Latest / Leading Leaders Podcast with J Loren Norris / 5/4/2026 STORYTELLING CONVERTS STRANGERS TO LISTENERS, AUDIENCE MEMBERS TO CUSTOMERS AND FANS TO FRIENDS

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5/4/2026 STORYTELLING CONVERTS STRANGERS TO LISTENERS, AUDIENCE MEMBERS TO CUSTOMERS AND FANS TO FRIENDS · Leading Leaders Podcast with J Loren Norris

0:00
Subscribe now for our extensive video library of leadership
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lessons promoting faith, family, and freedom.
0:08
This is true, and you can test me on it.
0:12
A good story is better than a well crafted lie.
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Let me say that again. A good story is better than a
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well crafted lie, and I think I've got some strong evidence to
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prove it. That's what we're going to talk
0:26
about in this episode of Leading Leaders.
0:29
Stay tuned. Subscribe now for access to our
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extensive media library of leadership lessons promoting
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faith, family, and freedom. Begin your personal growth plan
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at storypoweracademy.com for leadership development and
0:43
communication skills training. There is a retreat coming up
0:47
that I want you to know about, it's called the Story Power
0:49
Academy Retreat. This Story Power Retreat is
0:51
about focusing on your communication skills, taking
0:54
them in the next level. Discover, develop, draft,
0:57
deploy, and deliver some of the best stories you've ever
1:00
learned. You're going to listen, create,
1:02
connect, relax, and reflect around this beautiful lake scene
1:05
in Granbury, TX. It's a chance to rejuvenate and
1:08
refresh and start over with some of the best training you can
1:11
possibly imagine around storytelling, leadership and
1:14
communication. Join us, get away and relax.
1:18
I'm Jay Lauren Norris with leading leaders podcast and it's
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a true story. A good story is better than a
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well crafted lie. In fact, the good story well
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told is much better than a good crafted lie.
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I see people all the time. They've got their they're used
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the AI to craft the story. It's a bit of a fake story.
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It's a completely made-up story. In fact, it it just happens to
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pull in a little bit of information from various places
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to craft a story that's really nothing more than a very well
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crafted lie. But it never happened.
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None of the people who are part of the story were actually there
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when when it happened because the story didn't actually
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happen. The event may have even been
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completely made-up. Now, we've been watching over
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the last 10 or so years the idea of fake news.
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And it's one thing to think that what happened was told through a
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slant or an angle or, you know, the story was a little bit
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tilted in the way of favoring one party versus another, one
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idea versus another, one outcome versus another.
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It's called a narrative. A narrative out of control can
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become propaganda. But there are reasons to use
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alliteration and emotion. There are reasons to use well
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crafted, very poignant, very persuasive phraseology.
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In fact, in communication, good conversations kind of
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incorporate all those things. And they should.
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Yet there are those stories that when you're done hearing them,
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you kind of feel smarmy. Maybe you've seen them recently
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on social media. I mean, everybody says tell
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stories, man, you got to tell stories.
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And I watch people step to the front of the room and they're
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like, I am a phenomenal storyteller.
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Or someone else will say, well, they're a phenomenal
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storyteller. And they get to the front of the
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room and they say a lot of words.
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And they use all those tips and tricks and techniques.
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And it's a very tantalizing demonstration of wordsmithing,
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tempting to follow what they're offering, but it's not a story.
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I mean, it's a bunch of words strung together, but it's not a
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story. It's not an event, It's not an
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incident. It's not something that actually
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happened. It's just well crafted words.
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And well crafted words, even when they make up a somewhat
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interesting story, well, that's not a story.
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A story is an event. It's an incident.
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And when you go through the story power training, what you
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find is that it's not just an incident attached to a point.
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I've worked with coaches who say tell a story, make a point, tell
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a story, make a point. Don't tell a story that you
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don't make a point. Don't make a point that you
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didn't tell a story. Whether the story comes before
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or after the point doesn't matter.
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As long as you tell a story, make a point.
