Nolan Martin :
Hey everyone, thanks for joining us on the NEGOTIATEx Podcast. We’re continuing our conversation with award-winning storyteller, Simon Brooks. If you haven’t already checked out Part A of the show, be sure to do that first. Let’s jump into the conversation with Simon.
So how does someone become a better storyteller? What are the essential skills to develop and are there any common mistakes to avoid?
Storytelling Skills, Pitfalls, & Practice That Works [00:23]
Simon Brooks :
Yeah, so I would stay away from accents.
Aram Donigian :
Oh, like trying to introduce accents. Okay.
SB :
Yeah. So like, you know, a lot of Americans, they love the Irish and Scottish accents.
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
And I’ve heard some storytellers try to do, and have tried to do a Scottish or Irish accent. It’s horrible. There are some storytellers out there that are really good at it, but you have to be really good at an accent.
AD :
I gotta confess something. So I tried to use like an Irish Scottish accent.
SB :
Okay?
AD :
And my family tells me I sound like a fishmonger. It’s horrendous. I’ve been cut off. So even within my safe family network here I’m not allowed to try my attempts at something of an accent from the UK.
SB :
Right. So here’s the thing. My parents were divorced and I have a half-brother and half-sister who grew up in South Wales, in Swansea.
In Wales, they teach you how to speak Welsh, right? And so they grew up in Wales. They spoke a little Welsh and I started telling more Welsh tales. And I wanted to use accents when people talk in my stories ’cause I use a lot of dialogue. I would phone up my sister and say, “This is my Welsh accent. Like how does it go?”
And she’s like, “No, you sound like a Jamaican and a Pakistani had a baby.” You know, it’s like “Oh, okay. All right.” So I go away and I’ll watch and listen to a lot of Welsh stuff. And I try to find the shape in my mouth of how that sound comes out. And then I would phone up my sister again, like “Any better?”
She’s like, “Keep going. You’re getting closer.” Right? And so this is basically what I’ve been, you know…don’t do accents unless you’re gonna work on ’em, right? And talk to someone that knows the accent. Otherwise, just don’t do it. There’s no need to do it because we don’t do German accents when we’re telling grim stories.
AD :
Right.
SB :
Right? We don’t say, “…Cinderella clean.” We don’t do that. We don’t. And we don’t do French accents when we’re telling stories that were collected by Perot, right? And so why do Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or English stories with an accent, right? If you’re good at accents and you can get away with it, you know them, then do them, but don’t otherwise.
I think to be able to tell the best story, is to…I mean what I do is, I break a story down into seven sections, right? I mean, Mabl, when the company first came out, they did a big test just to see how many numbers can people remember. And, you know, it’s like that game that you play with kids. You put a whole bunch of stuff on a tray.
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
You let them look at it for a minute. You take it away. Then you come back and say, how many things can you remember in a minute? Right?
And it’s on average, seven. So if you break a story down into seven sections, and you remember those sections rather than the words of a story, right? Like, kinda like a storyboard, you know? Right? Like a storyboard for a movie or comic strip or whatever, right? You remember seven panels of that. You remember those seven sections. And then you just tell those sections one after the other.
And that way the story’s fresh every time because you’re imagining it fresh every time, hopefully. You’re not getting bogged down in the words. It doesn’t sound rote, you know? And that’s really important. And again, just going back to being authentic. Put yourself in the story.
If you’ve heard another storyteller tell a story and you want to tell it exactly the same as that storyteller, I think that’s okay to get used to that story. But what I would suggest is to drop that as soon as you can and find your own authentic voice, right? Find out how you would tell a story. You know, around the water cooler, like how’d you tell stories to your colleagues at work?
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
Right? And use that same style. ‘Cause you do have a style. Everyone has their own style.
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
Use that style to tell the stories that you’re telling.
AD :
And by style, you mean like our tone, our inflection,…
SB :
Yeah.
AD :
…or, even the rhythm of our speech?
SB :
Yeah, right. I mean listen to yourself. Or, listen to other people and see how they talk.
AD :
How long do you practice a story? One, to put it out there and try to deliver it, and two, before you really feel like you have it mastered?
