Does telling stories about yourself make you feel uncomfortable?
I often feel learners don’t want to feel “why do I care what the teacher does!” But I also know that personal stories help me connect. In a sea of bland “training speak”, it’s the personal stories that are most memorable.
So what to do?
You know about braiding hair?
In writing, you have a braiding technique, too. By interlacing two or more topics, you can write about yourself without sounding self-indulgent.
What’s more …
You can even braid without switching topics.
Sound good?
How the braiding technique works.
I’ve just been on a holliday to Bali, to a place called Kundalini Beach. The brochure said it was a 4-5 hour car journey over a mountain range from Denpesar where we landed. This seemed a long car journey after seven hours flying. I wanted to share this story. But I didn’t want to whine, I didn’t want to brag about getting through either.
So the first step was to distance myself a little from my tiring experience. I share not for sympathy or applause; I write to share a lesson.
The second step is to start braiding. One strand is my Bali story; the other story is a writing lesson.
I start with my Bali story.
It was a long car ride over winding roads. There was a feeling of excitement mingled with travel fatigue.
As the journey progressed the continual twists and turns became repetitive and boring. However, that was not the main problem, we could only travel at ten miles an hour because of the traffic. Everything was in slow motion and it seemed we would never get to Kundalini Beach.
Next, I move to writing, and to make it even less about me, I introduce a new voice … Stephen King.
Sound a bit like writing? In On Writing, Stephen King describes writing as “shovelling shit from a sitting position”. And that’s how writing sometimes feels.
And I start a conversation with the learner, addressing them as you:
Please don’t let your inner critic tell you you’re wasting your time. Just stay with it.
There’s joy in doing the work, no matter how boring, even if it’s sitting in a car in slow, slow traffic, or writing about boring compliance training or yeah, even if it’s shovelling shit.
Then I get back to the Bali traffic
When we got to the top of the mountains it was even worse. This was with great views where it seemed everybody came to eat at a lot of restaurants and food stalls. After we passed this area the traffic disappeared. They had all stopped at the top, including twenty-four buses. At last we could increase our speed and enjoy the view instead of nothing but cars and buses.
I think the abruptness of the transition is okay as the learner is already used to switching between road trip and writing.
But here the transition is a little smoother:
When writing for learning, you’ll get those beautiful moments, too. A sudden insight. A nugget of wisdom. The strands of thinking finally falling into place. Clarity and inspiration at least. Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.
Keep writing, my friend.
I finish the story (above) by addressing the learner directly with the word you. It makes the story a little less about me, and a little more about the learner.
You can use this braiding technique to mix any two topics where you can find some overlap.
eLearning is about to be flooded with AI content.
And the best way to combat that tsunami of dull? Share your stories.
Because stories connect emotionally. And human contact wins.