Hello Fellow Storyteller on the Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will Podcast

The art of telling stories is something that unites us, but it is also something that can tell us so much about the person after they tell their story, especially if the story is awkward or funny, or if it’s about another person.

In this episode Sarah Elkins and Karen Eber discuss the art of storytelling and how there are opportunities to collect and tell stories everyday.

Transcript

0:14

Elkins your host and Chief story maker at Elkins Consulting now you listeners you know

0:20

why I say Chief story maker and it's because you can't be a great Storyteller

0:26

if you're not making stories in the first place and one of the things that just recently happened in my world is

0:32

that I listened to a tedex that or was it Ted or tedex I can't remember I watch

0:38

a lot of these that I just loved and it was about storytelling and of course

0:44

listeners you know that that's the thing for me so I reached out to Karen Eber to

0:50

be on the podcast and she said yes this was a few months ago and I'm so excited

0:56

to be finally interviewing her on your stories don't toine you how you tell them will quick reminder to listeners if

1:04

you are in the middle of job interviews and you want to be more prepared I have a course available just for that purpose

1:11

and for $99 you can participate in job interview storytelling check out Elkin

1:18

consulting.com to learn more Karen thank you so much for joining me today hello

1:24

to a fellow story maker yes absolutely and anyone who gets

1:30

up on a Ted stage or even applies to do a Ted they already have a story even if

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they don't ever end up on the Ted stage the fact that they even tried because that's scary and it's hard even for very

1:45

well-known public speakers getting on the Ted stage is a challenge so I honor

1:50

that in you thank you there is something that feels extra amped when you step

1:55

into that red circle that's so different than any other session like it's very artificial in many ways yet your job is

2:03

to make it as authentic and real as possible so I'm delighted that you enjoyed it thank you well um our

2:11

listeners know that I love to start a conversation by asking my guests to share something about themselves that

2:16

most people don't know about them and I do that to make sure that we have some context for who you are and so many

2:24

times we get stuck in one version of a person just from experiencing them in one way

2:30

and by sharing a story that most people don't know we give our listeners an opportunity to know more complex side to

2:38

my guest so do you have a story you can share with us I do I have two different

2:44

color eyes I have a brown eye and a green eye I was born with blue eyes like so many babies and about four months

2:50

they started to change different colors and in the right light it's really noticeable it's my favorite thing about

2:57

myself like I have a built-in answer to that Dre question tell us something interesting about yourself but as much

3:04

as I love them I realize that so many people just don't know what to make of

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them I I'll literally be mids sentence when someone will kind of their words

3:16

will slow down and they almost stop talking and I see their eyes moving back and forth between my right and my left

3:22

almost like their brain is trying to decide like do we look the left one or the right one the brown one or the green

3:27

one and as soon as this happens I know it's coming and I brace myself because it is almost

3:33

always did you know you have two different colored eyes which oh my gosh

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a hilarious question thanks for letting me know right sometimes I play along and I'm like no really but my response

3:46

doesn't matter because we're about to go on a script because the very next sentence is almost always I know a dog

3:53

that has that like oh no thank you like what do you say to that next sentence is

3:59

is David Bowie David Bowie had two different color eyes which I am sorry to break the news to people he did not he

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had an accident that had one pupil dilated and that made his eyes look different but they were the same

4:12

colors and then it gets into what color is your parents have and uh my personal

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favorite do you see the same colors out of each eye um and sometimes even like do your

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eyes give you special powers and this thing that I love now is

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this burden because now it's these really awkward moments where people are calling their friends over and all of a

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sudden there's 10 pairs of eyes like look at me look here you know my moment of Paparazzi fandom where people are are

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trying to get a look at my eyes and I'm no longer a person I'm now a thing and a sideshow and like hey you got to see her

4:50

eyes and I decided I didn't like it so I told a story I said the next time it

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happened I said I was born with brown eyes and you know how we all had that

5:04

box for our crayons that you throw in the broken ones the peeled ones the perfect ones for me I had this cigar box