Simon Brooks Reveals His Method For Owning Every Story He Tells [03:44]
SB :
It depends on the story. There’re some stories that jump in your head and they just stick there. It’s like a spider on a spider’s web. It’s just, it’s there and it’s not gonna go anywhere and you know it, right?
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
And then there are other stories that…my personal style is I find lots of variants of different stories, and then I’ll write it out in my own vernacular, in my own words. Yeah. And not, so I don’t have to think about other people’s words and how they would describe things going on. And then break it down to the seven scenes.
So the practicing can take five or six times of running through it before I feel that I can take it out and share it with someone. Ideally, I wanna tell it a hundred times before it’s in my body.
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
So when you actually go out and tell a story, sometimes it’s really there and you’ve got it and you don’t have to worry about it. And there are other times where each time you tell it, there’s a little pause here and there’s a little pause there because you’re thinking, how can I make this better?
And you do. You practice in front of a live audience, right? I mean, that’s what you do and your audience can tell you if it’s working or not. And that’s the way of working on the story.
AD :
Do you continue to tweak ’em, even a story that you’ve told a hundred or more times? Do you continue to tweak and improve, or…?
Reworking Tales To Keep Them Fresh & Sharp [04:48]
SB :
I wouldn’t say I try to tweak or improve them. But sometimes something will come out in the telling that you weren’t expecting, and it’s like, where the heck did that come from?
That’s when at the end of the story, you reach for your phone or a pen and you write that down ’cause you don’t wanna forget it. Because it’s like that is key. That adds another dimension to the story that I’ve never thought about before.
AD :
Interesting.
SB :
And sometimes that might, you might be talking to someone about a story that you just told and then that thought of that conversation is still in your subconscious. And then when you’re telling the next story, something in your subconscious clicks to that previous story that comes out in that other story that you’re telling.
And so to say that I master a story, you never really master a story. There’s always something that will happen. Or, you’ll have a life event, right? Something might happen in your life…you’ll be telling the story and you’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, I know how I can tell this better now.” Because you are bringing yourself into that story.
There’s something that happened to you that may have happened to that character in the story. You can pull on your own experience. And that, you know, it’s not just stories. It’s like if people are out selling stuff, right? And you’ve heard a folk tale, and there’s something in that folk tale that’s like, “Oh my gosh, I can incorporate that into my sales pitch.”
AD :
Right.
SB :
Right? Or, if I’m talking to my team, then I can use something that I heard in that folk story. You know, even maybe mention that folk story or even use that folk story if you can remember it well enough. And throw it in there
NM :
Yeah.
SB :
And you can use that story to make a point, and people will remember that story and therefore remember that point. Because people remember stories better than they, you know, bullet points.
AD :
Yeah, you’re really hitting on where we’re gonna go next, which was, storytelling isn’t just for entertainment. And we’re talking here to folks who are engaged every day in negotiations and trying to influence. And Simon saying stories illustrate sometimes the concepts of the points that we’re trying to make.
It certainly plays a huge role in business and, you know, leadership. We talked about military and education. I can’t imagine trying to go through educational experiences at grade school or high school level, or even college without stories being told.
How do you see it and just to continue on this kind of path we’ve been on, but how do those, how stories help in those different sectors and spaces can kinda convey ideas?
Storytelling’s Power In Business, Education, & Beyond [06:54]
SB :
I think with leadership, a lot of these folk tales, like I said, there’s a helper somewhere along the line, right?
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
Or, there’s something that happens in the story that you can draw on. There’s inspiration. Like going back to that first story that I told, if you’re a leader, maybe you haven’t had those thoughts about, “I need to know my staff better”, right? And so you start to look at your staff better. What skills do they have?
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize they could do that. Maybe they need to be in this position instead.” Right? And then you are utilizing what they’re best at and, you know, these folk and fairytales can show you that, right? That particular story is a really good example of that.
There are other things as well. I mean, the way that people go through their lives isn’t necessarily like a story. But these stories reflect how we go through life.
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
If you get that, and you have these helpers in the stories, and so do you want to be a helper? Or, do you wanna be the giant that’s gonna slit the throats of the kids in the bed who are sleeping? You know, how you are gonna get the best out of your business is by treating your staff the best way that you can. And when you listen to folk and fairytales, you can hear that.
