Auld Lang Sigh

The conclusion of each year brings about reflection over the events of the introduction and body, as well as speculation over the approaching year. Many of us resolve to lose weight, make more money, or re-invent our personal or professional lives in some other way. Nevertheless, too often, many of us bid the year farewell in the same exact position as we greeted it.

I have been in this situation, compounded by the fact that I am a member of a club of Toastmasters International, which is made up of a diverse worldly group of members, who always prepare and deliver fascinating, thought-provoking speeches, such as an analysis of the validity of stories as a means of communicating information.

In one year, one member bought a one-way ticket to New Zealand and left with an open mind. Four months later, she returned with a speech of travels to New Zealand, Australia, and Thailand, engaging in activities like hiking, surfing, scuba diving, and skydiving. In the same year, a new member joined and gave a speech detailing her transition from successful realtor to debilitating car accident to world-traveling yoga instructor.

Because of speeches like this, I left every meeting wiser and inspired, but as my life has been comparatively monotonous and uneventful lately, would I also be able to hold the audience’s attention for five to seven minutes and give them something to think about after my speech?

It turned out that it would be entirely possible.

A fellow member of our Toastmasters club invited me to the Moth StorySLAM, a live event during which various people got on stage to tell stories about events in their lives. The stories ranged from a visit to Amsterdam to partake in legal, hedonistic pleasures to stealing a college textbook from the college campus bookstore. Two speakers even recalled their experiences with racial violence and rape.

But whatever the story, the speakers held our attention, intensely.

I thought more about the art of storytelling and how it could help me here.

Sales leadership consultant, Lisa Earle McLeod, states that the factors which separate an interesting story from a boring one are: emotions, embellishment, and authenticity. Boring stories consist of a linear sequence of facts, each given equal emphasis. Interesting storytellers take those facts and exaggerate and embellish them and often pepper them with unverifiable statements, as McLeod does in a tale of her great-grandmother marching with women’s suffragist Susan B. Anthony.

I am not quite as adept as McLeod at stretching or even replacing the truth, but just as a routine trip to the grocery store could be made more interesting by taking a new, indirect route. So can a mundane story.

A good story can be like traversing hilly terrain: steeper inclines naturally produce a slower upward pace due to the extra effort required to fight the pull of gravity. One can feel each step in the leg muscles. This is the most difficult, but most memorable part of the journey. In contrast, the level and downward portions of the journey tend to go by relatively quickly.

In telling a story, speaking slowly for emphasis conveys a sense of struggle and intensity, the individual words alerting the audience like “feeling the burn” in the leg muscles. This build up, enhanced by variation in voice pitch, makes the audience look forward to the level ground and downward, gravity-propelled conclusion.

Public parks with hilly terrain can be found just about anywhere. It turns out a one-way ticket halfway across the world, a passport, or a yoga teaching certification are not necessary to captivate an audience.

And captivating an audience, which I have managed to do through my speeches at Toastmasters International, is only the beginning. New opportunities have only begun to open up to me, in and outside of our club.