Esther Choy, Author at Leadership Story Lab

How To Communicate Complex Information: 4 Strategies

Industries like Fintech is notoriously complex. With new digital currency comes new digital tools and terms that can be hard to explain. Terms like blockchain, NFTs, cryptocurrency can leave a lot of people who are not in the industry scratching their heads. What if it was your job to explain these nuanced and technical terms…

3 Tenets To Unlock The Power Of Persuasive Storytelling

Shawn is sitting in a presentation about how her company is going to improve client experience next quarter. It’s important that she takes in the information because she’s going to have to share it with her direct reports and help them adopt the new goals and strategies. However, the VP sharing the changes and the…

The Leadership Storytelling Secrets That Keep Audiences Riveted

Authentic persuasion requires leaders to have relevant and compelling stories on hand. Stories not only create stronger bonds with your audience, they also make information more memorable. To create stories quickly, stories should follow a basic story structure. At Leadership Story Lab, we call it the “IRS” model: I – Intriguing beginning R – Riveting…

Why We Need Stories Along With Data: War in Ukraine Shows

As the war continues in Ukraine, people are brainstorming ways to help. Matching programs to raise funds. Divesting from Russian companies. It all feels like a drop in the bucket as the refugee crisis balloons. The daily updates are overwhelming and hard to conceptualize: 90% of Mariupol city has been destroyed by Russian airstrikes with…

Why Conflict Draws Us In And Prompts Collective Action

The whole world watching the story unfolding in Ukraine. As the images of destruction have made their way out of Kyiv, the human suffering is clear and heartbreaking. Though our thoughts and prayers may be of little comfort to the people of Ukraine, we remain riveted to the daily events and looking for ways we…

4 Truths About Connecting With Your Audience Through Business Storytelling

Storytelling in business settings is about creating fit: that between story and audience. You might have what you think is the world’s greatest story, but most audience members of a certain type may disagree. Conversely, you could have what you deem to be a mundane, uninspiring story, but it may resonate deeply with some audiences.…

Business Storytelling through Uncertainty: Mergers and Acquisitions

The gaming industry is all abuzz with the breaks that Microsoft will be acquiring “powerhouse” Activision Blizzard Inc. for a cool $70B. WSJ writes that the merger’s going to try to “shake up the game industry by expanding the software giant’s library of blockbuster videogames and bolstering its efforts to entice consumers to its cloud-gaming…

Theranos: Four Questions to Evaluate a Business Story

In the “fake it until you make it” world of Silicon Valley, one of the fakes just got busted in the long-unfolding story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Like many scandals of the past from Bernie Madoff to LuLaRoe, many smart people fell for the too-good-to-be-true story of Theranos. Where was the wisdom of the…

4 Business Storytelling Habits For The New Year

About 30% of Americans make new year’s resolutions – which usually have something to do with health and fitness. Unfortunately, studies have found that for a lot of people the motivation to keep their goals peaks in January. In a 2019 article by Foursquare, analysts compared data of gym attendance versus fast food activity and…

5 Holiday Quotes To Get You In The Spirit [Storytelling Edition]

Sitting in his home office, Ben gets the invitation to the office holiday party. It will be virtual again, but the email makes it clear that it will be shorter than last year’s anti-climatic party. It had seemingly unending and awkward moments and long speeches, but none of the cheer brought by a glass…