A mute learns to speak

Janet was in her 60s, but her recall of doing lines of coke in New York City 40 years ago between waitress shifts perked everyone’s ears. “The 80s were wild!” she said, with so much contagious enthusiasm I almost forgot I was on a Zoom call in my apartment.

She spoke naturally, almost matter-of-fact, with confidence and good eye contact, occasionally looking away to release the tension of her story before building up another anecdote or a shocking plot twist. There were about 25 of us as part of this Zoom call, and the other rectangles filled with people on the screen looked like they were in awe, with laughter, crying, and everything emotion in between. 

More specifically, we attended an online storytelling workshop hosted by Matthew Dicks, the GOAT of modern storytelling competitions. This man has won 58 Moth StorySLAM competitions and is a 9-time GrandSLAM champion, a record that will probably be impossible to beat, just like Michael Jordan’s 6 NBA Championships. You wouldn’t be able to tell, though, from his humble demeanor.

Matthew patiently waited until Janet finished the story. Everyone on Zoom applauds with excitement, and he gives her some feedback to tighten a few things up, similar to how an award-winning director gives a famous actress a few comments to tune her performance up to what is already a nearly perfect show. 

Part of me wondered what I was doing here. A 29-year-old indeed has plenty of other better things to do, like go on online Tinder dates or play poker with his buddies. 

The real reason is that many of the people and friends I admire, despite their varied backgrounds and incomes, are captivating storytellers and can transport listeners with their words. I am not one of these people, but I am trying to work on it.

“Andriy - I hope I am pronouncing your name correctly! You’re next,” Matthew said.

Shit, how am I supposed to top that? A 60-year-old grandma talking about her wild stories in 80’s New York. And me… I took a deep breath, dragged my Apple Notes to the top of the laptop screen, and started telling my story while reading it off the Notes app and pretending I was looking at the camera.

“I wake up, and I realize that I am at the wheel of my gray Honda Civic, going 50 miles an hour and grazing the car next to me that has a mother and her child”, I read. “Both me and mother pull over the car, and I realize what a disaster I just avoided by a stroke of luck.” The story had a lot of potential; after all, I could have killed all 3 of us and instead learned a valuable lesson and lived another day, but my delivery was flat and shaky. In addition, I have several “umms,” as my monotone voice is lulling people to sleep. I wrapped up the story in a few minutes, and Matthew again graciously gave me some comments.

My story wasn’t great, but this was massive progress over previous years where I didn’t know what a story arc was. I grew up in my teenage years being quite shy and reluctant to speak; coupled with learning English at the time, the default was to not say much, like a mute. This trend improved quite a bit in my college years and 20s, but still, none of the emotional intelligence or public speaking came naturally to me, so step by step, I had to work on it over the years. 

Fast forward two years, and I am at a storytelling event in Mexico City, and I am giving a story about my time in Berlin in my twenties. The night’s theme was “Cultural Shock,” and I took the audience through my misadventures and the secret rules of the Berlin underground nightlife. I didn’t expect much, but the audience of 40 people was laughing along, gripped by each anecdote, failure, and success of the protagonist. That was me. I finished the story and got a lot of compliments about it, people saying it was one of their favorite stories. And I thought of Janet, the 60-year-old lady who did so well two years ago. In some ways, my efforts were paying homage to the inspiration she gave me.

So how did I get here? From an almost mute teenager to somebody who can transport an audience into my world without a carefully prepared script? There are a few things that worked exceptionally well, and today, I want to share them with you and potentially save you years of work.

The Arc of Storytelling

First, almost every great story has an inciting incident that a protagonist is thrust into, and then there is a build-up of climax and a resolution. A resolution doesn’t necessarily have to be a prince saving a princess from a dragon. It could be a new insight or a change in perspective. 

In addition to the arc, in today’s world of short attention spans, you need a Hook in the beginning. People have a million options for what to read, watch, and listen to, whether a YouTube video, a book, or an article, so an emotional hook provides a good reason for someone to pay attention. There are lots more implementation details for which I recommend Matthew Dicks’ fantastic book, “Storyworthy.”

 To demonstrate this theory briefly with the Berlin story, here are the main parts I spoke about:

My hook: I am standing in a line in front of a Berlin nightclub as a grim bouncer looks at me with disgust. “This is not a good start,” I think.

• The hook evokes a lot of emotion as maybe not everyone has been in this specific situation, but everyone has had an experience of trying to fit into some circle and being rejected.

Rising Climax: I tell several brief anecdotes of how I try to get into different clubs in Berlin, get rejected from some or see how others get brutally denied, and learn the most random rules like don’t wear any t-shirts with logos or don’t go with more than groups of 3, etc.

Climax & Resolution: This comes on my last night in Berlin as I try to get into the most exclusive underground club out of them called Berghain and have to get through an intimidating bouncer with piercing dark brown eyes, shaved head, and full of tattoos. I took all the lessons I learned with me, but in the end, I didn’t get in. Nonetheless, I gained many insights along the way and had a rollercoaster ride.

How To Speak Naturally

A key to impactful storytelling is content and confident, adaptive delivery. I have found the UltraSpeaking L1 course the best remedy for those of us who feel awkward and in our heads to speak on the fly. From intimate gatherings to larger conferences, it equipped me to speak fluidly, regardless of time constraints or preparations. Their course includes exercises like: given a random word give a speech with just a few seconds of preparation. These types of activities would have mortified me before, but they helped us quickly break through our mental barriers. Their blog also offers invaluable speaking tips.

Practice 

Lastly, make sure to practice regularly. I personally found local in-person storytelling events once a month, like the one in Mexico City. This art form is becoming a lot more popular now in bigger cities. If you’re in a more remote area, there are still online storytelling groups on Facebook and meetups.com that meet weekly on Zoom.

Also, I generally recommend not sticking 100% to a written story or presentation script. In the case of my Berlin story, I practiced telling it in front of my mirror for about an hour without notes until it felt ingrained in my memory and sudden interruptions or other factors would not sway me. The result is that I was more confident to add or remove details while speaking on the fly if I saw that the audience reacted in a particular way.

There are a lot more small details, but these are the three most important parts that I have found in my journey. We are all always learning with slightly different approaches, so if other techniques or methods have worked for you, leave a comment! :-)

— References

• Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

• Ultraspeaking website

—

PS. Thanks to

Chris Wong

Rick Lewis

Tim Adams

Chris Coffman

and others from Write of Passage for helping me edit this article!

Cheers! Andriy