In this storied episode, Cesar Castro, Founder of Strategic Storytelling LLC, shares how teaching key communication principles and skills can help business leaders and professionals become great communicators and strategic storytellers!
You will discover:
– A simple 4-part framework for telling more effective stories
– How to add strategy to your storytelling
– Why and when to use stories as a leader
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is yet another high demand coach. We have with us, the one and only, Cesar Castro, who was born in Chile, Chile professionally. Cesar is a psychologist with two master’s degrees, one in Organizational Psychology and the other in professional communications. He’s also an adjunct professor of interpersonal communications and public speaking at Weber State University in Utah. Cesar has founded three companies to help business leaders and entrepreneurs develop more influence and impact through the power of communication and strategic storytelling. He’s had the opportunity to coach and train 1000s of professionals and leaders from top companies like MasterCard, Pepsi company, Santander, MetLife and Kia, and he’s here with us today. Cesar, I’m so excited about this episode. I’m really looking forward to diving into how we can really leverage the power of stories. My question for you, before we really dive into all that, though, is, where did you figure this out? When did you discover the power of stories?
Cesar Castro
Well, first, thank you for the invitation, Scott, and it’s actually I’m gonna try to make it a short story, because it’s kind of a long story. When people ask me about storytelling and how I got into it, you know, it’s, it’s such a unique skill set that, you know, sometimes people like, did you learn it? Did you study it somewhere? Did you, you know, did you get certified somewhere? And I always tell them, I I’ve kind of been getting prepared for this my whole life. Because when I was about seven years old, my family moved from Chile. So I’m originally from, from Chile, from South America, and they moved to the States, the United States. And you know, my first few months, I didn’t speak English because I had no English background. And I just by luck, I landed at a school, elementary school, where they were actually piloting, like a storytelling program for kids. They were just trying it out. They were seeing, you know, if it worked. And I still remember every Monday, every Monday when I’d go to class, I’d sit next to the teacher because, you know, I didn’t speak the language, so she had, like, a special seat for me to help me. And the first few months I would, I’d notice that every Monday she was she would ask kids randomly to get up in front of class and tell a story. And I always thought in my head, this isn’t going to happen to me. She’s not going to call on me because I can’t speak the language, right? And one Monday morning, and I still remember this, even though this happened more than 30 years ago, I still remember as if it’s something that happened yesterday, because I show up one Monday morning, and the teacher, she comes up to me to say, hi, like she always did. And that day, that Monday morning, she actually said, Cesar, today, you to story. Tell to contar un estoria, right? You tell a story. And I acted like, like, I didn’t understand that was my that was my best tool that I had at that moment. So I said, No, understand, I know in tiendo. And she just said, Yes, you can do it. You can do it. And the class started, and she started calling on kids. She would always pick, like, four or five random kids to get up tell a story. So she was, like, on the fourth kid. And I was thinking in my mind, okay, she’s not gonna call me, right? This is again. I’m about seven, eight years old at this time, and all of a sudden I hear this. I hear my name, which is, which is great, but terrifying at the same time, because she says, Cesar, it’s your turn. And I get up, start walking towards the front of the class, my knees are shaking, you know, my hands are sweaty, and I get up in front of my class, and I couldn’t speak the language very well, so I just tried to kind of Tarzan and tell a story. I didn’t really even, you know, I didn’t think it was a great story. Actually took me about 30 seconds. I just told something that I had done the weekend with my family, and once I told that little story, I went and sat back down, and I just started looking at the ground. And I was thinking, in my mind, he’s in such a horrible job, says, Sir, no one, no one understood your story. You didn’t speak well. Your story was wasn’t good. And when I finally looked up, when I finally got the courage to look up and start looking at my my classmates, they were all looking back at me, and they all had their thumbs up like this. They were all going like this. And in that moment to me, Scott and I share this, because that moment when I was seven years old was a life changing experience. It was the first time that I remember that I felt, personally, felt the power of telling a story. And again, it wasn’t a great story, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a Hollywood story. It was just a simple little story. But that moment, being able to get that connection with my classmates, being able to see, oh. Oh, wow. Like I can speak, I could do this. That changed everything for me. Changed my confidence. It gave me, gave me momentum, momentum to want to keep learning about storytelling. And actually, after that, every Monday I would raise my hand, I wanted to tell stories. And I got so good at it that by the time I was about 11 and 12, you know, I now picked up the language. I started competing, and I actually won the national storytelling competition here in the United States when I was 12, and I got invited to festivals, and it was something I enjoyed, and I did as a kid. Never in my wildest dreams that I think I would be doing this as an adult. But once I entered, you know, the work, the workforce, and I studied psychology, and I was doing consulting with companies, that’s where the first, for the first time, that I kind of realized that this was a very unique skill set that leaders, especially directors and managers of these companies that I was working with, they wanted to learn, because a lot of what you do in your day to day, you know, if you’re a founder, if you’re an entrepreneur, 70 80% of your day to day is is related some somehow, to communication, whether that be digital or public communication or interpersonal communication. So we, we communicate a lot and and if I were to tell you, you know, Scott, look, you’re going to have this, this job, and 70 80% of your job is going to be to communicate, you better be really good at it, right? Because that’s a big part of your job. And even though leaders, managers, founders, entrepreneurs, they know that they have to communicate a lot. One thing that I always run into is, okay, I know I got to communicate, but how do I communicate? And how do I do it in a way that really connects and inspires and generates influence. And that’s where I think storytelling comes in as a powerful skill, as a powerful communication tool to help you generate that impact in your audience.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. What a great story, what a great concept. So the question that I have for you, something that jumped out as I was getting ready for this episode, was this idea of strategic storytelling, because, like, we’ve all been at the wedding where the guy got up and, like, told the story that one never ended and two had no point, and, you know, he got most of the details wrong because it had a little too much to drink already. Like, we’ve all heard stories like that are told that just like, where is this going? What is how do we take storytelling and actually make it strategic storytelling?
