913: Upping your Influence with the Five Principles of Captivating Stories with Karen Eber

Pete Mockaitis
Karen, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Karen Eber
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m pumped up to hear about some of the gems you got for us in your book The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence, and Inspire. And I’d love it if you could start us off with an example of a perfect story or a super memorable gripping story that exemplifies a perfect story in action.

Karen Eber
I’ll tell you the opening story in my book, which is about my eyes. I was born with blue eyes, like most babies, and at about the age of four months, they start to change to different colors, so I have a brown eye and a green eye. And I’ve always loved this. Why have one eye color when you can have two? And it’s a special thing but, as much as I loved it, I would come to recognize the exact moment when people would notice it for the first time.

And their words would slow in the middle of a dialogue and I could see them moving back and forth, almost like their brain was in a negotiation, trying to think like, “Which one do I look at?” And they would eventually stop mid-sentence, and say, “Do you know you have two different color eyes?” to which I would usually go, “No,” because what do you say to that?

And then I would brace myself because the following script happen just about every time, of, “I know a dog that has two different colored eyes.” I’m like, “Okay, thank you.” “David Bowie, he had two different color eyes,” which he didn’t. He had an accident and dilated pupil. And then it would turn into, “Well, do you see the same colors out of both eyes? And what color are your parents’ eyes? And do your eyes give you special powers?”

And this thing that I love suddenly became this burden because I was now this weird thing where they would call other people over and there would be 10 faces trying to get a viewpoint of my eyes, and I hated it. I didn’t love the way I was treated for the thing that I really enjoyed about myself. And one day I decided that I was done with it.

And so, once I got the “How did that happen?” I told them how I was born with brown eyes, and, “One night, when I was about four years old, I was in my room coloring, and you know that big box of crayons that everybody has where you’ve got the broken ones, and peeled ones, and the perfect ones? Well, I reached into that box and I pulled out a green crayon and I sniffed it, and it didn’t really smell like anything but I took a nibble and kind of liked the texture and so I ate the green crayon, and I like it so much I ate all the green crayons in the box. And the next day I woke up, and my eye was green.”

And then I would be quiet, and you could see whomever I told this to, there would be this internal negotiation going on of, “Is she for real? Like, there’s no way this story is real but she said it so straight, I can’t really tell. Like, what do I say? What do I do?” And I would let them off the hook. But what happened was this shift in energy, where I went from this thing and this weird person and weird, weird thing on display to a moment of connection.

And most of the time, people recognize they had been asking me all these silly questions, and they kind of made me not human, and that this was something that actually made me more relatable and more human. And it created a shift that not only was memorable because I’ve had people tell me decades later that they remember this. But that it created a connection that we probably wouldn’t have had had this not happened.

And so, for me, this was the perfect story to start with because it shows stories aren’t just about giving a presentation. They can be a moment of connection, or shifting energy, or shifting circumstances so you can get into a different type of conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool, yes. And what’s nifty there is you have a lot of reps in terms of, okay, this happens to you repeatedly so you can sort of experiment and see how things go and what works. And, sure enough, you’ve transformed an experience which is sort of annoying and a burden to deal with into something fun that you can laugh with and roll with.

And that is cool. There you have it. Stories transforming what’s going on with our brain experiences. And in your TED Talk, you mentioned just that, is that our brains kind of mirror each other, the storyteller and the story receiver. What is this science fiction, Karen?

Karen Eber
Yeah, it sounds almost too fake to be true. There’s a neuroscientist out of Princeton, Uri Hasson, who put people in MRI machines, and the first person, first group, goes in, and they are listening to an episode, or watching an episode of a show on the BBC, and they are measuring their brain activity. And when they take them out, put them in a second time, and this time, those people are told to recount the episode that they had just watched.

They then record the brain activity during that. And then a new group of people are brought in. They go into the MRI and they listen to the recounted episode of the people that were in the MRI machine. So, you have three different instances of watching, recounting, and listening to the recounting. And what they found is the activity was the same.

