The Power of Personal Storytelling

Description

You’re stuck in an endless, dull conversation. As the speaker drones on, your mind wanders, until you hear the words, “I remember once when I was..” Your ears perk up. You become engrossed. An anecdote unfolds, and suddenly, the speaker is alive and excited and you know just what he means. He has used the age-old technique of storytelling to powerfully get his point across, capturing your attention through a well-told narrative of personal experience that invited you to relate to his message on an intimate level. In The Power of Personal Storytelling, professional storyteller Jack Maguire explains how to mine your memories to communicate more effectively, enhance personal and professional relationships, and understand yourself better so that you can better understand others. Step by step, he illustrates how shaping and expressing true stories about our lives and those of the people we’ve known can:* connect us more vitally with others;* develop our creativity;* strengthen our humor, courage, and confidence; and* render our lives more memorable.Whether you’re a teacher or a salesman, a minister or a parent, personal storytelling can help improve the key relationships in your life while investing your memories with more meaning.Introduction

Part I. Why Tell Personal Stories?
1. Listening: The Telling Difference
2. The Blessings of Personal Storytelling

Part II. Reclaiming Your Storyloving Self
3. Your Inner Storyteller
4. Reading Your Own Mind
5. The Quest for the Past
6. Your Hero, Your Self

Part III. Getting Story Ideas
7. Lifelines and Storylines
8. Memory Legwork
9. Roving Reporter for the Family News
10. From Abstraction to Reality
11. Getting the Picture
12. Stories Within Stories
13. Making Stories Happen

Part IV. Bringing Your Stories to Life
14. Out Loud and Proud
15. Crossing the Stream
16. Storyboarding
17. Enlivening Ways and Means

Part V. Your Storytelling Powers in Action
18. Embodying a Story
19. The Voice of Your Being
20. The Many Worlds of Personal Storytelling
21. Family Storytelling
22. Storytelling at Work
23. Storytelling in the Community
24. Taking the Telling Leap

Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Jack Maguire is the author or co-author of 500 Terrific Ideas for Home Maintenance; Outdoor Spaces: Landscape Design for Today’s Living; Kids’ Rooms: Imaginative Ideas for Creating the Perfect Space for Your Child; and Spas and Hot Tubs, Saunas and Home Gyms. He lives in Highland, New York.US

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