The Art & Science of Storytelling: Learn How to Tell Better Stories in Conversations, Business Communication, Leadership & Brand Building

By Armani Talks

The Art and Science of Storytelling is a practical book that will teach you how to tell better stories in conversations, business meetings, in leadership positions and for brand building. The Information Age has ended, and the Storytelling Age has begun. Enter the new era with the utmost confidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Armani Talks
• Release date: Nov 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868992711

Book preview

Contents

What is a Story?

The Value of Storytelling

Information vs Storytelling

Introspection is the #1 Technology for Storytellers

Viewing Humans as Computers

Linguistics Intelligence

Creating Direction & Pursuing Purpose

Fake News: Content vs Context

Keeping the Idea #1

Only Storytelling Exercise You’ll Need

Strive For Unique Ideas

Unleash Systems Thinking

Brainstorming

Nodes & Links

How to Create Infinite Content

Mining your Experiences

The Art of Noticing Things

Creative Exercise: Notice Things

Mental Sports: Superstar Athlete

Changing your Perception of Yourself

Neurolinguistic programming

Stories in Conversations

Handling Rejection

Storytelling Challenge: 1 Minute Story

Telling Stories in Meetings

Why Storytelling is a Must for a Leader

Are PowerPoints Evil?

What Do You Do? Challenge

Creative Challenge 2

Power of Analogies

Great Storytellers are Fishers

Stories and Brand Building

Storytelling Exercise: Pain/Pleasure

Brands Build Rapport

Dark Brands

Storytelling Exercise: From General to Specific

Netflix and Fiction Books

Unpredictability

E.A.R Formula

Building Relatable Characters

The Silent Connection

Storytelling Exercise: Lesson to My Younger Self

Contagious Attitude

Is Gossiping Primal?

Puppet Master

Pursue Purpose & Strategic Curiosity

Be Human

Emotional Tone Scale

Pattern Interrupts

Napkin Hack and Exercise

Practice it till you Become It

Content Creation HACK

Fearlessness

Conclusion

What is a Story?

A story is a connection of ideas.

This is the bare fundamental that you need to understand.

A story is not a collection of characters, conflicts, and lessons. Those are the EMERGENT property.

Confusing the emergent property as the source is a recipe for disaster.

Say it with me:

A story is a connection of ideas.

Now the next logical question is:

‘What are ideas?’

This is where we are going to have fun.

It all started with a thought.

A thought is a flash that comes in the mind that we bring conscious awareness to.

Picture the mind like a bowl of water.

You are steadily holding this bowl of water.

Heck, I’ll give you 100 dollars if you don’t move at all! That’s how still the bowl of water is.

Suddenly, a little kid comes behind you and starts tickling you. Now the bowl of water is starting to shake. Do you see those waves?

That’s how the mind works.

The mind is a medium. Every now and then, we get FLASHES of pictures.

It’s been estimated that the average human brain generates ~30,000+ thoughts per day. From those thoughts, we are aware of a few.

The ones that we become aware of often have an emotional charge to it. Therefore, the emotional charge dictates which thoughts we focus on.

At this point, we understand that stories are a connection of ideas.

Now we are understanding that thoughts are flashes in the mind and it’s often the emotional charge of the thoughts that will dictate which ones we become aware of.

But are thoughts enough?

No…

We need to provide MEANING.

This is the next question we should ask:

‘What the hell is meaning?’

I can talk about this for a while, but I’ll keep it simple:

Meaning is providing useful value.

‘Useful value to who?’

Useful value to anyone.

In later sections, we will talk about how storytelling is a subjective experience. It’s a subjective science to the core.

For now, let’s learn that our goal is to connect the thoughts in a strategic way to produce an idea.

Ideas = an interconnection of thoughts

Stories = an interconnection of ideas

You with me so far?

‘Yessir.’

Excellent.

The Value of Storytelling

You may be thinking:

‘So what? Who cares about stories in the first place?’

As a matter of fact, it’s a pretty big deal.

It all started with our ancient ancestors.

Storytelling is not only done with words. It all starts with flashes of pictures in our mind plus the feelings.

That’s what cave art is.

Didn’t you ever wonder why cave art was a thing? What were our ancient ancestors trying to convey??

They were trying to convey a message.

The discovery of fire was not only used for cooking meat, the discovery of fire was also used for ushering in creativity.

With fire, our ancient ancestors were capable of melting items to create their stories…I mean paintings.

They were also able to control time with the use of fire.

In future sections, I’m going to talk about how a true storyteller goes beyond time. Time does not exist to the storyteller. Yes, this book is going to get better the more you read it, that’s a guarantee.

With the added control of time, they were able to be creative.

You ever saw a person teaching about wealth?

They say that money buys back your time.

