Mastering Emotional Storytelling

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host w park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals. Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at wwdas don't divpork dot com and you can connect with v at contact at divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host div Park. Good morning listeners. It's such a wonderful pleasure to be here with you all. So it's Tuesday morning, very very special to me. And what I want to share is about keeping the kind of circle going. So what I want to share a story with you. I was

1:34 on the beach for a few days. I love ocean, it's just amazing. And it was around, like you know, on the on the western side of North Carolina. Not very good with geography, but that said that, as I love going exploring different restaurants, I went to several different restaurants and what I found was that there were not many tin options. So one restaurant came highly recommended by one of our friends. So we went there and checked out the menu and as I was talking with Kimeron, she told me that you're looking for vegetarian options and I said yes. She said, oh, we've got turkey burgers. And I was a little hesitant too, can I share anything? So what I shared with her was that yes, turkey burger is great. What I'm looking for are like purely vegetarian options, and then shared with her about having a veggie burger or a black bean burger, and then she said that we don't serve any of those. So then I

3:06 said, how about if we changed that trip Cassidia and add some buggies to it, and she said okay. She took the order and there were just bell peppers and onions in it. She came back and told me about if he could add some spinach and tomatoes, and how about if he could jet it up. So the thing is that so many times people are not even aware of what different options mean, or what different things mean. And yet what happened here was that she came across something that was not asked often, and then she turned it around was so enduring. She went and talked with chef a couple of times, went to a lot of trouble and did this.

4:08 So two things emerge over here. One is her kindness, which I'm always asking you to continue with the kindness circle. And then the second thing is what does this story evoke in you? What type of emotion does it bring within your realm of thoughts? So for me it was I was really blown away by her kindness. I was really blown away by her enthusiasm. So these are the emotions that are popping up and they help us connect with the characters. So that's what we are going to be talking today about how to bring emotions in your storytelling, whether it is leadership storytelling, business storytelling, or if you're just sitting with a few friends for a night out, having a few drinks, or sitting with your family having that barbecue. So storytelling can be used anywhere, and I have used them in my books, which either of them both the entrepreneurs got in or expert to influencers. You can get your copies and help us not only help other entrepreneurs get started through Kiva dot org, but also you can have the taste of storytelling how I have used and not only that, it's going to help you thrive in your

5:39 personal life and in your business life or a career life. Okay, so without further ado, let's jump into this storytelling. So here's what I want to share with you is that there are so many different emotions. So the first thing to do is sticking some time reading stories or for that matter, watching your favorite movie or watching your favorite show. So for example, I was just watching Bluemorder, which is a British or a series from England, and there is this detective who is having struggle because she's also a mom.

6:32 She's going through divorce, she's going through separation, and then she is made the chief inspector, so she has all these pressures of work. And definitely what happens is that that story is I was watching it, it triggered emotions in me, and then that's what it is. Recognizing the emotional triggers. Some of them can be universal, like emotions like happy, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and these can be integrated with your story very very effectively. So the first key is recognizing different emotions not only within yourself as you watch the TV shows or as you're reading a book, or as you're going through social media, whatever that you're going through. So recognize that what are the emotions that you commonly experience and then see how did that storyteller, whether it is a TV director or whether it's a book writer, or whether it is even a TikTok video player or Instagram really creator, how did they portray those emotions in a narrative context. So let's take a look at different emotions today, happiness. How can characters portray their emotions in terms of happiness?

8:13 They'll be shouting with glee or smiles, laughter, dancing, or celebrating a graduation, celebrating a promotion, celebrating a win, celebrating a game, celebrating a vetting, an arrival of a child, or wedding nuptials or there can be so many things to be celebrated, and as a result of what happens, they experience joy, excitement, contentment, enthusiasm. So now what did we do over here? We did two things. One was how do the characters show their emotions? And then secondly we gave the context of narrative, which is we talked about achieving a goal in terms of promotion or getting a new client, or achieving a milestone in business, or it could be falling in love, it could be moments of success. So that's where the narrative context comes into play. How we used the emotion happiness in it.

9:28 Okay, so now let's take a look at sadness. When the characters are portraying sadness, it could be in terms of a simple sigh. It could be showing a character that even though they're sitting in this crowded restaurant or a crowded room, surrounded by friends, and yet on the inside they're feeling that isolation. It could be tears. Tears are tears can be tears of joy as well as tears of grief. So here we are talking about tears of sadness and what could they be expressing. They could be expressing grief. They could be expressing sorrow, or disappointment or betrayed. There can be so many different things that they're portraying. And now if we kind of take this and put it in the storytelling format, how can we bring in the narrative context.