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I've heard words almost identical to that from various
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coaches that have worked alongside and coaches that have
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worked with, and yet even that isn't actually a story power
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story. What we teach in story power is
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that when you have a story that's well crafted of an
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incident that you lived through, the chances are very high that
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you don't have to poke somebody in the nose and go, do you get
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my point? No, it just shows up.
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The lesson that you're trying to give them, the instructions that
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you want them to follow, the action that you want them to
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take. It's all in the story because
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you lived through that moment. You learned that lesson.
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You pulled that metaphor into reality in your own life and
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went aha. And suddenly your aha moment,
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which may have come from a tragedy, your aha moment, which
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may have come from pure silliness, your aha moment,
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well, it becomes somebody else's lesson without you having to
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force feed it to them, without you having to stomp on their
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toes, smack them in the head or make them feel less than.
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As I see the ability to provide that convergence of your
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experience with their desire for future knowledge, your past with
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their future. It rests in a story.
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Now, some of them are very obvious.
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The the story that you tell that it just says I did this, I got
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this result. If you'll do this, you'll get
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this result. Those are pretty simple.
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It's the old feel felt found method of sales.
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A lot of people feel like I once felt like, but I found that if I
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do this, I get a different result.
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All of these sales techniques, the sales persuasion models,
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they all make sense. The juxtaposition of story is a
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powerful, powerful thing. And a lot of people, because
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they know this to be true, Russell Brunson hook story offer
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doesn't matter how good your offer is.
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If your story doesn't push people toward the offer, if your
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story doesn't reveal the hope of the offer, if your story doesn't
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cause them to feel a need to take advantage of this offer,
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then nobody buys the offer. But if your hook is no good,
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nobody listens to the story. So you have to have a great hook
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before you make a before you tell the story, before you give
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the offer. In fact, Russell says it this
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way. If your hook's not good enough,
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you don't get permission to tell the story.
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And and if you do, nobody's really listening.
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They've already tuned out because your hook was weak, but
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you got a great hook and you got a great story, then your offer
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will succeed. If you have the right offer.
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Of course, there's got to be an irresistible offer.
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It's got to be the well, you'd have to be silly not to take
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this offer, kind of an offer, but you got to have a good hook.
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You got to have a good story that leads to a good offer.
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Tony Robbins says a very similar thing.
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He says you got to have the right state before you tell a
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good story, to have the right offer, to have the right
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strategies. But most people start with the
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strategies, have a corrupt story and can't figure out why nothing
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changes. Well, if your state and your
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story in conflict, your story doesn't even work inside your
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own head. Now we go to another level of
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story because I'm not just talking about the sales
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persuasive story. Very true, very important, very
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effective. But the story that you're
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telling in the mirror, that one matters too.
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Later this week, we're going to talk about how billionaire isn't
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a bank statement, it's a mindset statement.
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It's what's going on inside your head.
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Billionaire eventually shows up in the bank because that's how
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we keep record. That's how we keep score of
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those who are succeeding and those who are not.
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But that doesn't start there. You don't become a billionaire
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when you have a billion dollars in the bank.
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You become a billionaire because you fix the story in your head.
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You change the state, you change the story, you change the
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outcome. It's just the way it works.
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But if you don't change the state, the story doesn't matter.
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And if you only tell the story of what has been, not what will
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be, what you live through, not where you're moving toward, what
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you've tolerated, not what you're creating, if that story
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is only past, you're not going anywhere except in a big circle.
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So you've got to craft a story that has substance and meaning,
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that looks at the aha moments of your life and also points to
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where you're going, where you made a commitment to be.
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And you can craft a nice piece of literature, perhaps even
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grand fiction or fantasy. But the more in touch with The
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Who that you are, that your story is, the more believable
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it'll be by you. And when it's believable by you,
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taking action on it is a whole lot easier.
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Now I'm going to tell you something that dawned on me
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recently. We've been in our little
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hometown here where the studio is located in Granbury, TX for
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just over three years. February of 2023 is or March of
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2023 is when we moved here. And there's a couple little
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networking events. One is hosted by the Chamber, 1
10:21
is hosted by the local visitors Bureau that we attend as
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regularly as we can. And from the first day that we
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walked in to that little meeting, I've done nothing but
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tell stories and what I mean, nothing but tell stories.
