Michael Hauge

Thank you. I’ve been looking forward to this too.

Michael Hauge

First of all, my orientation of course is from my Hollywood background.

I look at the art of storytelling where the goal is just to accomplish the primary thing every storyteller must do and that is elicit emotion.

You’ve got to create an emotional experience because if you’re not getting the listeners to feel something, you’re going to lose their attention and involvement.

Whether they’re a movie audience, internet marketers, possible customers or an audience for a speaker or whatever they might be, you must elicit emotion.

The goal of the art of storytelling which every storyteller must do is elicit emotion

My belief is and the way I approach it is that, this is how you use the Hollywood principles to elicit emotion.

Michael Hauge

Therefore, you must get your listener or your potential buyer emotionally involved enough that they are empathizing and connected with you and involved in what you’re doing. That’s ultimately going to lead to creating behavior or persuading them to buy something or moving them emotionally or getting them to go away and improve their lives.

So as far as personal branding, one of the kinds of stories you can tell is your personal story of how you came to the situation you’re in. More significantly, how you solved the particular problem that you’re going to share that solution with people.

Indeed, the art of storytelling rises from stories about yourself or someone else who is the hero.  As people came to purchase your product, well, they were transformed by it. It’s a matter of putting audience inside the story and your art of storytelling must be giving them emotional experience of being with you or working with you and therefore getting them  to doing that in real life.

Put the audience inside the story and your art of storytelling must be giving them emotional experience of being with you or working with you therefore getting them to doing that in real life.

Michael Hauge

The  first thing is to understand that EVERY effective story is going to contain some key elements of the art of storytelling that you have to have.

The first to the art of storytelling  is you’ve got to have a hero.

By hero, I don’t mean someone who’s heroic. I mean a main character that we are rooting for. A protagonist if you will. It’s the center of the art of storytelling, it’s the person who’s going to drive that story forward and who we empathize with enough to become them on a psychological bases.

The first thing is a hero.

A hero specifically who we empathize with. Again, that hero could be you if you’re telling a story about yourself or it could someone who has benefited from the message or the product or the process that you are revealing in this email, in this webinar. A hero that we empathize with. That’s very important in the art of storytelling.

Michael Hauge

The second thing on the art of storytelling is built on desire.

You need to move the story forward. Good stories are not just about characters who exist. It’s not just a picture of their daily life but it’s a story about someone who desperately wants something.

They want to lose weight. They want to make more money. They want to have more time to spend in their family. They want to be more successful in business. In movie terms they want to stop a serial killer. Stop the dinosaurs or win the love of the romance character. Whatever it might be. There’s got to be that desire.

More specifically, this is where I think a lot of storytellers who aren’t aware of this KEY hollywood element. The desire needs to be specific though invisible.

So to tell a story about someone who wants to be a success, that’s a story and it is a desire but it’s impossible for the listeners to picture what success looks like, so use the art of storytelling. What’s better is to say “This is a story about me. I had to raise $10,000 within a month or I was going to have my home foreclose.” Now we have a very specific line to cross and that’s going to involve your audience more.

The final key element of the art of storytelling is conflict.

If your goal is to create emotion, emotion grows out of conflict. So you want to tell stories with the use of art of storytelling where the obstacles the character has to overcome or as big as possible that they seem insurmountable because the more difficult it seems to achieve the goal, the more emotionally involved your audience is going to be.

If you just have those art of storytelling key elements, your stories going to elevate to the top 10% of stories that most people reveal or try to tell.

Michael Hauge

When you begin your story, whether the hero is you and you’re telling your personal story or your signature story or whether it’s someone else who has benefited, you want to begin the story with what I call “The set-up.” That’s a picture of the everyday life the character was living before this journey began. That was before they found out about the product, before they met their mentor, before the desire became crystallizes to what they want.

Perhaps it’s a story about you when you’re in a dead end job or you’re unhappy at work and you were dreaming of something that would be more fulfilling, give you more freedom and money. We need that picture.

We need that before picture of the before and after picture you’re going to create with the story. And when you introduced that character, when you introduce yourself in the everyday life you’re living, you create empathy with yourself or with that character by doing one or two of three basic things.

First, is get us to feel sorry for the character because we empathize with people we feel sorry for. So show some way how you were a victim.

Michael Hauge

You noticed in my example I just ran off there, I said “You’re in a dead end job and you dream of doing something better.” We feel sorry for people who are working and unfulfilled or unhappy. Most of us had been at one time or another in that situation. That sympathy we feel creates empathy.

Another thing you can do is put that character in jeopardy.

Perhaps the problem you faced in your story was you’ve found out your home was going to be taken away or you learned that you were about to be fired from your job. In other kinds of stories it might be that you were losing custody of a child or someone was about to leave you or you were in love with someone and they were attracted to somebody else and you might lose that opportunity.

