Your narrative has the potential to inspire and motivate others. Share your stories with the world to empower them. 

Extend your stories with audio, video, infographics, and more. Integrate the platforms you are already familiar with to publish those stories.

My love affair with storytelling.

In the summer of 2004, I heard my name called as the next speaker. I walked up to face the semicircle of about 30 people. This was my first speech at Toastmasters, the first speech of my life. I was 43 years old.

Two days before my speech, I stumbled upon a statistic. People fear public speaking more than death itself. Yet, here I was, about to face my fears head-on.

Before the speech, I visit the loo. My hands and feet were cold, and the butterflies in my stomach were agitated.

I looked at Tom, my mentor, sitting in the middle of the audience. He had broken down the tricks of public speaking into a few tips: Narrow down your thoughts to three main things. Use pause liberally. Pick three friendly faces in the audience to focus on. The audience has not heard your story; they don’t know if you have missed anything.

The speech about my childhood went well, and the feedback was encouraging. I had written down my speech as ‘the story of my life in seven minutes.’ As a visual thinker, I broke the story into scenes for easy recollection.

My passion for storytelling began with that first speech. Every speech and blog I wrote after was conceived as a story. 

Leveraging stories for business.

Life got in the way, and I gave up Toastmasters. Two decades later, I found myself pursuing the art of storytelling. I wrote everything I could remember. I started writing a journal and mind-mapped similar stories, anecdotes, and incidents. 

I dug out stories — stories about my life, stories about people, stories of how I helped businesses find solutions to problems, the story of helping a non-profit rack up six million dollars in six months, and the story of how I helped a print magazine extend its reach and revenue by going digital. 

I wrote about these stories on my website, blog platforms, and social media. They helped me reflect on my experiences and inspire others to overcome similar challenges.

Giving a voice to my stories.

When I felt the need to give voice to my stories, I turned to my wife. Over time, it dawned on me that I had to tell my own stories and say them out loud.

I listened to storytellers such as Matthew Dicks, Karen Eber, and the Moth storytellers. I learnt about structure, stakes, surprise, and suspense. I got a decent mic, learnt the software, and recorded my voice. At home. And at the library. 

As writers, we are delighted to craft stories. We edit and polish them, rearrange words, paragraphs, and chapters to develop flow and suspense, and finally, publish the stories as books or on our website and platforms such as Substack.

To entice more readers, we craft and publish summaries on social media to encourage them to visit our sites. We then monitor the analytics to see which story gets the most hits.

After putting so much effort into it, have you considered giving your voice to the story?

Embrace your unique voice and let it breathe life into your stories. Your voice is a powerful tool that can captivate and engage your audience.

Record what you have written in your own voice. The pandemic gave rise to the podcast industry. People found the time to read and listen to stories. The habit has now set in, and hosting a podcast is trending.

Tip. Did you know that you already have the tools to record your stories? Experiment with different formats, such as text, audio, and video, to find the ones that best suit your storytelling style.

Recording your voice has many benefits. And playing it back helps you rearrange the writing and smooth out jarring words.

Tip. Did you also know that libraries nearby facilitate these recording sessions?

Connect with me to discuss more things you need to record your story — text, audio, video, infographics, animations, interactive elements, hardware, software, and digital platforms. Some of the resources are already freely available. 

Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash