Stortytelling Golden Keys Training Transcript

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Track 01 – Welcome

Michael: Welcome to Storyteller's Golden Keys. This is a special presentation.

Making an exception to the rule, whenever Richard asks me to do something -‐-‐ I do workshops on request for people and as I've told some of you before, we take the content and we break it up into pieces and then we put it online through NLP Times.

And we've got Tom O'Connor there at the back who is going to be filming. You aren't going to be on tape, don't worry, you won't be on film unless I go… So none of that is going to happen.

Also this is one of the last workshops that we are going to hold in this workspace. This is where all the distribution happens. It's our working area.

And about five years ago when I decided that I had enough of hotel rooms, I had enough of the suites. Because you go into a hotel, and you go into hotel room mode which is being completely fake.

And it's not a good learning or working environment. So I thought, "screw it." Come into the place where we actually do work. Let's have a real relationship. Let's have a real interaction in a working environment. So here we are.

Anyway, next time you come, we've got a new place. It's in a building called The Chocolate Factory. And when you get out of your car, there is still a commercial bakery on site and you'll smell bread wafting through. And we are right where the chocolate was made. Our office is right in the space where the chocolate was made.

I'm thinking I have to change my name to Willy Wonka or something.

Anyway, we'll have a new training suite, new training facilities.

Also I like this space because of the working aspect. But in the new space, we actually have a fully kitted out cabaret kind of space. So we'll be able to do some of those presentation skill things where I put you up on a platform, turn the lights on and terrify the crap out of you. And then teach you how to do that.

So welcome. So storytelling, right? What do I know about storytelling anecdotes?

So we work in a small group because that means that I can eye ball each one of you as we go. And what that means is that in addition to what I have to offer to

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you and to take you though, I can also work with what you want and incorporate it into the program.

Although I have many skills and abilities, I'm not a mind reader. And so in order for me to understand what it is that you want, somebody is going to have to tell me. And one of the ways that I really love to do this is I like to have you guys talk to each other and find out what the other person wants and why they are here. And then you report back, rat actually, to me about what it is that they want.

And then I give them what you tell me.

So in other words, you become responsible for what the other person... No pressure right up front.

So I'm going to ask you in a minute to have a chat with somebody. And I want you to find out what they want.

So that might include, for those of you who are Practitioners of NLP or who have been involved in some kind of process where you know about asking questions. You might want to find out what would make this worthwhile for them. In other words, what would make this a good thing to have done?

What's their bottom line? What do they really need? What would they like to have? What do they intend to get? What must they have?

You can ask them, "what do you want when you are done? In your desired state.. Where are we now in your present state and we can compare between the two."

Or you can ask it some other way.

But basically what I'd like you to do is find out their deepest, darkest secrets.

Choose someone that looks like they need your help. Make a little space for yourself and find out that information for me.

Off you go.

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Track 02 - What Do You Want

Michael: It's this attitude that says a task takes what it takes -‐-‐ we aim for

efficiency, we aim for efficacy, we aim for elegance -‐-‐ all of lovely E's. Ethical, it has to be an ethical interaction.

So it takes as long as it takes. Some people finish quickly, other people took a few more minutes. What I want to know is, who is going to be first to tell me to introduce the other person and tell me what they want.

Audience: I will start. What Juliette would like is.. She is here because of

curiosity. And she would like to have some more structure about the work she does with and around stories, storytelling and metaphors.

Michael: What sort of work does she do? Did she give you any hint?

Audience: Business.

Michael: And she uses storytelling.

Audience: Yeah.

Audience: Leadership.

Michael: OK, so leadership. She already uses storytelling. She would like some

more structure.

Audience: Particularly when working with a sense of initial coolness in a

relationship or coolness in a situation or context. So how to use story and

metaphor to build a rapport and move people into a different reality. A different perspective. Is there anything I've missed?

Michael: Fantastic. See, this is good. You see the early part of the training is me

getting a look at you, you getting a look at me and me listening and watching. And then also in the interaction, I can point stuff out like, if you don't know something, ask.

It's really cool. You are going to make this very easy for me.

So?

Audience: I think you've got it pretty accurate. I think with the coldness we

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and you feel you've got them in your hand, and you move out of storytelling mode I suppose, in an elegant way.