10:43 It can be a loss. It can be not getting a job after applying several times. It could be loss of a job. It could be a heartbreak of failure where you thought that you have been doing great on a project and it failed. For example, for an entrepreneur, it could be where an entrepreneur has put in that time, efforts, money, resources, thinking ah, this product is going to be the next millionaire maker and that product lends flat. Or it could be a personal setback in a relationship where you could be thinking, oh, I'm moving forward, you know, my friendship is going really really well, but it kind of turns around that the friend steps you in the back loss of a loved one. So we've talked about two of those emotions. Let's also take a look at a couple of other emotions as to how you can have your character portrait. And remember this can be used not only in business storytelling. Like then you may have like streams and streams of data and showing how a story can be created. And always remember storytelling is not a straight chronological sequential pathway. It's like a dance.

12:22 You can have ups and downs, you can have different things happening. So just don't say, like you know, step one, step two, step three, step four, that's going to bore your audience. So let's take a look at another common universal emotion, anger and anger? How is it portrayed? Somebody is like soupset, so upset that you know, their faces crunching, their fits are clenched, their face is red. The voices are rare, and characters what are they expressing through all of this frustration, irritation, outrage? Now, how can you take these emotions of anger and different situations and put it into a narrative context. It can be in terms of betrayal. So, for example, there are two colleagues sitting in a meeting room and while they were walking down the hallway or while they had talked on a Slack channel. One let's say one colleague is John, another one is Jenna. So John has told Jenna about this great idea, great initiative that he's going to be talking about in the meeting. And before John says anything, Jenna goes and steals his idea and talks about it in the meeting,

13:56 and everybody says, Brah, Jenna, that's such a great idea. John's looking at Jenna and his fists are clenched, and he feels this betrayal, and he is so upset that he is ready to have a confrontation. And that's anger within him. So that's one example. As I mentioned. Another example could be business. So, for example, an entrepreneur signs up a client and this client has agreed to pay let's say thousand dollars for a business consultant services. The agreement is that the client is going to pay five hundred dollars up front and then five hundred dollars after the services are complete.

14:52 Now what happens is the consultant has provided all the services and the client hmmm, is not paying up the rest of the money. So then that is the conflict. It's it's it's almost that what's happening over here is there's going to be a confrontation, So you can fit it in. So for example, I can say that the business consultant set up a meeting and his face was red because he had reached out to the client multiple times and the client was deley delling and not paying it up. And of course what was happening was his voice got raised. So now here we are what are we portraying in terms of not only portrayal of emotions, but we are also putting in the narrative context. We gave backward situation that what had happened in the background, and now what's happening in the current scene where we have talked about that conflict and confrontation. So you can use these emotions in a different, very very different ways. Let's take a look at fear, because fear is also a very very common and a universal emotion. Okay, so what happens is there so many times people are experiencing terror, dread, anxiety. So, for example, one of my clients told me, oh gosh, you know,

16:25 whenever I get an email from my boss that began meet tomorrow, I just have this dread in my stomach. I feel this heaviness in my chest because every time her boss calls her up and sets up a meeting, whether it's an email or text or calling her up, it's always to diminish her. It is always to give her negative, toxic feedback. And when she shows up in the meeting, she's trembling and her breathing is fast. There's rapid, fast breathing going on, white eyes because she's experiencing dread. So now what did I do over here? It is set up in a corporate setting, and yet I was able to share with you that narrative because she doesn't know what the boss is going to tell, but she knows that it's a danger zone. It is the unknown what he's going to be telling her.

17:36 So what happens is when there is aknown and when there is an anticipation of danger during that time, people experience fear. Then it could be a threatening situation. So for example, let's say walking down a street and the hair on the back of your neck just kind of like, yeah, all of a sudden, there's that intuition piece in you, but the hair on the back of your neck, they're just standing up and you feel alert because you have this dread. There's some horror elements that is happening because you feel that somebody's following you. And as a result, what is happening is the chest is tightening, the fits are getting clenched, and the character is ready to take flight. So what did we do over here? We took the emotion, which is fear, uring this situation where there could be dread, where it could be life threatening, where it could be danger, and be

19:07 described not only what they're experiencing, but also how they're portraying, and then also how we are using it in the narrative context. So that are three elements just to kind of summarize. One is basically what are the emotions they're feeling, The second is how are they portraying? And third is how we are using it in the narrative context while giving the situation and talking about the characters. So now we have talked about different emotions, and they're several other emotions, and of course if you're interested, you know, just reach out to us. So we cannot go over each and every single emotion during our time today, but we looked at the universal emotions. Now the next thing is to look at what are the type of emotional triggers so important because that's going to help us develop the plot. That's going to help us with the storytelling between the situations, character dialogues, and plot developments. And yes, plot developments can happen in business storytelling, leadership storytelling, personal storytelling, or if you're writing books, or if you're writing novels, doesn't matter where you are at. So let's take a look at how could you portray and narrate

