How These Yellow Trainers Make Storytelling Easy

Yellow Kill Bill-Style Trainers and me speaking in London with the Barclays team

Storytelling is much easier than you think.  

If you don’t think you are a natural storyteller but know it’s the key to being able to speak like a leader, read on.  In the next 10 minutes you’ll be able to tell a story just like the gentleman at the Barclays conference whose story about these yellow trainers brought the house down.

The other week I was speaking at The Barclays Women in Business Conference in London. It was a fantastic event and I got to talk about my book.  (See below for details on that!)

One of the many practical and fun tips from my book is all about storytelling in order to win over your audience and speak like a leader. 

However, for many of my corporate city clients in Financial Services, Accountancy or Law, the thought of having to be ‘creative’ and ‘showy-offy’ fills them with dread.

The good news is this.  You don’t have to be an amazing scriptwriter or ‘a creative’ to tell a story.

A story is merely a quick fix memory.  It could be a success story about a project you’ve worked on, or it could be the moment you decided to change your life!  A moment in time is the key.

At the Barclays conference I gave the 120 strong audiences a task …to tell a story.  You can try this mini-challenge right now too.

I gave them very little time, in fact, they got just 90 seconds to come up with a story and share it with the person they were sitting next to.

First, I asked the audience to shout out a topic, any topic that we could use to illustrate how easy it is to tell a story.  This ‘off the cuff’ approach freaked some people out. 

“You mean no prep, no research? How Can I tell a story without prep time?” (they thought)

The first topic someone shouted was “Sex”! (Arrhhh “too risky” I thought), so I decided to go for option 2 “shoes”.

Here’s the challenge, and you have 90 seconds to come up with your story. Here’s the brief. 

Use this as the first line … “I remember one time when…”

All you need to do is think of the subject of shoes, you could choose any story or moment in time, for example; shoes that rubbed and created a blister, the highest shoes you’ve ever worn, Your Christian Louboutin’s or Jimmy Choos, your mum’s clip-clops, your grandad’s boots…..ANY STORY…ok ready?

You have 90 seconds to think of a story starting

“I remember one time when…”

3…2…1…action…..!

How did you get on? Did you come up with a story?  

At the Barclays conference, the whole room was alive with shoe stories, people were laughing, sharing and chatting away. No one went completely blank, everyone had at least one memory on the subject of shoes.

One guy, (thank you, Julian, for being such a great sport) was brave enough to share his story in front of the audience.

It went something like this..

Julian’s story…

I remember one time when I needed a pair of trainers. I went into a sports shop to buy some and I picked out these cool yellow ones…

The guy in the shop was shocked and delighted

“Wow, these are the trainers Uma Thurman wore in the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill…have you seen it?”

“Um, no I haven’t” (Julian replied)

“What?  You haven’t seen Kill Bill and you want these cool, retro yellow trainers?  Sorry I can’t sell them to you…get out!” (he was joking)

The audience laughed.  And I had to ask Julian one question

“Did you buy the trainers?”  

“Yes, he was only joking!” (replied Julian)

I had to ask the next burning question…

“Have you seen Kill Bill and witnessed your yellow trainers in action Julian?”

“Um…..no I still haven’t seen Kill Bill” (he looked sheepish)

The only thing I could answer to Julian was… “Get Out”

(Everyone laughed)

This is an example of a story that came out of nowhere, no prep time, a random topic and 90 seconds to share a memory of a pair of yellow trainers.  He brought the house down.  Then he shared this pic of his yellow trainers on LinkedIn.  Don’t you love this taste in shoes?  LOL.

My easy-to-adopt storytelling tip is one of the many tricks, techniques and strategies in my book Goodbye Glossophobia. Check it out and buy it on my website.