I mean, reading the…I’m trying to think what it is now…Not the Dao…Dao De Jing, right? There’s a lot of leadership skills in that. I mean, they’ve written versions of it, you know, The Dao For Leaders and stuff. But I think reading the original version is probably better because it teaches you how to lead in front, rather than just standing at the back and saying, “Let’s see what happened.”
That didn’t work out too well now, did it? Let’s try something else. Whereas, like, if you’re going in with it and something goes wrong, you are there and you can help make adjustments on the fly if you’re good at what you do, right? And then you can correct things with everybody else that makes you a stronger leader, and that makes everybody else respect you more. And a lot of these folk tales talk about these kinds of things.
You know, Jack goes out into the woods. He has no idea what he’s doing. And it says, “Go kill a giant.” “Alright, how am I gonna get rid of this one?” Alright, and so, “Oh, I’ve got a sack. I’ll eat. I’ll just, like, throw this porridge into my sack. And I’ll have him…” And the giant’s like, “Oh, for a little fella, you can eat a lot.” And he says, another trick as well, “Look, watch, I can get rid of all your knives and sticks” And he opens up the thing and he starts to eat more and all the porridge comes out, right? And the giant’s like, “Oh, I love this porridge too. Can I try that?”
And Jack says, “Sure, go for it.” Hands him the knife and the giant cuts his own stomach. And then he disembowels himself. So, you know, it’s like, what kind of leader did you…
AD :
That’s not the version I remember hearing.
SB :
Right.
AD :
A lot of these stories have very gruesome sort of roots that we’ve…
SB :
They do.
AD :
…Disney-uh-fied them, if we can use that term. I’m sure now all of a sudden we’re opening ourselves up for litigation.
SB :
Sanitize them.
AD :
Yeah, there you go.
How Stories Educate Minds Of All Ages [09:22]
SB :
Yeah. We’ve sanitized a lot of these stories. I was working at a school last week and we were teaching the kids fractured fairytales, which are basically fairytales, you know…so take for example, The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
AD :
Mm. Yeah.
SB :
Turn the three Billy Goats Gruff into three Princess Ninjas. That’s a fractured fairytale. You’ve changed some of the characters, and the troll becomes like a jack-o’-lantern. Or, it becomes a monkey, right? And then what happens then, right? You’ve fractured the fairytale. These are really popular books. But they dilute the original message of the story, right? And so these are great examples of fun stories to entertain kids with. But do they actually teach the kids anything?
And a lot of these stories teach us things. Not just kids, adults. Yeah. So it’s, they’re important. I feel that folk and fairytales are being dropped. And the personal narrative story, like, The Moth and all that kind of stuff…which is awesome because you get to empathize with other people that have had similar situations, that you’ve had yourself, right? Or, someone who brings up a situation that you’ve never had, never want to have, but it’s like, “Okay, I’m gonna keep that in my head because I never want that to happen to me.” Right?
But folk and fairytales do that. And they’re one step removed. They’re not involving someone so they’re not triggering, right? You can actually see what’s going on in the story and be like, “Oh, that’s what happened here.” And then you put everything together and it’s like, “Alright, I’m gonna do this now instead without being triggered by what happened.”
You know, going back to your, you talk a lot about the army…’cause both of you’re from the Army and the special forces and stuff…I think about stories like Beowulf, right? Beowulf was the ultimate warrior, right? He kills Grendel’s mother and then he’s in retirement and then some idiot steals some stuff from a dragon’s hoard. And now he has to go and kill the dragon. And he has looked after all of these people, all of his life.
And when he goes to fight the dragon, he’s like, “Who’s gonna come and help me?” And there’s one person out of everybody that comes to help him, right? And it’s this minor character. And he steps up and helps him, and it’s like, “Wow…you know, that’s a powerful story.”
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
And if you don’t know the story Beowulf, look it up on Wikipedia. They’ll have a synopsis there. ‘Cause it’s an incredible story. And then the story, another epic, like Gilgamesh, which is from Samaria, right?
