In the movie, Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jordan Belfort, asks a room full of salespeople to sell him a pen. The ask tests a salesperson's ability to understand a client's needs and demonstrate why a solution would be of value. The scene illustrates a fundamental selling point: that it's not enough to have a great product or service, you also have to know how to sell that product or service.

Part of effective selling is telling a compelling story… one that will shift how a prospect thinks or acts. In this Story Hour, we invite our storytellers to tell a story that will convince us that we need something we don’t have, or should do something we otherwise wouldn’t. Learning to develop a story like this is helpful for anyone in any function—sales or not—because invariably we’ll find ourselves in moments where we need to influence others to think or act a certain way.

Safety (and lack of safety) can mean a million things…and that’s why it’s a great metaphor and potential story prompt. Do you have an exciting outdoor adventure story where you were worried about your physical safety that could be a metaphor and help you share a lesson about courage or trying something new? Do you have a story about a leader that risked your psychological safety and how another leader or peer was able to help you navigate that space?

At this Story Hour, we ask our speakers to share their stories of safety (or lack of safety) and what they learned as a result of that experience.

At Story Hour, we typically hold our speakers to a 5 minute time limit so we can have 3 speakers at each event. And it’s surprising how often they go over! It’s hard to craft and share a “short” story. It takes work to figure out what you can leave out and still have your story land. For this Story Hour, we invite folks to bring a 1 - 2 minute story. It can be a shorter version of one shared at a previous Story Hour or something new.