The Many Purposes of Stories...
Every story has a purpose, function and job to play in the master's toolkit.
Tom O'Connor
“Storytime.”
There’s not a human being on the planet who doesn’t get pulled into a good story. Stories have the power to captivate, to inspire, to transform us.
But so few of us ever know, much less learn how to tell stories in such a powerful way that the person(s) listening leaves transformed after hearing the stories you have shared.
Thankfully, since the beginning of NLP, a handful of true masters of the technology of NLP have been focused on figuring out how to communicate through stories that cause other people to change.
You see stories have many, many purposes – that go far beyond entertainment as Master Trainer Michael Breen outlines in today’s video:
Stories, as Michael shared in this video, can have multiple purposes. Some of the more popular and advanced functions stories can be used for, by master NLP storytellers include:
- Eliciting a state
- Creating a future memory
- Altering a painful memory from the past
- Installing new values, strategies, or beliefs
- Wiring up new behaviours and resources
- Reconfiguring how one perceives…
- Setting up behavioural anchors (aka habits)
- Etc.
Advanced storytelling is a very powerful skill. One can use it to intentionally help others to transform and adopt new thoughts, emotions and behaviours.
Telling stories that transform doesn’t start with the story. It starts with getting really clear on what you want to create.
You see Advanced Storytelling is very deliberate. We aren’t simply telling stories to entertain; each story has a specific purpose, function and JOB to play in the master's toolkit.
A specific result it is there to create.
For example, sometimes that might be to evoke a state, another time it might be to begin to setup a structure we’ll make use of later in the conversation or to prime a logical inference we want the listener to hold and do all this outside of their conscious awareness.
There are so many options and ways to do this using advanced storytelling.
This is one of the big reasons why so many NLPers struggle to figure out what a master of NLP is doing when they are telling them stories. There’s too much going on to track it all consciously!
For example, many times when people watch masters of this art like Michael Breen and Richard Bandler tell stories they struggle to track what they are doing because ALL they can notice is the CONTENT.
They can’t see the structure. The don’t know about the distinction shared today that every story has a purpose, function and job so they don't seek them out.
These are just some of the secrets behind advanced storytelling that so few NLPers know, but once you familarise yourself with the structures, syntax and forms of advanced storytelling - it's secrets drop wide open for you. And you're abilty to communicate, to influence, persuade or transform others is taken to a level you can't yet imagine.
But where to get started. Here’s a quick exercise to help you begin to bring these skills into your life. As you go about your day today, notice how people tell their stories and begin to tag in your mind what purpose and function that story serves.
What does the story create?
This is the beginning of learning to discover the multiple purposes and functions stories can serve.
Talk soon,
Tom
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