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
It’s set between the Euphrates and the Tigris. And Gilgamesh is this tyrant king. So the people, like, say, “Send us somebody to counteract this tyrant king. He’s destroying everybody’s lives.” So they send out this man-beast called Enkidu. And Enkidu is tamed by this priestess so that he can then tame Gilgamesh. And they go out on adventures and they do things against the gods, but with some of the God’s help. And the result of that is the Gods kill off Enkidu.
And then Gilgamesh is, is his battle brother, right? And he’s Iile, “I can’t live without my battle brother.” He was made by the Gods and he died. Now he feels mortal, which he never did before. And so he goes out seeking immortality. And then he doesn’t get it, and there’s a whole story of the arc and the flood and all that kinda stuff is in there. And then he comes back with nothing except humility.
And that is huge to be like this arrogant, arrogant man at the beginning of the story and then to come back humble at the end and understand, “Yeah, I was a bit of a.” I need to level up now, right? There’re so many great stories out there on all different…and I mean, you know, I have told Gilgamesh to sixth graders, but it’s toned down, you know?
AD :
Sure. Right.
SB :
Because when Enkidu, the wild man, who is tamed, the priestess sleeps with him for seven days and seven nights. And I tell the kids that he dances with her for seven days and seven nights, you know? So, there’s a little bit of euphemism there. When they get to college, they study it, if they study it, they’re like, “Ohhhhh…That’s what he was talking about.”
AD :
The power of being the storyteller, you can shape things. Yeah. As you were talking to, and I need to pass this back to Nolan here in a moment, but I was thinking, this saying about: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? I don’t know if, maybe that’s a silly question to ask when it comes to storytelling because they’re really complimenting each other.
SB :
I think, I think, yes. I think art imitates life, and I think life can imitate art as well. I think art reflects a lot more, but I think they walk hand in hand, like you said. Absolutely. Yeah.
NM :
So I’m terrible at storytelling. So what advice would you give someone like me, who just believes that we’re terrible at storytelling and just, therefore, avoids everything when it comes to storytelling?
Overcoming Storytelling Fear: Words For The Self-Doubting [13:39]
SB :
Okay. Are you any good at plumbing?
NM :
No.
SB :
Why is that?
NM :
Because I’m not a plumber.
SB :
Right. To be good at plumbing, you have to try it, right? And you have to do it on a regular basis, right? You can change the washers on the tap, right? Because you’ve done it a few times, right? So it’s the same with storytelling. If you practice it and you do it more and more often, you’ll just like anything else, you’ll get better, right?
NM :
So is it just finding that story, that…
SB :
Yes.
NM :
…has that message that you’re trying to convey, I guess?
SB :
Yes. And it’s finding that story that has that message that you want to convey, but that story has to resonate within you, right? So when you are reading a bunch of stories, you’ll be like, “That would be good for the message that I want.” Right?
But then you keep reading, put a little post-it note in there or something. And you’ll keep reading and you’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, this is an awesome story.” And then you gotta look at yourself and be like: Why is this an awesome story? What does this story have that is making me resonate with it? Because that story will come across way better than the story that you’re like, “Oh, that would be good for that.” Because you are not in that story. Whereas there’s something in you in that other story that resonated, that jumped out at you.
NM :
I can resonate with that. So I’m not a big book reader. I never have been, but there are books that I’ve read that I just couldn’t put down. And it was like, “That’s never happened to me whenever I’ve read a book or read a story.” And so that can definitely resonate.
SB :
Yeah, I read. I have 250 books on a bookshelf behind me, which are all folk and fairytales, myths and legends. And a lot of them have post-it notes in them when I’ve read them. And I put the post-it notes in there because it’s like, “That’s a good story. I like that story. And I’ll come back to it.” And, you know, what we’ve talked about at the top of the show: “What’s your favorite story?” It depends on what mood I’m in, right? And if I go back to a story and I reread it, I’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, that’s a terrible story. Why on earth did I bookmark this one?”
And then I’ll go read, I might read the next story just because I’m so disappointed in bookmarking that one. And I’ll be like, “Oh, this one’s alright. I like this.” So I’ll move that post-it note and then I’ll go back again. And if that story resonates with me two or three times, then it’s like that’s a good story to tell. Because I still like it after reading it two or three times. ‘Cause if I can read it two or three times and I can tell it and people can listen to it two or three times, hopefully, right? And it has some points to it that I can share.