It didn’t matter if they had experienced it, if they were the ones recounting it, or they were actually listening to the recounting of it, that neural activity was very similar, which means that stories almost gives you this artificial reality because, as you’re listening to it, your brain is imagining and seeing and placing you in the story, and it then lights up as though you were in it, which is why we go to the movies, and our heart is racing because James Bond is running across the rooftops but we’re not moving because our brain is saying, “You’re in this movie,” or it’s imagining what it would feel like, and you can feel that amped feeling.

Or it’s also why this time of year is where there’s often a lot of horror films and things that people pay attention to. That’s why you get so amped and surprised, it’s because your brain is, like, “You are here about to have someone jumped out at you.”

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, that’s wild. And now that gets me thinking in terms of the emerging proliferation of fMRI type devices with kernel or neuro link or others in terms of if all of our brains are doing the same things in response to the story being told or heard, it seems that it may not be so fanciful to think of a world in which technology can decode what’s happening in our brains to relay that story.

Karen Eber
Let’s give an asterisk next to it because I’m not trying to suggest that it’s like propaganda and we can brainwash everyone into it, but what does happen is that your brain, your senses are starting to engage as though you are the character there and you’re having some of the experiences. And so, it is a more dynamic way to interact with stuff.

It’s not quite propaganda at scale though but part of the reason why this is increasing in interest and popularity is that in the past 15 years, our understanding of the brain has just become so much more. There are just so many more discoveries and understanding and experiments have been done to help us be more savvy, but what is really happening from how we are communicating, consuming, deciding, all of these things are just we learn so much every day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, with that said, can you share with us, what’s sort of the big idea or main message behind the book The Perfect Story?

Karen Eber
It builds on the science of storytelling but in a relatable way. So, this won’t have you be putting on a lab coat and breaking out test tubes and beakers. The idea is that it’s not enough to tell a story the way you tell a story is going to make a difference in the experience with the listener. So, there are certain ways that our brain is going to respond to information but it’s the way we put together that information to put in the unexpected events to engage the senses to build tension in the story.

It’s the orchestration and the choices that we make that cause the brain to pay attention and be immersed in it or not. If you think of a movie that you tried to watch and didn’t get very far in, it’s because your brain just said, “This is not worth the time or the calorie spend.” And so, the book gets into, “How do you understand what’s happening in the brain when you tell stories?”

But, more importantly, what do you then think about when you are putting your stories together so that you can create an immersive story? And then it takes you through the full process of developing and telling stories, telling stories with data, and making sure that they don’t manipulate while you navigate the vulnerability.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very cool. And before we get into the particulars of how that’s done, could you share with us a little bit of the why in terms of what’s ultimately at stake for professionals if they do this well or not so well? What kind of career trajectory impact do you think that makes between folks who tell okay stories from time to time when they remember, to those who consistently take the time to craft the perfect stories where they can?

Karen Eber
I think it comes down to attention, and the greatest gift any audience they can give you is their attention. It is a precious commodity. And we have choices to make of “Are we going to talk at people?” If we’re in a business setting, are we going to pull out the PowerPoint quilts of slides then just pick and choose, and just dump things at people and put up the 10-point font, and say, “I’m not going to read this,” and then proceed to talk at people where no one remembers it ten minutes later? Or are we going to be thoughtful about how we’re using that attention and really trying to connect people to information that’s going to inform their world and help them think differently, or maybe reach a different decision?

If you take the time to really build these muscles and then you become faster at it, you are always going to be winning the hearts and minds, you’re going to be connecting with people and being relatable, you are going to see how to motivate individuals on an individual level. The more that AI and automation comes in, the more we need to be able to leverage individualization at scale. And so, storytelling and really communicating are just a really dynamic way to do this and maximize the attention that we get.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that end, let’s dig into how it’s done. You’ve got a fun turn-of-a-phrase, you say we’ve got five factory settings of the brain. Tell us, what do you mean by that? What are these settings? And how do they impact how we tell stories?

Karen Eber
If you think of a phone that you unbox, it comes with a factory setting. There are certain apps and programs, and anytime you restore the phone, it’s going to go back to those basic settings. It’s like, “Here’s the core things that run it.” There’s something similar in the brain when you communicate. There are basic ways that we’re going to respond to information and communication. And so, I call them the five factory settings of the brain.

