The Art of Story: How to Captivate an Audience

Do you give presentations or speak to clients?

Want to illustrate your knowledge with better stories?

To discover how to improve your stories, and your storytelling, I interview Michael Port.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Michael Port, the author of NYT best seller: Book Yourself Solid. He also teaches workshops called Heroic Public Speaking, where he applies the craft of acting to public speaking. His latest book is Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches.

Michael will explore how to find, use and create stories in your marketing.

You'll discover tips to improve the delivery of your stories.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
The Art of Story
Michael's story

Michael shares how he started his career as an actor. He has a master from the graduate acting program at New York University. Michael worked professionally on the shows Sex and the City, Third Watch, All My Children, Law & Order and 100 Center Street, as well as in the films The Pelican Brief, Down to Earth and The Believer. He earned a living doing commercial voice overs for companies including AT&T, Pizza Hut, Braun, Coors Beer, MTV and others.

After he left acting, Michael says he decided to talk his way into a job for which he was completely unqualified. He pitched himself, got the job and worked his way up in the fitness industry on the business side. He credits his post-acting success to being an actor, as he was able to perform during life's high-stakes situations.

When the spotlight and eyes are on you, the way you perform will determine the quality of your life, Michael says.

After Michael left the fitness industry, he went into consulting for businesses and started writing books, and he saw it more and more. Over the last 13 years, Michael realized he had to meld his experience and training as an actor, his experience as a professional keynoter and what he knows about the business world.

That's what Steal the Show is about, Michael says. Half the book is on the techniques associated with being a great public speaker and the other half is focused on performing during life's everyday situations.

Listen to the show to learn more about how Michael coaches speakers, as well as why he originally resisted helping people with their public speaking.

Why people love stories

People love narrative, wonder and imagination, Michael says. Stories can get us out of our own head and into another world. We turn everything into a story, he continues. Politics, religion, love, our success or our failures become stories. Sometimes the stories we tell actually get in our way and sometimes they can change the world.

Michael talks about a researcher named Jonathan Gottschall, who studies the neuroscience behind stories. Jonathan says the constant firing of our neurons in response to fictional stimuli strengthens and refines the neural pathways that lead to skillful navigation of life's problems.

Listen to the show to discover in what way projects are stories.

How to find your stories

People sometimes draw a blank when they start to work on a presentation or prepare for an upcoming meeting, because so many things have happened over the years. Those experiences and stories are not top of mind, since you are more likely thinking about today and tomorrow.

There are four different prompters for the discovery part of the process. Take a piece of paper and write out four columns, one for each of these categories. Then, when you go to craft a speech or presentation for a sales pitch,