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and I was in my room coloring about the age of four or five years old dinner was going to be for a few more hours and I

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was getting hungry so I dug into the box and pulled out a green crayon and it

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didn't really smell like anything but when I took a nibble had a really interesting texture so I ate the crayon

5:31

and I liked it so I reached in the box and grabbed another and I ate all the green crayons in the box and the next

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day I woke up and my eye was green and then I would be quiet and people would

5:43

just not know what to make of this story like their brain is telling them logically she did not get different

5:50

colored eyes from eating crayons but she kind of said it so convincingly I'm not

5:55

really sure and I would let them off the hook that my eyes are not two different colors because of the crayons but it

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created this shift in this interaction where I was able to reclaim this thing important to me and be treated like a

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human and they would laugh and realize they actually asked me do you see the same colors out of each eye and so that

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was my entree into storytelling that recognizing you know it's not just a way to convey meaning or persuade it's a way

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to create connection and even change energy and what can be like the most artificial of circumstances

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is I I love that for so many reasons and and the first part is that idea of when

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you said they just realized that they asked me a really stupid question and so many times when we have

6:44

an awkward moment or those really interesting things about us it's like

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adults revert to their childhood which in some ways is so beautiful that sense

6:55

of curiosity I'm going to ask a question without even thinking about what that question is

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I mean some there's something kind of beautiful about that that they suddenly revert to a kid that has to ask this

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question they're not thinking trying to make of it right right it's totally even if it's a stupid question yeah it's

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so I love that and it reminds me my dear friend Andy Vargo has this whole series

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on owning your awkward and when he asked me what my awkward was I said well I'm

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petite I'm I'm very small person I'm about 5 foot two and I'm little and

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often times I'll meet people online like this or I'll meet them when I'm sitting down and I stand up or they meet me in

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person they go you're so little like they're shocked right and

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it's that moment of okay aunt and I love that you have this story that just kind of contradicts

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that tendency to put you in a box as something other than who you are based

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on one interaction one observation well yes and it made me

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memorable I have people that will still mention that they think of me when they see crayons and um I I get messages from

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people that there's now a green emoji on this platform and a green crayon Emoji

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um but yeah it's know I think as you're describing people will get to this point

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where they just can't quite make sense of something or they had a a presumption of what something was and when it

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doesn't line up it's almost like their brain hits the speed bump and it can't get over it it can't move forward and I

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find that stories are definitely a way to own your awward and navigate that but also show them like come to this store

8:53

maybe there's a different way of thinking about this over here oh I love that that was such a good

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start thank you Karen that is just that was kind of perfect of course I knew

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that would be so let's let's get into um how you

9:14

share I I'm trying to make sure that this makes sense this question how do you share with somebody what their story

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can be how do you uncover that and um what I'd love to hear is a story where

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you did that with some so again it's one of these tell me what you do without telling me what you do um because I know

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I I do that periodically well with my podcast guests I help them uncover their

9:41

story so can you tell us a story about when you did that for one of your clients I don't have one specific story

9:47

but I can tell you the process and what happens you know a lot of the work that I do is probably very similar to what

9:53

you're doing where you're helping someone who has a moment or an occasion

9:58

to tell a story or they want to tell their own story but they're just struggling and they're grappling at the

10:04

edges and so I just get them talking and as they're talking it's almost like

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there's a canvas in my head where I'm storyboarding out what the story is and I can see it I'm not coming with the

10:17

baggage and the emotions around the story that they have I can step back and

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instructure like what are the pieces that other people are going to respond to and how do we do that in a way that's

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going to capture the most attention from their brains and be understandable and make them feel that connection so the

10:36

way I do it is exactly like that I'm like I just get them talking tell them don't worry about what you're saying or

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how you're saying it don't try to tell a story just talk and then certain pieces

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will gleam brighter to me than others and I just start to see how to put it together once they've talked I say okay

