Storytelling: Getting your audience to FEEL

Storytelling works so well in content for two reasons

1. Stories are proof. It’s proof that you did a thing which takes time and through that passage of time you learned something. If we want what you have, then we will listen to your story so we can save ourselves the time and pain it took you to learn those things. Your story is your truth and nobody can tell you that it’s wrong.
2. Stories evoke emotions. This is how us illogical human beings make most of our decisions. Today, we will be talking about how to evoke more emotion from your audience with your storytelling.

We always think we’re the only one who feels alone, scared, ashamed, unworthy, doubtful or sad until a friend comes along and says he also feels scared about the same thing we then we say, “dude, me too!”

In that moment, we don’t feel so alone anymore. We feel a sense of belonging.

When we belong we feel safe and that’s the number one thing people want. It’s meets our basic need of survival. I belong with this tribe and I am safe 😌

When you are safe, you feel free to fully express yourself and be YOU.

No longer bottling it all up for fear you will be rejected and end up dying alone.

Isn’t that when you have the most fun too? With your best friends, being really weird and goofy, not worried about their judgement or if they’ll abandon you.

When it comes to social media, this is how you create raving fans who comment and share your work… and maybe one day choose to work with you.

Allow them to feel safe enough to be fully themself.

In today’s email email I’m going to teach you 6 ways to add more emotion to your content so you can get comments like the ones I got from ​this Monday’s reel.​

*Side note: 90% of my clients tend to be female (of course I love them) and I’d love more men in my world so I been asking for and manifesting more great men in my comments and as clients and here they come 😌

Pain Point Marketing: Good or Bad?

I’ve heard some people on the internet reject “pain point marketing.”

I actually saw a marketer talk about last December and then proceed to do pain point marketing. I never posted it because I felt like my energy was too reactionary, but here’s the share I was putting together:

Girllllllllll… come on!

Telling people not to talk about “pain points” is an over simplification and could be detrimental to your ability to connect with your audience.

There’s an important distinction here.

Fear based marketing vs allowing your audience to feel seen.

Fear based marketing is basically telling people they’re fucked.

[here are some tennis examples because I know you all love it]

“You are so in your head when you play tennis and you know it. You know that by playing this way you’ll never win a single match. If you keep losing you’ll embarrass yourself in front of everyone at the club and nobody will want to play with you. In fact, you wife might even leave you because you suck so bad.”

Okay, obviously I’m exaggerating this example… I have no doubts you’d never say shit like that. However, watch how similar but different this is.

“How many times have you thought to yourself, ‘Why can I play so well in practice, but so horribly in my matches?’ The worst part is, when you start playing poorly, it only gets worse. Then you start worrying about how everyone at the club is going to perceive you. You put even more pressure on yourself to perform well because you want everyone to know you can actually play well but the pressure is not helping you relax and end up playing worse…”

One example is fearful, the other is putting words to your [audiences] thoughts and emotions so they feel seen.

Ignoring your audiences pain points is like when you were upset at 8 years old and your mom rejected your feelings by telling you, “You’re fine!!”

Still working through those wounds aren’t ya?

Me too…

Me too…

In order to heal, we must face our wounds heads on.

Your audiences pain points, fears, and struggles are very real and very valid and we’d like to be the friend who gets it. Not the friend who supports you in spiritually bypassing your trauma and offering you a Tylenol for your headache when what you really need is to stop doom scrolling on your phone until 1 AM and get some well rested sleep.

What goes viral?

In short, everything and anything.

If you pay attention to viral content it’s not really a bunch of spectacular stuff.

I just scrolled on my reels page for a minute.

Here’s what I saw:

1. “POV your mom watches a movie with you clip” – A sketch video about a mom (a guy dressed up as a mom in a robe) asking the most annoying questions.
2. How a Beetlejuice vinyl record is made in the factory
3. Some guy (no idea who he is) talking about why the NYC marathon is the best marathon ever
4. “If me and my homies were refs” – a sketch of two refs of the basketball court talking about normal life stuff while reffing a woman’s basketball game

You what I didn’t see?

• “How I made a million dollars this year”
• or “how so-and-so beat the world record marathon time.”

Nothing I saw was all that spectacular.

What I saw was normal human shit.

The only thing these videos have in common is that they make you feel something.

1. I felt belonging as I laugh and say, “That’s literally what my mom does!!” and then I sent to my brother to feel even more closeness
2. I feel awe and wonder as I watch how a vinyl record gets made. That’s cool, I never even thought about how that works.
3. My motivation was ripping through my chest while watching this. I lived in NYC for 9 years and I don’t miss it… but fuck… maybe I do. I could feel the longing to be part of something big like this. Maybe I’ll sign up for next years race.
4. This is hilarious. I felt joy and laughed. Then I sent it to my boys and said, “this is us”

Whether it’s doubt, anxiety, or frustration

Joy, peace, awe, love, or excitement

Feelings are universal. And you experience them everyday, all day long.

This is what connects us as humans.

The hard part of storytelling isn’t that you have no stories to tell.

The hard part is being brave enough to share the truth of how you feel.

To let people in.

That’s the story you tell.

