Storytelling Mastery: Engaging the Senses With Melinda Lee

Dear listeners, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to

another speak and flow Podcast. Today we're going to talk about

storytelling. And not just any type of storytelling,

descriptive storytelling, specifically around sight and

sound, sight and sound. Cool, right? I know that many of you

are leaders out there and always getting better improving in your

speeches, presentations and narrative storytelling is, is

one of the most powerful, effective tools that you can use

to engage all the senses, right of your audience's multi sensory

information, and they just cannot help but be at the edge

of their seats, listening to what you have to say. Barack

Obama does so beautifully. Like he includes powerful examples

and narratives of people that he sees people that he visits and

gets in touch with and is tells these heartfelt stories. Taylor

Swift, which I've been listening to and reading about, she's a

person of the year her music if you listen to it, she includes

even if you don't like the sound, but if you listen to the

lyrics, she includes powerful descriptive storytelling,

similes, metaphors to describe what is happening, describe how

she's feeling. And so it behoves us as great masterful

communicators, to master this skill of descriptive

storytelling. And today, sight and sound will be the focus, I'm

going to give you some techniques on how to do this

effectively in your next story. So you can really capture the

hearts of your listeners. So sight, painting a mental

picture, in the audience's mind, I think it's fascinating how we

can actually do that just by saying a word or a couple of

words, people can automatically it just pops up like they cannot

help it. Purple Elephant, purple giant purple elephant in the

room. And now suddenly, you cannot help but see this giant

purple elephant with a long trunk and a big purple glow in

there. How cool is that? Right? The zesty bright yellow lemon

zest the bright yellow lemon are so bright and yellow. Now you

have a picture of a yellow lemon. And I'm just saying

words. So that is how you use words to create and paint a

picture. And to practice getting good at this. We want to be more

intentional about seeing every little detail in our life. And

who doesn't want to do that, right. Because we have limited

time on Earth, we might as well just pay attention to all the

beautiful details of life, including colour, texture, you

could describe the location of where you're at. So if you're

about to describe the location, or where you're at, you can use

this technique broad to detail. Here's an example. I was sitting

in a beautiful green picturesque forests with lots of trees. So

the green trees everywhere around me. And then suddenly, I

see a little red Ladybug, crawling on the floor, and then

crawling up to my shoe. So there you go. I went from large broad

stroke to very small detail. So that is how you can describe

what you're seeing in the location of where you're at. And

just by using words, people are getting the visual in their

head, and they're right there with you. How cool is that?

Right You're taking them along the journey to where you're at.

And then include some sound into the story. You can describe your

sound is auditory, right and so you can play around with the

different volume. Is that loud or soft? The nuances of the

sound? Is there a buzzing is there sizzling? You can use

words that sound like what you're actually hearing buzzing,

sizzling and don't forget sound can also create a motion right

so The loud thunderstorm sometimes will create some fear

in others, or the whimper of the cute dog. All right, there's an

emotion the whimpering of a cute dog. So even sound can create a

motion. The rustling of the leaves. As I was sitting in the

forest, I heard the rustling of the leaves and noticed the

little red ladybug on my shoe. And so now you're bringing in

sound into your visual. And now we're including more senses. And

you're drawing people in to your story. Play around with that,

use your creativity. This is your time there, we don't often

get a chance to play around with creativity and describing what

we're seeing or hearing. I highly encourage you to practice

telling these stories to your children to to other people, to

your friends, and just play have fun with it. And if you need

some additional support you can always come into I have speaking

sprints, where we go through deliberate practice on

storytelling focusing on sight sound. And in our next episode,

we're going to talk about touch and scent and smell, bringing

even more senses into your story. So today, I hope you

enjoyed how to use descriptive storytelling in your narratives

specifically around painting a visual picture in your

audience's mind. And including what are you hearing the sound

in your story to include multisensory effect, and that

will help engage your audience bring them in, build a

connection, build a meaningful connection between you and your

audience, and and create a compelling message. I hope you

enjoyed this episode. Until that's next time I am your

sister in flow. Speaking in flow may more opportunities and

prosperity flow to you from within you. Take care