Michael: The storytelling mode. I'm fascinated. This is the stuff I need to know.

So you've got a storytelling mode?

Audience: No. I work very intuitively.

Audience: Intuitive disruption.

Audience: Absolutely and it's about not crunching on a gear change, when you

are at that stage in a meeting.

Michael: In an initial meeting. So this cool initial meeting? OK.

I've got some really cool stuff for you, but it's the other kind of cool. Not the cool that you don't want, but the one that you do.

It's going to be one of those.

Alright so if you have that, will you be happy?

Audience: Yes.

Michael: Is there anything else that you need?

Audience: No, I'll let you know as we go along.

Michael: You'll let me know as we go along? I'm happy to work on that basis.

Someone else? Richard.. Phillip?

Audience: Yeah, Hi, Phillip is looking to do more narration work. You are almost

viewing your own work, other people are doing narration and that's part of what you want to do.

I asked whether or not does he first construct a story and he has actually writing a book which has been going on for 10 years.

Michael: He's been writing a book going on for 10 years? OK, that ought to be a

good book.

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Audience: But he understands the structure, but doesn't trust that he actually

has that knowledge, it's almost getting permission.

Michael: Permission.

Audience: He knows what he's doing. But then it's like how to do what they do.

How to write the scripts. How would you ...

Michael: This is an extraordinarily impressionistic presentation. I love it. In fact,

as a storytelling technique, it will work.

I still need to know though exactly what it is that he needs.

Audience: Structure and how to create stories.

Michael: Structure and how to create a story.

Audience: And how to tell it.

Michael: Oh and how to tell it.

OK, I always wonder about these things because we are telling stories all the time.. we are using anecdotes.

Just when my favorite workshops, the storytelling workshop comes, my mother announces that she is coming for three weeks to stay with me. So I have my mother right now at home. She has been with me for a week.

We are talking about anecdotes. We will drop in and out of stories and anecdotes about this, that and the other thing. The taxi this morning coming in..

We do this without a thought. And yet when it comes to doing intentional work or leadership work, there is a sudden switch in our mentality and it leads us to treat the communication as if it's something exotic and something other than what we do as human beings.

You are going to go home tonight, if there is somebody there waiting for you, you are going to tell them about the day and how wonderful it was. Or they are going to tell you about the day that they had.

We are going to sit down and watch the news, and as far as I can tell is gossip with a little bit of style wrapped around it.

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We do this naturally. And so I'm wondering, what is it that you think you need that is different from what you will already do with Debbie when you are telling her about something that happened to you.

Audience: That's a little bit more interesting.

Michael: More interesting? OK. Well we've got some special stuff here.

If you get that, love it. If you get that, will you be happy? I live for making people happy.

Audience: Might be a bit of contempt.

Michael: So how are we doing? The score is 0 -‐ 100 and they say they are 80%. It

doesn't work that way in here. Can't aim for 80%.

What else do you need? What do we add to this in order to make it totally happy.

Audience: More than just interesting.

Michael: You don't know.

Audience: Well no, I couldn't put an answer on it... rewarding.

Michael: I'll tell you what. So as we work, what I'll look to do is I'll look to give

you more options which means that you'll know what to ask for. It's great that you know a little bit of what you want, but with a little bit more information you can know what specifically to ask for.

I'll ask you again later on once we have some more information?

Audience: That's great.

Michael: Excellent.

Who else?

Audience: Let me tell you about Nora is a Wordsmith. She takes images with

words, she believes she has inherited an inability to tell stories from her mother.

Michael: She believes that she has inherited an inability to tell stories from her

mother?

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"I'm not sure that I'm qualified to deal with this although you can tell us about the toilet training if you wish."

So you've inherited a disability to tell stories from your mother?

Audience: She'd like to be able to tell stories. She doesn't know how to. She

needs the tools to construct stories.

Michael: You don't tell stories now?

Audience: No, just making single words.

Audience: But what about the time you traveled to Morocco.

Audience: I don't even like speaking out loud in front of other people.

Michael: What is it about speaking out loud?

Audience: I've always wanted to go on a course that taught me presentation

skills and how to say what you are saying.

