Crazy Bet by Nate DiMeo @ The Memory Palace

Long time readers of this blog already know that one of my favorite storytelling podcasts is The Memory Palace, hosted by Nate DiMeo. And the exciting news is that Nate’s new book was recently released. No surprise that the book’s title is: The Memory Palace – True Short Stories of the Past (Kindle, Hardcover). I know many of you are going digital these days, but the book cover is so beautiful I’m recommending people spend a few extra bucks for an edition they can hold.

While avid listeners won’t need an explanation, those of you who are unfamiliar with Nate’s podcast could use a primer as this is an unusual style of storytelling. Not only is the narrator (Nate) not part of the story, but each episode magically condenses what could be a rather long recitation (we’re talking hours here) of someone’s life story into a few brief minutes — a thread, if you will, that leads listeners on a journey of how the person at the center of the story came to be, and how they changed the course of history. While it differs from the type of personal storytelling I typically focus on, Nate’s ability to distill people, places, and events into a compact narrative is a valuable skill we can all utilize when crafting our own story. Pay special attention to the visual nature of his prose.

The Memory Palace Book by Nate DiMeo

So many stories stood out for me — expect a few more posts down the road — so it was hard to pick one to feature, but as I have a thing for historical spycraft (you probably didn’t know that about me) I found one episode of great interest. Spies are characters in every war, but I had never hear of Elizabeth Van Lew, so was unaware of the role she played in aiding the Union during the Civil War.

This chapter in the book spans a bit over three pages, which doesn’t sound like much space for a story, but Nate paints a compelling picture of her personality and active contribution. Elizabeth, or Crazy Bet, as the title informs us, lived in Richmond, Virginia, which became the capital of the Confederacy in spring 1861. People often said she was an odd duck, which I took to be an apt description of her basic nature, but to some extent she would exaggerate her mannerisms in order to deflect suspicion from her real mission.

And when she was twenty-five and her father died, this stange, willful woman did something that confirmed to all of Richmond society that se was indeed nuts. She freed her slaves.

Soon after the start of the war she began visiting Union POWs at Libby Prison, bringing cakes and bread and meat wrapped in cloth, and books and Bibles. Toward the end of the war, when the capital was falling, Elizabeth raised an American flag atop her house. Angry residents attempted to burn her house down, but Crazy Bet didn’t back down and forced the crowd to retreat.

There’s so much more to her story, including the fact that after Richmond fell, General Ulysses S, Grant stopped by for tea and recognized the part she played in helping win the war. As is his style, Nate provides just enough detail, allowing us to visualize Elizabeth and her visits to prison. It’s the kind of storytelling that inspires us to ask, “What else did she do during the war, and during her life?”

That’s the ideal balance to aim for when creating personal stories. Enough detail to make your point, and at the same time, inspire a sense of curiosity, to provide an invitation for listeners / readers to explore the topic further.

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Paul Conroy: The Faces of War: A Glimpse Through Photojournalism @ TEDxLisboa

Journalism—the practice of reporting on events, people and facts—is a powerful method of storytelling. The (unbiased) goal is to tell us what happened, where it happened, who was involved, and what they said. When it’s done well, there’s an opportunity for us to see the world around us through a slightly different lens.

Journalists often develop their stories in a secondhand fashion with information from outside sources. But the most impactful reporting happens on site, inside the action as it’s taking place. Not only is there a story about the events, people, and facts, there’s a second story unfolding at the same time. It’s the journalist’s personal story. A narrative which reveals what’s happening to them, as well as what they’re thinking and feeling.

This is especially true for photojournalists who work in conflict zones. A soldier engaged in battle will have some degree of agency, but anyone with a camera instead of a weapon does not possess that advantage.

As a curator and advisor for TEDxLisboa 2023, I had the honor of working with award-winning photojournalist Paul Conroy on his talk. While most speakers I work with are sitting in a safe place—at their office or home—Paul was on the front lines in Ukraine, in a city that was being bombarded by Russian forces.

Paul Conroy at TEDxLisboa 2023 Social Media

Whenever we spoke Paul’s face was lit only by the glow from his laptop screen.

“I can’t turn on any lights or the Russians will target the building I’m in.”