It’s some jeopardy, some threat of loss of something that’s in vital importance to you or to the hero of the story.

The third way you can create that empathy is to make the character likable.

You do that by showing them as being kind, good hearted and generous towards other people. In other words, helping people with their conflicts.

You’ll see this in a movie like Tom Hanks, where he’s very well-liked by other people or we see him as a loving father or we see him helping his co-workers.

Let’s say you were telling a story about when you were working for a non-profit and you were desperate to raise some money because you were trying to feed a group of homeless people. Now, we’re going to empathize because you come across as a good hearted person. These three ways must be explicit in the art of storytelling.

Michael Hauge

If you can use two of those things or even all three, the empathy is even greater.

Once you’ve established that empathy within that set-up, now you can start the journey by creating that visible goal of a certain amount of money or a new job or a new career. Then, you start moving forward toward that finish line.

Michael Hauge

There are number of methods just like there are with screen writers or novelists. There’s no one way to get to that finished script or finished novel. There are different ways you can approach this.

What I might suggest is, start at the end. In other words, instead of starting with the boy on Columbia which you will get to, ask yourself what was the outcome that Luis wanted and be a specific -invisible as you can.

It’s not just that he dreamed of being a rich American someday or being a successful entrepreneur but he’s primary objective with something specific like, “If we can only get to America and get a job.” Maybe that was it or once he came to America, if he could only find a way to be self-employed. And he felt that if he could just make a thousand dollars a month. Now you have a visible goal. But think of something Luis did that was successful. Think of a goal that he already accomplished.

Michael Hauge

So start with the end point of the story and then ask yourself, “Okay. What was the journey had to go on to that? When did he come up with that goal? At what point in the story?” That’s that turning point, that moment when he says “This is what I want. I want that thousand dollars a month.”

I’m just making this up because I don’t know Luis’s personal story that well. Now we’re backwards further and say “What situation was he in that led to him wanting that?” It could be that he was a boy in Columbia. It could be that he’s already come to America or whatever, and now he’s working in a job he doesn’t like, or he’s come to America but he’s unemployed.

It’s like you start with the finish line and then you say “Okay. What immediately preceded achieving that?” “What did he have to go through to get that?” That’s the process that you’re going to be revealing or you’re going to be selling or the steps that Luis took should match the steps of the process or product or motivational suggestions that you’re giving to your audience.

Then you say “What was the key moment when he decided this is the goal I’m going after and what preceded that?” That’s the setup that creates the empathy and the undeserved misfortune.

Did that make sense?

Michael Hauge

One is, keep in mind too, Luis has a dozen stories you could probably choose from because the one you just outlined there is a story where the setup is him already working in this crummy situation and choosing that goal.

The other story we’re telling about is him growing up in Columbia. You’re not trying to leap from growing up Columbia all the way to where he is now. I mean, you could tell that kind of auto-biographical story but it would probably cover a lot of steps. Instead, ask yourself “What is it you’re promoting?”

Let’s say you’re an internet marketer and you have a product you’re trying to sell. What’s one of the elements that product or that process that is important for the potential buyer to learn, behavior that it’s important to exhibit, a change of attitude that it’s important to have?

Then think about, was there some point for Luis back in Columbia where he learned how to change his perception, change his attitude. How did he learn? Did have a mentor or someone that told him that?

Michael Hauge

And then, tell a new story,  this is what was going on with Luis. We empathize with him but what he desperately wanted was to get on a soccer team or get to America. But the thing that was stopping him was X. Then he realize this, he overcame that obstacle and he was able to get to America and it’s the very obstacle that this product is going to help you overcome.

Using the art of storytelling, you aren’t limited to one story about Luis. You can choose different elements, different places in his life where new things were learned, new goals were accomplished. And then say, what did he learn or what were the steps he took that are now incorporated into the product or the process you’re selling.

But anyway, to answer your question, the next step after you decide what the story is, what’s the finish line? What’s the set-up? What’s the moment when the hero starts pursuing it?  And what are obstacles to overcome?

Now, I think the next step is lay down those basic beats to the story and now start adding details because its details  are what will make that story come alive. You can say he grew up in Columbia as a poor boy. That’s true. And it creates some sort of image. But if we can picture where Luis was living, the clothes he’s wearing, what his day to day life was like, that you were unhappy in.

The more of those details you reveal, the sharper the movie that you’re projecting inside the mind of your listener and the stronger that story will be. Hence, your listener becomes more involved.

Michael Hauge

When it gets to the journey part when you’re overcoming the obstacles, the more specific the obstacles, the more specific and detailed the steps you took to overcome them, the more vivid the story will be, the more emotionally involved listeners  will be, and the more instructive it will be. Because then it’s not just vague generality. It’s “You did this and then you did this.”

