Choose Stories
That Earn Belief

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

You don't lose people because you tell stories badly. You lose them because you pick the wrong ones. This episode is about story selection, not storytelling. The real tension sits between what feels meaningful to you and what actually matters to the audience in front of you. A story can be funny, polished, and deeply personal and still do nothing to move the people in the room. So here's the uncomfortable question. Are you choosing stories because you enjoy telling them or because it changes how someone sees the problem that you solve? How do you recognize a story that gets a laugh and nods, but never leads to action?

Listen with one thing in mind this episode. The right story does more than entertain. It earns belief. Good morning, Dixie.

Dixie Carlton 00:56

Good morning, Brad. Oh, I like the sound of that. The right story earns belief. That's a powerful line. I hadn't even thought of that.

Brad Hauck 01:05

It is. Think back to the best speakers you've ever seen. Generally, they have really great stories, or their speeches, all stories almost. But those stories get you in and they teach you things and they make you think about your life from a different perspective as well. So you apply the thinking to you. And I've seen a few people in my life do it really well. But we all use stories and we have some really great stories, but are they really impacting the way you want them to? I suppose is the question.

Dixie Carlton 01:36

Yes, that's a really good question. I think it comes down to often people think that they can tell the story, but they haven't rehearsed it. They haven't thought it through or even looked for where the funny points could be enhanced or where the sensitive points could be narrated perhaps differently. And sometimes when the story doesn't really land, it comes down to how you've told it or how you've identified the parts of it that are the most relevant or the easiest to get the best mileage out of.

Brad Hauck 02:08

Yeah. Often think like anything, being on stage is a performance. And I know there is people who will spend a lot of time practicing stories, how it's delivered, where they stand on stage when they go high and low or soft and loud and all those sorts of things. And so many of us who probably don't tell a lot of stories because I tend to go really technical in my case, have to realize there's so much more to telling a story, and that it does require practice to get the inflection and the feeling into the room.

Dixie Carlton 02:41

I remember attending a speaking sh workshop years ago run by Patricia Fripp, and it was all about ensuring that as you told the story, you would stand at certain places on the stage. And if you were going to go up or down, you would take three steps to the left or three steps to the forward or you would step back a little bit. And I remember thinking I was so caught up on the mechanics of how to position myself on the stage that I found the actual storytelling incredibly difficult. Mastering all of that. And sometimes we go to these events and the people who are incredible at stagecraft buy into all of that really well.

But it doesn't suit everybody. And so the saving grace for me was a few years later, someone said, No, just be yourself, but tell the story better. Work out where the story highlights are. And that was a really big relief because it enabled me to think differently about how I was narrating the story. Now, and I've had people say, You're a good storyteller, Dixie, but I'm still underconfident when I'm telling a story on stage versus when I'm writing it. But when I'm writing it, I can dig into it in a different way. But I've heard you tell stories and you are very good at sharing what's happened and building the suspense and making sure that everyone leans forward.

What's your background for telling stories?

Brad Hauck 04:10

I suppose the key is to find a story that's emotive to you, something that means a lot to you, because then it shows in your face, it shows in your voice as well, because you will get emotionally involved in the story, and that carries through the microphone. I must admit, when I'm talking about making websites rank, that's very difficult. But when I'm talking about leadership and I'm talking about fire ground experiences, that's a whole nother kettle of fish. That's very emotive sort of stuff. So I think it really does come down to picking the right story that actually moves you as well, because that's what the audience is looking for.

They're actually looking to see that this means a lot to you. So that's why you're telling it. It's not just a case of, oh, we went to the beach and it was a nice day. We went to the beach and this happened and it was horrifying. Not necessarily horrifying, but you know what I mean. It's impactful on you, and that shows in your body language, it comes through in your voice. And I think that's what helps make things more powerful.

Dixie Carlton 05:15

Yes, and there's a difference between how you would talk about going to the beach and unpacking the lunch and you know, that it was burning hot and everyone needed to have sunscreen on, and then the waves picked up, etc., and you're slowing down to tell a story and place the scene versus hey, we went to the beach, it was really hot, and then we noticed that the lifeguards were all running into the sea and someone was in trouble. That was resolved and everyone got home safely. That doesn't have the same impact. And I think learning to unpack a story and tell a story where you do highlight the specific parts of it is important.

In writing, we talk about show, don't tell. Show how something unfolded rather than just tell the facts or work through the bullet points.

Brad Hauck 06:03

Yeah, it's a skill that needs to be learned. I spend a lot of time reading. I enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction, and and I always have. I'm quite an avid reader, but I've never been a story writer. And so, from my perspective, you write fiction books, or you're a story writer, I wouldn't see myself that way. And so for me, it's much harder to tell a story, and yet I tell stories all the time in my life. If I'm in a firetruck and we're going to a fire, I'll be telling the guys the story of last time we came here so that they're aware of what to expect and what happened last time.