He took a short break from the front lines to give this talk, but he’s now back in Ukraine. His talk is not about the conflict he’s covering today—he’ll need to give that talk one day—but rather about his harrowing adventure while in Syria with Marie Colvin. Her passion for telling stories of warfare ended up costing her life. It was Paul’s honor to tell the world this story.

“So, once again, I’m back to shining lights in dark places, the haunts where despots and dictators like to operate. Once again, camera in hand, I’m back to peeling onions.

To get the full picture of Paul’s experience in Syria with Marie, I recommend reading his book, Under the Wire.

Under the Wire by Paul Conroy

The full story would take many, many hours to tell, but Paul masterfully crafted a narrative that spans less than 20 minutes, yet takes you on a journey to hell and back. He choose to reveal the story in ten steps, and he calls out each one along the way. Unusual for a TEDx Talk, but I found it to be an effective way of pacing the story.

Transcript

One – Assignment

Home for me in 2012 was a 17th century cottage set in the Devon countryside. I’d been in Libya for a year covering the revolution with my dear colleague Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times. I’d met Marie in Syria in 2003 when we were both trying to break into Iraq illegally, and we’ve been best friends ever since then.

The piece of my Sunday afternoon was broken with a call from the Sunday Times picture desk. “Paul, we need you to go into Syria, meet Marie in Beirut,” said Andrew.

Trouble had been brewing in Syria since the start of the Arab Spring, but now Assad was shooting protesters in the streets. By midnight that night I was at Heathrow Airport, shoving 20,000 pounds down my boots, in my jacket. There was a limit of 10,000, and I just hadn’t read the paper.

So the next day I met up in Beirut with Marie and we started planning our trip into Homs. We knew the city was under siege. We’d been watching it streamed on the internet, and the journalists coming out were telling us it’s too much, it’s over for us. And Marie just laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “It’s what we do.”

She’d once given a speech where she said we were there to bear witness, and she used the analogy that getting to the heart of any story was like peeling back the layers of an onion, and when you got to the core of the onion, that was the story, that was where you needed to be.

Two – Beirut, meeting the smugglers

We spent a few weeks in Beirut meeting up with representatives of the Free Syrian Army. They were the armed group opposing Assad, and they finally gave us a location and a time, and we had to meet up with a guy called ‘Beardy Man’, that was his name.

Two o’clock the next day in Starbucks we sat opposite Beardy Man and two other guys, and he has got a big beard, and he’s got his laptop out and he’s assessing us. By assessing, I mean he’s Googling us, reading Marie’s stories and looking at my pictures. And after a while he just leans back, gives a thumbs up, and goes, “You’re in.” We’d passed the Beardy Man test.

Three – The journey to the mountains

On a cold chilly morning in February the Free Syrian Army loaded us in to a rickety old van with other people, fare-paying passengers, and we began the drive north to Syria.

We were going in illegally. We had no visas. We’d both been banned from Syria years ago so it was hopeless. But our fixer, Lena, had been told by Lebanese intelligence in Beirut that any journalists found in the vicinity of Homs were to be executed, and their bodies were to be thrown onto the battlefield.

As we neared the mountains, a sense of doom kind of settled on both of us. We could hear explosions in the distance, and we knew too well that them explosions, the source of them explosions, were where we were headed, Syria.

Four – Crossing the border

We waited for hours in what was little more than a shepherd’s hut while the Free Syrian Army fed us big bowls of meat stew, which we sat there eating. Eventually at midnight they called us outside. “Stay close,” warned a shadowy figure, there are many soldiers.

So we spent the next hour tiptoeing through a deserted village, a minefield, around these army checkpoints, and all the time following the only visible sign of our guide, which was his white training shoes in the night. And as we skirted the army checkpoints, occasional shots rang out, but after an hour we were in Syria, we’d made it in.

Five – The road to Al Bueda

We travelled by car, van, motorbike, avoiding regime and Hezbollah checkpoints. It took about three days to travel 30 kilometers, as all the time the Syrian army hunted the press and the journalists with the same murderous intent. The regime were everywhere in Syria, there were no safe spaces.

