Stories hide in plain sight

You just have to notice them.

Storytelling is all the rage, isn’t it?

In business, I mean.

Arguably, it's been all the rage since homo sapiens first returned home from a particularly exciting day on the hunt, regaling their mates back at the cave with tales of the one that got away.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a leadership programme or executive coach that didn’t cover it as a core competency. LinkedIn is awash with people who have clearly had training in this (’Six things I learnt about B2B SAAS sales from getting engaged’, that kind of thing.)

The science is fairly unambiguous - effective storytellers are better leaders, they form better connections, and the information they provide is more memorable. What is less clear, is how you get there.

After years of teaching various permutations of storytelling courses, I've come to realise I often got it wrong—or at least, only half right.

My typical approach went like this: First, explain why storytelling matters, backed by the science (especially helpful for leaders who think very rationally). Then, teach narrative structure, providing time to practice in small groups and even present to the room. It's always an amazing moment when someone steps up to share something personal with colleagues they've known for years.

Sounds good, right?

Except.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and I’ve come to realise that while this is all great content, and useful, there’s one problem. It starts at the end. It assumes that you’re already comfortable with the stories that you want to tell, that you know what you want to convey, and you just need confidence and structure to get there.

This is not without value: You can certainly improve the way you tell a story. You can use a narrative arc (I personally think the Pixar Pitch is a solid example in business), learn better presentation skills, improve your copywriting, and inject the healthy dose of confidence that comes from being vulnerable in front of your peers and showing what you can do.

The ‘and’ (rather than ‘but’) is that this approach misses what I would call the story gathering.

Becoming a better storyteller is not just about learning how to better structure and tell stories. It’s about how you gather them in the first place.

For someone in a corporate job, who may have been in the corporate world for decades (sometimes three or even four of them), it’s likely that a lot of your daily brainpower is focussed on practicalities. To-do lists. Thinking about what to say next in a meeting. Mulling over the politics that will be needed to get a particular initiative through. It can be hard, in this context, to give yourself the luxury to just be, and to notice things.

Why is this important? Good storytellers notice things. They notice the things that stand out, that don’t quite fit right. Moments of joy, or discomfort, or change. The funny sentence you heard in passing on the tram.

People need to be primed to notice. They need to know that all of those small moments matter - that they teach us something about ourselves, or other people, or the world at large. Joan Didion’s now-legendary advice, ‘On Keeping a Notebook’, is just as important today as when Slouching Towards Bethlehem was published in 1968.

Today, there are lots of ways to do this. An actual, physical notebook is still a winner. Evernote is an old favourite. I know people who leave themselves voicenotes. I’m in the process of migrating from random entries on my phone and scrappy pieces of paper to a dedicated section of Notion.

(Honestly, I’m not sure if this is a better system - but it makes me feel vaguely more professional, which can only be a good thing.)

In no particular order, some things I noticed today:

• (Overheard on the tram, four teenage boys talking about girls): One was talking about a date he had been on the day before, and his friend asked him earnestly, “does she give you butterflies? You know, like in your chest?”, and honestly it gave me hope.

• Just like last year, there is a suburb-wide shortage of Mini Eggs. I’d call these my guilty pleasure, except I feel no guilt whatsoever, only unbridled joy. Why are there never any on the shelves? Is this intentional? A conspiracy? And what on earth do they put in the shells to make them so addictive?

• A friend in a Big New Job^TM has been showcasing her outfits of the day on Instagram, and I wonder if a new-found pride in our work attire will be an unexpected effect of more days in the office.

• A wildly successful local restaurant, complete with queues round the block, closes at random times and days (sometimes even Saturday nights!) There’s a story in that chutzpah.

They might be something, they might be nothing. But I noticed them all, and they all sparked other thoughts.

Writer after writer (and honestly, all creatives) say the same thing. 90% of all success is just showing up, again and again, even if you have nothing to say. If, at first, you struggle to notice these things in the moment, it’s something you can train yourself to do.

Oh, and by the way - if you’re reading this and thinking ‘but I’m not creative’, then let me assure you that you absolutely are - and that this will be the topic of a future essay.

One good way to start to notice is with morning pages. Despite having failed to ever complete the Artist’s Way all the way through (I have a weird and unexplained block around week 6), I am an advocate for morning pages. If you’re someone who feels nervous about letting yourself think freely, they’re a great tool. The process couldn’t be simpler - three A4 pages, longhand, stream of consciousness, as soon as you wake up. They’re a great way to flush out the things that are on your mind.

An alternative would be an evening practice. Take a moment at the end of the day, and let yourself think: What were three things that stood out for you today?

The key to better storytelling isn't only in the telling. It begins in the gathering. It's about training yourself to notice the small moments that make life interesting, weird, wonderful, and worth sharing.