To your listener, you’re saying “And you too could replicate these steps in whatever your situation is and I’m going to give you the tools to do that.”

Michael Hauge

Okay. The first piece of advice I’d have is stop comparing yourself to John Steinbeck. That can only lead to depression and discouragement because you can work until a cow’s coming over. You probably not going to be as good as one of the great writers of the 20th century. So I would look at it a little differently when it comes to that style.  And that is a good story’s  conversation.

You’re sitting down at the table with a friend and saying “Let me tell you what happened to me.” So don’t get all caught up in “I’m not a real writer” and “I’m not a professional storyteller.” That’s not going to lead to anything good. Say “I’m sharing something of myself.” The more it’s true from the inside, the more genuine is about you, the stronger it will be.

You said you were sleeping on a series of friends’ couches. That was very vivid. Then you said, “I had a series of dead end jobs.” That was not. I want to know what those jobs were. If you said, “I was making deliveries for a florist” or “I was working in a factory making doll heads,” then it becomes vivid. Then it becomes a more interesting involving thing where you stop short is of staying in one moment any too long.

Michael Hauge

Give two or three details maybe to create a vivid image but make sure that sentence by sentence, you’re moving forward toward the goal. The set-up is a brief description of where you were and then once you decide “I want to have a podcast,” then, make sure every sentence is moving you closer to that goal or creating an obstacle to that goal that you’re going to have to overcome.

So then you won’t get mired in one particular moment and go on and on and get repetitive about what happened then.

The story has to keep moving forward, you just don’t want to breeze through it so fast that it doesn’t create a vivid image or what I like to think, a movie inside the listener’s’ mind to keep them emotionally involved.

Michael Hauge

Sure. Don’t do that. Did that sound sufficiently wise?

I think there’s two problems that can occur with writers as they develop stories. One is they NEVER edit. It just goes on and on and on. It becomes repetitive and cyclical and a lot of boring tangential things that don’t move the story forward.

The other is they edit too quickly. They start cutting out everything and they just say “I’ve got to stick to the day that I did this and  and I was successful.” That’s not emotionally involving.

First, write down whatever comes to you. Let it be as long as you want to, then go back and edit it and take out everything that is extraneous and repetitive. Figure out if you can come up with two details that will create the image efficiently instead of five.

Can you tell one moment that moved it forward rather than dwelling on three different things that happened in close succession but together they all just got you one step closer to the goal?

Allow yourself to write the lengthy verbose version first, then go back and trim and trim and trim. Make sure you keep the details that make it vivid but eliminate any of the details or the verbiage that’s repetitive or that’s tangential. Meaning, it doesn’t relate directly to the story or to the goal that  the character in the story is pursuing.

Michael Hauge

I’ve coached and consulted with a lot of internet marketers as well as a lot of public speakers and presenters. I almost never find that it’s too long because it’s too vivid. I find it too long because it’s too many extraneous things; verbiage and repetitive, revealing how the person is feeling again and again. Those are the things that can be eliminated. Keep the details that keep the picture vivid in the listener’s’ mind.

Michael Hauge

As much as you hear that storytelling is critical, don’t let that overwhelm you into thinking that it’s MAGIC that you could never master. It’s not rocket surgery because we spend all our lives telling stories and that’s all you’re doing. You’re just doing it in a bit more polished and detailed way. Don’t be afraid of trying to tell stories.

By the same token, don’t be afraid of sharing your own feelings or your own backgrounds because people frequently say to me “No one’s going to be interested in my life. I’m not a celebrity. I’m not a superstar. I haven’t done anything that great.” That’s not why we care about stories. We don’t like to go to movies about celebrities. We go to movies about everyday people who accomplish extraordinary things.

Everyone listening to this has accomplished something in their life that you want to share with someone else or gone through a process that you think will be instructive or inspirational to somebody else. Look for those.

Michael Hauge

Look for the things you’ve done in your life because it’s the everyday people we will empathize with.

Don’t be afraid of sharing your own feelings or background. Look for the things you’ve done in your life because it’s the everyday people we empathize with. Keep in mind that you’re offering them a gift.

You’re inspiring them to do so by revealing to them how you faced obstacles and you overcame them or were able to change your life.

If you can do it, they can do it.

Stay in tuned with your own feelings and the reality of what you did and trust that other people want to and need to share that with you.

Don’t be afraid of sharing your own feelings or background. Look for the things you’ve done in your life because it’s the everyday people we empathize with. Keep in mind that you’re offering them a gift.

Michael Hauge

Thank you! This has been fun! I enjoy this a lot.