Week 3 · Measured Influence · Day 20 of 28 · Saturday · Out in the world · 5 min
Practise telling one story at a dinner or at drinks
Day 20 · Tell One Story
Saturday’s mission: pick one story from your bank of five, tell it when it fits, pause before the “one day”, and watch how people respond.
Today’s mission is a story. Pick one from your bank of five and find a natural moment to tell it: over a meal, at drinks with friends or colleagues, in a voice message if it has to be. Use the story spine. Pause before the “one day”. Watch their feet and torso while you tell it. Are they leaning in?
Steps
Choose the story before you go out.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example Choose it beforehand
“The client who came back.” You pick it on the train. You know the “one day” sentence by heart: “Then one day they left.”
In the car Picked in the car
Dinner with friends tonight. You pick the funny one, the forklift, on the drive over, because the dinner will want it. You say the “one day” sentence once to the windscreen: “Then one day the forklift didn’t stop.”
In the office Picked at your desk
Team drinks on Thursday. You pick the pilot story, because the new starters have not heard why the team rings users first. The “one day” sentence is ready: “One day we checked the usage and there were three.”
Tell it when it fits. Pause before the “one day”.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example When it fits
The supplier’s head of sales mentions a lost account over the main course. You tell yours, and pause before “Then one day they left”. Two people stop eating.
Drinks & dinners Over dessert
Someone mentions a workplace disaster. You wait for the laugh to finish, then: “We had a forklift.” Pause before “one day”. The table is already leaning in by the time it does not stop.
In the office At team drinks
A new starter asks why the team rings users before building anything. That is the moment. You tell the pilot story, pause before “one day we checked the usage”, and three people who already know the story listen anyway.
Afterwards, three lines in your notes: where they reacted, where you lost them, what you’d cut.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example Three lines afterwards
“Reacted: at the pause. Lost them: the bit about the onboarding tool, too much detail. Cut: the tool.”
Drinks & dinners Typed in the taxi
“Reacted: the pause, and the word ‘forklift’. Lost them: the bit about the warehouse layout. Cut: the layout. Nobody needs the layout.” Three lines before the taxi is halfway home.
In the office Written on the train
“Reacted: ‘there were three’. Lost them: the name of the dashboard. Cut: the dashboard, say ‘the numbers’.” You write it before you forget which bit made the engineer look up.
Today’s notes
One line each.
- Where they reacted
- Where you lost them
- What you’d cut
Lock it in
Tick what’s true.
I told one story on the story spine.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example Told it on the spine
At the dinner, the client-who-came-back story on the spine: every day, one day, because of that, until finally, ever since. It came out shorter than the way you used to tell it, and everyone followed it to the end.
Drinks & dinners At the table
The forklift story, on the spine, over dessert. Six lines. The old version wandered around the warehouse for three minutes. This one got to the forklift in twenty seconds and the laugh in sixty.
In the office At team drinks
The pilot story on the spine, to the new starters. It was the shortest version you have told, and the first one where someone asked a follow-up. The spine left room for it.
I paused before the “one day”.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example Paused before the “one day”
A full second before “Then one day they left.” The head of sales leaned in. You felt it land.
Drinks & dinners Over dessert
You stopped for a full second before “one day the forklift didn’t stop”. The silence was the longest second of the dinner. The laugh at the end was bigger because of it.
In the office At the drinks
A full second before “one day we checked the usage”. The engineer, who was looking at his phone, looked up in the pause. He had heard the story twice before. He had not heard the pause.
I watched how they responded.
Picture it · 3 examples
Example Watched the response
Torsos towards you at the pause. One set of eyes drifting at the onboarding detail. That is the cut.
Drinks & dinners At the table
Six people. Five leaned in at the pause. One looked at his phone during the warehouse layout and back up at the forklift. You now know which thirty seconds to cut, because you watched instead of just talking.
In the office At the drinks
Three torsos towards you at “one day”. One turned away during the dashboard name and came back at “sixty users”. The dashboard goes. The number stays.