And they get into different things, like the first one is that your brain is lazy. It is meant to be the broker of calories in your body. The number one job of the brain is to keep the body alive. And part of that is making sure you’re safe. Part of that is also regulating how you breathe, move, digest, all of those things but it’s also, “How do I need to set my foot down if I’m going to be walking downstairs?”

And so, the brain is using 20% of the body’s calories for these things, and the majority of these calories are going to these predictions for like, “How do I move around?” And that means it always wants to have a surplus of calories because it never wants to go bankrupt. The goal of the brain is to respond to stimulus to be able to be ahead and anticipate and make predictions versus to react because by predicting, you’re making a guess and you’re doing something, and sometimes you’ll get it right and sometimes you’ll get it wrong.

But if you’re reacting every time, it’s a much bigger energy drain. So, what this means in terms of stories is that because the brain is lazy, it’s not meant to be deeply immersed in everything all the time, and it looks for moments for when it’s going to be able to step back and conserve calories. These are the nights that you binge your favorite show on TV that you’ve seen several times, or maybe you put in a movie that you could recite the dialogue because you have that moment of, like, “I just don’t want to think.” That’s your brain saying, “Let’s conserve some calories.”

The same thing happens in meetings and stories when you notice you’re drifting off. That’s the brain taking a natural pause and conserving calories. The way to overcome this in a story, though, is to put things in that make people have to spend calories, put in the unexpected events, be building the tension, be engaging the senses so that the brain is there, interested, ready to go.

So, that’s one. There’s five more but these are starting to help you understand, “Okay, I get it.” There are certain things that the brain is going to be doing, and that then gives me different choices as the storyteller to then play with and see how immersed I can make the brain.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. I’m reminded, there’s a marketing book called Don’t Make Me Think, and I feel that when I’m interacting with webpages or any number of things, like, “Okay, oh, this isn’t going to be quick and easy. Ah, never mind, maybe later.”

Karen Eber
Right, and that’s fair. I even joke, like it’s our attention span, and some of it is. Our attention spans have definitely changed, especially through COVID, but it’s also there is, at the bottom of this, a whole internal wager, like, “Is this worth the attention and the calorie spend?” and sometimes it’s not. Or, if we’re tired or hungry, that it gets diverted and it makes it even harder.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Let’s hear the other four factory settings.

Karen Eber
The second is that we make assumptions. So, the brain hates for things to be incomplete. It’s always going to be making predictions and trying to anticipate because it wants to respond and not react. So, the faster it makes an assumption or a prediction, the faster it can say, “All right, we’ve done this. Now, we can conserve.” Maybe we have to course-correct every now and then but we know.

And what this means is this is why you try to guess the ending of the movie, or the book, or you’re in a meeting and you’re trying to anticipate what the person is going to say, or the show starts, and you’re like, “Yeah, I know where this is going to go. Forget it. I don’t need to be paying attention to this.” And what you want to do when you’re telling stories is either slow down these assumptions or you want to lean into them.

So, if you lean into, if I said to you, “He gave her the passcode to his phone,” what does that bring to mind for you?

Pete Mockaitis
I recently saw an Ashley Madison documentary so I’m thinking about infidelity. You’re right. I filled in a lot of gaps there.

Karen Eber
You did. That’s really fine, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Apparently, during the romantic relationship and there’s trouble in paradise.

Karen Eber
Yes, completely, right? And then there’s someone else that’s going to be making an assumption, they’ll might say, “Well, he trusts her.” So, there’s many different things. But just by that one sentence, your brain is already trying to make assumptions and fill in the gaps because this is what we naturally do. So, sometimes in a story, you want to lean into what those assumptions might be and let the brain finish a thought. And sometimes you want to disrupt them, you want to put in an unexpected event or detail that makes them pause because you want to have their brain hit the proverbial speed bump, and say, “Wait a minute. What? That’s not what I expected.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing. Sometimes you go with the flow with what they expect, and sometimes you don’t. I’m thinking about how in casinos and video games, they very deliberately finetune the percentage of time you receive your variable rewards. Do we know, Karen, is there a range of percentages in which we want to give them what they’re expecting versus something totally different?

