I grew up in a family of over achievers.

My Mother came from the USSR when she was a teen, picking up both English and French, then going to a top University just 3 years later. My father was making over $1,000/hr as a software contractor when I was 10. My two cousins, Steve and Earl, went to top schools in their state and graduated near top of their class.

My very own brother beat me at everything I did.

"Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others."

I was able to hold onto this statement for a bit, watching others smoke weed and get into drugs while I kept looking forwards. My slow improvement got my highschool average up 15%, but it wasn't enough, as my brother got into my top choice University and I didn't.

But I kept looking forwards. Not the smartest tool in the shed, but failure after failure made me try harder.

My parents got divorced in my first year of University. My father thought his skills could get an even younger women, meanwhile I was struggling to even get a job. Steve referred me to his old position as a software dev, where I was a complete imbecile and felt like trash each morning. But learning a lot, I put in my best every day.

Earl was taking pre-med, but didn't have the math skills for some of his required courses. A single tanked class is a huge deficit to an average, and it's an average you need to keep straight. Fifty extra hours to boost your 85 to 87% is required ten times over to average out a single 63. So I took the easy route and only had four courses, which gave me the time I needed to create my first open source project.

Steve was amazing at Leetcode, turning down offers from Facebook and Amazon for even better positions while he was still in school. Steve grew comfortable, and now sits at a mid-sized company without the options he once had. "A Leetcode a day isn't bad", I thought. "I can manage it now that I know where I'm going in life."

And that's where I am now. It took seven years.

Seven years since I started pushing myself and boosting my 70% high school average to 85. Knowing only it would be worth it, but not why or how.

Then I get a call from my Mother today.

"I asked your brother what he was doing today and he said "work stuff". I pushed for an answer and it turns out he's running D&D games online for money. I asked how much he's getting, and he said "not much". When did he get so unmotivated?"

My brother, the final piece, always gifted and never had to try hard, has been out of a career path for years. Always succeeding but never with direction, he never experienced failure.

And that call made me realize the danger of success.

Start

🏛️ Tell The Problem, Not The Solution

"I had to buy a bunch of hotdogs, because I showed up to the birthday party and there was nothing there"

"I show up to the birthday party, and there's no food. So what do I do? I hop in my truck and grab a whole bunch of hotdogs."

Granted that neither are particularly interesting, but resist sharing the crux until after the baseline has been established.

🏛️ ⏰ Capture Attention

People can't tell stories when half the group is having a side conversation - you need to control it before you begin. Use key jumpers to start:

• Tell a short witty joke for the attention to start on you
• Use key words: "True story- True story: ..." ;
• Use someone's name to reset control "blah blah blah... But Jim - ..."

Middle

🚗 Take Pauses

Let's say you're telling the story of when you were walking home at night and noticed your garage door was open. You paused and looked at it.

Right here is where you should pause in your story telling. If there was a pause in the story, put a pause in your playback to keep the listener engaged.

😃 🚗 Act Out

It's harder when you're writing online - "bUt EvEn wRiTiNg lIkE ThIs" gets the point across - if you're committed to the story, the audience will be too. Go the whole way - it's all or nothing!

😃 🚗 Constant Mystery

You're wondering how the cat died, as the protagonist slowly puts together the clues. They find out it was the neighbors dog, ending the mystery - but then the story goes "So the protagonist decided to see the neighbor himself", keeping the listener further engaged.

⏰ Capture Attention (Again)

If you're losing people's attention, you need to get it back. Repeat yourself, tell people to listen - be smooth and joking about it.

Imagine the following conversation, where (dude talking in brackets) is drifting the story apart:

"We went to the strip club, and he was wearing a suit and tie... (man I can't believe I was wearing that.. I had just come back --) a suit and tie! What is this guy doing! (yea.. I had just come back--) Shoes, the whole thing. But listen - Listen..."

End

🏝️ Leave Key Shock For Last

We were out cliff jumping near some rocks, but my sister insisted on jumping from a higher spot. The waves were high, the water was cold, and the cliff itself was about 60 feet instead of the 30 we were jumping off before (think several houses stacked on top of each other). But what blew my mind was taking a step back and thinking, "this is a 12 year old about to do this"

🏝️ 🚗 A Lesson In The End

"What I learned", "In conclusion", etc etc are all awful and too forced. You're telling a story, not presenting stats- opt for things like "It says...", such as: "It goes to show people who helped in the past will be jerks because they feel like they did more than everyone else".

🏝️ 🚗 Full Circle

Bring back the first piece of imagery you started with - It turned out those hotdogs were worse than going hungry.

I was never great at telling stories in the past, so much that people made fun of me for telling them backwards. I know this is about the 5th community I've created on Lemmy (one was banned Oo) but there's always a chance for something unique to pick up activity for this great site :)