Michael: Have you ever given a dinner party?

Audience: No.

Michael: One of the things about dinner parties is you spend a lot of time

thinking about what other people would enjoy.

Audience: I'm not comfortable with the whole thing.

Michael: Well you've got the first point. You have the very first point. Everybody

who arrives wants to have a good time, wants you to do a good job. Wants it to be an interesting evening. You are half way there because they already want it. So all you have to do is relax. It's just like at a dinner party.

If you are relaxed and having a good time, other people will as well. If there is something about your non verbal behavior that makes it seem like a tooth extraction is going to be performed through the rectum, that's just not going to appeal to most people. They are going to react to it.

So all it comes down to is it starts with inviting people in. And if you are a playful kind of person, that's how you start. And if you aren't a playful kind of person, you start exactly as you are.

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But it's about them.

It's kind of cool, you don't have to worry about you. I know it's backwards. It's the opposite of what you thought. You don't have to be somebody special and different, it can be you. And everybody wants you to succeed.

When people are listening to you, they are hoping you are going to tell a good story.

Audience: But I can't!

Michael: We are going to deal with this, this is great. Although we might have to

go back in time and we may have to change the genes -‐-‐ the genetic code for storytelling.

If she actually had this as an adaptation, she would be a mutation -‐-‐ the only one on the planet.

Is there anything else that you'd like? If we can change that, will you be happy?

Audience: Yeah, I need to know how to start, begin and end.. and make it

compelling and end with a sort of 'wow!'

Michael: So she has already got some structures, she already has some ideas

around how to structure the communication which is great. She is already on the road, she just doesn't know it. She is probably going to be one of these people that is going to object at every stage as she tells great stories with a 'Wow' at the end.

OK, we can work with that. We'll make one more check. So let's say we can do that quite easily. What would make that even better?

Audience: Get a book published maybe.

Michael: I do know some publishers, I do know some agents. There are people in

here I'm sure who could help you.

That's an aside but is that what you want?

Audience: Perhaps, yeah.

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Audience: No.

Michael: Do you know publishers or know which publishers might be more

likely?

Audience: I'm not at that stage yet.

Michael: So you don't have a book proposal or anything like that?

Audience: No.

Michael: Well as we go through the couple of days, we'll figure out exactly where

you are in relation to getting a book published. And there are people in here who know people, so we can facilitate that.

So going once, going twice -‐-‐ Is there anything else while we are here?

Audience: That's it.

Michael: We'll work towards that, thank you.

Who else?

Audience: Nick, would like to walk away from here with new toys to play with.

Bring playfullness into his conversations. He want to tell metaphors and share metaphors as storytelling but also to encourage the people he's talking with to share their stories.

And he would like to walk away with the golden keys.. Or maybe he'd like copper keys as well.

Michael: He can have whatever colour keys he wants. The reason why we call it

golden is because.. There is a little quote in the notes there that comes from Woosashi the Swordsman. And he said, 'Learn one, master a thousand things.'

And what we are going to be talking about are the ones that if you learn, you can apply in a thousand different ways. Learn one and then you will know a thousand different things. That's why we call them golden.

As to the colour, as for the metals you make, as for whatever you do with them, that is totally a matter for you.

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Track 03 - Get Clarity First

Michael: You aren't a stranger to telling stories, are you?

Audience: No.

Michael: So tell me, how will you know that we are going to get something

different than what you had before? In other words, if you just have the same that would be alright, but what specifically are we looking for in terms of difference?

Audience: I think new perspectives, new ways of looking at things. And new

ideas around structure, I'd like to know what's behind the door which obviously the keys must open.

Michael: Absolutely.

Audience: We can be playful with metaphors there. And maybe there are other

doors and more keys behind that door.

So really just a sense of awakening to what's beyond my own current limitations.

Michael: I'm trying to remember the name of a poet who talked and the

difference between heaven and hell being two tableaux -‐-‐ one which people were sat at a table and they were bound and there was food on the table and they couldn't do anything.

And then on the other tableau, although they were bound, they were feeding one another.. The secret in all of this, A) You have to keep magic wands with you. How are you going to do magic without a magic wand? So I keep a magic wand with me at all times. But then secondly, if you are going to go to the magical place..