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I mean, it's not a whole lot of sales pitch.
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Usually 5 to 10 seconds at the end of my story.
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When I say I'm Jay Lauren Norris with Story Power Academy, we
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help leaders tell better stories Better.
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That's it. That's the wholesale pitch.
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That's the entire elevator pitch, if you will.
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My name, the name of the company and what we do.
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That's it. And yet we pulled literally
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thousands of dollars of business out of that room.
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How is that possible? Because stories convert, simple
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as that. Stories convert.
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They convert audience members to listeners, listeners to
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customers, customers to fans, fans to friends.
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I have friends from that room because they heard me tell a
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story, came up afterward and went, I really relate to your
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story. My grandpa was a guy just like
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that. My granny used to make biscuits
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too. I have a dog just like your
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crazy little dog. And it's those stories that
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allow them to realize who I am. In fact, in the story power
11:53
method, one of the things that we encourage people to do is
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what we call the seven seas. I'm not going to give you all of
12:00
them right here, but I can tell you if you joined the six week
12:02
program, it's actually in there. All 7 CS, you'll learn the whole
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thing. I can give you 4 of them though,
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content, context, credibility and credential.
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And when you incorporate those into a story that you're
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telling, you don't have to give a resume anymore.
12:16
When you learn how to express your opinions and expose your
12:20
core values, you don't have to walk around looking for people
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who dress like you, wear buttons like you, wear badges like you,
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wear hats like you. Because when you tell a story, a
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real story, a genuine story, and you intentionally craft that
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story from the very beginning to include the seven C's, those
12:43
things happen. And when you tell those stories
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genuinely and they're authentic, they're not made-up for the
12:48
purpose of convincing someone to come your way or persuading them
12:53
to purchase from you. When you tell those real life
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stories, you draw people in. And now you may also repel some
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people. That's just truth.
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Let me ask you this, though, if you had a chance to do business
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with people who know, like, and trust you and you know, like and
13:17
trust them, ever had to fire fire a client?
13:20
That's hard stuff. It's hard to fire a client, but
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sometimes it's absolutely necessary to fire a client.
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If you use story power properly, tell good, true stories, tell
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them well, craft them well, include the seven CS, express
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your opinions. Expose your core values.
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When you do that, people hear your story and your kind of
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people, your tribe, they move toward you.
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They want to be around someone who thinks and talks and acts
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like you. And those who are not your tribe
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self identify and make haste somewhere else.
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Find somebody else. And you know as well as I do,
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there are thousands of people that do what you do.
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The way that you stand out in the crowd is by being genuine
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and authentic. It is the greatest USP in the
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world. I know who I am and I don't have
14:20
to pretend to be anybody else. I can be me all day.
14:24
And if I can be me, and that attracts you to do business with
14:28
me, we're going to have a great time.
14:31
And eventually those who sat in the audience and heard me tell a
14:34
story and then move from sitting in the audience hearing the
14:37
story and saying, hey, I think I could, I think I could do
14:39
business with you. I, I'd like to learn what you
14:41
teach. And then we have a long term
14:46
relationship with each other. Maybe it's a six week course,
14:48
maybe it's 90 days of coaching. Maybe it's a year long program.
14:54
Eventually we move beyond just clients.
14:57
I still serve them in that client capacity, but along the
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way, somewhere we've become friends.
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Why? Because I'm hearing all their
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stories and they're hearing all of mine.
15:08
The good and the bad, the past and the future.
15:11
Man, one day I'm going to flip the switch and my life is going
15:14
to be like that. And I get behind him and I'm
15:17
like, I I believe that to be true.
15:20
Let me help you find some strategies that will make it
15:22
true faster. The faster we can make that
15:24
happen, the better off the world will be because you will be
15:27
living at your capacity. And see, suddenly we've gone
15:30
from strangers in the crowd who listened to a story, who became
15:34
customers, became fans, perhaps of the process, and then became
15:40
friends. Ultimately, that's what I want.
