Esther Choy, Author at Leadership Story Lab

The Secret to Clarifying Complex Ideas

“CRM is like your birth control,” I remember Brittany Hodak, co-founder of The Superfan Company, saying on stage. Perplexed but very intrigued, I listened on. I could sense the ballroom, filled with nearly four hundred attendees at the most recent Brand Manage Camp, wondering the same question. How on earth is CRM like birth control?!…

How To Write Emails People Will Want To Read

I’m often asked how I define a story. Is presentation a story? Is a business pitch a story? While defining a story, especially in a modern world, would take an entirely separate article, I know when a story works. It works when your audience sees themselves in your story and wants to do something about…

Write Subject Lines That Hook Your Audience Every Time

Knowing that the first few lines of an email have to catch the audience’s attention, Michelle Garza, Manager of Diagnostic Imaging and CT at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, set out to intrigue her email audience. “On July 1, 2017,” she wrote, “Lurie Children’s Hospital implemented a new policy on PSL. PSL doesn’t stand for…

Persuading Audiences That Think They Know Everything

Let’s do a word association game. I say “story” and you say…? “Telling!” Indeed, most people would say “telling.” After all, storytelling is everywhere now. There’s a big caveat though. A wise person once said, “to become a great storyteller, one must first become a great story collector.” In other words, you have to prompt…

3 Painless Ways to Take a Conversation Beyond Small Talk

“So… how was your vacation?” Summer has finally arrived in Chicago; tourists are pouring onto the magnificent miles, the museums, ballparks… everywhere. The sight of crowded downtown streets is reminding me of answering this frequently asked summer question: So, how was your vacation? When people ask questions like this, it’s tempting to rush, thinking of…

Summer Reading: Leisure or Leadership-building?

Immersed in careers and often balancing jobs and families, busy, working parents often feel that they have little time to read, even in the summer. But if we want to be better storytellers, we need to do some summer reading, so no matter how little time we think we have, we must make time! This…

What Your Audience Wants From Presentations

A manager walks into yet another presentation. It’s the third in a row of the day, and he’s dreading it. Experience tells him he will see rows and rows of numbers: concepts he feels like he should know but doesn’t and is too embarrassed to ask, and most importantly, he has no idea why…

Getting A New Perspective On Leadership Storytelling

Imagine that a friend brings you an optical illusion she just found. You stare at it for several minutes, wondering, where on earth is this badger I’m supposed to be seeing? Then your friend motions to the portion of the painting where the badger is lurking. Suddenly, it pops out. What had been impossible to…

Your Business Storytelling Toolkit: Let the Story Do the Work

One sticky summer day not too long ago, I received a box in the mail from a sender I didn’t recognize. When I decided to open it, I discovered contents that made my heart beat faster. Copies of my business storytelling book, Let the Story Do the Work! My first book! I was overjoyed! However,…

We Are a Nationally Certified Woman-Owned Business

We are very pleased to share with you that we have received national certification from The Women’s Business Enterprise Council (WBENC). WBENC certification authenticates that a business is at least 51 percent woman-owned, controlled, operated and managed. It is the leading authority on women-owned businesses in the United States, and is the most rigorous and…