Kevin Allison

How Stories Help Us Connect

Our society has an unhealthy fixation on the things that divide us, but we find fulfillment and flourish when we find common ground. For millions of years, nothing has helped us connect with one another like sharing and listening to one another’s stories. Fred Rogers was known to carry a quote from a Benedictine nun in his wallet that read, “There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.”

Studies show that teams and partnerships of all kinds are strengthened when members have empathized with one another in hearing about one another’s lives. So personal storytelling not only helps us reframe our perceptions about people who are different, but also makes us more effective as communicators and collaborators.

The audience walks away with:

• Examples of breakthroughs that people achieved with storytelling.
• Practical tips for telling compelling stories.
• Simple exercises they can revisit again and again for coming up with new, persuasive stories to share.

Storytelling Techniques To Use in Day-to-Day Conversations

Storytellers know how to grab your attention, keep you engaged, and help you to remember a clear, persuasive point. But just as the ingredients in a great recipe can be enjoyed all by themselves, some of the key principles of storytelling can add charisma to your everyday communication, even when you don’t have a story to tell.

The methods storytellers use to focus on the human side of things, bring the senses, thoughts and moods into play, and create and reward curiosity are just as easy to use in any conversation. We’ll walk through many examples of techniques used in stories and show how they can be used right off-the-cuff at the next cocktail party or around the water cooler.

The audience walks away with:

• Guidelines and examples for many techniques to make their conversational style more engaging. Employing them here and there, little by little over time, they will soon become like muscle memory.

Creative Self Care

For more and more people dealing with stress and overwhelm in today’s world, mental health is just as much of a concern as physical health. But while most people make time to exercise a few times a week, far fewer block out 10-to-20 minutes or so on most days to do what is called “inner work.” That might be because it’s easier to consistently return to something that feels less like work and more like play. Self care that incorporates the inspiring fun we all get out of being creative is the key.

There are simple, easy-to-remember ways to make meditation, self-hypnosis, or personal journaling less time consuming, less heavy feeling. There are easy ways to add breaks for play into your day, whether you get a kick out of singing, dancing, acting, writing, drawing, crafting or taking photos or videos. This is a fun and stimulating talk with a little something for everyone.

• The audience walks away with lots of guidelines for easy-to-do, creative and meditative activities.