15:45
I woke up this morning to a rooster crowing.
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Not unusual. We kind of live in the country
15:51
in a small town really close to the lake is less than 1/4 of a
15:54
mile from the our front door to the water.
16:00
Not unusual to have Roosters and chickens in the neighborhood.
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But this one wasn't in the neighborhood.
16:06
This rooster was 6 feet from my window.
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Cock a doodle Doo. But he had an issue that this
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rooster sounded like he'd been at a concert last night.
16:18
Crock a doodle Doo. I mean, he was having a rough
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morning, bro. Need some coffee or something?
16:24
Maybe a Red Bull. I don't know.
16:26
Do Roosters drink Red Bull? He was having a rough morning,
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though, and I posted something on Facebook and I thought, you
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know, it's funny that we got a rooster 6 feet from our window
16:35
because we don't own a rooster. Never bought a rooster.
16:39
Now my daughters, they've got Roosters.
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I have friends who have chickens and Roosters and ducks.
16:43
Oh my. But I've never bought a rooster,
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but I got a rooster in my yard inside the fence.
16:51
Now we've been gone for 10 days, so I haven't mowed in a minute.
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So my grass kind of looks like a jungle.
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Yeah, I'm going to have to go home this week from work and and
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mow the yard. But it was one thing to have a
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rooster in the backyard. It was another thing that our
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morning routine includes letting the red Husky and the Irish
17:14
doodle out into the yard to do their little plaything before we
17:17
leave for work. And out of routine, my wife
17:21
opens the back door, not thinking that a rooster and a
17:25
Husky, which is a predator, by the way, would be an unfair
17:30
game. Yeah, that little rooster got a
17:36
chance to run for his life. He got his month's worth of
17:38
exercise in the next 45 seconds. Because I was still on my boxer
17:42
shorts, I wasn't going to go out in the yard and chase the dog.
17:45
Eventually I kind of had to anyway.
17:48
But that rooster ran all over that yard trying to get away
17:51
from the dog. I think the long grass gave him
17:53
a little cover, gave him a little bit of a chance to hide
17:55
those bites when the when the dog tried to get a hold of him,
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gave him a chance to kind of bury himself.
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And now we have feathers everywhere.
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But the rooster escaped. His first escape was across the
18:08
patio and through the master bedroom door and into our
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bedroom. I got a live rooster in my
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bedroom being chased by the dog. The doodle.
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She got done with all of us yelling and just jumped up on
18:19
the bed and watched the chaos. The Husky we had to throw into
18:22
the living room and close the door.
18:23
So we get the rooster outside. My wife threw him over the fence
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and he made his escape back into the neighborhood and he still
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sounds like he had a wild night last night.
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I wonder if it's because he keeps trespassing in other
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people's yards and getting chased by dogs that his voice
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sounds like that. I tell you this for sure, that
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rooster is wide awake and the rest of the neighborhood will be
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for a while, I guess, until he loses his voice.
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Look, if you're playing in somebody else's backyard at 6:00
18:51
in the morning, you should expect chaos.
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And if you follow routine without considering all the
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things that are changing in your environment day by day, then
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perhaps you should you should expect chaos.
19:06
And if you're not paying close attention to the collision of
19:10
your routine and everybody else's chaos, then you should
19:15
expect to join their chaos. I'm Jay Lauren Norris with Story
19:21
Power Academy, and we help leaders tell better stories,
19:24
better. Now, I didn't time that.
19:28
And literally, it's the first time I've ever told that story.
19:31
So it needs some crafting. Can you see that?
19:35
I mean, there are some places that I could have said a whole
19:37
lot of words in less time. Surely you can see that.
