5 Storytelling Traps That Kill Your Likability

Storytelling Traps to Avoid

Key Concepts: Audience Blindness, Achievement Dumping, Speaking from a Wound (vs. Scar), Making it About You, Preaching vs. Sharing, TSL Framework (Test, Stabilize, Lead), Relatability, Vulnerability, Authenticity, Story Structure.

Introduction

This presentation details five common traps that hinder effective storytelling, impacting how audiences perceive and connect with the speaker. These traps, observed through extensive coaching and presentations to audiences ranging from one-on-one to 30,000 people, lead to speakers being perceived as unlikable, forgettable, and ultimately, invisible. Avoiding these pitfalls dramatically improves audience engagement and connection.

1. Trap #1: Audience Blindness

Audience blindness occurs when a storyteller becomes so engrossed in their narrative that they lose awareness of their audience’s engagement. This manifests in three ways:

• Excessive Irrelevant Context: Overloading the listener with unnecessary details, causing confusion and disengagement.
• Missing Essential Context: Leaving out crucial information, rendering the story incomprehensible. An example provided illustrates a story starting mid-scene with unclear references to “Caroline” and a “printer,” leaving the listener (representing the audience) confused and wanting to simply complete a transaction.
• Lack of a Clear Point: Rambling without a defined takeaway, leaving the audience without a central message.

Solution: Before telling a story, ask: “What context and details are essential for this story to make sense?” and “What’s the one thing I want them to walk away with?” Focus the narrative around that central point, eliminating extraneous information.

2. Trap #2: Achievement Dumping

Achievement dumping involves sharing successes and accomplishments without acknowledging the struggles and human experiences that preceded them. While not necessarily making someone unlikable, it creates distance and prevents genuine connection. The speaker contrasted sharing a $6 million sponsorship deal and a six-pack with acknowledging the effort, rejection, and vulnerability involved in achieving those things.

Key Point: People connect with struggle, not just success.

Solution: Pair wins with costs. Instead of simply stating an achievement, share the journey, the challenges overcome, and the emotions experienced. For example, instead of “I closed a $6 million brand deal,” say, “I closed a $6 million brand deal, but it almost didn't happen. I pitched three times, got rejected twice, and had to completely rework my approach.”

3. Trap #3: Speaking from a Wound Instead of a Scar

This trap involves sharing vulnerable stories while the emotional pain is still raw and unprocessed. This can overwhelm the storyteller and burden the audience.

• Speaking from a Wound: Sharing pain that is still actively bleeding, leading to emotional overwhelm and a loss of control.
• Speaking from a Scar: Sharing experiences after emotional healing, allowing for clarity, perspective, and emotional control.

Case Study: The speaker recounted a personal experience where sharing a vulnerable story about their grandmother while still emotionally raw resulted in a breakdown during a workshop, shifting the focus from teaching to comforting the speaker.

Solution: The TSL Framework:

• Test: Share the story in a safe environment with trusted friends to gauge emotional comfort.
• Stabilize: Practice telling the story until it can be delivered without being overwhelmed by emotion.
• Lead: Focus on the lesson learned from the experience, rather than the emotional experience itself. “Scars tell better stories than wounds.”

4. Trap #4: Making it All About You

This trap occurs when a storyteller focuses solely on their own experience, neglecting to create space for the audience to connect and see themselves within the narrative. The audience wants to see themselves in the story, relate to it, and learn from it.

Example: A story about skydiving was presented in two versions. The first focused solely on the speaker’s experience, using technical details that were unrelatable. The second included a relatable element – acknowledging fear and referencing a previous conversation with the listener about facing fears.

Solution: Include both “you” (the speaker’s experience) and “them” (universal human moments and lessons) in the story. Focus on shared experiences and insights.

5. Trap #5: Preaching Instead of Sharing

This trap involves delivering a story as a lecture, rather than a shared experience. It manifests in three ways:

• Lecturing instead of relating: Telling people what they should do instead of sharing personal struggles and how they were overcome.
• Repetition: Repeating the lesson excessively, leading to audience disengagement.
• Guru Energy: Speaking with arrogance, as if possessing superior knowledge. The speaker differentiated between confidence (believing everyone is on the same playing field) and arrogance (believing one is better than others).

Solution: Let the storytelling do the heavy lifting. Instead of directly stating a lesson, illustrate it through a personal narrative. Maintain a humble and relatable demeanor.

Conclusion

Avoiding these five storytelling traps – audience blindness, achievement dumping, speaking from a wound, making it all about you, and preaching instead of sharing – is crucial for building genuine connection with an audience. By focusing on relatability, vulnerability (when appropriately processed), and a clear message, storytellers can transform from being overlooked to being truly impactful. The speaker emphasized the importance of practice and offered a free training resource to further develop storytelling skills.