OK. So I am going to start by asking you to think of a film. It's a world renowned film, it's called inception. If you've seen that film, like I am a massive fan of it.And the concept of that film is exactly what I want to talk about to you today. There's an icon in the film which is a spinning top and essentially what it is is about infiltrating people's dreams and seeing ideas in their mind. And there's a quote that I absolutely love from that film from Don C who played by Leonardo dicaprio. And this is what he says, he says an idea resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea takes hold of the brain, it is almost impossible to eradicate. And that really is the key and the essence to what I want to talk to you about today. Because when we are speaking virtually to people in this new virtual world and we really want to make an impact. We want to seed ideas in people's minds so that we engage them, we motivate them, we help them learn and we want them to take action. And that is what this is all about. So who am I? My name is Helen Packham. And uh like Anna said, I spent 15 years in the corporate world helping coaching and training leaders on how to communicate more effectively and really engage their teams.

And in that time, a lot of people came to me who found it difficult to communicate succinctly, they found it difficult to engage their people. Maybe they felt, they felt in confident about standing up in front of a room full of people. And along the way, I picked up a really handy tool called storytelling. And it's helped me on my journey. When I had kids, I completely lost my confidence. I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and I hid from the world. But using stories helped me to get back out there, I ended up standing on a stage in front of 1500 people at, uh our local theater and telling my story. And since then I've gone on to help small business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs and coaches to do exactly the same. Storytelling is a thread that's woven through my life. And that's why I'm gonna share some really, really practical tips with you today. But we need to first understand what a story actually means and how we can use that to really increase our virtual impact. Well, a lot of people think that storytelling is just telling stories to our kids, but actually, it is all about connection. It's how you connect with people and it's how you really make meaning with other people. So what is it? It can be a quote, an analogy, a metaphor. It can be a story in itself.

It can be a discussion, it can be gossip, it can be a memory, something that's happened in the past. It could be something that hasn't actually happened yet or it could be something happening right now. And the beauty of storytelling is that we all have it as a skill. It's an innate, hardwired skill that everybody has. So that's why I'm really excited to share this with you today because it's something that you can take away today and start using because you already have the skill. Why do you have the skill because it's part of our evolutionary makeup. There's a quote by Joan Didion who is a journalist and she said we tell ourselves stories in order to live and that really is the key to storytelling. It's part of our DNA. We started writing stories on the walls of caves. And then when fire was discovered, we sat around fires in our tribes and it helped us make meaning and it brought us together. We didn't know what that burning orange ball was in the sky. We had no idea what that was. So we created myths and legends and stories to bring ourselves together and work towards a common purpose. And so that is why storytelling is so powerful. It connects us as human beings and not only does it connect us, it helps us to be vulnerable with each other.

I don't know about you, but when you are being professional, when you're giving presentations or meetings or briefings, especially online, you have to be professional, but stories enable you to be more real. And what happens when we're more real. We're more vulnerable and what happens when we're more vulnerable, we take off the armor and we're more relatable. Imagine putting up your hand and saying me, this happened to me. This has been my journey and imagine what happens when other people put up their hand and say me too, when you're telling a story, you're being open and so you're instantly connecting with other people. Why else are they important? Well, there's also a bit of science around it.

Now, I want to ask you a question. You may, may not be old enough to remember this. But if I was to ask you where you were when 911 happened, just take a moment and think about that. Now, I had just um come out of school, I got my first job and I was working for an airline and I remember exactly what happened when I found out about the twin towers. Now, you may as I say, not be old enough, but if you do, where were you? And why is it that you can remember that in such detail? Well, this is a phenomenon called a flashbulb memory. And essentially what happens is that if an event happens, a significant one, our brain takes a picture, a snapshot of the environment we were in when that thing happened. And the reason why I'm sharing this with you is because storytelling can have the same impact. We can actually create flash bulb memories in the minds of our audience so that they remember things, they are more engaged, they're more likely to learn and be motivated to take action. And I'm gonna share how you can actually do that in a moment. I'm gonna give you three tricks. Ok. But how can you actually use this in briefings, meetings, presentations, training workshops, whatever it is you're doing online. Well, a lot of the time you're using dry data, right? You're using things that might not be that interesting.

So you can, you can lift the delivery of dry information by using stories. You can also increase engagement by telling stories and using storytelling in your online delivery because people are going to be more interested in what you're saying. I don't know about you, but I've experienced zoom and teams burn out this last year. It's very easy to become disengaged. But if you're using stories and the broad to storytelling, you can really engage people, you can help them learn better, you can have them sitting on the edge of their seat and ultimately, you can have them taking action. So I'm gonna share with you three tricks, three short tricks that you can start using today that can really help enhance the impact of your virtual delivery, whatever it may be. So story trick one is the journey. OK. So when we are presenting online, often we are just using a narrative or a dialogue, we are explaining things to people. Let's say you're in a meeting and you're delivering information on a project that you've been working on rather than just explaining it as a normal dialogue.