It's like Mary Poppins, eventually I'm going to pull a bowling ball out of this. You've got to be ready. And so I always keep a spare fork with me. As you can tell, I'm somebody who appreciates a good meal but also..

Know how to offer it to other people and do it in an interesting way.

I've been waiting years to use this thing. I've been carrying it in my bag for years. So thank you for giving me the opportunity..

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have to have your bag packed with a lot of cool stuff.

What's behind the door? I would say there is really truly only one thing that is worth considering behind the door. And we can start right now with it -‐-‐ and that is relationship.

There is no other reason. Control? Why would you want to control another person if you can't control yourself? What do you think controlling another person is going to do?

The only reason to have somebody in front of another person or guiding the process or leading, is to create relationship between something conceptual and something in another realm and the people who are there. Or facilitating and creating relationship between those who are there.

As far as I can tell, there isn't much more that is worthwhile. There isn't a lot else to do here.

What else are you going to do? Are you going to collect money? What is money? Anybody worried about money?

For a moment there, I thought I had forgotten where my money is. But my money is right here. My money.

Do you know what this is? We'll call it a 20 pound note but do you know what it actually is? It's paper, it has ink on it. But what does it represent? It represents a debt, it doesn't represent anything at all other than that it's an IOU that says I will give you one piece of paper with the words 20 on it in exchange for this.

But it's nothing real.

Audience: It might represent like an hours work.

Michael: It could if we negotiated that. So it's a special piece of paper that we use

to represent something else. But what it isn't is what it used to be.

In the old days, you could have a piece of paper that said 20 pounds on it and there would be a little line that says, 'The bearer is entitled to 20 pounds Sterling.'

In other words, you could go, you could present it at a window and they would give you silver worth a certain amount with what they call 20 pounds. But not anymore.

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The money, like quantitative easing when they talk about it, is the creation of money from the air. But what most people don't know is where the money comes from for your mortgage. Where does it come from?

The bank has the capability of creating debt. When you sign your mortgage agreement, the money is called into existence. And when you pay it back, it is no longer there. But it was never there in the first place.

This stuff can drive you nuts if you actually think about how things actually work, you discover it's a handful of nothing. Even though I'm holding paper, I'm holding a handful of nothing.

That's not what this is all about.

If I'm going to say, "Hello there... this is what it's about." And I can entertain you for the rest of the day with a 20 pound note and a long fork. I am that good. But we aren't going to do that. That's not what this is about.

When we do things, when we tell stories, when we create exercises and we create drills, it's for a reason. It's to create relationship -‐-‐ relationship between one another or to experiment with.. have a relationship with ideas and concepts and possibilities.

It's always about people. And it's always about this intentional interaction. It's a dance. It's an exchange. It's those wonderful Batesonian, the mutual exchange of signals beyond, 'Hi are you still there? I am still here. How are you doing? Are you alright? Good.'

Those proforma communications that we have. The simulation of relationship, those kind of place markers that we have.

Because there are sometimes when you have to perform a function for other human beings.

So for example, you work as a change agent or a facilitator or a trainer or anyone of these things, then you are expected to assist in the creation of an output. Something to transform. Something that is different when you are finished compared to when you start.

This approach to intentional communication, communication that intended to create an effect.. to create relationship in such a way that the other people who are listening can do something differently than they were able to do before.

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That's what we are here to talk about.

I would keep the definition at a very high level. I would suggest that if we are talking about what storytelling is -‐-‐ intentional communication -‐-‐ in pursuit of a response or reaction using some sort of narrative structure.

So we have three parts to it. The narrative structure is the key to the whole thing. What makes up a narrative structure?

We can go into all of that detail, all of that good stuff, all the techniqy kind of stuff. We have to stay a little bit higher up within the definition and talk about that pursuit of a response -‐-‐ a specific response or a reaction.

Let's think intentional communicators, professional intentional communicators -‐ -‐ people like comedians or comics. What is it that they are seeking? What kind of a response are they seeking with their communication?

Audience: Laughter.

Michael: Pretty straightforward. They are looking for a certain kind of laugh and

then they'll talk about things like building the laugh throughout the show. That's what they are seeking. All of their communications are geared towards the elicitation or production of laughter.

