Storytelling: The Power of Connecting Emotionally
June 16th, 2011You have heard you should tell stories in an interview, right?
I say you should tell stories in your LinkedIn Summary.
Why? Because when I tell you a story you can connect with the story, or me, in a different way. It’s usually an emotional connection, as opposed to just listening to facts and figures.
A few nights ago my son and I were talking about a wasp nest we were going to take care of. I asked him if he remembered when he got stung by wasps about six years ago, when he was about four years old.
It’s a pretty funny story, from my perspective, and I wanted to see what he remembered.
He told me the entire story, including what day it was, what time it was, and exactly what happened and what he was thinking. He gave me more details than I would have guessed.
Why did he remember all this, even to this day, after not telling the story to anyone?
Because he connected emotionally to the experience.
And he’ll never forget it.
Can you craft your stories so people can put themselves into the experience? So they can relate to the type of boss you had, or the problem you were facing?
If you can create those stories, and tell them CONCISELY, you’ll communicate on a different level, and people won’t forgot you, or your story.
Maybe they will forget parts of your story… but they won’t forget how they FELT when they heard your story.
It’s that powerful.
Telling stories by putting them on LinkedIn is the opportunity to highlight not only our results but our soft skills. Plus, recommendations demonstrate how some have seen how we’ve worked with them.
Telling others about your head and heart is good.
Shane, your comment about telling others about head and heart is right on and putting stories on LinkedIn is a great idea.
We’ve been using story for a long time (even before Excel or Lotus 123) to convey what’s important and it still works. Looking back at some of my most meaningful career successes, I discovered they were all a result of (unwittingly) using storytelling. If its a good story, told well, it’s a powerful tool that helps people connect to each other and their organizations–it answers the WHY? Now I’m a storytelling evangelist of sorts. . . wandering from company to company (sort of) to help them reconnect with the passion that drove their founder to success.
70% presentation 30% content. Your message is about your audience, not about you. Similar to branding, figure out what the need is and cater your message around that. Connecting emotionally is tapping into the need of your audience. Do that and they will be engaged.