go back to my friend Mick, and what do I know about Mick, and use some of the idea within that. And I can keep going using my sign posting, because I've just delivered my idea until I'm ready to close it. Then I go back to that tension point that I left the audience on. So when I'm ready to close the entire talk, then I go back and I go, Oh, I forgot to tell you what actually happened. And now I deliver the ending. What's the outcome? That's the fifth point the you know. So we've got the environment, the characters, the issue conflict or opportunity, the raising of the stakes, the tension point, and then we go to the conclusion. And so within those five pieces, you could tell a story to your kids, you could tell a story at a cocktail party, or you could use a story as the opening of a presentation, hold your idea, build that story through the entire presentation, and close it so that they now understand your thinking your idea in a way that they couldn't have without that story. And in doing that, of course, you're closing with a call to action. What do you want your audience to think or do differently as a result of what you've just told them.

Mick Spiers: 38:59

That was amazing. Andrea, I want to share with you that as I was sitting there listening to you, I was fully immersing myself in what you were saying and being very present. But what I was noticing is my body Shift as you were doing the different things. So as you were describing the environment with the freezing cold morning and the nose on your hairs, I physically felt it, even though we're using words, but I physically felt something when you spoke about character. I got, you know, I'm curious. It picked my curiosity. Oh, well, this character sound, sound interesting when you spoke about you're using signpost. But the big one was the anticipation for me, you were leaving little, minor cliff hangers along the way go. Oh, yeah. And to me, what I was processing is that them that my mind didn't want to leave an open loop. I wanted to know the conclusion. I wanted to know the conclusion. And if I think about all of my favorite television shows I've ever watched, or my favorite movies television is probably the best one for this one, every episode finishes with some kind of intriguing moment that once gets me to want to watch the next episode. So leaving those little open loops with the signposts building the story, but there you're also building anticipation, and then once I've got that anticipation, I can then deliver so to break it down, I love the framework. I agree with you on hero's journey. It's a bit complex. It works, but it's a bit complex. So describe the environment, describe the characters, describe the issue, the conflict, the tension, or, sorry, the opportunity. Then build the tension so that there's an open loop. We're going, oh, I need to know. Like you can't finish this story now. Andrea, I need to know how it finishes. And in there is our message, and then is our conclusion, our ending. So I think you've given us a wonderful framework there. And I do think coming back to your story about people at the cocktail party and someone's trying to interject in their story lands flat, I think it's because we miss steps one, two and three, and we we go straight to potentially step four or or maybe even worse, step five. And why are you getting this? But you didn't captivate me along the way. How does that sit with you?

Andrea Sampson: 41:14

That's exactly it. And you know, Mick, what I'd love we have this is a framework we use all the time, and I'd love to offer it to your readers. We have a storytelling toolkit. They can download it. I can, you know, give it to you to put in the show notes. And because it's powerful, it we have the the story spine, we have the idea framework, so the way in which to structure an idea and what we call a talk canvas, which is using the first two, you know, the the story spine and the idea framework, and putting it into the context of a presentation, and so using them in the entire thing. So happy to make that available, because I think it's so powerful for people to have access to this, to be able to do that work themselves.

Mick Spiers: 41:57

Yeah, really good. I tell you what, I'm also happy. And these tools sound fantastic for exactly the point I'm about to make, not only the framework that you've just described, environment, character, issue, conflict, opportunity, tension. And then the conclusion, not only is that a powerful way to deliver the message, it's a powerful way to if you think that you are not a good storyteller, just use this frame. Just go, Okay, well, how do I start storytelling? Yeah. I go, Well, what was the environment? Oh, I can describe that. Who were the characters, okay, I can describe that too. What was the issue, conflict or opportunity? Okay, yeah, yeah, I know that. Where's the tension point? Why is this important, and how can I build anticipation? If you use this framework, you can actually turn yourself into a storyteller. It's not just about the delivery, it's about preparing the story itself. How does that sit with it? Yeah.

Andrea Sampson: 42:52

Yeah, that's it. And the other thing that I hear a lot is, well, I don't have any stories and so and the reality is, our whole life is a story. And when we step outside of ourselves as a I can't tell a story, because usually the I can't tell a story is what is driving that I don't have any stories, right? When you step away from the fact that actually, everybody's a storyteller, you can just learn it. Like you said, use this framework. It's really easy. And go, Okay, what did you have for breakfast? Let's tell us the story of your breakfast. That's a story. And really, when we're looking for stories to hold ideas, what we're doing is because we first identify the idea. You don't go looking for the story before you have the idea. So define your idea first, because that's really important. That's the basis when you define your idea. Ideas hold within them sort of meta concepts. So it might be an idea around transformation, or it might be an idea around alignment, or it might be an idea around, you know, sustainability. So what is it that is the meta piece of that story? Now, when we identify that, and usually that's pretty easy, because once you've defined the idea, you go, Oh well, really, what this is saying is this thing. You go, when in my life, have I ever been in an experience where that has been true, or where that has been active, and you go, oh yeah, there was that time when I was in university, and I remember, and suddenly a story pops up for you. And it may not even be your story. It might be, Oh, I heard this story once, or there's this very famous story up. It doesn't matter where the story comes from. What matters is that in some way, you emotionally connect to that story, and your emotional connection to the story, whether it's yours, or a famous story, or a story that somebody else told you, will be what the audience really leans into.