Cesar Castro
Yeah, so, so I think that’s, this is a really good question, because a lot of times people don’t understand the difference storytelling, if we just look at the definition, it’s the art of communicating by using stories. That’s storytelling, and it’s actually something we all do. We all tell stories. That’s just human nature. We are storytelling creatures. So that’s that’s the good news. When we talk about storytelling, I always tell my clients, well, you’re already a storyteller because you tell stories. It’s just how we organize the information and how we communicate information. We do that through stories. Now strategic storytelling, to me, the definition of strategic storytelling, the simple definition, it’s the art of influencing and persuading by using stories, which is a little bit different, because one is just communicating. And that’s, you know, the example you were giving, where we’re at the wedding, we’re talking, we’re communicating, we’re telling stories, and we’re having fun while we’re doing that. But whenever we want to get our message across, and we want to make sure that the message or the idea really hits home. You know, in our mind, in our hearts, that’s where strategic storytelling comes in. And the main difference here is just there’s there’s more of an intention to it. So when you’re telling stories, you know, with your friends, you’re just telling stories, and sometimes you’ll come up with ideas and stories. You’ll remember things that happen, and you’ll, you’ll, kind of, you know, tell stories, and they’ll tell those stories, and that’s how we create relationships as well. Strategic storytelling. You actually start strategic storytelling by first defining what is that message or the idea that you want to get across. So first defining that is important, and once you know what is the idea or the message that you want to get across, now you start looking for specific stories that you know will help you to communicate that idea effectively.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that, because one of the places I feel like I see a lot of folks get this wrong is in the idea of kind of an origin story. Now, whether they would call it that or not. I see a lot of folks, especially in professional services, who are kind of telling their story as as if we all want to know the factual, you know, series of events that led to them starting this business, right? And it’s just missing, you know, the whole time you’re sitting there listening to it, I know, for me, I was thinking. I’m thinking like, why does this matter to me? What am I supposed you know and and so, how do you help folks to really approach something like an origin story that’s so close to them and so personal, and turn that into a strategic story that actually helps them communicate an effective message?
Cesar Castro
Yeah, I think there’s an important principle. That, you know, I want you to tattoo in your brain is, stories are a vehicle. Stories are a vehicle. They’re a means to an end. Right? The end is usually that idea or that message that you want to get across. And obviously you want that idea or message that you’re trying to get across to be something of meaning or value to the audience. So this, this question you asked is, you know, what does this have to do with me? Or why should I care? That is a question that your audience will always be asking themselves. So if you’re telling a story and you’re just telling it because it’s it’s your story because you think it’s cool, because you want to share it, but it has no meaning or purpose or no value to the audience, like you said, people will tune out. People will tune out, but that’s because we’re not understanding that the story is just the vehicle to get somewhere. So I talk a lot about storytelling, right? And I teach my clients how to how to create and structure great stories, but I always tell them the most important thing is the idea or the message that you want to get across. Now we’re starting from the basis that that message or idea that I want to get across will add value to my audience. Because if it’s not going to add I add any value to your audience, or it’s not something that your audience, you know, resonates with or connects with, then you can tell all the, you know, the greatest stories in the world, and they’ll be fun, and people will be like, oh, you know, that was a cool story. That was a fun story. But what do I have to get out of this? You know? Why did he tell me this story? I have no idea. So there’s, there’s a method that I teach, a very simple, four step method when we talk about structuring stories, it’s actually a Spanish word which is easy to remember. The word is cosa, cosa which means thing in English. Okay. Cosa has four letters, C, O, S, A, and I always tell people when you’re structuring a story, remember these four, these four letters, cosa. Why? Because every story needs to have a context. Context is where your story begins. Usually you answer the question of, when did it happen? Where did it happen and who did it happen to? Every story needs to have an obstacle. The O, right? The conflict. There needs to be a conflict in a story, or else it’s not going to be a good story. Every story needs an a solution that’s yes, okay, the solution, the happy ending of the story, the transformation of the main character and the A which is, to me, what makes this whole process strategic. Is the application a cosa application? The application refers to, how is the audience going to apply this? What does this have to do with them? So that is actually part of what makes the whole process strategic is that you you start thinking first, what is it that you want the audience to do? What is it that you want to give them? And then you reverse engineer, and you build the story, helping, making sure that that that that message that you want to get across reaches the audience. Again, a story is a vehicle, but the idea, or the message is, is the end, is the place where you want to take them.