AD :
On stories, I wanna ask, if you had just one story, it was the last story you could tell in your lifetime, what story would it be in and why are you choosing this one?
A Top Five Tale: Simon Brooks Shares A Lasting Favorite [16:00]
SB :
If it’s the last story to choose in my life if I’m on my deathbed…
AD :
That’s right. But you don’t have to keep it short. You’re not gonna die instantaneously. You can. So you have, yeah. You’re gonna get the whole story out. What’s it gonna be?
SB :
Well, I don’t know, because it would totally depend on what my mind space was on my deathbed.
AD :
This is the story we’re gonna remember you by.
SB :
Well, I’m, so now I’m not looking at my favorite story. I’m looking at your favorite story.
AD :
Right, you’re audience-focused. Okay.
SB :
Yeah. Yeah. And so it. Yeah. I mean it really does is, “What’s your favorite wine? Or, should I say, what would you like to drink on a Friday night?” Right? It depends on what you’ve been doing. It depends on the mood you’re in and who you’re hanging out with, right?
AD :
Yeah.
SB :
If you’re hanging out with your football guys, you’re probably not gonna say, “I’ll have a nice cabernet. I’ll take a glass of cabernet, please.” They’re all gonna be like, “What the heck are you drinking? What’s Cabernet?” Right? And likewise, if you’re meeting with some, you know, high-flying clients and you say, “Oh, I’ll have a bud.” They’re gonna be like, “Oh, dear Lord, what we doing business with this fella for?” Right? You know, it’s all, it depends on the mood and who you are with and all.
AD :
Alright, alright. What’s your final story gonna be?
SB :
One of my favorite stories, and I have a whole bunch of different favorite stories, but this one like, it’s always like there in the top 5-10. It’s a story from India and it’s a story about this young couple who have recently got married and in that culture, they move to the wife’s town.
And this couple have never argued and they’ve never fought. They’ve never said mean words to one another, which is why we know it’s a fairytale, right? And everything’s going really well. They live in a nice little house and everything. And she’s a seamstress and he works away from home. And it’s the monsoon season. And husband goes to work, he’s got his coat on, off he goes, and she’s working.
And the storms start to come in. The clouds come over, the sky gets really, really dark. The rains come down. She gets this lantern out, and she takes a match and lights the lantern. And the light fills the whole space that she’s working in.
And that Flame, when it comes to life, it watches her as she finishes her sewing. And that Flame watches her as she folds up that robe that she’d be mending. And the Flame watches as she wraps it up in paper and ties it with string and that Flame watches as she go and makes a cup of tea and watches as she makes supper. And the Flame watches as she sits that cup of tea down, sits down in a chair, and falls asleep.
Inside this woman is a Story that she knows and there’s a Song that she knows. And the Song is sitting there thinking, “She never sings me. I’m fed up of not being sung. If she’s not gonna sing me, I’m gonna find somewhere else to go. What I can be sung, what I can do, what I’m supposed to do.” And that Song climbs up out of her stomach, out through her heart, out through her throat. It jumps out of her mouth and it turns itself into a coat and hangs itself on the door.
Well, the Story. The Story’s looking around says, “She knows me as well, but she never tells me. She never tells. I’m a Story. I wanna be told, I wanna be told. I want someone to hear me.” And so the Story does the same thing. It climbs out of her stomach, out through her heart, out through my foot, and it turns itself into a pair of boots on the ground. Because stories are like boots and they love to travel. And songs are like coats. They like to wrap us up and keep us comfortable and warm.
The husband gets home. He opens the door, wife wakes up, she turns around, “How are you? How you doing? It’s good to see. Did you have a good day?” And he says, “Yeah, yeah, it was a good day. How about you?” “Yeah, everything was great. I’ve got the robes finished for the priest and the rest of it.” Then he takes his coat off and shuts the door and he is about to hang his coat up and he sees the other coat hanging in there, “Whose coat’s this?”