Karen Eber
No, it’s all choices and experimentation. While I’m giving you steps, it’s really not formulaic. It’s really more like here are a whole bunch of ingredients, and you can make a Mediterranean dish, you can make a Thai dish, you can make an Italian dish. It’s up to you on the combinations that you put it together with, depending on what you want for that audience.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s also making me think about comedy in terms of, I guess that’s what makes jokes, jokes, is that, “Oh, you’re expecting one thing then, surprise, we get you with the other thing.” And I guess I’m thinking about the comedy I love the most is a little weird, like, I don’t know, Key & Peele or Nathan for You, and it’s because, for me or my taste, it’s like they crank it up even more, like, “Whoa.”

Karen Eber
Comedy is such great storytelling because what they’re doing is they’re forcing your brain to spend calories. They’re building the tension because you think you know where it’s going to go, and your brain is guessing what this joke is, and then, zing, you get the punchline and it went in a different direction. And then you’re like, “I did not see that. That is so clever,” and you remember that joke, and it’s because it challenged your assumptions and it helped your brain spend some calories. And so, now it’s become a part of your experience and your long-term memory. Same thing can happen in stories, too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Let’s hear more of these factory settings and implications.

Karen Eber
Third one is that we have this library of files in our brain. So, if you take a photo on your phone, and you swipe up on it, you’ll see the F-stop, the date, the location, the megabytes, like everything that was used to take the photo is stamped on it. And something similar happens to our senses that is a metaphor. So, as you’re taking in information through your senses, and you’re having these experiences, they get stamped with emotions and stored in your long-term memory the same way that this photo has.

So, when your brain is going to make these predictions and these assumptions, it’s going through this library of files of things that you know, or things that are related to what you know, or maybe sometimes it’s like, “Yeah, we’ve got to open a brand-new file for this one. We’ve never experienced this before.” And these are all going to be different because we all have different experiences. But when you’re telling a story, you want to connect to what people know because you get a very different imprint.

So, if I say to you, “The incision was small,” how big do you think that is using centimeters or inches or some type of measurement that is helpful to you?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s funny, when I’m imagining a small incision, it’s between half an inch to two inches is a small incision.

Karen Eber
Yeah, right.

Pete Mockaitis
Not that I know anything about surgery but I’m just going to declare that for a small incision.

Karen Eber
Right, exactly. Your brain is going, “What is small?” and you’re not even thinking. This is all happening subconsciously. But if I say to you, “The incision is the size of a paperclip,” you immediately see it, you immediately know how big it is, and I’m now taking up free real estate in your brain because that just gave you, and often I can build on it, and you are not even having to think about it.

And so, when you’re telling a story, you want to put in some of these things that are going to immediately connect to what people know and give that visualization so that the person isn’t even having to connect the dots. You are taking over their brain and putting this fully-formed idea or image in there, and you’re getting instant cognition from it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what’s the fourth one?

Karen Eber
The fourth one is that we…actually let me ask you. If you walk into a networking event and you didn’t know anybody there, what would be your thought process for who you want to go talk to?

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny, it varies a whole lot based on my overall mood and objectives but, generally speaking, I find the safest move, this is what it feels safest, is to go to the one who is adrift, lonely, isolated, looking at their phone, as oppose to those who are like huddled up and like deeply engaged, leaning in in a conversation, like, “Okay, I’ll let them lie but that person looks like they might appreciate having me into their world.”

Karen Eber
Totally. And what your brain is doing, is they’re going, “Who is that person or that group that I can walk up to that feels safe?” Exactly what you just described. So, that is like, “This is going to be my person for the next five minutes or maybe for the whole event. Who knows?” and it’s the in group. This is the group that we share something in common, maybe it’s values, or beliefs, or experiences, or even aspirations, and say, “We feel a sense of kinship with this group.”

It also categorizes things into outgroups, so that group that’s huddled together really tightly that looks like it’s too hard to break into, it’s like, “Yeah, I’m not a part of that group. I could go over to that group, I could try, but I don’t really feel a part of it.” And outgroups are where we notice differences. And so, when you’re telling a story, you want to be thoughtful of, “Are you trying to have the audience feel like a member of the in group, feel like some group that they feel a part of, or that feels safe to be around, or are you trying to have them notice or feel the experience of being a member of an outgroup, which charities do this?”

