HOW TO

TELL A
STORY
BY
DONALD MILLER
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3
Part One: A Good Story Doesn’t Happen by Accident 7
Part Two: The Structure I Use to Tell Stories 10
Part Three: Breaking Down My Story Structure 16
Part Four: How We Use Stories to Connect 26
Conclusion 32
INTRODUCTION

Why does story matter?

 here are many definitions for the term story. Everybody from Plato to
Weird Al Yankovich has chimed in. If you’re reading this eBook, though,
you’re likely not looking for a philosophical definition. You’re likely
wanting to know how a good story works, why it captivates the brain, and perhaps,
how you can learn to tell one. If so, I’m glad. That’s the stuff I’m interested in too.

Whether you’re a speaker who wants to compel an audience, a business owner who
wants to tell the story of your business, a writer who wants to write a novel or a
parent who wants to send your kids to bed dreaming of other worlds, this eBook is
designed to help.

Psychologist Uri Hasson of Princeton University spent a season observing the

brain images of people as they listened to and watched stories unfold. His 2008
study revealed that while watching television, our brains are far from inactive,
depending on what we’re watching. While watching a ten-minute clip of a Sunday
Morning concert in New York’s Washington Square Park, only a five percent
stimulation response was noticed in their subjects’ cortex. But when Hasson
showed them Alfred Hitchcock’s film Bang! You’re Dead, his subjects elicited a 65%
response. Stories cause the brain to come alive.

Last year people spent more than 490-billion dollars at the box office. What this
means is we hunger for stories the way we hunger for food. Stories are a recurring
commodity for which demand will never be fully satisfied. Just because we can’t
see and touch stories doesn’t mean they can’t be bought and sold. George Lucas
sold his Star Wars plot lines and characters to The Disney Corporation for
4-billion dollars. But what did he sell? He sold a napkin on which an idea had been
scribbled. He sold a fictional universe of his imagination. In fact, in the contract
to Disney, Lucas sold the names of more than 30-thousand non-existent planets.
What did he really sell? He sold a story.

Stories do more than entertain, though. If you want people to understand and
identify with a complicated concept, tell a story about it. Telling a story often
creates a “clicking experience” in a person’s brain allowing them to suddenly
understand what someone else is trying to say. As such, those who can tell good
stories will create faster, stronger connections with others.

4
The power stories have on the brain is beginning to be understood by businesses.
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review spoke of stories as the future of
marketing, and for good reason. Keith Quesenberry, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins
Center for Leadership Education spent a season studying the effectiveness of
over 100 Super Bowl commercials. He successfully predicted the commercials
that told the clearest story would be the most likely to go viral. And he was right.
A Budweiser commercial featuring a puppy who made friends with a horse, a
30-second spot that could almost be considered a movie plot condensed into a beer
ad, got more traction than any ads featuring scantily dressed women or humorous
pranks. “People think it’s all about sex or humor or animals, but what we’ve found
is that the underbelly of a great commercial is whether it tells a story or not,”
Quesenberry said. He went on to add, “The more complete a story marketers tell
in their commercials, the higher it performs in the rating polls, the more people
like it, want to view it and share it.”

Stories are terrific tools for communication. They instruct, provide rest, give us
inspiration and help us learn empathy for others. On the other hand, stories can
do an enormous amount of damage. A story is a tool and in the wrong hands it
can devastate entire cultures. Find me an evil dictator who has risen to power and
I’ll show you a leader who, if nothing else, is an exceptional storyteller.

Robert McKee, one of the world’s foremost thinkers on story believes story
calibrates a moral compass in our brains. He says it’s from story we learn what to
value in life, what’s beautiful and what’s banal, what to live for and what to die for.

Story is no longer a tool only for artists. The rest of the world is beginning to
understand that entire cultures are being shaped by the story tellers, and business
leaders, pastors and parents are starting to wonder how they can incorporate more
stories into their communication methodology. And they will all be benefited for
doing so.

Thankfully, telling stories is a skill we can learn. There’s some structure to the art,
some form, but once the form is learned, a practiced storyteller can captivate an
audience of thousands as though they were a few friends sitting around a campfire.

5
I put together this eBook to introduce those who want to tell better stories to
the most basic of storytelling structures. Simple as this structure is, though, it’s
powerful. Once you master the simple plot I outline, you’ll never watch a movie,
read a book, watch a television commercial or listen to a State of the Union
address the same again. You’ll begin to pick up the patterns, and as you do, you’ll
incorporate them into your own communication.

My hope, then, is you better connect with the world around you, and the good
things you’re trying to bring into the world will flourish in the fertile soil of a story
well told.