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can I play with this here's what I hear what do you think they're like how'd you do that I'm like because I don't have your emotion I'm not coming with the

11:02

baggage I'm coming connected to it yeah and so it's very easy for me to see and do that quickly so recently I I actually

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was working with a seite team that was getting ready to have a national meeting and there each of the seite and I were

11:16

coming together to help them figure out what stories were they going to tell paired around their respective pieces

11:22

and we get on this call and I've never met each before you know one-on-one first time meeting them having to build

11:28

rapport Get Trust get them telling me what they're going to talk about more importantly what they want the audience

11:34

to experience through that and then I just have to start asking questions

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without knowing anything about them and we always get there somehow by the end

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of the call like there's something that we pick up and we go um it's easier I feel like when you know people because

11:51

then you can bring up the things that they would never think to bring up you know stories about different moments and

11:57

that is so helpful and in telling their story but either way um through

12:02

conversation we just uncover magical things MH I I love that because I I'm

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brought back to one of the first times I started seeing that skill of of pulling

12:14

out somebody else's story and I was on a hike with some friends it was like an eight mile hike and we were up in the

12:19

mountains and I started telling the story of the first time I um went camping in Montana after we moved here

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and the baby was 6 months old my husband and I were at this Campground and an adolescent Grizzly came into our

12:33

campsite on the other side of our campfire and I was telling this story and the intensity of it and I'm laughing

12:39

of course because there's humor involved because we are all okay nobody was injured so there's humor there and the

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the whole group of six of us women on this hike we were laughing so hard about this experience and I remember I looked

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back at the person behind me I said okay so tell us a story and she looked at me

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and she broke my heart Karen she said oh I don't have any

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stories and I said what of course you have stories she said I don't have any stories like that I said okay are you

13:11

Outdoors do you go camping ever do you like to go camping I knew she did she said well yeah I left camp and I said

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have you ever had an experience where you had an interaction with wildlife and she goes oh my gosh there was this one

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time and of course she tells this hilarious story about being scared in the tent hearing this

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noise it sounds like some big Critter she looks outside and it's a raccoon and the the story made us all

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laugh and I looked at her and I said don't you ever tell me you don't have a

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story I find that's very common though and I will even

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um I find what happens when you say something like tells a story or someone's trying to think of a story and

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they can't it's that your brain almost doesn't know which file to access like

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yeah we've got all of these experiences but the question is almost like tell me about your childhood like when I I do

14:11

Keynotes as a part of my job and I will often bring someone up and I'll ask them tell me about your childhood and they

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they literally have said are you serious which is exactly the reaction I want

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because the question is too vague and your brain just goes wait what like what part and I almost always get response is

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like well I grew up with this number of siblings and this family around and this type of home I was born here and very

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general because there's nothing specific and then I'll ask them what sound or

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smell reminds you of home and then immediately we're at a Holiday table we're describing some tradition and and

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now we're unlocking so many stories and I I try to reinforce for people that

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stories come from constraints when you can't think of the story to tell you've

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got to put these constraints in place with the prompts like you said that are asking about uh being outdoors and

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encountering Wildlife that unexpected wildlife and things like that because that tells your brain oh you know what F

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we've got these stories go into this so whenever people say I'm not a good Storyteller I don't know what story to

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tell like of course not you've got to put questions or prompts in there to narrow your focus and make it easier and

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really one step further you start building a list of potential ideas without knowing when you're going to

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share it or who you're going to share it with but you now have this place that you can go to when it's time to tell a

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story and most of the time you come up with a whole new idea just by scanning

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that list I love that yes and I what just

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popped into my head is the other strategy I've used as a podcast host is to share a very brief story of my own

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because guaranteed that will unlock the story of the person I think that's why I said tell me a story was because I just

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assumed she would tell a story of a wildlife encounter cuz I had just share that story it was at that moment that I

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realized that I need to be intentional about the story I tell in terms of unlocking the story of the

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person in front of me is there a story that you like to share a personal story you like to share that does that that