Scott Ritzheimer
So I can imagine there’s some folks listening to this, and they’re leaning in, right? There might be onto something here, but they’re like, so does that mean that I have to, like, tell parables on my sales call? Like, do have to talk like Jesus? Or, like, what? What are there some like, categories of really common types of stories, or classifications of stories or, or, maybe even more helpful. Where should we start looking at our current work to say, Hey, this is a place where a story would be helpful.
Cesar Castro
Yeah. So I think again, when we talk about storytelling, and like any any tool, it’s something you need to have in your toolkit, but it’s not the only tool you got to have. So I always tell, tell my clients whether they’re learning with with me, and they’re, oh, I want to, I want to tell stories all the time. I’m like, Look, it’s, it’s great to tell stories, but you don’t have to use stories all the time. If you have a five minute conversation and or a meeting in that presentation, you’re just going to present the data, the numbers. Go and present the data and the numbers, okay, now, if you’re doing a presentation and you want to generate change and connection. Now you’re probably gonna have more time to tell a story, but depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, for example, if we’re talking about a sales process, a lot of times the sales process can be long. It’s not just a one meeting thing, and for each one of those meetings, you have different purposes. So maybe for the first meeting, what you want to do is just connect. It’s just you want to build trust. So I would be thinking of, what stories could I share that could build connection and trust? Maybe, maybe it’ll be a personal story, but maybe it’ll be a story about a client. Maybe it’ll be a transformation that our product, you know, generated in another business, that’ll build credibility and trust. Then maybe in the second meeting, I’m going to go and show them how this how this product or this service works, and that. And instead of just explaining and giving them a bullet point, I’m going to share a story of how a client applied it, or how they could apply it. So again, it’s it’s dependent on what you’re trying to accomplish. I work a lot with business leaders and and directors and big companies, and usually. They when they’re doing presentations, there’s always some kind of an idea or a message that they’re trying to get across to their teams. So since we know what is that idea or message you’re trying to get across your team, and we work on building stories to make sure that that idea or message gets across, understanding that if I have a 30 minute presentation, I’m probably not going to be telling a story the whole time, but I might use one at the beginning. I might use one to teach or to be able to reinforce a concept, and I’ll definitely use one at the end to try to inspire and motivate the team.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, Sara, there’s a question that I like to ask all my guests. I’m gonna fire it your way. What would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Cesar Castro
I think, and again, when I tell my clients this, they always open their eyes big, because I always tell them, you’re already a storyteller. It’s something that you do. And I don’t know if it’s a secret, but we kind of lose awareness of it because it’s so common sense that it’s like the sense that we least use. But just remember that you are already a storyteller. Stories are already in you. They’re already part of who we are as human beings. We’ve been using them for over 100,000 years. Now, the challenge, and I think the biggest impact is learning how to use those stories, even your own stories, to be able to communicate those messages and communicate those products and communicate those services that you’re trying to get out to the marketplace. So the secret is that you are already a storyteller. The stories are already within you. Now start using them.
Scott Ritzheimer
Amazing, amazing. So there are some folks who are like, Okay, I’m a storyteller. Great. I want to be a strategic storyteller. I want to take this to the next level. Where can they find more out about the work that they that you do? Where can they reach out to you?
Cesar Castro
Well, they can. They can go to my website. It’s www.cesarcastro.com, that’s one way where you can kind of see everything that we’re doing and how we help out businesses organizations. Or we can go, you can go to LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn, always sharing content and information on LinkedIn. Again, Cesar Castro on LinkedIn. And also I have a podcast. It’s called strategic storytelling. It’s I have one in Spanish, which is one of the most listened to podcasts in Spanish in Latin America. A lot of people want to learn about storytelling. But I also started a year ago, a podcast in English, and it’s called the strategic storytelling podcast, where you can also start learning, and again, get your foot in the in the door, so you can become a strategic storyteller.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love it. I love it. So sorry. Thank you so much for being on the show here today. Just really appreciate it. Fantastic episode. I had a great time. Thanks for being on for those of you watching and listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Cesar Castro
Cesar Castro was born in Chile. Professionally, Cesar is a psychologist with two master’s degrees, one in organizational psychology and the other in professional communications. He is also an adjunct professor of interpersonal communications & public speaking at Weber State University in Utah. Cesar has founded three companies to help business leaders and entrepreneurs develop more influence and impact through the power of communication and strategic storytelling. He has had the opportunity to coach and train thousands of professionals and leaders from top companies like MasterCard, PepsiCo, Santander, Metlife & KIA.
Want to learn more about Cesar Castro’s work at Strategic Storytelling LLC? Check out his website at https://www.cesarcastro.com/
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