19:42
In fact, I would challenge you, anybody who's watching this
19:44
right now, just jump right down there in the comments and give
19:48
it a stab. Tell your kind of chickens in
19:52
the yard, Roosters got loose, dogs chasing the animals in the
19:55
yard, they end up in your house. Any kind of story you got like
19:58
that and start a timer and see how well you can do telling that
20:02
timer within. Or that story within two
20:04
minutes. And if you find that's a little
20:07
bit challenging, it's harder than I thought if I've never
20:10
told the story before, trying to make it fit in 2 minutes, that
20:14
that's not an easy thing to do. I mean, in all honesty, we heard
20:19
the rooster, I don't know, six. He got into the master bedroom
20:25
at about seven O 5 after we showered.
20:28
He was trying to make his escape.
20:33
The whole incident took about an hour.
20:35
How do you compress that into two minutes?
20:38
That's what the story power method is for.
20:40
What is the point that the story makes?
20:42
How does that convert people to become customers?
20:44
How does that convert them from customers to fans, from fans to
20:48
friends? That's what the story power
20:50
method is for. First you got to select the
20:54
story. Then you got to craft the story.
20:57
Then you got to figure out how to connect it to the audience
20:59
that's listening. Then you figure out how to lead
21:03
the narrative with it, which means you got to figure out what
21:05
your big narrative is. What's the big picture?
21:09
We're in week two of our six weeks right now.
21:11
If you're not a part of that, you still got time to jump in.
21:14
You can catch up on 2 episodes pretty easy.
21:16
We got a call tomorrow night, 2 hours Q&A.
21:19
You can jump in and be a part of that.
21:21
I promise you, wherever you're at in your leadership
21:24
communication, whether it's sales Oregon, it's gaining buy
21:28
in from the board or it's getting your team to do what you
21:30
need them to do. If you will invest in this story
21:33
power six week course, you're going to change the way you
21:36
communicate. I promise you will.
21:40
And if you want to come to the retreat in June, you're going to
21:42
get even deeper because you're going to get a lot of hands on,
21:44
face to face, small intimate group in a resort away from
21:49
everybody else. Just time to bask and soak and
21:53
work on your stories. And if you could take a rooster
21:56
story that happened over an hour's time and compress that
21:59
into two minutes of teaching where you get a little laughter
22:02
and you get a little chaos and you get a little lesson all
22:06
rolled into one in 2 minutes or less.
22:10
It doesn't have to sound like a sales pitch, but it'll convert
22:14
like 1. You got to take the time.
22:17
Trust me, storytelling converts. It converts from listeners to an
22:25
audience, from those strangers to the clients from I've never
22:30
heard this guy before to Wow, I love what you do.
22:35
If you'll take the time to select the right stories, craft
22:38
those stories meticulously, consider all the ways that you
22:42
could lean in, lean out, invite someone in, repel someone you
22:47
don't want to work with. All those things can be done in
22:51
the course of a story. And I'm going to tell you this
22:54
again, almost sounds Zeus, like it's truer than has ever been
23:02
true. A good story, a well selected,
23:08
well crafted, well connected story that fits your narrative
23:14
is better than a slick written AI alliteration laden,
23:18
emotionally driven lie. A good story beats a well
23:24
crafted lie every single time and storytelling converts.
23:31
I'm Jay Lauren Norris with leading leaders podcast for tell
23:35
it like it is TV. Have a blessed day.
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25:18
your audience, and leading the narrative.
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And if you leave any one of those parts out, you're going to
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find that or you're just not as effective as you want to be.
25:27
You're not going to grow your business to the same level.
25:29
You're not going to lead with impact and influence like you
25:31
hoped to. I can also tell you that the
25:34
people who apply these things, well, they're not failing in
25:37
their business. The reason a lot of people fail
25:41
in their business is they continue to fail to connect the
25:45
solution they offer with the problem that their clients have.
25:49
The pain in the solution never come together.
25:52
And a lot of that failure is because they're not clearly
25:56
articulating how their solution solves someone else's problem.
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It it comes down to a question, something like this.
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Who do you help and how? Yes, that's one of the first
26:08
things we're going to discuss over the next six weeks of Boost
26:11
Your Business with Story Power. Subscribe now for our extensive
26:23
video library of leadership lessons promoting faith, family,
26:26
and freedom.