Nobody Wants to Hear Your Bullet Points. They Want a Story

I learned that lesson from my father, a grand storyteller in the Irish tradition who never met a bit of wit, an incident, or a well-placed observation he couldn't turn into pure magic. He didn't have PowerPoint. He had a sense of narrative that connected everything together and made you lean in.

He was the one they called for toasts. For eulogies. For those important pledge drive appeals where real money was on the line. Not because he was the smartest guy in the room — because he made people feel something.

That's the whole secret behind every presentation that actually lands - it's a story wearing a suit.

The good news? Storytelling isn't some rare gift you're born with. It's a skill. A learnable, practicable, improvable skill. It's knowing how to create a plot that wraps around the single message that you want to deliver. Sometimes it's a funny adventure, sometimes a love story, and sometimes it's a disaster averted. But understanding storytelling and story structure is critical to making people understand and believe.

If presenting makes your stomach drop, you're not missing talent. You're missing the story.

I would love to help you tune up your storytelling skills. Reach out to me at mark@voyageurtraining, and let’s have a chat.