A natural disaster happens, and you see a charity spotlighting an individual that lost their home, has no electricity, is struggling to get clothing, food. Meanwhile, you’re sitting in electricity and have food and running water right next to you, and you recognize how different your circumstances are. So, some of what you want to think about is, “What is the experience you want the audience to come away with? Do you want them to feel a part of something or a connection to the idea in your story? Or do you want them to notice how different they are?”

And neither are right or wrong, these are just some different ingredients you could choose, which brings us to the last one, which is that, at our most simple level, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. We’ve got this cocktail of pleasure neural chemicals which are serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. These are mostly released in moments of connection, so you can’t wield them, you can’t command them. It’s truly when someone feels that bond, that connection, that they are shared.

There’s also a cocktail of adrenaline, or epinephrine, or cortisol, and it’s released when the brain says, “Okay, you need to focus. There’s something here that’s potentially not right. You might be in danger, so we’re going to give you these.” And what happens in a story is that we see increases in some of these neurochemicals as a result of the story.

So, when your heart starts racing because there is something that happens on screen, or someone jumps out and surprises you, and you feel that wave through your body, that’s adrenaline. That’s your brain saying, “Focus. There’s something happening.” And the story that gives you goosebumps or makes you maybe well up with a tear or two, that you’re getting different pleasure neurochemicals.

And so, some of what you want to think about is what is that experience. So, are you intentionally telling an uncomfortable story, or are you telling a feel-good story, or maybe both? And so, now you start to look at these five and you recognize you have choices and where you’re making the brain pay attention and spend calories, and where you are leaning into assumptions, or slowing them down, and how you’re taking advantage of what the person knows by putting fully-formed ideas in their head.

And then thinking about, “Am I trying to have you feel a member of the group or different than a group? And am I having you or both? And am I trying to have you feel like a member or have that feel-good experience or an uncomfortable experience, or both?” So, now you start to see, “Okay, these are all choices, and I might not choose all of them in every story, but I can start to see where these are going to make a difference in the experience that someone has of this story.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Well, now could you give us a demonstration perhaps of a lame story that fails to take into account these ingredients, and then that same version hopped up with some goodness? But, yeah, it’d be really fun to see these in action.

Karen Eber
I think what I would love to do is an activity with you, if you’re open.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Karen Eber
Let’s take a basic story and then show how we build it. Are you game?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Karen Eber
Okay. So, I want you to think of a vacation experience that you don’t mind sharing with people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I went to the Dominican Republic with some friends once. It was an all-inclusive resort.

Karen Eber
Amazing. Give us the 30-second version of it. Don’t worry about the five factory settings or any of that. Just tell us a little bit about this vacation.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure. It’s very lazy. It was warm. There was a beach. It was all inclusive. There was much food and beverage and water. Chilling. Talking. Eating. Yup, just relaxing stuff.

Karen Eber
Amazing. Okay, so now I’m going to have you tell the story again. So, we’ve got a basic story, “We’re in the Dominican Republic, we’re on vacation, all-inclusive.” Your brain is in lazy mode, for sure, on this vacation. So, now I’m going to have you tell this again, and this time I want you to describe the colors as you’re telling the story. Make us feel like we’re there seeing some of the things that you’re seeing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. There were white sands, palm trees with brown trunks and green leaves, bright blue water, some oranges and pinks in the sky during the sunrise and sunset times.

Karen Eber
Yeah, so now we went from this kind of bland landscape that we can’t necessarily picture to, now we’re picturing this. We can the seascape, we can see a sunrise and a sunset with the colors. So, now, I want you to tell it again, and this time, I want you to bring our senses into it of what are you hearing? What does it smell like? What is, if there any taste involved, what are some of those things? Tell it again and make us feel like we are there experiencing it beside you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, for the sounds, we can hear some seagulls, we can hear some ocean waves, we can hear, I remember, there was this very colorful fellow who ran this sort of water aerobics course twice a day, and he would yell out nice and loud, “Aqua gym!” And I remember there was this repetitive baseline, like, “Dit-rit, dah, dit, dah, dit” whenever the “Aqua gym!” was happening.

Karen Eber
I’m going to pause right there. Dear listeners, I hope you see what just happened. We never would’ve started there but now we can see this moment, and this Aqua gym and the music, like, amazing. So, I hope you’re seeing as well, this is now, we went from this basic story to now we’re there and we’re feeling it, and our brains are, whether we like it or not, our brains are there thinking those things and seeing it. Amazing.