But there is more than one kind of laughter, isn't there? There is laughter from discomfort. There is laughter at absurdity. There is laughter at the foibles or falls of other people. There are many different kinds of laughing.

So there has to be something more than just laughter, than just the state. What specifically are you seeking as the response?

Well we notice that comedians have styles. That they have a certain kind of way of pitching a joke and a certain relationship to the ideas.

So for example, with Tony Hancock, how would you characterize Tony Hancock if you remember him?

Tony Hancock.

Audience: Stuff happened to him.

Michael: Stuff happened to him.

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Audience: He wasn't aware of other people's stuff.

Michael: So there was a consistency there around how he related to the world

and to other people. And the comedy came out of the imposition onto this chap and his lack of awareness.

Are there any other characteristics of qualities that you'd use to describe Hancock?

What was the primary state? If you've seen him, what was the primary state response that he had?

Audience: A sense of being put upon by the world. A victim.

Michael: A victim. Indignation at his victim status. He was very loud about that.

And as it got louder and more exaggerated, it becomes funnier and funnier. There is nothing like seeing someone who is self absorbed in that way.

Encountered nemesis and encounter the world.

But it was out of the way in which he held the world -‐-‐ the frames, the filters, the relationship between himself and what was going on that created the response further down.

Let's go up one more level -‐-‐ the intentional communication. What is intentional communication? What's the difference between .. 'How are you doing? Good?' And perhaps some sort of analogy or metaphor that you might use with a client.

Is there a difference between them?

Audience: I think it's elicitation and having some purpose in mind.

Michael: Having some purpose in mind. When you say some purpose in mind, do

you mean, 'I wonder what I'm going to have for lunch today?' Is that what you mean?

Audience: In relation to the other person.

Michael: Ahh.. 'I wonder who I am going to go to lunch with. Well I have a client

meeting at lunch today.' Is that what you mean? What do you mean when you say having that purpose in mind? The purpose for what to have happen?

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Michael: We are back to Bateson again. Bateson talked about how every

communication has two aspects to it. It has both the informational aspect to it and then it has the demand.. you could call it a request but it's not, it's a demand -‐ -‐ a demand for a response. Even the simple, 'How you doing?' is a call to have that response occur.

Audience: There is a difference between transactional and transformational.

Michael: That's right. In the transaction, which is where we spend an awful lot of

time, we have the pro forma communications -‐-‐ the ordinary things that we use in order to facilitate movement through the world.

But then there is those times and moments when we enter into a dance in such a way that something greater happens and we can't be more specific. A chance occurs. Something perhaps not expected, but certainly when we entered the dance in the first place, we didn't expect the change to occur in quite the way it did.

The transformational aspect of communication with intention is what makes storytelling special. And it's just like that road to hell, paved with good

intentions. It's the difference between, 'Alright everyone, I will now apply the Ericksonian metaphor. Bend over.'

It's that kind of thing. Metaphor.. 'Once upon a time there were a group of baby squirrels. And there was one big asshole squirrel at the front. And he was being mean and patronizing.'

You know, imposing stories on other people. And also being really weird with the frame of reference.

There is an approach to using metaphor in therapy which is you try to find a way to structure your story, your little fable or fantasy, so that it matches something about the narrative structure of the problem. "Once upon a time, there was a family of alligators and the daddy alligator was being mean because he was an asshole."

You know it's like dirty to run the parallel between the two. The only problem with it as a form of intentional communication is it's all too easy for that to become deeply patronizing as if one person could know the right way for another person to resolve their problems.

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want me to tell them how they should be living their lives. And I have no idea how other people should live.

From a totally objective and God-‐like perspective, I can tell them how to live. But of course I won't be there to suffer the consequences. I won't be there once they've made those choices to have to live through it.

Unless we are scrupulous, right? From the word go with what are these

intentions, where do they come from and what are we hoping to do? You can end up in deep water or creating an unintentional cult of weirdness.

There are these books that you can find of Ericksonian metaphors. Like if you have a head cold, here is the story to read to someone.