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unlocks the story of somebody near you no it it happens but it's not one story

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it is um very much in the moment so a lot of my work is working with different

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leaders in difficult conversations and in these moments where they're feeling vulnerable and in that moment an idea

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will pop into my head and I'll share that story and that prompts it and what I love about it is it's how you know

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your story resonates right I see your story and I raise you a story but it's also it also means that your story is

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playing in their head too and both of which are are key but I don't have a go-to um I will use prompts like you do

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depending on the context and what we're trying to do of Are We asking questions about their family or struggles they've

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had or their professional career or Hobbies or a time that they faced whatever um I love the prompt what's

17:17

something you should have gotten rid of but can't and you get any one of these

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and you just get a thread that you can start to pull and that will lead to so many other things

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something negative just popped into my head not not about that well I heard somebody when when I was ask I was

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prompting questions and I didn't ask that question because I had this awful feeling she was going to say my husband

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and I remember stopping myself realizing I didn't want to ask that question yeah

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I understand that the prompts have to be the right prompts sound or smell what sound or smell remind you of home help

17:56

it's fairly neutral that's a good one one so um you mentioned that you just

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had this these calls with the SE Suite team so that they could start to uncover some of the stories that they would

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share over the course of this conference so um I'd love to hear about when you

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were able to uncover one of their stories that really made you feel like

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you were in the right place there's so many times where I have a conversation where I walk away and go oh I love what

18:28

do so I'd love to hear that story from you uh that's one of my prompts what's

18:34

what is a moment that makes you say this is why I love what I do because we all have that um for this particular thing

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what happened is it's a a um fairly young company and they've had a lot of

18:49

explosive growth and so coming together uh there's people there that have never met some of the leaders that we're going

18:55

to be presenting they have aggressive growth plans and it was a really

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important moment to establish some trust or strengthen the trust and um help them

19:09

see their role in the growth of the company and where it's going to go and so we started with all of that of what

19:15

for each one of these what is it that we want people coming away feeling what is the things we want them thinking and

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that to me always then leads us to okay now given that let's start to talk about

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different stories that can create that um because this was a introduction for

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many and there was a really key component here of reassurance and what

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we're doing trust all of that uh for a couple of them I had them go back to um

19:46

when they got into the industry and different reasons different angles in both but it was really a way for the

19:55

them to make the points that they wanted by the time they talk about the the growth and things like that but also you

20:02

when you're sharing a story like that that is perhaps the the greatest vulnerability that people respond to one

20:09

of the people wanted to really talk about um literature in the place where the meeting was being held is where John

20:16

Steinbeck often spent some time and so they came in thinking that that's where they wanted to focus the talk and and

20:23

just the more we talked we realized actually that's not quite the right angle there's something else here so to

20:29

me to get to that moment of this is magical it is always getting them really

20:36

clear on the audience and what is it that you want them to come away feeling

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what is that internal shift and then what do you want them to do externally otherwise you're just getting

20:47

on stage and telling a story and hoping for the best and so I feel like when we get that then it's so much easier to ask

20:53

prompts and questions that help ensure that they're going to achieve that perfect

20:59

yes yes yes yes I'm sitting here nodding my head over and over again I I'd love

21:05

to hear as as you're talking about these the the people that you're working with I can see you light up and um we'll

21:12

probably use a clip of this on video because you're you look beautiful and

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because that seeing you light up is part of the

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story and so many times um we're we're telling a story without engaging the

21:31

rest of our body in expressions and people can hear it in your expression in

21:37

your voice for sure but being able to see that love for what you do is what is

21:43

lighting me up right now so when you were talking about that one

21:49

of the things that I thought about was how uh how it makes me feel when my

21:55

client Nails their speech so tell me I'll briefly this is this

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happened with me with one of my public speaking coaching clients last year where she did a really important speech

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it was a Ted style talk but it was for a different organization and somebody else in the

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audience who knows me took a picture of her and texted it to me and said she