Here’s to telling better stories.

Sincerely,

Donald Miller

6
 PART ONE

A good story doesn’t happen by accident

 he best definition I’ve heard for story is that it is a sense-making device. One
of the reasons people are drawn to stories is because within a story, life
seems to be clear. When we hear a story we know exactly who a character
is, what they want and what they’re up against. We also know what great thing will
happen if the hero succeeds and what tragedy will befall them if they fail. Real life
doesn’t quite work that way. Most people wake up every morning not quite sure
what needs to be tackled first, what really matters in life, or what the stakes will be
if they succeed or fail. Stories, then, present a clear and condensed version of life
and for that reason people are drawn to them.

It’s true, the human brain is drawn towards clarity and away from clutter.

A good story should be clear. The more a story rambles and wanders, the more
it feels like real life and the less people will engage. When I say a story should
be clear, I mean it should follow a series of events that make the most sense to
a story’s listener. So how do we tell a clear story? The first paradigm shift in
understanding how to tell a clear story is this:

Stories have pre-decided plots as opposed

to a random series of events.

It’s true, stories have structure and there are many types. There are three-acts,
five-acts, anti-structure stories and so on. In fact, when a Hollywood screenwriter
sits down to write a screenplay, he often plugs specific events into specific
modules within a piece of software that insures he isn’t getting too cluttered in
his storytelling. On page three, for instance, he knows his protagonist has to do
something kind to win over the audience and on page seven the protagonist has to
get into trouble. And on and on it goes.

In fact, after studying stories for more than a decade now, I’ve realized the films
Tommy Boy, Star Wars Rebel Assault, The Hunger Games and even Moneyball are basically,
at their bones, the same plot. Simply plug in different characters and different
dilemmas while keeping the same form and you’ve got a winning structure for
a story.

8
You can think of story plots the way you might think of musical scales. For instance,
if I played a recording of a dump-truck backing up, a child crying and perhaps
some wind chimes being blown in a breeze, you wouldn’t consider that music. You
might even call it noise. So then what is the difference between music and noise?
They are both, after all, vibrations in the air that stimulate your ear drums.

The difference between music and noise, though, is form. Noise becomes music
when it submits itself to certain rules. Harmonics and melodies and so forth are
simply noise tamed.

Does this mean all music is formulaic? Not at all. Within the structure of music
scales and harmonics there is infinite creative space. But break the rules and music
turns to noise quickly.

Story is no different. A story is the organization of events so as to be

told through a set form. A series of random events becomes a story when it’s
organized and told through a structured plot. And not unlike music, within the rules
of story, there is an infinite pool of creative opportunity.

The point is this: Good stories don’t happen by accident. They are formed and
molded and edited so they are clean and clutter free. And it’s not always the “best”
stories that get the most attention­– it’s more often the ones that are the most clearly
told. Remember, the human brain is drawn to clarity more than action or comedy.

In the next section, I’ll introduce you to a fixed plot in which you can insert any
number of characters, conflicts and endings to create an infinite number of stories.
You can even use the plot to organize the events of your day so that as you retell
your day, your audience will be more compelled.

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 PART TWO

The structure I use to tell stories

 or purposes of brevity, in this eBook I’ll tell you about a plot structure I’ve
developed to help me tell stories. It’s a simple, seven-step process I’ve used
in all of my books, in a nationally-released movie I co-wrote, in song lyrics I
wrote for a top-selling country band and even in the marketing strategies for multi-
billion dollar brands.

The structure is so simple it’s become second nature for me. When I come home
from work, I often recall my day through the plot structure I created. I don’t even
know I’m doing it, but because I do, my wife better understands what happened that
day and even better, she doesn’t find me boring. At least not most of the time.

Here’s the simple structure I use:

A character has a problem, then meets a guide

who gives them a plan and calls them to action.
That action either results in a comedy or tragedy.

That’s really it. In those two sentences rest the plot lines for thousands of Hollywood
movies that have raked in billions of dollars.

Here’s the plot I just spoke of on a grid:

11
If you think about it, that’s the same plot structure for all the movies I mentioned
earlier. From Star Wars to Tommy Boy to The Hunger Games, that’s it.

In fact, here are the grids for the movies Star Wars and The Hunger Games:

STAR WARS

In the movie Star Wars, Luke Skywalker wants to fight against the evil empire, but
he also wants to know if he has what it takes to be a Jedi. He meets a guide named
Yoda who gives him confidence, a plan and training to go out and defeat the enemy.
The comic or happy ending happens when Luke destroys the Death Star and
preserves the Rebellion to fight another day.