That reminds me of a story. Once upon a time, a long time ago in ancient Greece in the legendary times, there was a great King called Theseus. And people were coming to his court and telling him, 'Theseus there is this awful person way outside of Athens, and he has a road side inn. And what he does is he invites people into his inn and he gives them food with drugs in it. And once they are drugged, he takes them to the guest room and he throws them onto the bed. And if their legs hang over the end of the bed, he hacks their legs off.'

'And if their legs aren't long enough, he puts them on a rack and stretches them out until they fit. His name is Procrustes.'

Theseus says, 'Can't have that in my Kingdom.'

So what do you think he did? He's a hero, what do heroes do?

Audience: Charge right in.

Michael: Exactly. He goes to the inn, pretending to be a humble traveler.

Procrustes tries to drug him, and he knows what the trick is, so Theseus doesn't eat the meal. He pretends he is asleep, gets put on the bed and as soon as

Theseus tries to hack his legs off, there is Theseus with his sword. And what does he do? He takes Procrustes and puts him on his own bed.

But he doesn't stop with just hacking the legs. When you've got a problem like that, you want to break it down into very small parts to make sure it never comes back again.

I was watching a horror film last night. And this notion of the Procrustean bed. This notion that there is a one size fits all approach, that with one magical form

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of communication, we can resolve everybody's problems.

Can you guess where I stand on that? I'm not into it. I'm not into it at all.

Track 04 - Storytelling Translate Your Intentions

Michael: What we are going to be talking about with storytelling is how to

translate our intentions into a form that makes it possible for us to communicate in a simple way. Whether that's through analogy which is close to that parallel technique that we talked about but hopefully not as patronizing.

Through metaphor, through things like simple anecdote, even through symbolic communication -‐-‐ sometimes a symbol is enough. Sometimes all you have to do is show them a sign and that will stand for an awful lot of longer storytelling.

Once you know about the better Procrustes and the Procrustean bed, we can develop them into an intervention. I will show you how to do that later on.

Alright, is everybody cool with this as a general frame that we are going to work within? Does anybody have any questions so far?

So we'll start from the cognitive side, we'll start from the mind.

Alright, so you are a trainer, communicator, facilitator. What do you do with communication? Do you therapize? Do you train? Do you lead? What kind of functions do you perform for people?

Audience: I invite them to look at their current situation from different

perspectives so that they can make wise choices.

Michael: Do you do this one to one or with groups?

Audience: Both.

Michael: Do you use your storytelling and metaphor in the context of.. Do you

use it as a way to create another perspective?

Audience: Sometimes I will use a story to challenge or to get across a point.

Michael: So we have challenge, illustrate.

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Audience: I use them to connect.

Michael: Connect.

Audience: Confirm.

Michael: Confirm. So here is one of mine, you've just shown me one of yours, so

here is one of mine.

You said connect, what was the other one?

Audience: Shared experience..

Michael: Shared experience.

Richard, what do you use stories for?

Audience: Use them to confuse.

Michael: Why would you do that?

Audience: When they are confused, they aren't in a strong state. I can move

them. If people know what they have got, I can confuse the wrongness.

Michael: You can confuse the wrongness and that makes it right?

Audience: It makes it whatever it is going to become next.

Michael: So as a function to confuse. Not to be confused with Confucius, the

Confucius technique.

How about for you?

Audience: Impart knowledge.

Michael: When you say impart?

Audience: Share.

Michael: I'm just thinking about imparting knowledge. I can come up with a few

choice ways to impact knowledge. But it doesn't tell me what to do.

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In the same way when we talk about sharing experience, how do we share experience? How do we impart knowledge?

Audience: Tell, talk etc.

Michael: So you tell what? Information? Data? Experience? Procedure?

Audience: Experience.

Michael: So you tell people about experiences? And when you tell people about

experiences, what's the difference between that and me talking in exquisite detail about the curry I had the other evening plus its outcome?

Audience: Couldn't tell you.

Michael: You are a musician. And you also help people with their computers.

What else do you do?

Audience: I record people's vocals.

Michael: So when you tell people stories and use anecdotes..

Audience: Sometimes I share other people's experiences to the vocalist or

whoever is coming in..

Michael: Other people's experience. So you borrow the tales of other people in

order to?

