Article Archive

Creating a Storytelling Workshop for African Entrepreneurs

I get requests to conduct storytelling workshops from a variety of sources, from business networks to startups and professional organizations. But I was recently asked to craft a storytelling workshop for a group of amazing African entrepreneurs who were coming to American as part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program. At first I assumed they […]

Idea to Published Book Bootcamp

Seems everyone has a book in them, which is not surprising when you think of how quickly we’re able to assimilate information, learn new skills, and travel the world at a whim. We’re both smarter than ever, and at the same time, hungrier for knowledge than at any time in history. But how to get […]

Marwa Al-Sabouni at TEDSummit 2016

How Syria’s architecture laid the foundation for brutal war While some stories are meant to be a factual record of what has happened, delving deeper into the why it happened, and what we should do, involves a collection of subjective assumptions, individual conclusions, and personal hypothesis. In this talk from the TEDSummit 2016 conference, delivered […]

The Craft of TEDx Speaker Coaching

As the TEDxSanDiego organizer for 6 years, organizer for TEDxMonumento258, and having attended 85+ TED/TEDx events since 2010, I’ve experienced a wide variety of stories and accompanying narrative styles. Like a fingerprint, each story is unique, as is each storyteller, and part of that uniqueness is related to the speaker coaching that happens behind the scenes, […]

Storytelling Defined

What image comes to mind when you hear that word? Maybe you envision someone speaking from a stage, or an actor delivering dialogue in a movie. Maybe your mind ventures far back in time to a campfire that’s surrounded by American cowboys, or maybe African tribesmen. In any case, you’re visualizing the art of spoken […]