Mick Spiers: 44:53

Yeah, really good. So a couple of things there, coming back to what we said before we've got to have a purpose in the first place. What is it that we're trying to achieve? Some people Andrea, when they when they hear this, they go, I've been told I need to embrace storytelling in my communication. They will go to something like telling a story about brushing their teeth. That's got nothing to do with the message. So start with the message. Start with the purpose. Start with the idea that you're trying to share, and then you can start building towards a story that will be congruent with the message that you're trying to deliver. It. It's not storytelling for the sake of storytelling or for entertaining people. The story is the medium by which you're going to get a message across. So you can pick the right story. I like what you said about then. Remember some example in your life as to when that was true? And then you can build the story, and you can build the environment, build the characters, build the issue, conflict or the opportunity, build the tension, build the message and the conclusion. It's really good. I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to share one of my favorite stories with you, and then let's just just see how it goes, because I think it I've been playing it in my head, thinking it follows. This is it's relatively short, so let's go. And there's a message to it, of course. So imagine this Andrea, this elderly couple have been married for for more than 30 years, and every morning they like to wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. In their mind, this is something they've done every day for 30 years, waking up in the morning to the smell of freshly baked bread. They initially they did in the oven, and later on in their life, they bought one of those fancy bread makers. One of their favorite things to do was to wake up with the waft of that smell of bread through the house and then meet together at the breakfast table. And every morning, the husband would get the knob of bread, and he'd cut off the the end piece of the bread, he'd put it on a plate and give it to his wife with a beaming smile on his face. And every day for 30 years, until one day, she just goes, That's it. I've had enough. Every day you've given me the crusty bit of bread on a plate and put it in front of me. I've had enough. You don't love me. I want a divorce. And the husband turns around says, but that's the best bit. And then the then I conclude the story with a discussion about the danger of assumptions and when, if we don't ask people, etc. It's one of my favorite stories, which is why I wanted.

Andrea Sampson: 47:23

Yeah, it's a great story. I loved it.

Mick Spiers: 47:26

I was just following it with environment, characters, issue, conflict or opportunity, tension, and then the message, so, yeah, please.

Andrea Sampson: 47:35

If I So, I'll tell you this story back. Okay, so the way that I would tell the stories I would start off with, it's 6am and I'm sound asleep, and I'm woken by this smell of freshly baked bread. I can smell it. It's at first, it's very subtle, but clearly it gets stronger, and I'm lulled awake by this beautiful smell. Beside me is my husband, who is my husband of 30 years, and I know that we have had this smell every morning. It is what we wake up to. And I love that smell. And I love freshly baked bread. In fact, what I love more than anything is that soft piece in the center. I love it. It's warm and it's soft and it's gentle, and it's I love it when it's slathered with homemade butter that goes on top of that. Now, my husband and I have been married forever, and you know, we don't have a perfect marriage, but I'd like to think that we're pretty happy. And you know, if there's one thing that we argue about, it's that sometimes we don't communicate really well. He thinks we do. I think we don't. And hence the argument. But, you know, he's an engineer, and so for him, everything is about process and and discipline, and so, you know, I go along with it well. On that particular morning, I get up and I didn't sleep very well. Quite frankly, I'm a bit cranky, and not that, not not really wanting to have a conversation, and I sit down at the breakfast table, and my husband has gotten up, as he always does, and with his, you know, process driven approach, has already cut the bread, and he hands me the end slice that is dry and no butter on it, and that's it. I had it. I was like, I want a divorce. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. And my husband looks at me, shocked, what are you talking about? And I said, Every morning, you hand me this dry slice of bread. I've been smelling this beautiful bread every morning, and all I really want is a beautiful center slice. It's so soft and so gentle, and I want the butter on it, and you keep handing me this dry crust of bread. And he looks at me, he says, but that's the best part. I give it to you because I love you. Hence our communication challenges.

Mick Spiers: 50:18

Yeah, really good. Andre I love the way they put it into first person, and then the you even, and the way that you built even more of the the environment was threaded through by the way it was really good, and you had those different experiences, you know, really good.

Andrea Sampson: 50:34

I wanted to show you the difference, because I think it's the challenge for most people. Of like, well, how. Do you go into the environment? How do you and when you put it into the first person, I mean, and obviously this wasn't my story, but in that case, I was just pretending. And we can do that, right? We can put it in the first person by saying, I'm going to tell you an imaginary story, like it's my own. You know, we can start there, or we might actually, it might actually be a story, and we take ourselves right into that, but it helps us right? So you used imagine, and which is also really powerful, that is a great way, because again, imagine, this is you now, and it's even you know, when we're storytelling, sometimes even doing things like close your eyes and imagine, and so you get the audience into that sort of really beautiful place. So these are really amazing techniques. And so I just wanted to give a different view, though, to show you that they're like, you can take a story like that, you can tell it in so many different ways, and it's all effective.

