Arnie Kuehn has posted an article titled 5 Storytelling Tips to Create Engaging Content.
He advises you to use your personal experiences, learn from professional presenters when they tell stories, learn the elements of a good story, collect stories and use video. He goes into more detail in his blog post, so I suggest you check it out.
Some people find it difficult to use personal experience, because… well, they think that their own life is kind of usual and boring, and that there is nothing special in it.
But that is simply not true. Yes, you might have not crossed the atlantic in a sailing boat, you might not have broken any world record, you might not have grown up in a ghetto, been shot twice and made millions – but all that stuff isn’t necessary for a great story.
The thing is – your experiences are rich and powerful, because they are filled with emotions. And that is what others can relate to. Maybe you’ve once walked by a beggar on the street on a cold winter day and avoided looking at him, pretending to not notice him.
And maybe later on the thought of that beggar kept nagging at you, and somehow you feel bad that you turned away instead of handing out a dollar or even just a dime to a person in need. Maybe that inspired you to never look away again, or to help, even if just a bit, every time you come across someone, or…
you see, there are literally thousands of stories that hide in your everyday experience – it’s not that you don’t have any stories. It’s simply that you don’t acknowledge them as such, you don’t believe in their potential.
You could tell a story of a visit to your dentist, or anything else – there is good story material in everything. Just train yourself to dig it out.