Army vehicles patrolled the roads, and the checkpoints were random and often. Progress was painfully slow. We never undressed, we never took off our boots, and every night before we went to sleep we planned an escape route out into the olive groves.

Six – The tunnel from hell

In the middle of a cold wet field at midnight the FSA led us into a tunnel. It was actually a three foot high sewer drain, concrete, with no lights. There was very little air, and the heat build up was intense. The only way we could carry our kit was strapped to our chests, and because of the height of the tunnel we kind of had to walk bent double.

As we progressed down the tunnel we were passing people evacuating the wounded and the dying. This tunnel was a lifeline to Baba Amr, a small sunny neighborhood in Homs that was considered the beating heart of the revolution.

Everything came through this tunnel, some of it on the back of a motorcycle that burnt up precious oxygen for those on foot, and we carried on walking bent double for three miles. At the end of the tunnel they pulled us out into a warscape that was akin to one of Dante’s inner circles of hell.

As I looked around I could see the still smoldering skeletal remains of buildings, and it was all lit by the pale light of a full moon. We were driven at breakneck speed through a barrage of RPGs – that’s rocket propelled grenades – and heavy machine gun fire until we arrived drained and exhausted at the media centre.

The media centre was the source of all information coming out of Syria during the revolution. But the reality was, it was a three-story building. Inside there were twenty young Syrians, wrapped in blankets against the cold, all murmuring into Skype. The only light was the pale blue glow off their laptop screens.

Seven – The widow’s basement

While we were in Homs, we’d heard talk that there was a basement where all the women and the children who’d lost husbands and fathers were sheltered. It was one of the few shelters in Homs and it was known as The Widow’s Basement. The camera always affects people’s reactions when you pull one out, so I got Marie to go down first, and I sat at the top of the stairs with a long lens taking shots.

This picture captures exactly what Marie and I saw. This is the true face of the victims of war. This was our story. This was the core of the onion. Inside the basement one woman had given birth, but due to malnutrition she couldn’t breastfeed, so the baby was being fed on a mixture of sugar and water.

While Marie interviewed the tragic victims, I wandered round taking shots of the elderly, the children, and the dying. Wale our beloved translator, he heard of the death of one of his friends during one of Marie’s interviews, which was absolutely heartbreaking. But Marie shone. This is why we did what we did. These were the people who had the least control over their destiny in any war situation.

Eight – The field clinic

After the widow’s basement we ran to the field clinic. It was the run of death. Explosions ripped up the tarmac behind us as Assad’s gunners fired round after round of rocket and artillery fire. We arrived at the basement, ears ringing, nerves shredded, and they dragged us into the doorway.

We were greeted by Dr. Mohammed and a scene of absolute carnage. The dead and the dying filled up every gurney, every bed. The floor was awash with blood, and the medical staff dragged and stacked bodies anywhere they could find the space. They worked with first aid kits. There were no CT scanners or x-ray machines, just bandages and plasters of Paris. It was actually one of the worst places I’d been in any war zone.

Nine – Death and injury

On the 21st of February, both Marie and I agreed we weren’t going to get out alive, so we should do stories on BBC, CNN and Channel 4. Marie told the heartbreaking story of a young toddler who died of shrapnel wounds to the stomach, and the images went out to the world.

About midnight, not long after the interview, it was about midnight, there was a knock at the door, and I was like, “Who the hell is that?” We opened the door and there was three French journalists, Edith Bouvier, William Daniels and Remi Ochlik, and they’d just come in through the tunnel.

So the next morning, me and Marie woke up at 5am to go back to the field clinic. Before we left the building there were two almighty explosions, one 100 meters either side of the building and we waited 30 seconds, and then there were two more explosions, this time no more than 50 meters away.

I realized at that point in time what they were doing, they were bracketing, they were walking the shells in on the building. Thirty seconds later, the first shell hit the media centre. It destroyed the roof and the ceiling, and everything fell on top of us.

The second shell hit the back of the building where Marie and I had just been sleeping. That was destroyed. The third shell exploded somewhere in the building, and that filled the room with black acrid smoke and concrete dust. Seconds later, the fourth shell hit, killing Remi and Marie instantly.