22:22

nailed it congratulations coach so great just being you know she she has the

22:29

potential to seriously Inspire and have huge positive impact on her community

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and to have that text message come through just it caught my breath it took

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my breath away I want to hear your story like that too being that foundational support for somebody who has potential

22:47

for that kind of impact one of the people I was working with um first

22:54

sentences of our conversation together was I don't want to tell a story about me I'm like okay

23:00

we'll figure out what story to tell but just say a little bit more and she's like I don't want to make this about me it's about them like sure but there's a

23:09

way to tell a story about you that makes it about them and I just put it aside I didn't worry about it we started to work

23:15

through the audience and what she wanted and the more we talked the more we kept coming back to this example where she

23:21

started out in this sales roll she kept fighting it I don't want to make this about me and I said The more you make it

23:27

about you the more detailed that we get the more the audience is going to have their own version playing around in

23:33

their head there's a difference between telling a really detailed personal story in service of the audience and telling a

23:40

really detailed personal story for you and we won the first part so we start putting together this story and it was

23:47

fine but it needed more things that were really going to be memorable and have

23:52

the audience see themselves in it for when they were younger sales professionals and so she talked about

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how how she went in and she just didn't like being around the other salespeople

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where you could just feel their um sales like rting radiating off of them like I

24:10

have to make that sale like how it just felt all and authentic and so I said okay I want to make that even punchier

24:17

because that's such a great visual right radiating off them I said let's pick like a corny colog like radiating off

24:24

them like jakar I was just gonna say that the 80s

24:29

yes right and so exactly I said it and she busted out

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laughing and so she's like I get it I'm like see that specificity people are going to have that moment they're gonna

24:40

identify with maybe they would I don't know so we do this and we put things

24:46

like this into the top she gets up to deliver it and I happen to be there because I was doing a keynote at the

24:52

same event and the room was vibrating with laughter they were just just

24:58

roaring she gets to the dra piece they are all laughing she's like anybody

25:03

wearing dra and made I people put their hands up and she's like we'll talk to you later it was so funny she gets off

25:11

the stage her boss is like that was amazing you crushed it when I had a private moment later I went up to her

25:18

I'm like that was so great and then your car she thought she came up with it and I was like perfect I don't care that she

25:24

didn't remember that I didn't that's how much she internalized it like she took the suggestions and then she figured out

25:31

how to do this and she Incorporated her humor and I did say to her you do realize that because you made this about

25:38

you and the way you made it about you it resonated because you put these specific things in that were true to you that's

25:46

what people want and that was the shift for her hopefully oh I sitting here

25:53

grinning oh my gosh that is such anybody that wear car

25:58

well you know it is kind of a a dated scent I loved it when I was in high

26:04

school in the 80s yeah yeah I think the problem wasn't the scent it was the overuse of it and people would like

26:11

douse themselves and it's kind of like the axe of the 80s right and the certain

26:16

type of person that would wear it I think that was the other problem yes well and as you were talking

26:22

about being in a room full of salespeople that you get you I was thinking more slime then scent like my

26:30

first thought was like oh yeah the the competitive sliminess that I have

26:36

experienced in that kind of environment is immediately what came to me so but if you can work scent into things

26:44

we have I don't even remember the number we have like four receptors for Taste

26:50

and hearing and all that we have something like several hundred per scent and so whenever you incorporate scent

26:56

like if I talk about the um coconut oil on the beach like a coconut oil sunblock like you can almost

27:03

smell it it's one of the fastest ways to get people into a

27:09

moment I love that thank you so much that is not something that I have used in the past but I will use it and I will

27:16

attribute it to you I'll say my friend Karen Iber told me about that that's all right I don't you can claim your car I

27:21

don't care oh no I won't claim your car it's it's funny too that you mentioned

27:27

that um I I think most of us kind of have a hard time sometimes when somebody

27:33

repeats something back to us that we said and they there's no acknowledgement I mean as as grateful as I am that I had

27:41

that impact every once in a while there's that little Edge and one of the things that always brings me back is um