I’m going to ask one more iteration. So, this time I want you to describe your emotions on this. Like, tell us, as you’re hearing Aqua gym and the music and all that, like give us the emotional experience of what did it feel like being there.

Pete Mockaitis
It felt very carefree in the sense of we didn’t have to rush, we didn’t have to worry about what time it was, or what day it was, or what needed to get done. It was just being with friends, like, “Hey,” and just let that sense of carefree timelessness, and it’s very peaceful.

Karen Eber
Amazing. So, if we put it all together, I want you to tell the story one last time of just pulling some different things of you’re on this trip, and it’s carefree, and you’re painting the scene on the beach, and we’re hearing this sights and sounds. Just pull a few of the things in from each of the iterations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, sure thing. And I imagine, with iterations, with the time available to think right, revise, etc., we’d come across a whole lot smoother, but, I’d say, for a story, I had an amazing time on vacation at the Dominican Republic. I had some of my best friends with me. We’re in an all-inclusive resort situation. Beautiful white beaches and blue skies with some nice oranges and pinks during sunrise and sunset.

Bright blue water, fun sounds of seagulls and the seashore, and this fun fellow who would proclaim twice a day, it was time for “Aqua gym!” and play the “Di-dah, di-dit, dah” tunes as a subset of folks on the beach would run with big goofy smiles to participate in the Aqua gym without a care in the world. And we, too, didn’t have a care in the world in terms of what we had to do, or accomplish, or where to be, or what time it was, and it was just very, very peaceful and relaxing and restorative to bond with those guys on that trip.

Karen Eber
Amazing. Amazing. So, in three-ish minutes, we took the basics of a vacation and now we’ve been there with you, and we can see and we get the sense of what it’s like. That’s the difference of you start to make choices and, first, you’re doing this on the fly and doing it amazingly. And thank you for playing along because I appreciate that’s never quite easy to do on the moment. But it shows that you can make different choices to play with different things to pull people into it.

And now I’m going to have Aqua gym stuck in my head.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. Well, so now I’m curious to know, so those are some general principles that can serve us well. Can you perhaps zoom into any particular do’s and don’ts as we’re trying to pull this off? Like, we’re in a professional setting, we want to be persuasive, we think, “Okay, storytelling is cool above and beyond just charts and graphs and data.” What are some pro tips and things to do and things to not do as we’re trying to integrate some of these principles?

Karen Eber
Well, let me start general, and if you want to dig into story time with data, we can get more specific. The biggest mistake, I think, people make is that they think, “Okay, this is an opportunity to tell a story. What story can I tell?” and they focus on the story. You always start with your audience. Every time you tell a story, even if you know the idea you want to tell, you want to center on who you’re telling it to because the story is in service of the audience, and there’s something that you want them to know, think, feel, or do after.

And if you don’t start there, if you don’t ground yourself in “What do I want the audience to know, think, feel, or do? What is their mindset today? And what might be an obstacle?” you risk the story not landing or connecting with the audience at all. Starting with that, you start to picture who you’re talking to and you can make sure that you’re making it relatable to them.

So, that’s the biggest thing of whether it is storytelling with data, or in a meeting, or presentation, or even a story you’ve told many times, you want to stop and just really be thoughtful of “Who is this group I’m telling it to? And what is it that I’m trying to do after?” because that is what’s most important. When you don’t, it’s like the uncle at the holiday table that’s just telling the same story on a loop, that you don’t even need to be there because he just says the same thing over and over.

He’s not saying it for you. He’s saying it for him. It doesn’t matter who’s there. He’s just telling the story. And those moments are always so grating. Same thing that happens in any setting if you don’t start with your audience.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And anything else?

Karen Eber
The biggest thing from there is to put a structure to your story. It’s tempting to just go and let the story meander and not really worry about how you’re structuring it. But when you put a basic structure in place, it’s not only going to be easier for you to tell. It’s going to be easier for the audience to hear. So, once you figure out the audience, you’ve figured out what you want them to know, think, feel, or do, their mindset, and what might be an obstacle, you then want to come up with the four-part story structure.