I was still conscious, and I’d felt a pressure on my leg, so I leaned down to investigate, and as I touched my leg, my hand went through and came out the other side. And for a few moments I stood there wiggling my hand. I grabbed the artery inside to see if that was still intact. It was.

I grabbed the bone, that wasn’t broken, but I knew I had a few minutes to get a tourniquet on, otherwise I would bleed to death. So I grabbed the scarf from around my neck, wrapped it round, pulled it as tight as I could. But after a few minutes, I was still bleeding out.

I saw an ethernet cable in the rubble, so I grabbed that, wrapped that round, grabbed a piece of wood from the building, and pulled that as tight as I could. After about 20 minutes, the Free Syrian Army came, dragged me out of the rubble, and took me to the field clinic where Dr. Mohamed was stood there and he’s like, “Hello Paul, what’s wrong with you?”

And I’m going, “I’ve got a hole in my leg.” And he’s going, “Oh so you have.” So, Dr. Mohamed grabs a toothbrush and a bottle of iodine, and my leg is about that big, the hole, and he just pours iodine in with a toothbrush and spends 10 minutes scrubbing my leg.

And every time it nearly got clean, another shell had hit the building and concrete dust would fall in, so he’d have another go. And I was going, “Is that a toothbrush?” He’s going, “No, no, no, it’s a medical brush.” So eventually, he says, “We’ve run out of stitches.” And I was like, “Uh oh.” I said, “What are you going to use?”

He goes, “We’ve got this.” And he had an office staple gun. And I mean, he put about 40 staples into my leg, and there were no painkillers, so that was fun.

Ten – Born again

Myself, Edith, William, and Wale spent the next five days under heavy bombardment in an FSA safe house. It was the most intense artillery I’d ever known. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, they just bombed and hit that building. After six days, the FSA came in and said, “Paul, everything is gone.”

The water tanks on the roof had been hit, the food supplies had run out. And they said, “Whatever happens, we will take you out tonight.” They piled us into five different pickups, and throwing all caution to the wind, we just drove straight at the front line.

The Assad’s forces responded with mortars, rockets, sniper fire, and machine gun fire. And believe me, that was the trip from hell, we managed to get through. Miraculously, we made it to the tunnel, and they tied a rope around my waist and dropped me into this hole, and then they put me on the motorbike that we’d used to ferry supplies. So I thought, great, getting a lift out.

So we’re on the motorbike, going down the tunnel, and we get about three-quarters of the way down, and the motorbike stops, and I look up, and the tunnel is blocked. I thought, oh dear God, no. We got a torch, and you could just see at the very top of the blockage, they’d carved a mini tunnel about the size of someone’s head and shoulders through the blockage, and I was like, uh-oh.

So they picked me off the motorbike, and they pushed me up towards this hole. And there’s no lights. This is all in the dark. The only way I could do it was to put my hands in like that, and pull myself through this blockage.

I got about two meters in and stopped dead. What had happened is a piece of the steel reinforcing bar had gone in my leg and out the other side. And so now I was pinned inside a tunnel, in a tunnel. And they’re going, “Hurry up.”, and I’m going, “Okay.”

So I’m like that, and I know what I’ve got to do in my head. I know I have to rip that wound wide open and actually make it bigger in order to get it off this metal bar. So I gritted my teeth, bit my tongue, and spent five minutes making the hole in my leg a lot bigger.

Eventually, I did that, and I crawled another meter or so through this tunnel, in a tunnel, and I fell out the other side into a pool of mud, and I could feel the water swilling through my leg. “Whatever I say guys, put me on a piece of plastic.” And together, they carried me out. And finally, I escaped the tunnel.

For the next five days, I traveled across Syria on the back of a motorbike. They put some plasters on my leg. I don’t know what it was, but my leg was essentially hanging off. Drove across the tunnel on the back of a motorbike across Syria.

Occasionally, we stopped at farms that were friendly to the cause, but, you know, we never actually got to sleep. And against all odds, I made it to Beirut, where the British ambassador, Tom Fletcher, and his family welcomed me into their home.

