Storytelling with Impact | Complete Blog Archive

Article Archive

The Emotional Side of Storytelling

April 7, 2019/in Audience, Emotions, Narrative, Storytelling/by Mark Lovett

Personal storytelling is all about sharing and understanding. The sharing of your experiences, views, insights, opinions, perspectives and wisdom, in the hopes that your audience – in front of people and/or by way of video or audio production – will gain a newfound understanding of the important topic at the center of your story, as […]

Why Drones Need Our Better Angels

March 14, 2019/in Humanity, Peace Innovators, Public Speaking, Technology/by Mark Lovett

Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick PhD is an associate professor of political sociology. He teaches at the Kroc School of Peace Studies on the University of San Diego campus, and while his interests are varied, he’s most passionate when it comes to the study of social movements and social change, with an added emphasis on the role that […]

Using Story for Persuading, Influencing, or Most Importantly, for Understanding

March 7, 2019/in Audience, Public Speaking, Speaker Coaching, Storytelling/by Mark Lovett

If you spend time, as I do, reading about the art and practice of storytelling you will often come across reference to the notion of persuading or influencing as the objective of crafting and presenting the story that you have in mind. I hear this from other speaker coaches, as well as renowned public speakers, […]

Peacemakers at the University

February 14, 2019/in Career, History, Peace Innovators, Public Speaking/by Mark Lovett

One benefit of being a professional in higher education is the opportunity to change the lives of students at a critical point in their personal development. As young adults discover who they are and attempt to map out their future, or at least determine the direction they will take upon graduation, they need to know […]

De Oratore by Cicero – Book 2 – The Objectives of Oratory

February 7, 2019/in Cicero, History, Narrative, Public Speaking, Writing/by Mark Lovett

In addition to being a lawyer, politician and philosopher, Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) was also a preeminent Roman orator. Drawing on the teaching of Greek rhetoric and the craft of oration in Roman times, he composed De Oratore to highlight the principles he believed were at play whenever someone planned to speak on an important […]

Transcending the Border with Anchors Not Parachutes

January 14, 2019/in Humanity, Narrative, Peace Innovators, Public Speaking/by Mark Lovett

Ev Meade, PhD, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, explores how universities can help to build peace in places beset by violence and shrouded in fear, but only if we learn to see ourselves as anchors, rather than parachutes. Often times the best of intentions don’t deliver the intended results […]

Stories Told and Stories Untold in Porto

January 7, 2019/in Architecture, Art, Portugal, Society/by Mark Lovett

The most appealing benefit of travel, in my opinion, is how each place visited has a story to tell, or in some cases, keeps a story untold. I’ve spent the past week in Portugal and have experienced a continuous stream of told and untold stories. A stroll down any street will reveal bits of a […]

The Secret that Almost Killed Me – Kirsten Johnson at TEDxSDSU

September 7, 2018/in Sexual Abuse, Speaker Coaching, Storytelling, Trauma, Truth/by Mark Lovett

Students that enroll in my Storytelling with Impact course at UC San Diego Extension are generally looking to improve their storytelling and public speaking skills, but one of my students had been accepted to speak at TEDxSDSU 2018 (held at San Diego State University) and she had a specific goal in mind – crafting a narrative […]

De Oratore by Cicero – Book 1 – Writing to Learn Oratory

August 7, 2018/in Cicero, History, Narrative, Public Speaking, Writing/by Mark Lovett

We were all humans until…

July 7, 2018/in Humanity, Justice, Passion, Storytelling, Violence/by Mark Lovett

It had been awhile since this anonymous quote crossed my path, but I recently noticed it on a friend’s social timeline and realized it had achieved a newfound sense of resonance with me. We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us. From a storytelling perspective […]