First one is the context. What’s the setting? Who’s involved? And, really, why should the audience care? Write one sentence out for that. Not every detail, not every plot point, but write a sentence that summarizes the context. Write a second sentence for the conflict. What is there to be resolved in the story? What is the tension and the fuel for the story? Maybe it’s between two people or a person and themselves but you want to get really clear on that conflict that’s going to be the heart of the story.

The outcome is what is the result of the action? What happens as a result of whatever that conflict is? What’s done? And the last is the takeaway. What is it that you want the audience coming away thinking? Because the takeaway should connect back to what you mapped for the audience. So, if you take five minutes before a story to plan out your audience, and then you take another five minutes to plan out a basic story structure, in 10 minutes before the meeting, you can have a more cohesive story that is going to better land with the audience.

Now, there are still all these other things that we would want to do and add to it with time that get to engaging these senses and emotions and counting for the five factory settings. But if you can ground yourself on these things, you’re going to have a better structured story to tell and it’s going to be easier for the audience to listen.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Karen, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Karen Eber
Is there anything that is a burning question that’s helpful to make sure we touch on?

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s take professional settings, stories, data, how do you imagine them working together well? Or, is there a time where you will want to lean more story, more data, right down the middle, story and data? How do you think about that?

Karen Eber
It’s story and data. So, data never speaks for itself. If we go back to the second factory setting that we make assumptions, we are each going to make different assumptions because our assumptions are based on this library of files, all these experiences that we have, and yours are different than mine. So, if I put up a slide that is a simple chart, it seems like there would be no room for a different deciphering, but what really happens is we’re making different assumptions, and we don’t even know. So, then we try to get to a discussion, and we’re not talking about the same thing.

So, recognizing data doesn’t speak for itself, what you want to do is guide people through the story of the data so you can have a common starting point even if people disagree with it. I think there’s this myth or a bias that data are fact and story are not, and that is not true. One is not anymore important than another. Together, I think, they come together to make really helpful understanding and ensure that you can have a discussion and make sure everyone is starting from the same place.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Karen Eber
It is by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who is a neuroscientist. I just heard her say this, and I keep thinking about it. She says that emotions are the recipe for action. And I just keep thinking about what an interesting statement. And we know data doesn’t change behavior; emotions do. But I love thinking of these emotions are the recipe for action, especially I think at work when we’re often encouraged to leave emotions out of it. Like, they’re part of everything that we do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Karen Eber
I just read this book that is a memoir, it’s called The Many Lives of Mama Love. It is by a woman by the name of Lara Love Hardin. So, I just finished writing and publishing a book of my own, and I now am finding I have time to read for fun again. And I met Lara at TEDWomen and was really intrigued by her story of someone that had a really hard life and struggled with drug abuse and built her way back to this really incredible story. So, I really enjoyed that quite a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Karen Eber
Google Keep is my external brain. I dump everything into it from story ideas to to-dos, to a running list of where I need to be. I can access it on any device, and it saves me from trying to remember. It’s like if I’m on a walk, it goes into Google Keep, and it works so well to keep me on track.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Karen Eber
Use Google Keep. It really is, actually, part of what works for me is spending time every Friday planning out a couple weeks of where is my time going, and where do I want to free up space for thinking time or writing time. And then I do go into Google Keep and use that to prioritize and make sure, because I have free today what my priorities are and shifting around. I am an introvert and I like to have good chunks of thinking time for working on things but also for resilience after a full day of speaking. And so, I am continually calibrating my calendar to make sure that I have the right balance of what I need.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Karen Eber
The statement that data doesn’t change behavior but emotions do, I think, is something I said it in my TED Talk, and people, random strangers will send me messages on social media how that stood out to them. And I think that we are in a data-rich era but, as one of my friends said, but we’re insight-poor. And I think the more that we can connect to things in a different way, the more powerful they can be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Karen Eber
My website is the best place. It is my name KarenEber.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Karen Eber
Embrace stories. Don’t be afraid. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to tell one. Don’t think that you can’t tell one because you have to present data. Stories have compounding interest and they earn you the ability to tell more of them. And they honor the most precious thing that people can give you, which is their attention.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Karen, thank you. This has been fun. I wish you much luck and many enjoyable stories.

Karen Eber
Thank you.