Two days later, the Sunday Times arranged a medical evacuation. And I remember really clearly, I was at Beirut airport, we’d sneaked in with the SAS, and I’m on my wheelchair like that, and the British military attache walks over, and he’s like, he leans in, salutes, and in the poshest British voice, he goes, “I believe things got a little fruity out there, sir.” He was the master of British understatements.

So, I wrote this speech and rehearsed this speech in Kherson on the Ukrainian front line as the Russians were pulverizing the city. In fact, this is the first time, or second time, I’ve read it through without an explosion, so well done, Portugal. But Kherson exists in a state of terror. Where once there were 300,000 people, there are now 10,000 people, and the Russians are dismantling the city.

Every day, people crushed by the horror of war leave on the buses going out. But this is how we gather a story. It’s a long shot from grabbing a shot on a cell phone and posting it on Instagram.

We live in dangerous times where misinformation can directly affect events on the ground, and the need for objective, impartial journalism has never been greater. I think photojournalism still has the power to affect outcomes in war.

Why else would I be there?

But for a story to have true impact, you have to report from the scene, and not from a safe distance. So, once again, I’m back to shining lights in dark places, the haunts where despots and dictators like to operate. Once again, camera in hand, I’m back to peeling onions.

Thank you.

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Samantha Nutt: The real harm of the global arms trade @ TED Talks Live

TED Talks Live were held at The Town Hall Theater in NYC, in November of 2015. I had the pleasure of attending all six nights to hear speakers present impactful Ideas Worth Spreading. This post is an analysis of a talk by Samantha Nutt that reveals the damage caused by global arms trade.

Creating a concise narrative about a global issue is difficult due to the fact that the problems and solutions are far reaching, affecting millions if not billions of people across multiple continents. In this case there is a contrast between the countries that are selling arms around the world, and the countries which are experiencing the consequences of those arms sales.

Watch Samantha’s TED Talk. If you’re are developing an impactful story about a far reaching social issue, note how she frames the problem and solution. The credibility comes from the fact that Samantha has lived in the middle of the violence. You can find additional information on her website: War Child USA.

Transcript

(my notes in red)
Some of you may have noticed that my last name is Nutt. And if you did, you are forgiven for wondering how a Nutt managed to end up in a war zone. I actually was offered, right out of medical school, and accepted a volunteer contract to work with UNICEF in war-torn Somalia, that was worth one dollar. And, you see, I had to be paid this dollar in the event that the UN needed to issue an evacuation order, so that I would be covered. I was, after all, heading into one of the world’s most dangerous places. And by now, some of you may be asking yourselves, and I just want to reassure you, that I did get half the money up front.

A common way to begin a story about an important social topic is for the speaker to provide critical background which will set the stage for what’s to come. Samantha tells the audience that 1) she had just graduated from medical school, 2) she accepted a contract with UNICEF, and 3) she was heading to war-torn Somalia. Though it’s serious topic, she takes the opportunity to wrap it in a bit of humor.

But you see, this is how, with 50 cents in my pocket, I ended up in Baidoa, Somalia. Journalists called it the “city of death.” And they called it the city of death because 300,000 people had lost their lives there — 300,000 people, mostly as a result of war-related famine and disease.

This statistics story block states that 300,000 people had lost their lives in the city of Baidoa, Somalia. That’s a startling number for any city, but at the time of this talk the population of Baidoa was around 800,000. Would the impact be different if that second number had been mentioned? That’s something to consider whenever you’re quoting a statistic – quote it alone, next to another number for comparison, or with a range of numbers to illustrate a trend.

I was part of a team that was tasked with trying to figure out how best to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe. It was right on the heels of the Rwandan genocide, and aid money to the region was drying up. Many aid organizations, unfortunately, had been forced to close their doors. And so the question that I was asked to specifically help answer, which is one that aid workers ask themselves in war zones the world over, is: What the hell do we do now? You know, the security environment in Somalia at that moment in time — and nothing has really changed too much — can best be described as “Mad Max” by way of “A Clockwork Orange.”

She paints an overall picture of a dire situation – humanitarian catastrophe, aid money drying up, lack of security – then shifts to a specific experience in the next story block. That’s a common storytelling technique. Think about films you’ve seen that start with a wide shot of a scene, then zoom in to a tighter shot that’s personal and action oriented.