Well, whenever someone has more time, they go back to their fundamental essence. They want to externalize their internal world:

thoughts and feelings.

Imagine if you had all the money in the world right now. Chances are you will feel more creative than ever.

Although these ancient ancestors didn’t have money, they had fire. Fire gave them back their time and they no longer had to go to sleep when the sun went down.

A lot of the cave art that the ancestors drew were of animals that they were not able to capture. This showed that they were flexing their imagination.

A lot of the cave art was conveying information to future generations.

What’s the difference between data and information?

Structured data = Information

Information implies meaning while data is hopefully the predecessor to meaning.

Our goal as a storyteller is to create meaning.

This is how the human mind processes the world.

If I just say dog, violent, caffeine pills, then I’m giving you a bunch of data that doesn’t mean much.

But if I say:

‘Giving caffeine pills to a dog will make them violent.’

Now you have extracted meaning.

I’m not too sure what your job position is, what stage of life you are in, or how many people you deal with.

But you know what I do know?

I know that you deal with people.

When you deal with people, understand they crave meaning. That’s where the modern school system messes up.

Growing up, I had a teacher who would randomly give me formulas for her biology exam.

This weird teacher was viewed in the most prestigious light in our school by other teachers. Did her students learn anything?

Her students learned how to memorize random shit.

That’s not learning.

A teacher is meant to give meaning to their students. My teacher won her awards, but she didn’t win the minds & hearts of her students.

If you are dealing with other people, you should aim to give them meaning.

The average mind is thinking so many random thoughts in the day. Allow them to get information, not data, when they deal with you.

Better yet, allow them to get stories, not only information when they deal with you.

Information vs Storytelling

‘Wait, are you telling me that information and stories are not the same?’

Correct.

Just like:

Structured data = Information

Colored Information = Stories

We are no longer in the Information Age. People are just too slow to catch up. We are now in the Storytelling Age.

Don’t take my word for it, just look at the data.

It’s been estimated that the average human spends roughly 5-7 hours consuming media a day. Blogs, podcasts, radio, tweets, books, etc.

5-7 HOURS!!

That’s insane.

What’s media?

Media houses colored information aka: stories.

Google gives you information.

Your favorite content creator gives you a story.

The difference?

Personality.

Story = Information + Personality

What is personality?

Are you someone who has a fixed view of personality or a dynamic one?

If you want to become an elite storyteller, cultivate a dynamic view of personality.

Allow yourself to evolve from an:

Introvert/extrovert to an ambivert.

An ambivert is someone with introverted & extroverted like tendencies. An ambivert can adjust at will.

If you are someone who got your Myers Briggs results a few years ago and have been holding onto it like it's a life sentence, let go….

A great storyteller is a refined rebel.

Refined, to not make enemies for no reason.

Rebel, to not conform for no reason.

As we progress in this journey of learning the art & science of storytelling, our goal is to make one major realization:

Storytelling is an internal to external transformation.

You may want to grow your brand with more content.

You may want to tell better stories as a leader of your company.

Or you are looking to turn some heads in a business conference that you are going to.

Just know that it all begins with you.

Your personality is the focal point.

From there, we control the minds & hearts of others.

Introspection is the #1 Technology for Storytellers

Storytelling is a subjective science.

What is the main difference between subjective & objective science?

If it can be objectified, then it is not the subject. Let’s run through a few examples.

Can I observe the mouse that I am clicking?

‘Yes.’

Is that the subject?

‘No.’

Can I observe my hand?

‘Yes.’

Is that the subject?

‘No.’

Can I observe my thoughts?

‘Yes.’

Is that the subject?

‘Uh…no.’

This is where a lot of people will pause.

Heck, it may even spook them out!

We often judge how much of a savage someone is based on what they predominantly identify with. A person who only chases sense pleasures is often seen as less civilized. Nothing personal by the way. I am speaking in generalities, of course.

Someone who is well educated says that they are the mind.

‘My mind is my #1 tool! I am the mind.’

^This sentence is a contradictory statement.

If the mind is a tool, then it is an object. The subject is anything that cannot be objectified. It is the observer.

Sophisticated people identify as the mind.

Genius storytellers identify as the subject.

Here’s a mental hack for introspecting. Say:

I have a mind & body.

Feel that?

‘Uh... yea, I do. What happened?’

You have officially objectified the mind and body.

When you have objectified BOTH the mind and body, now you can learn the subjective science.

A storyteller creates meaning out of human experiences. The formula for human experience is:

Experience = Subject + Objects

The objects that I am referring to in the line above are the mind & body. Once these 2 are objectified, it becomes much easier to introspect.

‘Hey, Armani.’

Yea?

‘May be a dumb question, but what exactly is introspecting?’

Introspecting