{"id":447,"date":"2011-11-21T08:16:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T13:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/?p=447"},"modified":"2011-11-21T16:15:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T21:15:35","slug":"6-sources-you-can-pull-from-to-avoid-inventing-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/6-sources-you-can-pull-from-to-avoid-inventing-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Sources You Can Pull From to Avoid Inventing Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Frey<\/a> duped the world.<\/p>\n

In 2005, Oprah Winfrey selected his book, A Million Little Pieces<\/a><\/em>, as part of her book club. And everyone knows that when Oprah chooses a book, it becomes a bestseller.<\/p>\n

Imagine everyone’s surprise when just a few months later, James sat on Oprah’s couch admitting to the world that most of the stories in his book had been fabricated.<\/p>\n

Stories are powerful.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And using them to connect with prospects helps you stand out.\u00a0However, making them up and passing them off as your own will ruin your reputation.<\/p>\n

For example, while travelling recently, I met a man. We struck up a conversation. He was a nice guy and I enjoyed passing the time with him.<\/p>\n

When he then asked if we could hang sometime when he’s back in Toronto, I immediately said “Yes,” then regretted it. I knew that due to my schedule, I wouldn’t be able to engage in a long distance relationship. So, instead of saying “No,” I now had to create an excuse to back out of my “Yes.”<\/p>\n

I was reminded of Carol Roth’s blog post called Just Say No and Nothing Else<\/a>. <\/em>In it, Carol says that we need to resist the urge to explain why we don’t want to do something and instead, just say no and nothing more. I know that whenever I try to explain why I don’t want to do something, it leads to an invented story and eventually, a lie.<\/p>\n

When your audience senses a lie, it ruins your believability.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Ty Bennett states in his video training series called Influence Through Stories<\/a><\/em>…<\/p>\n

“If the audience doesn’t view your story as credible or relatable, they won’t care or take action.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, instead of inventing a story, here are 6 sources you can use to share credible stories. These all come from Peter Guber’s book called Tell to Win<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First hand experiences<\/strong> – This would be the stories you lived through<\/li>\n
  2. Witnessed experience<\/strong> – These are stories you’ve observed because you were there<\/li>\n
  3. Metaphors or analogies<\/strong> – Similar to parables that Jesus shared during His ministry<\/li>\n
  4. Information scenarios<\/strong> – This would be case studies or testimonials<\/li>\n
  5. Books or movies<\/strong> – This is where I get some of my best stories and Peter shares countless situations where he used movie plots to drive home points during business meetings<\/li>\n
  6. History<\/strong> – What has happened in the past are lessons we can pull from today.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As Peter points out, #1 and #2 are the best materials you can use to develop your stories. Number three and four fires up the imagination while #5 and #6 emotionalize a call to action.<\/p>\n

    So, the next time you feel tempted to invent a story to help drive home a point, I’d encourage you to instead use one of the 6 sources above. It’s more credible.<\/p>\n

    What are other sources we can pull from to develop our stories? Do share in the comments are below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    James Frey duped the world. In 2005, Oprah Winfrey selected his book, A Million Little Pieces, as part of her book club. And everyone knows that when Oprah chooses a book, it becomes a bestseller. Imagine everyone’s surprise when just a few months later, James sat on Oprah’s couch admitting to the world that most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[140,101,144,138,139,142,143,141],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-teller","tag-a-million-little-pieces","tag-carol-roth","tag-influence-through-stories","tag-james-frey","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-peter-guber","tag-tell-to-win","tag-ty-bennett","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}