3 Storytelling Tips To Stop Boring People!

Redefine Humor: Lightness, Melody, and Playfulness Jumping into the Q&A, Vin, how do we become more humorous when it comes to humor? You have to understand there is a really big difference between being humorous and being ha ha funny, being a stand up comedian. And I think sometimes people confuse the two. Often they're thinking, how do I become a stand up comedian? How should I tell jokes? How do I become extremely funny? No, no, I think you've got to redefine humor. And to me, humor is just this beautiful quality that you can bring. Like right now I believe I'm being humorous, right? And how am I being humorous? I'm being humorous because there's this lightness to me. There's this part of me that is not too serious. I've got a smile on my face. I'm using lots of melody in my voice. And, and all of a sudden because of that, I come across more humorous. And I think that's as simple as it has to be. Just record a video of yourself talking and just going, Am I? Am I detecting lightness? Am I detecting lots of melody? Am I detecting this kind of playfulness? And if you, if you're detecting that, that's humor. That's all that it is, right? If you've got that smile on your face, you've got lots of melody. You're you're, you're giving good levels of volume. That alone is humorous. We don't have to overcomplicate that. Tell Compelling Stories in Job Interviews Vin, do you have any advice on how to answer the interview question? Tell me more about yourself with a story. This is a good one because I think a lot of the times interviewers ask this as well because they're just so bored. They're so bored of the answers people give in interviews because people always do the same thing in interviews. Tell me a little bit about yourself, Vin. Oh, well, well, well, look, thank you, John. John, I, I, I am a considerate. I am very thoughtful. I'm trustworthy John and John, I'm also very adventurous. John, I, I, I take a lot of risks and, and John, I'm very committed. I'm very punctual and, and then again, people just use all these words and, and interviewers, I believe when they ask this, they're just bored. They just want to hear something exciting. And also they ask this because they want to get to know you a little more too. But if you don't know how to story tell, then even when they ask for a story, that's what you do. You just kind of give them adjectives about who you are. You give them descriptive phrases. No tell a story. What you can do is like if for me, I've got a back pocket full of stories to be able to throw at any time. So if one of the jobs I'm applying for requires me to take lots of risks and do things that, you know, sometimes can be scary and requires courage, then I can share a story like this with John. So John goes, tell me a little bit about yourself, Vin. Thanks, John. John, like I can tell you this about about five years ago, I told my parents that I wanted to become a magician and I was on the path to become an accountant. I know not fulfilling the Asian prophecy at this point. John's probably laughing and then building connection, endorphins, dopamine, all being released. Wonderful. And I said, John, I quit with six months left to go on my degree. And I share this brief moment of my life with you because I'm not afraid to take risks and I'm not afraid to go against the grain. Because I can tell you now everybody in my circle at that point, everybody in my extended family at that point, they were going with the grain. I'm not afraid to go the opposite way when everybody is going that way. And John, that's one of the main reasons why I think I'm perfect for this role. I'm perfect for this role because I don't follow the crowd and I know that's a trait you're looking for. So I didn't even tell that full story. I just gave a little snapshot of that story because again, in interviews, I know I want to be snappy and quick, but all of a sudden now instead of just saying I'm a risk taker, what does that even bloody mean? The person's probably thinking, provide some evidence please. That's why they're asking for the story is because they're asking for some evidence to back it up. And another example, I mean, I, I, I see in the comments, people really like pragmatic examples. So I'll give you another example. Let's say I'm going for a job where I have to be very innovative, innovative, innovative. I have to be really good at innovation. See what I did there just changed the way you say it. How would I share a story for that? And I'm just thinking in my head, if I had to be really good at innovation for a certain role. You see, what I'm doing now is I'm just thinking back in my head for stories where I think I, OK, I got one. And the reason I have these stories is because I document them. If you can't think of stories like that, well, it's because you don't document them. I document my stories and I review my stories. So if I was talking to, if I was talking to Sarah and Sarah goes, you are applying for head of innovation. And you know, I'd love you to hear a story about yourself and, and, and, and an example of in your life where where you, you, you really displayed that innovative way of thinking. This is what I would say. Sarah, do you remember 2021? This was when everything changed. Actually, it was 2020. My apologies. In early 2020, COVID happened. And Sarah, when COVID happened, my business was purely running in person events. And I, I still remember my agent calling me saying, Avin, your entire business is now shut down. The government has shut down all live events. And I remember getting that call on March 19th and I freaked out. I freaked out. And I'll be quite frank with you. I think the whole world was