Create Compelling Short Stories that Inspire
Short stories are potent in the information age.
When information options rise, attention spans plummet.
There are just too many options.
It’s difficult for the masses to focus for long periods of time.
However, if you are an ambitious fellow, you’ll need people at one point or another to make your vision a reality.
How is it that you can drive these people into action when they can barely pay attention??
Through short stories.
First things first, erase the ‘once upon a time’ mentality from your mind.
That’s what most think of when they think of stories.
Nope.
Stories are simply interconnected ideas that are designed to relay information.
With these stories, we will pierce minds, spread insights & inspire others.
Let’s learn how to create short stories that inspire.
So, we can turn our vision into reality.
Humans Are Emotional Creatures
There are feelings.
And there are emotions.
Do you know the difference?
‘I thought they were the same.’
Nope!
Feelings are physical sensations.
You’re probably feeling some of those sensations when you make yourself aware of the body.
Emotions are the narratives of the feelings.
Objectively, there is minimal difference between the lead-up to riding a roller coaster vs speech anxiety.
Both scenarios create wet palms, a rapid heartbeat, & a dry mouth.
The main difference is the story.
The mind has a few components.
- It has the intellect to make true or false choices.
- It has the memory to draw past experiences from.
- And it has the ego.
Ego = Narrative machine.
Just like you have eyes to read this…
Your mind has the ego to process information.
The ego is designed to turn you into an individual form.
This faculty is what creates the narratives.
When I call you an emotional being, I don’t mean to say that you’re childish.
I mean to say that narratives are programmed in the mind.
Balancing Ideas & Focus
Hopefully, you’re starting to understand the information processing center of the ego.
Stories are a must.
But how can we balance our nuanced ideas with the plummeting focus of our audience members?
‘Uh…’
By making that the intention.
If we let our story go on for a while, then it will go on for a while.
Humans are programmed to ramble.
Rambling releases feel-good chemicals in the body.
People love expressing themselves.
But rambling too much causes our story to lose impact.
The better our idea, the more we need to set the intention to shorten it.
Some stories cannot be shortened too much without losing crucial details.
But others can.
Focus on the stories where you can keep chopping away words without them losing meaning.
To try this out for yourself, do this exercise:
- Tell a story for 5 minutes about any topic.
- Once complete, aim to tell the story in 3 minutes.
- Then try to tell it in 30 seconds!
How’d it feel??
You’ll notice that you felt a PHYSICAL SURGE when you graduated to the 30-second mark.
As if you are programming yourself to go beyond the ego…
How to Inspire Others
Inspiration and motivation are different.
Motivation requires an external stimulus.
This is when a speaker gives a talk to get someone fired up.
I’ve noticed motivational talks have been getting a lot of hate in the self-improvement community as of late.
I think that’s short-sighted.
The right motivational talk at the right time can shift someone’s reality forever.
But motivation is different from inspiration.
‘How so?’
The intent.
For motivational talks, the intent is to get the audience fired up.
For inspirational talks, the intent is for the speaker to share their story & the audience getting fired up is a possible byproduct.
- If after a motivational talk, no one feels a fire lit under their ass, then the talk can be considered a failure.
- If after an inspirational talk, no one feels a fire lit under their ass, then it’s okay.
However, you’ll notice for certain inspirational talks, the audience members feel fired up.
‘Why?’
It’s because the audience members saw themselves in the speaker.
This is when the world of empathy merges with the world of storytelling.
The memory bank of the inspired audience member RESONATED with the talk of the speaker.
This led to the person being hooked to every word afterward.
How to Inspire through Short Stories
In the land of short stories, all you can really do is tell your story.
Then allow others to make of it what they will.
Short stories that inspire are highly subjective.
That’s not to say that you don’t take certain precautions.
- Have simple language.
- Know your audience so you don’t tell a story that is completely irrelevant to them.
- Have enthusiasm for your topics.
With those features, it becomes much easier to tell short stories that inspire.
Of 10 people, 6 have poor focus, 3 like it, 1 loves it.
Focus on that 1.
You can’t appeal to everyone.
But you can appeal to someone.
That’s the mindset that short storytellers have.
With the added time you save from telling short stories (vs telling long ones)…
You can build volume over time.
Volume leads to more precision in the skillset.
You heard that correctly.
Telling short stories is a learnable skillset.
404 Short Stories, Essays & Insights
Short stories are a magical force.
Especially in this era.
It’s like our world is doing a 360.
Before all the information technology, writing & paper…
We had oral storytellers.
Do you think past oral storytellers were babbling on for 50 plus minutes?
Doubt it.
Pretty sure they compressed their message & delivered their talk efficiently.
Aka: through short stories.
One of the best ways to become a better short storyteller is to engulf your mind with this style of content.
By consuming short stories, the mind learns to think differently!
This is the one field where you think big by learning to think small.
Looking for entertaining short stories which will help you think in a different way?
Then be sure to get the ArmaniTalks Short Stories Collection!
In-depth short stories that inspire, teach & make you question your reality.
GET HERE!
– ArmaniTalks 
