Do you get upset when people can’t see your story’s value? Especially when they say they’re interested in what you want to share with the world, but their actions don’t live up to this? They don’t read your blog (never mind share it), don’t come to your talks, don’t put their money where their mouths are.

I know, it is frustrating when that happens. It can even leave you feeling rejected, as if your story isn’t worth telling. I feel your pain. But I’m going to tell you where you’ve been going wrong so that you can start to fix it.

All Our Stories Have Value

It’s true – ALL our stories have value, intrinsically. Whether your story is about climbing an impossible mountain (literally or metaphorically), about your years in front of adolescent pupils, or about a boy wizard. Your stories come from within you. As such, they are valuable.

So why don’t others recognise the value of them? Why do you feel like nobody cares? This is the truth of the matter… all of us –including you – only care about the stories of other people when the parts of our brains which control empathy, imagination and emotion have been stimulated. In other words, we only give a flying fiddle about someone else’s story when we can imagine ourselves in that situation and facing the same challenges.

You might be thinking right now: “That isn’t the way I think. I always care about other people’s stories. I’m really interested in other people.”

I’m not denying that you have a normal degree of empathy in your psychology. That empathy has to be triggered, though. Unless you are an extreme empath, you do not engage with others’ experiences entirely by your own devices. That would be a very uncomfortable nature to have. How would you ever get any peace from other people’s pain?

What Those Storytellers Have Done…

Those storytellers who have triggered your empathy have done so in such a skilful way that you probably don’t even realised they did anything. That’s why you think it’s all down to your own empathy. What they have done is tell their story in such a way that they have made your brain experience it as if it is actually happening to YOU, not to them or their character. They’ve got into your head and made you feel as if you are there, with the problems and threats in the story facing YOU.

Your brain does not know the difference between the sights, sounds and smells in real life, and the sights, sounds and smells you are only hearing in a story. That sounds insane, I know, but it’s true. If a neuroscientist looked at scans of your brain in the two scenarios, there would be no marked difference in the bits that lit up.

How Do I Fix My Stories Then?

Our imaginations are linked to our senses. Learn to tell your stories by stimulating your audience’s senses. Once they can imagine it, they can begin to develop empathy. Once they have developed empathy, they will begin to care about what happens in the story. They will be captivated because, you see, they no longer feel that it is someone else’s story. It is now their story as well as your own.

Would you love to learn how to tell stories that captivate? Join The Storytellers’ Academy.

Curious? Want to discover more? Join the FREE group I’ve Got a Story to Tell.

Want to tell your story and make real connections? Learn the secret…

What’s the big secret? … The story is not about you!

How can your story possibly not be about you? You’re the one who lived through the events, right? Sure you did. However, once you turn what happened into a story, it becomes about your audience – not you.

This is often the hardest thing for a teller of personal stories or memoirs to wrap their head around. It is also the most crucial thing. Let’s unpack it…

When you tell a story, you’re giving away a gift. Think about the times you have chosen a physical gift for someone else: you considered what sort of gift would be right for that person, yes? You took into account their interests and tastes rather than your own.

But have you ever made the mistake of buying a gift for someone based on what you would like to receive? Remember that blank expression that crossed their face when they unwrapped it, before they managed to hide it behind a smile? Right then, you knew that the gift you thought was so lovely was going to vanish into a drawer, never again to see the light of day.

That doesn’t mean the object itself was awful. It just wasn’t a good gift.

Telling your story is the same. You have to take into account your audience’s interests. 

Does that mean my story has no value?

No. No it doesn’t mean that.

Every story has value. That is true whether your story is about raising your children, rowing across the Atlantic, teaching pupils to read, or the journey to becoming a millionaire.

So how do I tell my story so that other people will be interested?

A story that holds other people’s interest is one which allows them to imagine that the story is about them. They need to ‘live’ the story for themselves along with you – either looking over your shoulder or actually being you, especially when the tension of the story reaches its height.