Audience: Pass on that knowledge to the vocalist I'm recording at the moment.

Michael: You want them to do something?

Audience: Yes, better than what they are doing.

Michael: There is the intention. As a director once put it to me, 'Alright let's go

again, just do that better please.'

So you use the stories in order to elicit improvement?

Audience: Correct.

Michael: So to elicit.. and we'll put in the block there the process of

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And all of these have to be further specified. But as you can see, there is a range of intentionality -‐-‐ state change being the massive one. I would put that up at the top.

Audience: Show people who you are.

Michael: When you say that, how would we know that you were showing

someone who you are?

Audience: One of the ways that people think about themselves.

Michael: Interesting. So it's sharing values by demonstration? So it's the

demonstration through the storytelling? So we could say demonstration of values. Who you are etc.

Audience: That's not always a conscious one.

Michael: Well we are doing it all the time anyway.

Any other functions that you perform? Francesca?

Audience: When filling in missing information, missing bits of the strategy,

teaching without teaching.

Michael: Teaching without teaching. We have a technical word for that which

you are allowed to say -‐-‐ it's the instantiation, creating an instance of an abstract principle in a specific place.

So teaching without teaching or instantiation. There are variant spellings on it. It's a logical term which we've imported.

When in NLP they talk about installation, that's actually what is being done. It's creating an instance or an example of a specific principle or strategy. And stories are fantastic for that.

Audience: Inspiring?

Audience: You know I could do that too.

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Others?

Audience: Building relationships. But also, the opportunity to build state, right?

Michael: Sure. So we can either facilitate powerful states that connect or those

that disengage.

So building relationships or to disengage.

Sometimes it's much more polite to bore someone than to say shut the f*ck up.

Audience: Sometimes that's part of mis-‐matching and moving onto something

else.

Michael: Very true.

Each of these different aspects aren't intrinsic within the stories themselves -‐-‐ they are within us as communicators and as intentional communicators.

This is one of the reasons why, for those that have been with me before on the business courses, when we talk about rapport, we don't start from things like matching our language patterns or anything like that. We start from intention. We start from what you are doing and what you are there to do.

And that influences your state which then influences the choices that you make.

If you want to clean up your storytelling, clean up your intent. What are you there to do? What's in and what's out?

Audience: It's paradigm shifting..

Michael: Paradigm shifting, we'll call that shifting the frame of reference. But

paradigm shift is just fine.

In old style NLP, they called it reframing -‐-‐ a paradigm.

Audience: Inoculation as well.

Michael: Now we are starting to get into words that actually don't have anything

that touches the ground. Because I've never seen a paradigm. Have you ever seen a paradigm on a table?

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Audience: I felt it.

Michael: Feel the movement of the paradigm.

Audience: Inoculate -‐ something is like something else.

Michael: That's right. But in order to instantiate these, in order to connect with

these, we have to come up with an example and say they are connected -‐-‐ create a complex equivalence for them.

These are all fine.

Audience: Appetisers to tell stories.

Audience: Use them as tools to influence as well.

Michael: Well advertising is the brain child of Edward Bernays who was

Sigmund Freud's nephew.

When he went to America, he was the first person to open an office on Madison Avenue to advice businesses on how they could better persuade people to buy things. And it was Edward Bernays's work that was brought back to England to the Tavistock during the war to look at propaganda and mass communication.

It was all about the story. And advertising is still all about the story. And indeed at lunch today, I'm going to talk to somebody at an advertising agency about... how to tell better stories.

It's the whole matter. It's the whole matter of communication. Our songs and the songs that we sign, our religions, our sacred texts -‐-‐ it's all stories that create context, that creates frames for us to connect with or relate through.

Audience: Interestingly, there is one ad that I'm totally confused by and I don't

understand it and I still think about it.

Michael: Which is the ad by the way?

Audience: It's a French Connection -‐-‐ this is the man, this is the woman type of

thing. I just didn't get it. But at least it's still on my mind and I'm still thinking about it. And when I pass them I think of their adverts.

Stortytelling Golden Keys Training Transcript

Table of Contents:

Track 01 – Welcome

Track 02 - What Do You Want

Track 03 - Get Clarity First

Track 04 - Storytelling Translate Your Intentions