27:49

my friend Melissa Hughes talks about gratitude a lot and the Neuroscience

27:54

behind gratitude she wrote happier hour with Einstein which was really a

27:59

gamechanging book for me and one of the things that has helped me in those

28:05

situations is being able to see the Gratitude which is exactly what you

28:10

represented in that in that story was I don't care how she got it the fact is

28:16

she nailed that and her audience had an opportunity to truly connect with her in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise

28:23

well and the fact that she thinks she did it will give her more confidence next time and more likeliness to tell a

28:31

story about her in service of them you know to me what was important is she remembers the experience of how we work

28:39

together in a positive way and that it unlocks stuff for her there are plenty of other times I can't tell you how many

28:45

things in mine that have been stolen and um my book even right all the time that

28:50

stuff happens I'm not okay with that let's be clear there but and for you know for things like this if if people

28:58

become better storytellers and they think they did it great yeah I I think about that with

29:04

even our kids I we have two sons that are 22 and 25 and when my younger son

29:09

who is very very they're both really thoughtful and kind my younger son is the one that is very insightful about

29:16

things and he'll call me on stuff that you know to the point where I'm like oh Max thank you for calling me on that

29:23

ouch and there are also times where he'll repeat something back to me as if was his idea and I don't hesitate to

29:31

just let him have it for that same reason if he is embracing it as if it's

29:37

his I'm so glad for that because it's something that I know is important as in

29:44

his success as a human being so I hear you wow that's so cool that's so cool

29:52

well let's let's bring this full circle I keep thinking about your story about eating crayons

29:58

because you know it's memorable right when you think about how you got into what you're

30:04

doing there there must be now I don't believe in light bulb moments I don't believe that things go from dark to

30:10

light instantly I truly believe that there's a dimmer switch every idea is on

30:15

a dimmer switch and you gradually get brighter and brighter and there are

30:21

moments that bring you to the full bright but I think subconsciously you've been picking things up all along and I

30:29

know that when I was asked to do a keynote on storytelling and I had never

30:34

done that before it was all about customer service customer experience and they asked me to do storytelling and I

30:39

said yes and then walked away feeling really stressed about it oh my gosh how am I going to do this I've never done this and I have this um a a light switch

30:48

moment where it went from the dimmer to full bright when somebody said well I've heard a lot about storytelling but never

30:55

anything so practical and that was my moment my change in how

31:02

how I saw what I was doing what is your story of that my moment was a little different

31:09

but my first job first professional career um about a year into it I needed to go

31:17

to a professional dinner and I am a socially awkward introvert I don't love

31:23

being in settings where I have to make fake conversations I was way worse at 20

31:29

whatever and in fact I volunteered to go to the dinner because I was on a a team

31:34

where this was going to happen I was like I'm gonna go and get this over with so I don't have to go and do this again

31:39

for a long time get to the dinner and there's seven of us from two different companies that are exploring this

31:46

potential collaboration and Not only was I a socially awkward introvert but the

31:52

entire table was we're sitting there in silence like looking longingly at the

31:57

other taes that are laughing and having natural conversations and we would try

32:02

to start and it would be this awkward like it's like you know the balloon

32:09

slowly the helium balloon slowly sinking to the floor on the last day like that's what our table was

32:16

and I could not think of anything to say and that's as an introvert those moments

32:22

are very hard and I finally realize it's because I don't do small talk I want to

32:27

do meeting fall yet I've just met these people how do you jump in a mean fall and so I did what every logical person

32:35

would do I kept my eyes on my plate I'm like I I give up this is just awkward

32:40

one of the people at the table clears his throat his name is Aaron he clears his throat and he says I am building a deck on the back of my house and we all

32:48

relax like thankfully someone is breaking this awkward silence and

32:54

contributing something not at all the topic we thought that would be appropriate for a business dinner but

33:00

he's got it you go Aaron tell us about this deck and he's telling us there he has to relocate a wood pile to be able