Instead of simply saying the security in Somalia was chaotic, she uses an analogy, comparing the state of security to a pair of chaotic and dysfunctional movies. Samantha knows that the audience in front of her is familiar with the style of these two movies, as they are well known in the Western world. But half the world may not get the reference. That’s not necessarily a bad decision, when to use an analogy is the storyteller’s choice, but I do recommend that storytellers consider their audience whenever they use analogies.

And I remember very distinctly a couple of days after my arrival, I went up to a feeding clinic. There were dozens of women who were standing in line, and they were clutching their infants very close. About 20 minutes into this conversation I was having with this one young woman, I leaned forward and tried to put my finger in the palm of her baby’s hand. And when I did this, I discovered that her baby was already in rigor. She was stiff, and her little, lifeless hand was curled into itself. She had died hours before of malnutrition and dehydration.

I later learned that as her baby was dying, this young woman had been held for two days by some teenage boys who were armed with Kalashnikov rifles, and they were trying to shake her down for more money, money she very clearly did not have. And this is a scene that I have confronted in war zones the world over; places where kids, some as young as eight — they are this big — and those kids, they have never been to school. But they have fought and they have killed with automatic rifles.

From 300,000, a large number that is hard to fully grasp, Samantha tells the story of one woman and her baby. She then explains why the baby died and brings the topic of weapons into the narrative. Note her use of a simple hand gesture to signify the height of an eight year old. The audience knows that eight year olds are shorter than adults, but seeing her hand next to her body provides a visual reinforcement that she’s talking about kids. Is there a point in your story where a hand gesture can add emphasis?

Is this just the way the world is? Some will you tell you that war is unavoidably human. After all, it is as old as existence itself. We say never again, and yet it happens again and again and again. But I will tell you that I have seen the absolute worst of what we as human beings are capable of doing to one another, and yet I still believe a different outcome is possible. Do you want to know why? Because over 20 years of doing this work, going in and out of war zones around the world, I have come to understand that there are aspects of this problem that we, all of us, as people occupying this shared space, that we can change — not through force or coercion or invasion, but by simply looking at all of the options available to us and choosing the ones that favor peace at the expense of war, instead of war at the expense of peace.

Samantha now shifts the focus outward again, this time to include the entire world. The issue she’s addressing extends far beyond Somalia. She’s been to ‘war zones around the world’, so we have a sense of her credibility, her knowledge of the crisis. It’s at this point she mentions the fact that there are things each of us can do to address the problem. We’re engaged with the story in a new way. We’re not just learning about an important issue, we have been invited to be part of the solution.

How so? Well, I want you to consider this: there are at least 800 million small arms and light weapons in circulation in the world today. The vast majority of civilians, like that young baby, who are dying in war zones around the world, are dying at the hands of various armed groups who rely on a near-infinite supply of cheap, easy and efficient weapons to rape, threaten, intimidate and brutalize those civilians at every turn. How cheap? Well, in some parts of the world, you can buy an AK-47 for as little as 10 dollars. In many places in which I have worked, it is easier to get access to an automatic rifle than it is to get access to clean drinking water.

And so now the important part: Can anything be done about this? To answer that question, let’s take a look at this map of the world. And now, let’s add in all of the countries that are currently at war, and the number of people who have either died or have been displaced as a result of that violence. It is a staggering number — more than 40 million people. But you will also notice something else about this map. You will notice that most of those countries are in the Global South. Now, let’s look at the countries that are the world’s top 20 exporters of small arms in the world. And what do we notice? Well, you see them in green. You will notice that those are mostly countries in the Global North, primarily Western countries. What does this tell us? This tells us that most of the people who are dying in war are living in poor countries, and yet most of the people who are profiting from war are living in rich countries — people like you and me.

Two statistics open this section of the narrative – 800 million small arms, and AK-47s going for as little as ten bucks. Frightening indeed. But to illustrate the next two numbers – 40 million people affected and the top 20 exporters of small arms – Samantha uses a visual aid to illustrate the point, and she takes the opportunity to boil the numbers down to the conclusion that rich countries are supplying arms to the poor countries where most of the people are dying. If you’re using numbers in your story, is there a way for you to bring those data points to a logical conclusion?