So I'm setting the scene for them before we arrive. So I do tell stories and I do it with my family as well, of course. But when you get on stage, it's like, how do we put a story in here?

Dixie Carlton 06:49

Yes. Well, we had a lot of fun with your book, Run Towards the Flames, because we decided when we were working through the production and the editing that we would turn some of your stories into dialogue-based stories where we would actually take the reader out of what else you were writing and actually tell the story of what happened. And then the captain said, and then we had the dialogue quotes. And then this happened, and we had the dialogue quotes. And such said to such and such other person, Oi, mate, did you realize that was going to happen?

And such responded, and so we got into this dialogue concept, which made the storytelling really powerful in the book, but you couldn't necessarily do that in the same way if you were telling the same story on stage.

Brad Hauck 07:40

No, because you really need you're acting out roles in that one. I was always interested, Simone De Haas, who obviously talks about stagecraft and works with people on stage producing shows. She talked about parts of stage, which you mentioned before, but also it reminded me that people on stage, when they tell stories, they practice over and over until they are the character in the story. And you know, it reminded me that I need to remember that even though the story might be about me, I need to be the character I need to portray, the look, the feeling, and all that to bring everybody else in the room into the story with me, rather than delivering the story in front of them and having them go, oh, let's have a look at that.

You really got to bring the audience in and need to be a great actor to do that. But you do need to plan the story out. You need to spend some time looking at how do you structure a story for impact. And I mean, there's plenty of books on that, as we know. And they're well worth reading because it is a skill to actually write screenplays and to write stories. It's not something that happens. And they do follow a pretty standard sort of format, too. Even if you look at the story brand books, they talk about the formats of movies and how once you see that the hero's journey sort of thing, you see it in every movie.

It's repeated. And if they don't follow that, you feel uncomfortable watching the movie. And there's a lot to be learned, but there it's out there for you if you need it.

Dixie Carlton 09:10

One of the people that I'm the biggest that I'm a big fan of with regards to how to nude to tell stories as a speaker is Carmine Gellow. And he writes, I think one of his book is called The Storytellers. It's evading me off the top of my head, but it's about specifically telling stories and storyteller is in the title. And it is all about ensuring that you wrap your stories up in all of the right things. And he quotes people like Steve Jobs, etc., who was also a great storyteller. And I think yes, the hero's journey is one thing, but also working out how do you tell stories succinctly when you are trying to demonstrate something on stage.

One of the things that I talk about quite a lot lately is the power of metaphors. And if you're going to be telling stories, so for example, when you're telling stories, you want to be working within a framework of metaphors that relate to the topics that you speak on. So for example, you talk about firefighting. So that would be metaphors that might relate to heat, turning the heat up, hosing something down, tree lines and fire lines. All those fire idioms that you all those fire idioms, all of those things about getting too hot to handle the heat, those sort of things within the framework of your storytelling would be powerful and also not confuse the market or the audience.

In the same way that I talk about the experts' journey or the authority journey, the author journey has to come complete with how do you navigate the pitfalls or the landmines? Do you need a guide for those mountains? Here's your compass. What's in your backpack? What tools do you need to be fishing out of your backpack? How do so I talk about maps and all of the things that relate to the journey, climbing a mountain? I don't so much talk about climbing mountains, that's more Rainer Petek's specific area of your because he is an Alpine, he's a mountain climber and guide.

So he also is a great storyteller, but always relates his stories within those frameworks of metaphors. And I think that's a really powerful way to, as you are starting to learn to tell your own stories, make sure you don't wander off topic. So for example, if you suddenly started talking about the pit crew and the driving being in the driving seat, it wouldn't have as much power as if you were saying, and then the fire trucks turned up and we all had to bail really fast and we had to get our water hoses pointing in the right direction.

That's far more powerful than you suddenly wandering off topic into something that's different completely. And that's part of storytelling. Yeah, that's part of storytelling.

Brad Hauck 12:03

Yeah, so one of the things that I've started doing lately, obviously, we wrote the chapter for the conference in the book two, which is coming out soon, very soon actually. And I talked about AI and I used the idiom fire, the fact that it'll burn up your business. And we used that through that whole chapter. And so I've started actually applying that across the content that I'm producing. So I've written three articles in the last couple of weeks for LinkedIn, but again, I keep bringing it back to those fire stories and bringing in the business to the fire story.

So I'm using that constant theme of fire. What it's helping me do is actually see how I can take this and integrate it with this comfortably. So I wrote an article on command and communication. And now that's a really important thing in the business. If you don't have one person in command communicating properly, things can break down through the business. You or you're everything can come apart. But I was able to use the fire stories to illustrate that in a business sense as well. And by continuing to actually write in that style, it's helping me integrate my thinking with the stories, and then it's bringing more stories to the fore.