You can use a journey, story, a journey story helps you to look to the past and explain it and tell it like a story. What was the starting point? What challenges did you face? Were there any pit moments? Were there any turning points? And what were the ultimate lessons that you learned? Explain it like a journey the other way that you can do it is use a case study story. This is where if you are a small business and you work with clients, you can tell the journey of their story. What was their progress? What did they learn? What were their challenges? If you're in a corporate world, you can think of the end customer or the end user. What's the journey towards that success? And you can tell it in that way that instantly lifts the meaning and the impact of what you're actually saying. So that's story trick. One, story trick two is metaphors and analogies. OK. So this is quite broad. And what I would say is you can use these in many, many different ways. But the benefit of using metaphors and analogies in what you see is that it helps the listener to take what you're saying out of context and think of it in a different way. Lots of people are visual thinkers. So they're automatically going to be thinking of the thing you're talking about and then they can relate that directly to the message that you're delivering that could be quite dry. I'll give you an example.

So uh I do a training on, on time management. I, I've done that in the past many times. And one of the things I always used to do is use the analogy of procrastination like eating a roast dinner. So in the UK, we love eating roast dinners. And when I was a child, I would always eat the meat first and leave all the vegetables till the end because I didn't like vegetables at the time. I love them now. But procrastination says if you do the thing you don't want to do first, you eat the vegetables first, then you've got the lovely meat to look after, to look forward to after. Now. That's just a very, very simple example of how you can use analogies and metaphors to bring an out of context idea into a business focused message. So procrastination is business focused, but the roast dinner is not the other thing you can do is use visuals on slides that really embed the story. So I have in the past put an image on slides of just a roast dinner when I'm talking about procrastination. What happens then is it creates an anchor point for what you're saying and people are more likely to be engaged and more likely to remember.

So I definitely challenge you today to think about what analogies and metaphors you can introduce into your verbal communication and you can do it with all sorts of things that can enable you to really lift the conversation, increase engagement and also help people stick and remember things. OK.

So number three is the world tour. Now, I'm going to go back to that dialogue. Example, you know, when we're just giving people information, I did this, then I did this, then I did this or I propose this and this and this or this is how you learn something do, do do rather than doing that. Give people a world tour. Now, when I deliver training workshops on this, I always ask people to think about a journey they take regularly. Mine used to be the tube to London or I'd leave my house, I'd get on the tube, I'd stay on the tube, I'd get off the tube and then I'd go into my office. But if we're using a world tour, what we're doing is we're putting people into the story and we're lifting it by using descriptive words and thinking about sights, sounds, tastes, and even smells to really embellish what we're talking about and enrich the experience. So, if I was to do that with a world tour, I'd say I'd leave my house. I'd skip along the road. The sun was shining warm on my face. I jumped on the tube. It was squashed, it was humid.

I saw a couple who were arguing about sunsets and sunrises and it made me smile because ultimately, they came to the conclusion that were good because there's a point on the horizon where a sunset and a sunrise meets. I got out of the tube, the birds were singing and I skipped into the office. Now, obviously, again, that's just an example. But think about how you can enrich your words by using descriptive language by embellishing them with sights and sounds and what you felt and what you saw and what you experienced because that really puts people inside the story. JK Rowling, the famous author is incredible at doing this.

If you've ever read the Harry Potter books, you'll know that you are immersed in that story. So think about the experiences that you can share when you're training, when you're coaching, when you're delivering things online that give people a world tour that puts them in the story. Ok.

So let's just recap those. We've got the journey story. The journey story helps you to stop just spewing out dialogue or a narrative and helps you to put your descriptions of what you're actually saying into a journey, whether it be something that's happened in the past, something that's going to happen in the future or even a client case study.

So you're talking about other people and their successes with the end customer in mind, use analogies and metaphors. They're incredibly visual and they help take a business focused message into an out of context way. It really helps people to remember things more. And you can put images on slides, just an image, no text to really help lift that and engage people and use a world tour. A world tour is a way of embellishing your dialogue so that you're being more descriptive, you're taking in senses, sights, sounds and feelings so that people can really connect with what you're saying. You do all of these things and of course, there's loads and loads more to storytelling.

But if you were to apply these three things, see what happens. It's not only more fun for you with virtual delivery, but it's also a lot more fun and engaging for other people. And obviously, this is just a snapshot of what you can do and there's many, many more things to it. So I do actually have a blog on my website Helen packham.com/blog. I give loads of advice about storytelling on there and what you can do and how you can use it. I also share a lot of conf freak content on Instagram as well. So you can check me out on there, send me a message um and I can chat to you about this sort of stuff and I am running virtual workshops on um virtual impact at the moment with corporate clients to just share this type of stuff and help them enhance their day to day. So please do hit me up if you want any more information on that or free advice or um content. But I wanna leave you before we go to, to questions with one last thought. And this is from Margaret Atwood and she is a famous author of the Handmaid's Tale and she said you are never going to kill storytelling because it's part of the human plan. We come with it.

And I just wanna leave that as a reminder for you that even if you think, oh gosh, I'm no good at telling stories or I don't know how to do this. It is ingrained in you from an evolutionary perspective. You just need to tap into it, have fun with it and see what happens as a result. And let me know how you get on.