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 THE HUNGER GAMES

In the first The Hunger Games movie, Katniss is trying to survive the games and needs
the help of Haymitch. Haymitch gives her confidence and a plan. She will need to
endear the public to get sponsorships that will benefit her in the games. She takes
action by participating in the games and, after a struggle, finds a happy ending in
which she lives to fight another day and delivers hope to her family and District 12.

This is not the only structure you can use to tell stories, but it’s the one that works
best for me.

If you like, try this exercise with some problem you’ve dealt with in life. Simply write
a brief statement for each of the elements and watch how your past can suddenly be
understood better after you frame it as a story.

1. Who were you and what did you want?

2. What was the problem you encountered and how did it make you feel?
3. Who did you meet or what did you read that helped you?
4. What plan did you come up with after meeting the guide?
5. What did it feel like to take action on that plan?
6. What could have been lost if you’d have failed?
7. What was the happy ending you experienced?

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Here’s an example of how simple this process works:

1. When I was in college, I really liked a girl who lived across the hall.

2. She didn’t want anything to do with me, though. She hardly talked to me and
the few times she did she kept messing up my name.

3. Her roommate was in my math class, though, and noticed I liked her. She
thought we might even work out. She told me she was a huge soccer fan and
said maybe I should take her to a Timbers game.

4. Too scared to ask her out, I bought a few soccer jerseys and wore them
around campus. This caught her attention and we ended up talking for a half
hour once in the hall. And she actually remembered my name.

5. Finally, I had to ask her out. The Sounders were coming to town so I bought
tickets. The next time she stopped to talk to me, I mentioned the tickets the
first time she brought up soccer. She said she really wanted to go, so I asked
her out. She was from Seattle, so I told her if the Timbers won she had to
buy me a drink after and if the Sounders won the drinks would be on me.
She was completely in.

6 & 7. We ended up dating for most of that year and are still friends to this day. And
the best part, she had to buy the drinks after the game.

And that’s really it. It’s a simple story, of course, nothing to win an award, but it’s a
story all the same. Remove the numbers, tell it over casual conversation and people
will understand it, and we will end up connecting better with the people around us.

14
If the elements were more dramatic we’d really get their attention. The young
man’s date could get hit by a soccer ball at the game, or there might be more
conflict when one of the players flirts with her later at the bar. If it’s a fictional
story, by all means ramp up the tension.

The point is that stories have structure and this is the one I use most of the time.
And I use it because it works.

Feel free to create a little story structure of your own, or by all means use mine. If
you get good, nobody will notice you’re using a structure at all; all they’ll notice
is the story. And if you get really good, you won’t even realize you’re using the
structure in the first place.

When using a story structure becomes second nature, the stories you tell will begin
to sound like music in a world of noise.

You might be wondering why each of these elements are in my story structure and
whether or not some of them are really necessary.

Let’s look a little more closely at each of the elements so you can better understand
why I think they’re so important.

15
 PART THREE

Breaking down my story structure

 ood storytellers do not break the rules of story. They may improvise within
those rules, but they don’t break through the guardrails. If they do, they
risk creating noise and their audience gets turned off or worse, bored.

For this reason, let’s look at each of the elements I use to tell stories in greater depth:

1. A CHARACTER

A person who will take the journey. The main character in a story is often called
the hero or the protagonist. To really compel an audience, the hero is usually
called to a task that is outside their comfort zone but necessary for their survival
and the benefit of others. Interestingly, the hero is not the strongest or most
reliable character in the story. That is usually the guide. But the hero is the center
of the story because they are the one that must take action. They are also the only
character in the book that must experience a character arc, that is a change in their
person brought about by the adventure of the story.

Examples of heroes in stories: Frodo Baggins (Lord of the Rings), Rudy (Rudy),
Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones’ Diary)

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 2. WHO HAS A PROBLEM

No story works unless the hero encounters a problem. The reason a character has
to encounter a problem early in the story is because the problem posits a story
question. Will the character get out of the problem? How bad will the damage be
if they don’t? Will they get their happy ending? Will they defeat their enemy? And
this is why stories are so compelling to the human brain – they posit a series of
questions that make the audience stick around to get an answer. Will the guy get
the girl? Will the hero disarm the bomb? Will the team win the big game?

In a good story, there are often three levels of problems and they are intertwined.
Those levels are external, internal and philosophical.

Examples of External Problems: Frodo (Must save Middle Earth), Rudy

(Must make the Notre Dame Football Team), Luke Skywalker (Must defeat the Evil
Empire), Bridget Jones (Must find love.)

