Whether you need someone to support your organization, get behind your idea, or get excited about following your lead, refining your storytelling skills can help. In this course, you’ll learn in the footsteps of great storytellers in about how to shape your idea into a story. You’ll create a story brief, iterate and evolve your story through prototyping and gathering feedback, and hone your tone and style. Get storytelling tips from business storyteller Peter de Kuster and gain tools and techniques that will help you bring your vision to life and create stories that have impact and inspire.

COURSE OUTCOMES

• Gain a framework that will help you develop and hone your story.
• Understand your audience, their needs, and what you’re trying to achieve with your big idea.
• Create a prototype of your story that will help you shape it, share it with others, and make it stronger.
• Increase your ability to engage and inspire others through the development of tone and style.
• Craft a story that brings your vision to life and motivates others toward action.

What You’ll Learn

1: Introduction

Get a brief course overview, explore the science of storytelling, and choose your story theme.

• How this Course Works—Your learning road map
• The Power of Storytelling—Motivate people toward change
• The Science of Storytelling—What makes stories stick

1 ASSIGNMENT

• Identify the Story You Want to Tell—Choose a theme and a related story you want to tell. These will provide you with the basic building blocks for your work throughout the course.

2 DISCUSSIONS

• Think about the challenges in your work today. What’s one way storytelling can help you address them?
• Think back to a time when a story really moved you. What made the story powerful?

2: Develop Your Story Line

Zero in on your audience, their needs, and the most powerful way to format your story.

• The Brief—Know thy audience
• The Big Idea—Focus is key
• The Medium—Ways to convey your story

1 ASSIGNMENT

• Develop Your Blueprint—Now that you’ve chosen your story topic, think about your audience, their needs, and the best way to tell them your story.

2 DISCUSSIONS

• Think of a time you empathized with another person or group of people. How did empathizing impact you? What insights did you gather once you stepped into someone else’s shoes?
• As you crystallized what you wanted to say into a brief and big idea, what challenges did you face? What felt uncomfortable? What felt right?

3: Build Storytelling Prototypes

Get your story out of your head and into the hands (and minds) of others for feedback.

• Build Storytelling Prototypes—Creative ways to battle the blank page
• Ways to Prototype & Build your Story—Low-risk ways to share your story
• Invite Feedback to Strengthen Your Story—Iterate, iterate, iterate

1 ASSIGNMENT

• Prototype Your Story—Now it’s time to prototype your story. This helps us get our ideas out of our heads and into the world. Follow our three steps: build, share, and reflect.

3 DISCUSSIONS

• Tell us about a time you learned from an early failure. How did that failure help you move forward?
• Who’s your hero or heroine? What made you look up to that person? How did his or her values shape who you are today?
• In a few sentences, tell us about prototyping your story. What challenges did you face? How did you overcome them?

4: Storytelling for Impact

Increase your ability to engage and inspire others through the development of tone, style, and timing.

• Setting the Right Tone—Why tone is everything
• Learn from a Presentation that Falls Flat—What not to do
• Learn from a Presentation that Moves You—An invitation to imagine
• 6 Tips for Story Impact—From good to great

1 ASSIGNMENT

• Iterate Your Story—Choose two of our 6 tips for story impact to enhance your story and make it more compelling.

5 DISCUSSIONS

• Share a video or article where you think tone strongly influenced how the story was told. What qualities or attitude did the tone convey? How did tone impact the way you received the story?
• Share one of your letters with the community. What are your talking points? What feeling did you want to inspire in the recipient?
• What did you notice about the presentation that fell flat? What tone-related adjustments would have made it better?
• What was different about the second presentation? Did it motivate you? Compare and contrast the two presentations.
• Think back to where you started—is there anything that surprised you regarding how your story has changed over

5: Conclusion

Get advice from Peter on practicing and perfecting your storytelling skills, and bring your story to life using the style, tone, and a medium of your choosing.

• Course Conclusion—Go create impact

1 ASSIGNMENT

• Final Project—Bring your story to life in your chosen medium and share with the community for feedback.

2 DISCUSSIONS

• Submit an artifact or video, using your own tone and style, declaring yourself a storyteller.
• What was the most revealing moment for you in the course? How will you apply what you’ve learned to a current challenge in your life or work?

About Peter de Kuster

Peter de Kuster is the founder of The Heroine’s Journey & Hero’s Journey project,  a storytelling firm which helps creative professionals to create careers and lives based on whatever story is most integral to their lifes and careers (values, traits, skills and experiences). Peter’s approach combines in-depth storytelling and marketing expertise, and for over 20 years clients have found it effective with a wide range of creative business issues.

Peter is writer of the series The Heroine’s Journey and Hero’s Journey books, he has an MBA in Marketing,  MBA in Financial Economics and graduated at university in Sociology and Communication Sciences.