4 Tips to Help You Tell Your Success Story in an Engaging Way

Have you ever stared long into the stars? You'll find Orion's three stars lined up in an impeccably regular way, which makes no mistake. You'll see Aries with its three triangular stars, and the most famous constellation Ursa Major.

Note: This article is adapted from a blog post by Dave Nemetz, where he provides 4 tips for turning your success journey into a story that captivates readers.

What you think of as you watch these stars is similar to what some ancient Greeks thought thousands of years ago when they stared into the sky and imagined lines connecting the stars to form shapes. There is symbolism in this story about the common human experience.

You also feel something more powerful than time and space, something that Zorba, the protagonist of Niko Kazantzakis' novel, Zorba the Greek did when he stared at the stars for a long time until he saw a bull and then went to tell his friends. Then, they told all their friend. These stories about the stars have been passed to us thousands of years.

This is the power of the story. However, we do not mean here glorifing Zorba, but illustrating the impact of storytelling. When you tell a story well, its impact lasts for a long time.

How do you turn your success into a good story?

When someone tells a story in a good way, the narrator takes them on a journey in time and space. On the other hand,  narrating a story badly can make the listeners feel bored. So, if stories have this effect, why do not we use them to achieve our goals instead of being indifferent to the art of storytelling and making it a bad experience?

Storytelling - like any other skills - requires constant practice to get it to the best leve. Also, because it is like any other skill, it requires training tools; therefore, receiving help from someone who is an expert in storytelling can lead to amazing results.

I hosted two of these experts on the Audience Builders conversation via Twitter. Arvid Kahl, self-founded entrepreneur, and Bilal Zaidi, founder of Creator lab platform shared their storytelling tools and offered advice that anyone can use to attract public attention, including:

1. Study classic literary works:

Bilal interviewed hundreds of founders, innovators, and active people through his podcast on the Creator Lab platform. To identify real people's lives that deserve to be turned into great stories, he adopted the myth model to tell stories in a great way.

Bilal is a good person at returning to sources, and he benefited greatly from the book "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, which reveals the basic elements of storytelling in an exciting way, and they are the same elements used by the Greek poet Homer and the American director George Lucas. So, it will undoubtedly be useful to you.

2. Paraphrase the story:

Bilal demonstrated a very good interviewing technique in order to come up with an interesting story. When he interviewed the American author Jim McKelvey, he did not ask him: "How does it feel to be a billionaire?" Rather, he asked him the question as follows: "Tell me about the moment you knew you were a billionaire."

This contrast is what makes the difference between exposition and narration.

3. Add your personal experiences to the story:

Arvid fans follow his story as a self-made person who built himself from scratch until achieving success. His advice is to live the story first, and then tell it. Lived experiences may provide the resources you need to create a great story, and Arvid stresses the importance of seizing moments to achieve the element of surprise in the story and make events take an unexpected turn.

Telling a good story does not mean only mentioning positive events. Remember, the audience learns from your failures as well as from your successes.

4. Present yourself as a learner:

Readers of Campbell's books on mythology and classic movie buffs know the impact of the storytelling that talks about a person thirsting for wisdom and receiving lessons from a wise old man. This method of narration is still used because it is effective. In this case, the audience recognizes the beginner and sympathizes with them on their journey to gain wisdom.

So, when you tell your story, present yourself as a learner, and don't be afraid to talk about your weaknesses and how much you wish you could learn more and share your discoveries with the audience during the learning journey.