Story or Die
Lisa Cron’s book, Wired for Story has been featured in video tutorials on writing fundamentals, and shares its title with a fascinating TEDx talk of the same name. She also has two upcoming books, Story Genius and Story or Die.
While Cron wrote Wired for Story with authors in mind, she was surprised and delighted to find such a desire for information on storytelling from the business world. Her advice to those entrepreneurs who feel they may not have what it takes to craft a compelling narrative?
“Don’t worry about being ‘talented’. Don’t worry about writing beautifully. Don’t worry about the art of it.” Get vulnerable, get messy. Let the conflict that is behind all of human life ebb into your story. This is what makes a narrative so compelling, asserts Cron.
“The truth is, emotion is how we make every decision, and story comes down to grabbing us emotionally.” Each and every human lives with internal conflict and recognizing that in both yourself and your customers is a way to tap into a creative potential for story and for connection.
Cron also advises business leaders not to worry too much about crafted language. “The brain is far less picky about beautiful language than it is about pulling us in and making us feel something because all story, as all life, is emotion-driven, which is of course the opposite of what we’ve been taught.”
Want to find out more about crafting engaging business narratives, Lisa’s upcoming books, and the latent superpower you’ve been leaving untapped? Tune into this episode.
In This Episode
- Your inherent superpower
- Lisa shares her essential structure for creating story
- The purpose behind conflict in story
- The science behind the reward centers in our brains
- Writing for the entrepreneur
Quotes From This Episode
“Our brain, like the amoeba, has one main goal: survival. We can go weeks without food, days without water, but only about 35 seconds without finding meaning in something.”—@LisaCron
“All stories are a call to action and always have been because we think in story; we think in narrative.”—@LisaCron [highlight to tweet]
“We all have agendas; that’s a word that’s picked up a kind of pejorative slant, and there’s nothing pejorative about it at all. Our agenda is basically survival. So in businesses, when you’re telling your own story, it’s really not about why you think your product or your brand is great, but it’s about the person listening, how is it going to help them achieve their agenda, and then it comes down to based on what their agenda actually is.” —@LisaCron
“Data does one of three things. Data records and reports on an event that has happened, data monitors an event currently happening, or data tries to predict an event that’s going to happen in the future. But all our minds care about is the events, because the data itself won’t kill us but that event sure could.” —@parkhowell
“The story isn’t a way to communicate, the story is the way to communicate.” —@LisaCron [highlight to tweet]
Resources
- Wired For Story
- Lisa’s video tutorial, Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story
- Lisa’s TEDx Talk, Wired for Story
- www.wiredforstory.com
- Brené Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability
- www.Businessofstory.com