20:41 these different emotional triggers and pull everything together. So let's talk about the character's backstory. So I'm going to go back to John's backstory. So John did not have college diploma. He had joined college, but due to family reasons, he had to drop out. And what he had done was he had spent a lot of time in the corporate world, had real life experience, and he worked twice as hard because he felt that there was a lack of education because he had not completed the college degree. Even though he was equally smart, if not smarter than most of the people. So what does that tell us that John just did not drop out of college. He had personal issues. His mama was sick, and he dropped out of college to take care of his mama. So what it triggers is it triggers empathy and it creates emotional connection with the character. Wow, what a guy that mostly young

22:18 characters, mostly young people are out there for their phone and connecting with other friends and going to parties and all that. And here is this young gentleman who not only left college, who not only worked after leaving college to support his mama, but he took care of her. So what did we do over here? We created that backstory that helped us create that connection. Not only that, but giving the backstory triggers emotions in the audience. And always remember it's about creating genuine emotional connections. Now, let's talk about another situation, conflict and confrontation. So, for example, if there are a tense emotionally charged situations, or if there is an emotional confrontation between two characters, what's going to happen? It will trigger anger, fear, or sadness within the audience. So now let's say, in leadership storytelling, if we were to tell a story John and Jenna. Let's go back to John and Jenna

23:49 that after the meeting was over, John asked Jenna to stop in the hallway, and his body tens. He reached out to Jenna and said, why would you take my idea and present it as your own? And then Jenna squares her shoulder and looks at him in his eyes and says, what idea you talking about? That was my idea. So this is just a dialogue that I'm presenting to you. It evokes anchor at Jenna. Then how could Jenna do that to John? Not only she took his idea and now she's calling him a liar and saying, I don't know about any idea that you shared. That idea was my own. So what we did over here we showed the context and as a result, we created the emotional trigger. Now let's take a scene where there is this young child, a playful five year old child, and they are playing in the front yard. Now, when

25:22 I said they, I'm creating an element of surprise. It makes the audience curious as to who is it. We know there is a little five year old boy playing in the front of the yard. And then the story continues, Little Bobby just takes off like an arrow after the ball on the street, and then all of a sudden, a car comes through and runs over little Bobby. So now we don't know whether Bobby is a dog or another child. So we are combining two elements over here, grief lost, Oh my god, what happened here? Is Bobby? Okay? So you're creating surprise, you're creating that sense of urgency. The five year old was about to run after his Bobby and then his mom shouted stop, Nathan, stop, and Nathan was unconsolable, and he was crying because his little Bobby,

27:00 his little dog, had died. So what this evokes is sadness connecting with the character that how could little Nathan bear this grief seeing his dog run over by a car right in front of his eyes. So there can be different elements that you can do. Either it could be surprised, as I mentioned, or it could just be lost in grief. So we've talked about betrayal.

27:45 Let's talk about moral dilemas. And when I talk about moral dilemma, it's about characters facing ethical choices where the decision making is challenging their values and principles. And what it's doing is it's triggering complex emotions like guilt, conflict, introspection, reflection, not only within the character but also within the audience. So I'm going to go back to the business consultant story. So business consultant and his client are meeting up. A business consultant is angry because he has reached out to the client multiple times and the client has not paid up.

28:45 So now that's set. The moral dilemma is that is it okay for the business consultant to yell use raised voice? Is it okay for the client to not so these are the questions. So now the business consultant holds his anger and asks very quietly that I've reached out to you multiple times for the payment. Can you please share what's going on now? The client shares, I had a death in the family. I had unexpected expenses of funeral expenses, so I cannot pay you the rest of the amount. No. Business consultant is also in a dilemma because he had just lost a big contract.

29:55 He had little kids. So now the business consultant is in a moral dilemma whether to just let go of the money or what to do. But then he had to also think about his own children, where he had to pay the money for the camps for his child, and he didn't have that because he had lost a big contract. So then the business consultant thinks and says, I'm very sorry for your loss. I understand your situation. How about if he could come to an agreement where I could create a payment plan and also if you could refer a couple of people. What I could do is I could give you some referral fees and then that would bring your payment and down. So now what is happening over here is that rather than raising his voice, rather than blaming the client, what did the business consultant do?

