Friday evening, Jan 17th, 2025.
There's a snowstorm and a weather advisory, but that can't stop my passion for telling personal stories on the big stage.
I'm attending The Moth StorySLAM event in Denver, Colorado.
The theme for tonight's stories is RESET.
I'm one of the 10 storytellers for the evening, sharing personal real-life stories in front of an audience of 300+.
This will be my third story at The Moth.
Everything seems perfect: I'm fully rehearsed—over-rehearsed in fact.
I'm super confident... a little too confident and not feeling any nerves or anxiety whatsoever.
This is great news, right?
That's exactly what I'm thinking...
I'm thinking I will crush it and might even win the contest tonight—or at least be in the top 3 positions.
My name is called on stage... I'm the 5th storyteller. I got on stage amidst clapping and cheers.
I start telling the story about my first job in Pakistan when I lied to save my friend Osama to the general manager of the company.
From the very first sentence I have this feeling there's something wrong, but I can't put my finger on it... So, I keep going.
There's no blanking out or freezing up...
How can there be any as I've practiced and rehearsed this story over 2 dozen times. Every single sentence and word is right in front of my eyes like a script.
There are no Ah's, no Um's, no So's.
Not even a SINGLE filler word.
A few minutes into the story, I can't find "the connection"... neither with the story nor with the audience.
I can't FEEL the story... Or any emotions, or any excitement in the words I'm uttering, which is starting to bother me now.
'Where is the energy that I felt in the first 2 stories I told at the very same stage?' ...that's what I'm constantly asking myself.
At this point, I already know I've messed it all up.
But I keep going...
Though I'm trying to vary my vocal variety and add some hand gestures in the mix, I know the damage has been done.
I went off stage and got a score from 3 teams of judges. I am in the top 3 storytellers... but from the bottom.
I lost the contest but learned 3 valuable lessons.
..
...
I reflected on this experience and here are my insights:
1 - Over-practicing in storytelling is unforgivable SIN
I over-practiced and over-rehearsed the story "word-for-word" which made it come out robotic like I was reading it from a script...
What pisses me off the most is that I knew it and yet made this mistake.
Since I was over-prepared...
I didn't feel any nerves, any excitement, or any energy to make my experience full of emotions.
Insight: Never over-practice your talks, especially personal stories.
Feel free to over-practice the beginning and the ending but never your entire story.
2 - Tell stories that FEEL personal and you can emotionally CONNECT to
This story didn't feel personal. Even though it was a real-life story, somehow I couldn't connect to it emotionally...
It felt as if I was telling someone else's story.
One reason I could find was that there were very few stakes in the story...
because I never "really" liked that job in the first place, I was not afraid of losing it anyway.
When a story has few or no stakes, the only thing that can save it is adding a ton of humor, the craft of storywriting, and storytelling.
I'm grateful there was at least some humor in my story which saved my ass to some extent.
Insight: Tell personal stories that can bring emotions and vulnerability so the audience can feel what you felt or still feeling when telling your story
3 - I was self-conscious of "how I am gonna look on stage"
Spoiler alert: No one cares how you are gonna look or appear on stage, especially in storytelling events.
An average pair of pants and T-shirt would do it. Just see what works best, and don't overthink.
All the audience cares about is WIIFM: what's in it for me. They are there to be entertained, inspired, educated, and informed.
Not to see a modeling show.
That's wrap.
Reader..
Do you resonate with any part of my storytelling experience? let me know by replying to this newsletter.
Best,
Waqas - Head Speaking Anxiety Coach
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