Episode Details

Storytelling has a lot of guidelines and rules. Yet, some of the critical elements slip under the radar. You don't realise storytelling elements and secrets that are hiding in plain sight. And storytellers can't always explain what they're doing?and so these elements of storytelling get left out. And yet, they're incredibly powerful. Like for instance, the concept of "anticipation" before the "problem". It's nowhere to be found? Unless of course you listen to this episode on how to tell riveting stories. Welcome to Goldilocks land! http://www.psychotactics.com/three-elements-storytelling/

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In this episode Sean talks about how to create stories that are very powerful.

Part 1: How the 'The Wall' changes the pace of a story Part 2: The power in using the 'The Reconnect' Part 3: Why anticipation is so critical in storytelling Earlier Recording: Right click and 'save as' to download this episode Re-Release: Right click and 'save as' to download this episode

Useful Resources and Links

The Brain Audit: How to introduce your product in a language the customer understands Read or listen to: How to double your writing speed Special Bonus: How to design the pricing grid for your product

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This is The 3 Month Vacation, and I'm Sean D'Souza.

I was about 2 years old when I first had a bout of convulsions. It didn't start up as convulsions. I was standing there on the balcony, looking out on the road, and then I fell off the stool that I was standing on. As the story goes, I ran to my mother. She noticed that I was having convulsions, and she panicked. Now, panic would be the wrong word to use because what she did next was bundled me in her arms and ran with me to the hospital.

To put you in the frame of mind of what India was when I was growing up, there were no phones or most people didn't have phones. They didn't have cars. You probably had a scooter if you were well off. That's just how things were back then. What she had to do was run a distance of 2 kilometers, maybe 3 kilometers to get to the nearest hospital. When she got to the hospital, they wouldn't admit me because I had meningitis and the hospital was not in the position to deal with cases of meningitis. Somehow, she managed to get them to admit me.

At that point in time, they asked for the mother. Now, my mother was very young at that point in time and they assumed that she was somehow the sister. They said, "No. No. No. You have to get the mother." This is very odd in India because people tend to get married very early in India and yet they were insisting that they had to have the mother before they could go ahead with anything. There I was, not doing so well and the hospital authorities wouldn't go ahead without dealing with the mother. Now, she convinced them but once they admitted me, there was one more problem. The doctor wasn't so sure that I would survive the meningitis. He told my parents, and by that point, my father was there as well. He said, "I have to tell you this. Your son will either die or he'll go mad."

What you just heard was the story of my youth. The question is, why did you keep listening? Why did the story work? What is it that caused you to pay attention and not move away from the story?

In today's episode, we're