The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch on and Others Don’t by Carmine Gallo.

3/5 rating. 249 pages.

Book #5 of 2021. Read January 19, 2021.

This is a useful book about how to be more effective in the stories you tell.

We are all storytellers. Some of us are not nearly as gifted as others, but each interaction we have with others is another chance to hone our skills. I gleaned a lot of useful tools and practices to improve the stories I tell, but I also think Carmine could maybe take some of his own advice, because this book is a little boring.

I think the best way to show the useful ideas is to highlight some of the better quotes I liked most:

– “Your ability to package your ideas with emotion, context, and relevancy is the one skill that will make you more valuable in the next decade.”

– “Storytelling is not something we do. Storytelling is who we are.”

– “A great storyteller helps people figure out not only what matters in the world, but also why it matters.” —Maria Popova

– “You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself. The secret to mastering the art of storytelling is to first dig deep and identify your true passion, your calling. If you don’t buy into your story, nobody else will.”

– “Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel.”

– “Storytellers introduce heroes and villains to simplify the story, and they craft the message in words that are so simple an elementary school student can understand it.”

If you are searching for a way to improve your storytelling skills, this could be a useful book to read, but I would imagine there are better and more effective ones out there unless you really want to pick this one up.

Quotes:

“Some were more effective than others, but they all had to learn to tell a story if they hoped to change the world with their ideas.”

“Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In the information age, the knowledge economy, you are only as valuable as your ideas.”

“Ideas that catch on are wrapped in story.”

“Great storytellers look effortless because they put a lot of effort into being great.”

“Learn to tell a story and your life and the lives of those you touch will be radically transformed.”

“In the next 10 years the ability to tell your story persuasively will be decisive—the single greatest skill—in helping you accomplish your dreams.”

“The greatest waste is an unfulfilled idea that fails to connect with audiences, not because it’s a bad idea, but because it’s not packaged in a way that moves people.”

“Cook once asked, ‘What do our hearts beat for?’”

“‘Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become,’ Jobs told the graduates.”

“Gardner said, ‘The secret to success is to find something you love to do so much, you can’t wait for the sun to rise to do it all over again.’”

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” —George Bernard Shaw

“Start walking, even if you don’t know where the path will lead.” – Mark Burnett

“Just as customers are attracted by uncommon service, amazing people are attracted by a great culture. Whether we plan it or not, culture will happen. Why not create the culture we want?”

“Inspiring storytellers are eager to share their backstory because it’s a gift that shaped their life, career, and business.”

“People who have experienced pain, poverty, struggle, or despair—and many of the storytellers in this book have experienced it all—are only empowered by their experience when they’ve developed the courage to embrace their backstory, learn from their failures, and share their lessons of struggle with others.”

“You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you … can illuminate the world.” —Oprah Winfrey

“Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it.” – Oprah

“We all just want to know that we matter.”

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift.” – JK Rowling

“‘Treating employees benevolently shouldn’t be viewed as an added cost that cuts into profits, but as a powerful energizer that can grow the enterprise into something far greater than one leader could envision,’ Schultz writes.”

“Customers don’t buy a brand or a logo as much as they buy into a set of values. And there’s no better way to reveal a company’s values than through the stories that fueled the people who lead it and continue to ignite the passion of the people who work there.”

“More than 2.5 billion people have no access to safe sanitation, a problem that kills 700,000 children a year.”

“‘Women in the developing world know the power of vaccines,’ [Melinda Gates] told The Huffington Post during the peak of the anti-vaccine controversy. ‘They will walk 10 kilometers in the heat with their child and line up to get a vaccine because they have seen death. We’ve forgotten what measles deaths look like … but in Africa, the women know death and they want their children to survive.’”

“What did you fail at today?”

“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

“If they’re laughing, they’re listening.” —Sir Ken Robinson

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou

“For Meyer, entrepreneurship is using your head and your heart in a way that makes guests feel great about their experience.”

“If I could quickly understand a campaign concept, it was good to go. If something can’t be explained on the back of an envelope, it’s rubbish.” – Richard Branson

“If an entrepreneur cannot explain his idea in 10 words or less, I’m not interested and I’m not investing. Period.”

“Say what you mean and mean what you say and preferably in as few well-chosen words as possible.”

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.” —Lao Tzu

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs

“‘If you can make someone else feel good about themselves, they will love you for it. They will be loyal to you. If you get someone to feel better about themselves, you’ve hit the jackpot. That’s a dead-on bull’s-eye in human relations,’ says Wynn.”

“‘If you ain’t got culture, you ain’t got s***,”’ Kelleher once said in his trademark salty language.”

“Don’t ever doubt, in the customer service business, the importance of people and their attitudes.” – Herb Kelleher

“What I found was that you don’t always have to have the most amazing story. It’s learning to share the story that you have that counts.”

“People vote with their wallets when they know there is a good family, a good person, or a good company behind a product. Employees stay through the tough times when they know they are working for good people.”

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” —Marcel Proust

“Find your passion, and you’ll find your strength.”

“Storytellers motivate the largest numbers of people with the fewest words possible.”

“Don’t address their brains. Address their hearts.”. —Nelson Mandela

“If you’re going to share a story, make it great. A good story can bring one to tears; a great one can start a movement.”

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