31:11 Business consultant opened up the space, created two to three different options which were satisfactory to both the parties given the situations. Both were in very very different situations and yet both needed support. And this way what happened is like they are bringing together to support each other. So when you're listening, you could be relating to the business consultant if you're an entrepreneur. Oh, so many of my clients didn't pay up oh, this is what has happened to me too. So now you could be a little bit myfed for the business consultant.

32:06 Well, some of could be that some of them could be connecting with the client because the client had experienced a loss. So there's such a contrast in the situation that it can create different emotions. So we talked a little bit about moral dilemma, but it can trigger multiple emotions in different situations. So now we have seen different situations, what different types of emotions there are, how we can portray them, how we can use them in the narrative context. You've also seen how there are different situations that create different types of emotional triggers. Now, how do we take it and how do you craft it? So here's what I'm going to share with you is this, think about the whole story and then take those emotional triggers and think about like how could you add it in the dialogue or how you could create a heartwarming scene.

33:15 So I'm just going to share with you one of the examples. If you have seen Lion King, there are a couple of heart warming scenes. You learn from it, and then what you could do is you could create your own character so for example, it could be John. What John is experiencing is grief, and John is experiencing a lot of frustration at Jenna. John is very upset and angry at Jenna. And then what happens is that he needs to come to terms, He needs to come to acceptance as to what he could do, what could be the next steps, because remember, decisions taken when the emotions are running high are most likely not going to be sound decisions. So John recognizes that, and John is determined to make decision from a place of calm. So what happens is John goes and thinks about it, and then he decides to go to his boss and talk about what Jenna did. And boss says, hmm, I've had a couple of similar complaints, so let's see what we can do. So John's boss works things through together, allowing John to share his side of story, allowing Jenna to

34:50 share her side of story, and then what happened was John is basically coming forward with very detailed process steps because he had brought through the idea whereas Jenna had not. So the justice is done. The boss gives Jenna warning that if any of this sort of things were to happen again, she would be fired. John is happy and even though he has gone through a lot of tough time during this but he has grown to the character. So now let's go back to the Lion King where there's a heartwarming scene. So what John decides to do is disconnect, and then he goes to this beautiful sunset point where he can see the sunset. So he's happy that things have worked out well. But now when he's sitting there, it's not only the occurrences during the day that is there, but looking at the sunset, it reminds him of happy memories. And what happens is that we have created this scenario with

36:25 this character, and why are we putting this character at the sunset area? Because when John is sitting there, he realizes that work is not the only thing. He remembers happy memories from his childhood where they were running around and having a picnic during a sunset. So it's about creating connections between two different situations, between two different times within a character and showing that John was not just gloating that he had won. John was just happy and then reflected upon it, and then he went into deeper thought reflection where he realized that work is just one piece. Work is just one element of life, It's not the bee at all. So this is how where we crafted emotional triggers, where we did a couple of scenes and showing the bigger side of John's story.

37:37 Now, another thing is how do you map emotions to story elements, characters, plots, settings. So yes, I used two different scenarios in one story because I wanted to convey two messages. One was that John just then sit back, John meant to his boss, and the second one was that yes he took action, and yes he also learned that how he had spent five days in ruminating what Jenna had done to him and lost five precious days of his life. And John realizing that at the end of the day, work is only part of life. Work is not the life itself.

38:30 So you can map out in different ways. The story of John and Jenna could have ended in very different ways. Now Here the thing is like having that emotional balance, exploring the avenues of viaving a tapestry of different emotions in your narrative. So it's important to balance moments of joy with shades of sadness or anxiety to give a fuller, richer experience to your audience. And I can even share, like you know, one of the plots that is very very enduring to me is Toy Story because there are moments of thrills, and yet those moments of thrills are balanced with friendship and camaraderie keeping the audience engaged, because life is not just a straight line. During a single day, you could have a frustrating moment with someone and then the next you could be having a beautiful experience with one of your other friends. Or you could be going to the beach and taking a walk and experiencing that beautiful lapping sounds of the ocean waves, you know, breath, that surf breaking at the shore.

40:00 So make it fuller. And here's what I can tell you if you want to know more about storytelling, you know, we've got a full course that teaches you, that takes you by hand, step by step, and helps you create emotional storytelling. It helps you bring in that perfect blend and balance of emotions and also of course other aspects. So reach out to us. Contact us at contact at dvaparek dot com and we would be happy to share the course with you as to how it would help you and how things would work out. So thank you on for making the show technically possible, and thank you listeners for joining us, because without you, the show is not the same. So to the storytelling, to that narrative, and to building relationships and and reaching all lives. Be val and take care till links time. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your host, V Park, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who have experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence, Divpark shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches

41:30 people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dot Dwpark dot com and you can connect with vat contact at dvpark dot com. We look forward to you joining us next week