Mick Spiers: 51:35

Yeah, fantastic. Andrea look, I want to bring us to a conclusion here. This has been absolutely powerful. The first message I want the audience to take away is storytelling works, right? If you want to deliver a message, if you want to deliver a message, that you want people to remember, people remember stories. That becomes the vehicle by which your story gets carried around in their mind for the rest of their life, if it's a memorable story. So storytelling works before we even start, though, we need to have a purpose. What is the purpose of the communication that I'm trying to deliver? Then how am I going to deliver the story? And we spoke about some of the techniques that you can use along the way, the power of the pause. People are terrible multitaskers. Don't ask their brain to multitask. Use pauses. Allow them to reflect on what you're saying. Use a less is more approach. Try and condense your 16 point story into a one sentence narrative. How can I use less is more to really bring it down. Congruence. Make it come natural. I really like your message here. Andrea around natural congruence of your body language, of your voice, etc, etc. Don't overthink it, but be aware of it without being conscious or self conscious about it. That's going to be the the key here. Check in at the end to make sure that the message that you wanted to get across was the message that landed for them. And it could be that it's just to spark curiosity so that there's more conversations that come from the end of it. To embrace storytelling, use Andrea's five point framework. It's really powerful. Describe the environment, describe the characters, describe the issue, the conflict or the opportunity. Build tension and anticipation, because human brains don't like the open loop. They want you to conclude the story if you leave an open loop, and then you can deliver your message and check in whether it landed well Andre and anyone can do it like so as long as you got a purpose for your message, then think about a story that's happened in your life, or a story that you've observed elsewhere that will be congruent with the message that you're trying to get across. And then use this framework, and you can do it. If you think you can't do it, trust me, you can do it. And the best thing you can do is start so you might want to get this framework that Andrea is talking about and start scribbling and go, Okay, well, what was the environment? What were the characters? Get into the practice of doing it, you'll find that it's like a muscle you can you can build it, and it can become a natural part of your communication. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a wonderful conversation. What I'd like to do now is go to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions that we ask all of our guests. So first of all, Andrea Simpson, what is the one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Andrea Sampson: 54:27

You don't have to be the expert. You just have to be yourself.

Mick Spiers: 54:31

Nice. Yeah, I think we all need to remember that sometimes. Yeah, really good. Okay, what? What is your favorite book?

Andrea Sampson: 54:39

You know that? So I'm a reader, so I read all the time. But when I when I think about what's my favorite book, the book that I go back to, and it's an old one, is the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. It is something that has really governed my life. I go back to it all the time. You know, those teachings as old as they are, they're still relevant today.

Mick Spiers: 55:04

I read it again over the Christmas break. It's one of the ones that I it's not one that you read once you like, go back to it. Go back to it. Really good. What's your favorite quote?

Andrea Sampson: 55:14

You know, I hate to say it's a quote that I have, which is, stories are carriers for ideas. And I often say like, it's like stories are a Trojan horse for an idea. So when you put your idea inside of a story, it gets, you know, your idea gets taken along for the ride and it gets shared. So stories are carriers for ideas.

Mick Spiers: 55:34

That sums up our whole conversation world in one sentence. You just practice what you preach. Very good and fine. Only Andre if people want to know more, if they really want to get into this and go, Yeah, I'd love to be a thought leader, a someone that uses storytelling in my in my daily life, to be a better communicator. How do people find you?

Andrea Sampson: 55:54

Yeah, follow me on. I'm very active on LinkedIn. I have a YouTube channel under top teak, which is my company that I post on every week, I have videos that give a lot of the same information, so you can access it and go a bit deeper there and follow us on, you know, join our mailing list on talkboutique.com we send out a weekly newsletter with lots of tips and tricks. So, you know, any one of those places you can find me.

Mick Spiers: 56:21

Oh, thank you so much. Andrea, thank you so much for sharing your gift with us today. It is a gift this, this gift that you have, your gift of your time, the gift of your wisdom, and most importantly, the gift of this framework, which I think all of us can use. Thank you so much.

Andrea Sampson: 56:35

Oh, thank you Mick, for giving me this opportunity that is a gift in and of itself. So thank you, and thank you to the listeners who have made it this far, and I look forward to hopefully meeting them and speaking with you again at some point in the future.

Mick Spiers: 56:50

Wow. What an insightful conversation with Andrea Sampson, we've unpacked the key elements of storytelling, why it's a critical leadership skills and how you can craft compelling narratives that inspire action. Remember, stories aren't just for entertainment. They shape how people perceive you, your message and your leadership. So as you step away from today's episode, I challenge you, how can you integrate storytelling into your leadership, whether it's in your presentations, one on one conversations, or inspiring your team, your words have the power to move people. In the next episode, I'll be sharing my own reflections from Andrea and sharing with you how I'm already using her framework to improve the way that I use storytelling in everyday life. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP, Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.