They need to see, hear, feel and smell the experiences. Your job as the storyteller is to park your ego and allow them to do that. Allow them to make the story their own.

In other words, you have to learn to let the story go. Give it away. That might feel scary. It might feel unfair. After all, you’re the one who lived it.

Is nobody reading your stories? You’re probably doing THIS wrong…

You write a story, put it out there… and nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nobody (apart from your mum) seems to care. It’s a powerful story, one which had an impact on you when you lived or imagined it. Why doesn’t anyone comment on it or share it? The wind has been taken completely out of your sails. What went wrong?

Is it because what you have to say is worthless? Definitely not.

Rather, it is because people haven’t seen the value in what you have to say… which is a different matter.

And that is because (brace yourself for the honest feedback) you haven’t provided them with the story in a way that is of value to them. This is totally a problem you can do something about.

Creating an emotional connection with your readers

Go back to the time when you were living a story that you have tried to tell. It doesn’t matter if it’s a true story and you lived it for real, or if it’s a story that only happened in your head. How did you experience it? Or at least, how do you remember experiencing it? You might remember the colours, shapes, light, movements and other visual aspects of the experience. For example, do you remember the way that cloud sped across the sky and turned the ground grey?

Perhaps you recall the sounds more than the sights. The way the school children were shouting in their yard a quarter of a mile away; the way the back door slammed and cut off the noise from outside. Maybe you remember the characteristic rhythm of a clock.

It could be that you remember the feelings in your muscles, joints and ‘guts’ more than the sights or sounds. The way a person shrank in utter defeat or misery; the way you tapped and fiddled with a pen in your nervousness. The way people behaved physically – and changed their behaviour as the story moved on – is a third way you might have experienced the story.

These three ways of experiencing a story (sights, sounds and kinaesthetic sensations) are likely to be the main ways in which YOU experienced that story. The balance between the three ways varies from person to person, but you can be pretty sure that those three types of stimulus were present in your experience of the story.

Now let’s move on to how this can help you tell your story in a way that will help you form an emotional connection with your ideal audience…

Planning on writing a business book?

You want to write a business book so that people will see you as the expert in your field? You want potential clients to be desperate to work with you? You want the book to sell or circulate in its thousands? …
What you need to do is keep those goals in mind every step of the way, isn’t it?
NO.
Frankly, a focus on those goals will lead to you writing a book which portrays you as a total ego-maniac. Nobody will want to read it, never mind act on it by seeking you out. I seriously doubt that even your nearest and dearest will be able to look you in the eye and tell you they’re impressed.
Think about it. How much time would you spend reading a book which is nothing more than an extremely wordy advert for its writer’s products or services?
Those goals are the benefits you want to achieve for yourself.
There is nothing wrong with wanting those benefits. You’re not a terrible person for having those ambitions.

‘But this is my story… Isn’t that valuable?’
We all have a story of some sort and yes, everyone’s story is valuable. Why do we find stories so interesting? Why are they so ingrained in our human natures? One word: emotion. When we read a story or watch a film, what we want is to feel what it is like to be that person and live that life. I am not sneering at stories in general nor at your personal story. Stories are wonderful expressions of ourselves.
But here’s the thing… when a person reads a novel, that emotional connection with the characters is primarily what he or she is seeking. His expectations do not go beyond that. He probably isn’t expecting to learn a lesson in his own life. When that same person reads a non-fiction book, especially a business or self-development book, a lesson he can take into his own life is exactly what he expects and wants. If he doesn’t get it, you’ve lost him.
Do share your story. Stories encourage readers to engage with your message. Stories are a key element of what makes us human. But… and I mean this kindly, as advice to save you wasted energies… make sure that when you sit down to plan, organise and write your book, you keep offering your readers value they can use in their own lives.

People crave help and advice
By putting aside your own goals for your book, then – sales of goods and services, book sales, enhanced professional reputation – and focusing instead on how you can use the book to help your readers, you will do a much better job of actually achieving your own goals. Try looking your own ambitions in the eye and they will run away and hide from you.