And she says, “I don’t know.” “You’ve been here all day.” “Yeah.” “And you’ve had no guests.” “Yeah.” “Well, whose coat is it then? And whose boots are these?” “What boots?” And she stands up and she looks and she sees the boots. “I don’t know”, she says, “I don’t know.” “But you’ve been here all day and you haven’t left. Yet there’s a coat on the back of the door that’s not mine. And there’s a pair of boots there that are not mine. What do you mean what’s going on?”
And for the first time ever, they start to fight, and they argue. And the Flame watches all of this. And eventually, the woman turns around to her husband and says, “If you don’t believe me, then leave.” Tears are falling down her face. And so he quietly opens the door, closes it behind him, and walks off into the night.
Now, by then, it’s late at night. This is the village of his wife’s family, and he doesn’t know really where he can spend the rest of the night, but he doesn’t wanna spend it with her family. And so he goes to the monkey temple, the temple of Hanuman, and he settles there for the night. And he finds this corner far away from everything, far away from everyone, not that there’s anybody there. And he tries to make himself as comfortable as possible. And then he hears voices.
Nobody wants to be in the dark temple in the middle of the night, not knowing who those voices are. And so very quietly, he gets close and close to the voices and they sound like whispers. And as he gets close, he sees this light in one part of the temple, and when he gets there, he sees the spirits of all the Flames and they’re all gossipy. You see, when Flames are extinguished overnight, the spirits of the Flames goes to Hanuman’s temple. That’s where they reside. And he listens to these Flames as they gossip.
And then this one Flame came in a little bit later than all the others. And, “ Oh, where have you been? Where have you been?” say the Flames. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve, what happened at my house.” “Oh. Tell us. Tell us. Tell us what’s going on. What’s going on?” “Well, the husband got back and he saw a coat on the back of the door that wasn’t his. And there was a pair of boots on the foot of the door that weren’t his. And they got into an argument.” “Whoa. Of course, they got into an argument. Whoa, that’s brazen! What was she doing?”
“No, no, no,” says the flame, “that’s not what happened.” “What do you mean? What do you mean? What really happened there?” “Well, that wife, she knew a Song and she knew a Story, and she never told them. She never sang them. And so the Song left her and it turned into the coat when she was sleeping after drinking a tea, and it landed on the back of the door. And the Story didn’t want to be on its own, so it, too, left and turned itself into boots. Because stories are like boots, they like to travel. And coats are like songs, they like to keep us warm.”
And when the man heard this he realized his mistake. He realized that he shouldn’t have shouted at his wife. Now, obviously, it was too late to go back home, but the next morning he got up cold and weary and stiff. Made his way back home to his house and his wife was starting to make herself some tea and make herself some breakfast.
And he walked in and he fell to his knees and apologized to her. And he told her everything that happened. The Flames, the Lantern. “You knew a Song. You knew a Story. Sing me the Song.” And she thought, and thought, and thought, but the Song wouldn’t come to her. “Tell me the Story,” he said. She thought, and thought, and thought, but the Story wouldn’t come to her either for she had thrown the coat and the boots out.
So if you know a Song, sing it. And if you know a Story, tell it. Because a Song will keep us warm on those cold nights. And Stories are like boots. They love to travel.
NM :
Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Nice. Man, we could do this all day. I appreciate that.
AD :
We sure could. You sure could.
SB :
Yes, I could too.
NM :
Simon, we’re, unfortunately, we’re at the end of our podcast. What is just a final thought that you love to leave with our listeners?
SB :
I think just that, that story. If you know a song, sing it. If you know a story, tell it. ‘Cause stories are like boots and they love to travel.
AD :
Appreciate that. On that note, I just wanna say thanks.
SB :
Really welcome.
AD :
Appreciate you coming up from New London to do this.
SB :
I appreciate you asking me to come onto this show. It was a huge surprise. I knew of your show. I’d listened to a few episodes and when you shot me the email I was like, “Oh my gosh. Yeah, I’d love to.”
AD :
Oh, thanks.
SB :
Appreciate. But why me?
AD :
‘Cause we want our listeners to be better storytellers.
SB :
And listeners as well.
AD :
And listeners as well. Yeah. Nolan, over to you.
NM :
Well, that is it for us on today’s podcast. Please rate, review, and subscribe to NEGOTIATEx Podcast if you haven’t already, and we’ll see you in the next episode.