And then what if we go beyond small arms for a second. What if we look at all weapons in circulation in the world? Who does the biggest business? Well, roughly 80 percent of those weapons come from none other than the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany. It’s shocking, isn’t it?

A majority of people (in my opinion) will know that most of the worlds weapons come from a handful of countries, and a similar number may even know which countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council, but few have made the connection between the two. It’s not uncommon that people are aware of certain facts, but the interrelationship is not obvious to them. Revealing facts in a story can be impactful, but revealing correlations even more so.

Now, some of you might be saying at this moment in time, “Oh yeah, but OK, hang on a second there … Nutt.” Grade school was spectacular for me. It was, really, a wonderful experience.

When to inject a touch of humor? Sometimes in the middle of a serious dialogue. The key is to keep it brief, as you don’t want to completely break the flow of your narrative, and in this fashion, Samantha quickly returns to the subject at hand.

But you might be saying to yourselves, You know, all of these weapons in war zones — they’re not a cause, but an effect of the violence that plagues them each and every single day. You know, places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where they need these weapons to be able to maintain law and order, promote peace and security, to combat terror groups — and surely this is a good thing.

The opposite viewpoint story block is often used to address questions or different perspectives that may be on the minds of some audience members. Some speakers avoid going there, but in this case, Samantha puts in on the table. As you’re crafting your storyline ask yourself whether some audience members might be thinking, “But wait a minute…”

Let’s take a look at that assumption for just one moment, because you see there has been a boom in the small-arms trade since the start of the War on Terror. In fact, it is a business that has grown threefold over the past 15 years. And now let’s compare that to the number of people who have directly died in armed conflict around the world in that same period. What do you notice? Well, you notice that, in fact, that also goes up roughly three to fourfold. They basically go up and end at the same point.

Statistics related to different situations can be confusing to any of us. It can be hard to get a clear picture of what the speaker is saying, which is when a chart, such as the one that Samantha uses, can bring the correlation to light. But numbers and trends can be deceiving, and another level of explanation may be needed, which is what Samantha does next.

Now, we can have a circular argument here about whether this increase in fatalities is a response to the increase of small arms, or the other way around. But here’s what we should really take away from this. What we should take away from this is that this is a relationship worth scrutinizing, especially when you consider that small arms that were shipped to Iraq for use by the Iraqi Army, or to Syria for so-called moderate opposition fighters, that those arms, many of them, are now in the hands of ISIS; or when you consider that arms that were shipped to Libya are now actively drifting across the Sahel, and ending up with groups like Boko Haram and al Qaeda and other militant groups. And therein lies the problem. Because, you see, small arms anywhere are a menace everywhere, because their first stop is rarely their last.

Everyone know about second hand markets for many of products – cars, electronics, even clothes – but how many of us have given much thought about such sales channels when it comes to weapons? While the initial sale may be legal, the second or third may not be. Often tossed into the category of ‘unintended consequences’, is there an aspect of your story that is similar? A situation whereby the original intent is not how things turned out, or where the consequences ripple out.

Spending on war per person per year now amounts to about 249 dollars — 249 dollars per person, which is roughly 12 times what we spend on foreign aid, money that is used to educate and vaccinate children and combat malnutrition in the Global South. But we can shift that balance. How do we do this? Well, it is essentially a problem of both supply and demand, so we can tackle it from both sides.

Samantha previously stated that small arms trade had tripled in the past 15 years, but now she provides another way to view the issue. At first the statistic of $246 may not seem like a lot of money, but it becomes significant when we hear that it’s 12 times what is spent on foreign aid. When you quote a number, is there a way to provide the audience with another way to look at it, to see that number through a different lens?

On the supply side, we can push our governments to adopt international arms transparency mechanisms like the Arms Trade Treaty, which makes it so that rich countries have to be more accountable for where their arms are going and what their arms might be used for. Here in the United States, the largest arms-exporting country in the world by far, President Obama has rightly signed the Arms Trade Treaty, but none of it takes effect, it isn’t binding, until it is approved and ratified by the Senate. This is where we need to make our voices heard. You know, the curbing of small arms — it’s not going to solve the problem of war. Increased control mechanisms won’t solve that problem. But it’s an important step in the right direction. And it’s up to all of us who live in those rich countries to make change here.

