This is the ‘Win with Stories’ newsletter. Every week I send an email with a message wrapped in a short story. I also share one actionable tip and a recommendation to help you enhance your storytelling skills.
Vineeta Singh and her enviable storytelling skills.
By now most of us know who Vineeta Singh is. But for those who do not, she is the founder of Sugar cosmetics and one of the investors featured on the show ‘Shark Tank India’. Vineeta’s life journey is an interesting story(a quick google search will show you why), but back it was back in 2020 I realised she was a great storyteller too.
Those were early days of The Story Co and I was looking to connect and network with professionals. That’s when I happened to attend the ‘Freshworks for Startups’ conference. It is a well known fact that most people look forward to networking at conferences. The knowledge sessions are something that you brave through(thanks to the boring presentations and speakers who read from those same slides).
I attended a session titled ‘Running the Success Marathon’. As opposed to rattling off numbers about her startup’s success, the speaker chose to narrate a story instead. She spoke how she was paralyzed with fear while swimming in a lake in Austria for her first Ironman attempt. Used to training in pools, she freaked out when she could not spot the bottom of the lake. Despite that she did not give up, and kept telling the rescue team that she would swim a little further.
Eventually she made it to the shore and also completed her Ironman attempt successfully. But the fear of swimming in open waters motivated Vineeta to keep going back. She learnt and practiced open water swimming until she became comfortable with it.
While she narrated this, it almost felt like I was living the story. Then Vineeta deftly drew parallels between her Ironman journey and that of building Sugar Cosmetics. Her message was to use the fear that an entrepreneur feels like fuel towards building a successful startup. To me, hers was the most interesting session of the day and I still remember the stories and messages from it.
I knew that Vineeta was destined for great things(that she was already super successful notwithstanding). While she is an ace entrepreneur, she was also an example of how great storytelling brings you a lot of opportunities. And Shark Tank India is just one of them.
Communication tip for today:
The communication tip for today is ‘Wrap your message in a story’. This may be especially helpful if you are making a presentation, writing a blog or addressing your team or even creating content for social media.
Think of the one main message that you want to deliver with the presentation or content piece. The message could be derived from your business or work experiences. But then rather than sharing yawn-inducing information, wrap the message in an interesting story. A relevant personal story would be best(just like Vineeta’s), but you could use any other as long as it is relevant and delivers the message.
The fastest way to do this is if you maintain a story bank like many of us now keep an idea bank document in our online folders or on the phone.
One thing you could read today:
I wrote a blog about Vineeta’s presentation at ‘Freshworks for Startups’ back in September 2020. All of the points I mentioned in the blog are more relevant than ever. In fact, I have also shared some simple tips on how to use stories in presentations. You can read the blog here.
That’s it from me today. Hope you enjoyed this edition of ‘Win with Stories’ newsletter. I’d be delighted to get a few words of feedback from you 🙂
One last request – forward this to friends and colleagues who’d find this story and the tips useful. If you received this email from someone and liked it, you can subscribe here.