You don’t need to do market research, you just need to be honest with your experiences all the way from 30 years ago to yesterday.

Lessons from the past are great to tell and what’s even more powerful is showing you’re in the trenches with them.

You will always be working on the thing you help your audience with. The difference is you probably have solutions for the problems.

With any story you tell on social media, you want be sure you go from disempowered to empowered. You are here to be leader for your audience, not to use them as a trauma dump. You are more than welcome to share the hard times, but be sure to get to a place of empowerment. I talk about that more in, “How to turn any moment into a powerful story for your business” [​link​]

Here is the 6 ways to inject emotion into your content

Most people’s stories look something like, “I used to get so stressed at work, I would get nothing done and usually I would stress out for no reason. Here’s how I release stress at work so I can do better work.”

This is not a story.

ZERO. EMOTION.

I did not relate to you.

It’s a snooze fest.

Do not move on from the pain so quickly. That’s what we connect with!!

Instead, stick with that feeling of stress and invite me into your external and internal senses: Hear, See and Feel

External means

• what do you see with your eyes
• what do you hear with your ears
• what do you feel on your skin

Internal means

• what story are you imagining in your head (see)
• what is your inner voice telling you (hear)
• what do you feel in your body or what other emotions are you feeling (feel)?

External senses invite people into the scene so they picture it.

Once they’re in the scene with you, they are more easily access your (their) internal senses. As you guide them through the story they can effortlessly feel what you feel, and of course, what they have been feeling too.

When you do this well, you have put words to their feelings just like your favorite song does.

There’s nothing like screaming a love song when you’re madly in love or a sad song when you’re heart broken.

Song don’t have to say, “I’m heartbroken,” you can feel it.

That’s the feeling of safety we want our audience to feel with us.

And the more specific the better.

Right now I could tell you…

“I’m anxiously try to finish this newsletter before my first call of the day.”

or

“The chilly November air is creeping into my office making my toes feel like ice cubs, but I refuse to grab a pair of socks because I gotta get this newsletter done before my 3 back-to-back calls this morning.”

Before I say anything more, can you notice the difference in how you feel reading those two sentences.

The second sentence is so much more relatable and I didn’t even have to say “I’m anxious.” You can feel anxiety through the writing.

All I’m doing is telling the truth.

Nothing else matters if you don’t tell the truth.

The key to a great story is to be honest with yourself and tell the truth.

Telling you I’m anxious about getting my newsletter done isn’t even the real truth.

I’m anxious because I continually overload myself with work because I’m afraid if I’m not constantly working I won’t be successful. Even though I’d rather be playing tennis, I don’t trust that I’ve done enough… and that’s super frustrating. I can’t seem to escape this pattern of overwork.

Now that’s real.

*Note you don’t have to use all three external and all three internal sense in every story. What you’re really after is learning how to fully express how you truly felt and what caused those feelings.

For example… I also really have to pee, but I won’t get up until I finish this idea (or maybe until I finish the whole newsletter 😂 ). I don’t have to tell you ALL the details, one is sufficient (especially when creating short form content. Delete. Delete. Delete.)

Breakdown one of my Viral Reels

You can watch it first (​click here​).

I’ll break down the script below.

The script is italicized and I’ll add my [comments in bolded brackets] after each line

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I was watching the bear last night while eating spaghetti and meatballs (excuse the awful plating)

[Externally invite them in to what I’m seeing. I’m not vague “I was watching TV.” No, I was watching this specific episode of The Bear]

And I had to ask myself, how badly do I really want to be great at what I do?

[Internally I heard this question]

Because it seems like I think I’m too good to be cleaning stoves with a fucking tooth pick

It seems like I know that I’m great at what I do but wah wah wah why can’t the world see it. Why aren’t I making a million dollars yet?

[very truthful inner view of how I see myself]

But damn… watching Carmen eat shit from the head chef, meticulously pealing gallons of edamame and then he’s on his hand and knees cleaning the floor after a long day… that’s what makes him a Michelin Star chef.

[external seeing]

But here I am wanting to skip the hard work that makes people great.

It’s like I’ve been using spirituality to tell myself “I’m worthy” when deep down I don’t believe it.

[internally hearing]

Hard work has been demonized as “the grind” but in reality hard work can be insanely energizing.

~~Anyone who has created anything great has put in hard work.~~

~~Kobe, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs,~~

[this was an idea that I crossed out and didn’t use – delete. delete. delete.]

and honestly… whose dish do you want to eat. The guy who’s never made Kobe beef before or the guy who’s mastered it over thousands of hours of meticulous attention to detail.

That’s the guy I want to be. The guy who cares so much that he puts a piece of lettuce down with tweezers.

Not the guy who thinks he’s worthy of your money just for being born.

[these last 6 sentences are a summary of my point. You must make a point or give a takeaway for people to agree or disagree with. This is what gives people an opportunity to align their values with or not. Emotion is what causes them to comment or share it]

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That’s all for today.

In December, I am launching my 6-week group program called StoryGrowth that will begin in the new year.

I provide a lot of in depth feedback on everyone’s content so because of that there will only be 20 spots available and I expect them to fill up.

If you want to be the first to know, join the waitlist.

See ya next week,

Matt