freaking out. But instead of freaking out for five years and instead of freaking out for 12 months, I freaked out for a total of about a week. And I gave myself permission to just express myself and, and, and, and just go a little bit crazy. But then after about a week, I, I remember thinking, all right, then what can you control and what can't you control? Let's just focus on the things you can control. And Sarah, I went out to a video store and I bought $50,000 worth of video gear because I knew they had a refund policy of 30 days. So I knew that whatever I don't use, I can return it in 30 days. But I for 30 days basically became Iron Man inside my garage. And that's when I was building my virtual studio. Sarah. I built my virtual studio so that I could teach people remotely. And I did this in the second week of COVID. And Sarah, I remember I, I, I got a message from the CEO of one of the world's largest speaking bureaus and he said something to me and I felt so proud of this. And I hope you don't mind me sharing where he said vim. You have become a leader in this speaking space. You are doing all the hard work and you're sharing all of these innovations with the rest of the industry. I'm so proud of you. And at that moment, Sarah, I, I couldn't believe it, but I, I was the person leading the charge in the speaking and training space. I was innovating a space that has not been innovative for over 100 years. And, and so now I teach people from all over the world online, still from my garage, you know, so I, I share this, this story with you simply because that's why I believe I am the perfect fit for this head of innovation role. I will be able to Iron Man out of Iron Man things out of the simplest tools. And I'll be able to find a way out that no one's seen before. OK, there you go. We can Polish it, we can make it better. But that gives you a sense of how I would use that story, right. And I only have these stories again, because I've documented them. And if you document them, you have them too. And that makes for a far more interesting interview than if you just recited descriptive phrases. Stop Distracting Habits: Eliminate Visual Clutter Haven I notice I keep scratching the back of my neck and I keep scratching my face when I'm telling a story. Is this a bad habit? First part of your question, if you keep doing it right, if you keep doing it, like if I kept doing this, you know, if I just kept doing this every single say 20 seconds and you know, if I if I just kind of kept doing, you know, things like this, then the golden rule, would that distract people from the message? Yes, it would. So then you have to recalibrate and go, OK, all right, I need to reduce this. If you do this once every 30 minutes because your face is actually itchy and your neck is itchy, scratch your face, scratch your neck, it's all good. It's totally fine, right? Otherwise you'd look even more weird. You know when you get an itch and then you don't scratch it and you're kind of like, they always seem like you've got a weird twitch, so just scratch it. It's totally fine. But if you're always doing it, then it's just like non words and filler words. Non words and filler words are. And so like, do you know what I mean? Those things, they are auditory. They're auditory clutter. It's auditory clutter that distracts people from the message and decreases your clarity. When you scratch your neck and you do all of these different things, for me, it's the classic adjusting of the glasses. All of these things are visual clutter. Visual clutter that decreases your credibility, that decreases clarity. Same thing. So there is such thing as visual clutter as well. Well done on paying attention to that. Three Tips to Shorten Your Stories Effectively Apply the golden rule. I want to understand how to curate short stories in order to shorten stories. If you feel your stories are too long, here are three ways to help you shorten your story #1 Focus on telling the part of the story where the most amount of action was occurring. Like the story of How I Met my, my wife earlier that day before I met my wife, right? I went to the Schutzenfest, which is a German festival in SA and I, I for the first time had a German sausage and it was bloody delicious. It was filled with cheese and it was so young. I didn't talk about any of that. I didn't talk about any of that because to me, where the majority of the action occurred for the story was when I saw my, my, my wife at the bar. So by focusing on the action part, it allows you to shorten the story. Second tip for shortening stories is focus on the peak emotion. Where in the story was the emotion heightened? Where was the most of the amount of emotion present? Where was that? And wherever that was, focus just on that bit. And again, it helps you tighten that up again. And then the third way to shorten stories is focus on which part of the story. Where was the lesson learned? Was there a piece of wisdom in the story? And wherever that piece of wisdom was in the story, only tell the part of the story around where you realize the lesson. And again, I can do this cool sound effect. It allows you to pull that story nice and tight again. So peak action, peak emotion. And where was the main lesson learned? Those are three ways to better shorten the story. You told the story only around those three arenas. My God, I'm good at that sound effect. Embrace Discomfort for Future Growth and Exploration This instrument is capable of so many incredible things. Start to explore it more and don't be afraid to do things you're not you're not familiar with. There's a future version of you that will only exist if the present version of you is willing to venture out of its comfort zone.