And I think like long term, that will actually help me number one, tie everything together nicely between my firefighting and my business marketing that I do for people, but also make my speaking more interesting because I'll be much more comfortable with every time I speak using fire to illustrate points. So maybe for someone else that might be helpful.

Dixie Carlton 13:34

Yes, I think that's exactly right. That is where you start to pull it all together and it all gets racked up so people remember right from the get-go that you're the fire guy. You're the fire guy who talks about AI and leadership. Powerful combination of topics.

Brad Hauck 13:51

Yeah, exactly. I think if you want to start somewhere, maybe that's a good starting point because as I said, I'm not gifted in that way. I really do find it hard. I'm very technical, but you can train yourself over time. And if you can't do it straight away, one of the things I suggest is you get some AI to help you write what you want to write and then say, okay, I want to integrate some fire idioms or your theme into it. Can you give me some suggestions? And that might get you just started. But once you move into that, it actually starts to flow more and you find, oh, this story would fit that, and that story would fit that, because you've got a million stories inside your head.

You just got to get them out.

Dixie Carlton 14:32

And AI can't write your stories for you. They are your stories. AI will not make up a story for you. I don't think it does.

Brad Hauck 14:39

Well, but it won't be your story, it won't be your story.

Dixie Carlton 14:43

Yeah. And so when you are really needing to have that authenticity with your storytelling, you need to be telling your own stories and writing your own case studies. And you can, however, use AI very well to say, okay, I'm gonna write this or I'm going to present this story. How can I make some of these points funny? I'm I really love how I can work it to say, yeah, this is a really droll topic, or maybe this is a little bit serious. I'd like to find some ways of lightening the mood as I tell the stories.

AI, give me some ideas for that. And I find that works really well. And the other thing that I find useful with using AI in storytelling is ensuring that I can work, that I can check that I'm not sounding too judgmental or too bad, like I'm preaching. Like sometimes you really do want to be very careful about hitting the right formula or the right style. And AI is brilliant for that. Because it's also really important that as speakers, we don't use the stage as a therapy couch for ourselves.

Brad Hauck 15:54

Oh, yeah. I've seen that done, and it's painful for the audience. Very good. And people get very uncomfortable in the room, and you watch some people on stage and you're like, do you realize you're actually hurting your audience? They actually don't want to hear you speak again because you're actually unloading all your problems onto them. That's for your friends, not for the audience.

Dixie Carlton 16:12

Exactly.

Brad Hauck 16:13

And and look, the other thing too is that you only you can tell your stories, as you said. And that's really important from the perspective of telling the story, because when you're recalling a story that actually happened on stage, as I said, you have these visceral reactions to the story you're telling. If you try and tell a story that AI wrote for you, you will find it's not the same. It's not there in the back of your head, number one. Yeah, number two, you've got no real connection to it. So while it might sound like a cool story, I just say, no, don't do it.

You've got more than enough stories of your own. You do not need someone else to write stories for you. You can use a writer to write your stories for you. Work with someone who's a professional in this area if you want to. There is people who work with speakers to make their stories amazing. I know a few people that do that, and their work's exceptional. So, you know, you can take your story and make it better with guidance, but use only your stories or stories you've been told, maybe if necessary.

Dixie Carlton 17:16

Yes. Absolutely brilliant. Yes, you're so right. And that was a fantastic topic to really unpack because I think a lot of people get difficult on the concept of yes, I've got to do this presentation, but how do I make the stories really pop? How do I make them memorable and meaningful? And I like to say stories make the facts sticky because it it's so much easier to remind someone of something if they can relate to story. But yeah, it is an art and it is something that takes practice and planning and thinking about. So yeah, we've covered some really interesting aspects of that today.

Brad Hauck 17:55

Absolutely. Facts are interesting, but you know, emotion makes things stick in people's heads. So yeah, look, it's an area that we can all get better at every day, constantly learning as a speaker to get better at what we do. And storytelling is definitely one of those areas. If you just get on stage and tell six stories and get off, if they're great stories, you're gonna have a major impact on people's lives. Yes, indeed. If this episode has you thinking about writing a book, but you're not sure how to shape your ideas, structure your thinking, or turn your expertise into something people actually want to read, reach out to Dixie by indiexpertspublishing.com.

She'll help you turn what's in your head into a clear, compelling book that builds authority the right way. And if you're doing the work but not getting enough clients, start with clarity. When your message is clear, everything else works better, and that's where I come in. My brand, my brand clarity blueprint helps define what you're known for. Find me at profyclicks.com.au. Take the step that fits where you're stuck right now, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Dixie Carlton 19:00

Thanks, Brad. Lovely chatting as always.