Samantha presents a partial solution to the problem – the Arms Trade Treaty – and makes an explicit call to action – make our voices heard – in order for this solution to be implemented. Social issues always have a connection to legislation. It may be awaiting approval, or in some cases, laws already exist, but are not being enforced. Your story can raise awareness to such situations.

What about on the demand side? You know, there are generations around the world who are being lost to war. It is possible to disrupt that cycle of violence with investments in education, in strengthening the rule of law and in economic development, especially for women. I have personally seen just how incredibly powerful those kinds of efforts can be around the world.

Samantha states that it’s possible to disrupt the cycle of violence by way of education, rule of law and economic development, and that she’s personally seen how powerful these efforts can be, but she doesn’t provide an example to illustrate her point. It left me wanting to hear about at least one of her experiences. This is a common occurrence.

If you’re speaking out on a social issue, and are offering a solution, can you provide proof that your solution works? Something along the lines of, “Here’s a case where my idea was implemented, here are the positive results, and if we can replicate this solution into other locations or processes, more people will be helped.” This approach takes a hypothetical solution and makes it tangible. Something people can grasp.

But here’s the thing: they take time, which means for you as individuals, if you want to give, please, by all means do it. But know that how you give is just as important as how much you give. Regular contributions like monthly contributions are a far more effective way of giving, because they allow humanitarian organizations to properly plan and be invested over the long term, and to be present in the lives of families who have been affected by war, wars that many of us, frankly, all too quickly forget.

While the first call to action was political – ratifying a treaty – Samantha brings up a second option – making regular contributions to humanitarian organizations. The advice sounds logical, yet once again, I was wanting to hear an example of how donations of this type result in reducing the level of global arms trade or violence.

When I first got on that plane for Somalia as a young doctor, I had no idea what it means to live with war. But I can tell you that I know what it means now. And I know what it means to lie in bed in the pitch-black night and listen to that haunting “pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!” of automatic gunfire, and wonder with absolute dread how many minutes I have left until it will be right on top of me. I can tell you that it is a terrifying and agonizing fear, one that millions of people around the world are forced to confront each and every single day, especially children. Over the years of doing this work, unfortunately, war has killed far too many people close to me. And on at least a couple of occasions, war has very nearly killed me as well.

In circular fashion, Samantha takes us back to the beginning, when she became a volunteer after medical school, and didn’t know what it felt like to live in a war torn city. With emotional detail, she describes what she experienced, and felt, and the audience is there with her. The reason most speakers are on the stage talking about a social issue is that they’ve been in the middle of the problem and want to share their experience. Others experience the world through your eyes.

But I firmly believe, which is why I get up and do what I do every single day, that we can make different choices here. Because you see, war is ours, as human beings. We buy it, sell it, spread it and wage it. We are therefore not powerless to solve it. On the contrary, we are the only ones who can.

In a final call to action she brings everyone into the picture with the basic reality that ‘we’ are causing the problem, and only ‘we’ can solve it. This is true of all social issues. Society creates such problems – injustice, poverty, discrimination, climate change – and only society can create the needed solutions. If this is the kind of story that you’re working on, define the problem(s) and solution(s) clearly. There is an emotional side of the story, but also a logical side. Weaving them together is something Samantha does well.

Thank you very much, and I want to wish you the greatest success.

As you watch Samantha’s TED Talk, listen intently and think about what parts of the story worked for you, and whether there were any places where you wanted to know more, or you became confused. Review your own manuscript in similar fashion. And when you rehearse, ask those listening the same thing. How deep you go is always limited by time constraints, so choose your words wisely as you reveal as much information and emotion as possible.

[Note: all comments inserted into this transcript are my opinions, not those of the speaker, the TED organization, nor anyone else on the planet. In my view, each story is unique, as is every interpretation of that story. The sole purpose of these analytical posts is to inspire a storyteller to become a storylistener, and in doing so, make their stories more impactful.]

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