33:06

to frame the deck he's putting it into a wheelbarrow taking it to the edge of the yard to restack it on the third load he

33:12

takes a piece of wood off the pile and comes face to face with the raccoon he's

33:18

freezing position and the raccoon freezes in the same position as though they are both under arrest only made

33:25

more ironic by the fact that the raccoon has like the Bandit mask on his eyes so they're both standing there in a

33:31

standoff Frozen both scared of each other not sure what to do and he says they're in

33:36

this draw for a minute and then he decides to slowly start taking a step back the raccoon high tails it out of

33:43

there and situation solved what happened at our table is not what happened on your hike we all started peppering him

33:51

with questions and someone else starts sharing this Quest this story about an unwanted house guest and now we're the

33:57

table that all the other tables in the restaurant are looking at because we're having normal

34:02

conversation and I really wondered like is this Aaron's go-to story because the point of

34:10

the dinner was um we were discussing Aaron's

34:16

company being a vendor for my company so part of the reason the whole dinner was awkward is I came in braced for the

34:22

convers the sales conversation I was like some of you were wearing jar I just know it so don't SL me exactly and I

34:31

just didn't know how to navigate what felt artificial yet here's this person

34:36

telling the story to create connection telling the story to lead us to a different moment and I thought like is

34:44

this his go-to sales story does he tell this to break the eyes but I real like it doesn't matter because I always took

34:51

his call after that day he felt like he was approachable he felt like a friend

34:56

it wasn't someone that I was like oh my gosh this person again it made it so much more Dynamic and

35:02

interesting I before that dinner would not have thought about using a story in

35:07

a business setting and after that dinner I realized how important it is to use a

35:13

story in a business setting outside of presentations but just in moments of

35:18

connection just in moments of let's be human even if this feels really

35:24

inauthentic you just shared that so beautifully Ken that was that was such a

35:30

beautifully told story I hope that everyone listens to this episode of this podcast and here's why you told a story

35:39

about this guy named Aaron and listeners I'm gonna ask you what words would you use to describe this man I would use

35:48

Charming entertaining and thoughtful these are big words and

35:55

listeners I I'm so curious what words would you use to describe this man named Aaron now I want you to think about

36:02

those words these are big words these are value words you're describing somebody with these important value

36:09

words part of his character now you are using important

36:15

words to describe a man you've never met all based on a story told by a woman

36:22

you've never met total strangers oh think about the past of the stories that

36:28

you're sharing about other people and how your

36:35

behavior creates the stories other people are sharing about

36:42

you it's pretty powerful Karen that was such a great way

36:48

to wrap this up for our listeners all of Karen's contact information will be at elinc consulting.com in the show notes

36:56

associated with this podcast episode Karen as we wrap this up what do you

37:02

want listeners to know how how do you want them to leave this

37:07

conversation I think there are so many opportunities to tell stories every day I'm sure you get this question of how

37:14

many stories is too many I haven't met someone that tells too many look for the

37:20

opportunities to take an awkward moment and make it one where there's laughter

37:25

or just to learn something about someone there's so many ideas for stories and

37:31

opportunities to tell stories all around us that's perfect you just made my whole

37:38

day thank you so much for joining me listeners. it's your

37:44

turn what will you do today that you'll pay attention to and maybe build a story

37:50

out of maybe you're picking up kids from school while you're listening to this

37:56

what are you exper experiencing as you're waiting for your kids to come out of the school maybe you're on your way

38:02

home from work or maybe you're going for a walk with your dog what are you paying attention to

38:08

that could eventually be a story that you could collect and share to connect

38:14

with people in an authentic and personal way I would love to hear what stories

38:20

you come up with please share them with me follow on Instagram at Sarah Lin

38:26

Elkins or just email me via my website at elinc consulting.com thank you so

38:32

much for listening and thank you Ken smile what's the use of

38:39

crying you'll find that life is still

38:44

worthwhile if you just smile

38:54

[Music]