Examples of Internal Problems: Frodo (Is he courageous, brave and

disciplined enough? Is he good?) Rudy (Does he have what it takes? Is he worth as
much as the others?) Luke Skywalker (Does he really have what it takes to be a Jedi
or is his step-father right about him?) Bridget Jones (Is she worthy of love?)

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Examples of Philosophical Problems: Frodo (Will good win out over
evil? Will group interests win out over self interest?) Rudy (Can noble character
compete with brute strength and force? Is life fair?) Luke Skywalker (Will good win
out over evil? Will group interest win out over self interest? Will benevolence win
out over greed? Will freedom win out over tyranny?) Bridget Jones (Is life fair? Can
love win out over lust? Can self-love and self-acceptance be enough?)

As you use conflict in the stories you tell, you don’t always need to cover the
philosophical aspect of the problem; however, you will want to cover the internal
aspect of the problem. Without an internal problem that the external problem
manifests, you’ll lose your audience.

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 3. MEETS A GUIDE WHO
UNDERSTANDS THEIR FEAR

In stories, characters do not solve their own problems. If they could solve their
own problems, they’d likely have never gotten into trouble in the first place. What
normally happens, then, is the character meets somebody, reads something,
remembers something or experiences something that helps them grow. That
somebody or something is the guide. A good guide has “been there and done that”
in the sense they understand the journey the character is on and can see clearly
where they need to go. In fact, the first job of the guide is to listen, understand
and empathize with the hero’s problem. The second is to give the hero a plan they
can use to fight for a happy ending. The guide, not the hero, is the strongest, most
steady character in the story.

Examples of Guides: Frodo (Gandalf, many others), Rudy (Father, Janitor,

Teachers, many others), Luke Skywalker (Yoda, Obi Wan Kenobi), Bridget Jones
(Bridget’s Mum, Friends, many more.)

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 4. AND GIVES THEM A PLAN

When the hero meets the guide they are confused. The job of the guide, then, is
to break through the hero’s confusion and give them confidence their life can be
better. The plan can be as simple as a paradigm shift - you used to think this way but I
want you to think another way - or as complex as a multi-level strategy that will help the
hero win a complicated battle. Regardless, after the hero hears the plan they must
decide whether to take action on the plan they’ve been given.

Examples of Plans: Frodo (You have what it takes), Rudy (Janitor meeting), Luke
Skywalker (Trust the Force, Luke.) Bridget Jones (To find love we must take risks.)

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 5. THAT CALLS THEM TO ACTION

A call to action in a story is the point at which the hero must decide whether to act
on the plan. Will they attack the Death Star or will they run? In a story, the call to
action is a point of crisis. It’s often a dark night of the soul for the hero. They must
choose whether to stay in their comfort zone or embrace the plan given to them
by the guide. A good guide empathizes with the hero’s problem, gives them a plan
and calls them to action.

Examples of Calls to Action: Frodo (Gandalf: “All I did was give your uncle a
little nudge out the door.”) Rudy (Tries out for the team, many, many more.) Luke
Skywalker (Joins the Rebellion in the Fight to Destroy the DeathStar.) Bridget
Jones (Makes the Call.)

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 6. THAT RESULTS IN A COMEDY

In story structure a happy ending is called a comedy while a sad ending is called a
tragedy. Whether or not a story ends in comedy or tragedy, though, an audience
must know what might happen if they are going remain interested. We have to
know the hero can either get or lose the girl, disarm the bomb or die trying, or win
the game or lose to their arch rival. Usually, at some point during the story, another
character, often the guide, will state the happy ending well before it happens. “If
you do this, middle earth will be saved” and so forth…

Examples of Comedy: Frodo (Saves Middle Earth, many more), Rudy (Plays
in a game), Luke Skywalker (The rebellion lives on), Bridget Jones (Finds love for
herself and finds love in a partner.)

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 7. OR A TRAGEDY

Careful screenwriters and novelists help us imagine dire consequences whether or

not they actually happen because this builds suspense. Every audience must have a
clear idea of what possible tragedy faces the hero if they don’t act on the plan. If
people don’t know what tragedy might befall the hero, audiences zone out and lose
interest.

Examples of Tragedy: Frodo (Middle Earth is taken over), Rudy (Never plays
for Notre Dame), Luke Skywalker (The evil empire rules the galaxy), Bridget Jones
(Remains lonely)

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 A STORY MUST BE CLEAR

There are a thousand possible formulas for telling a story, but once again, there is
one rule that cannot be broken: A story must be clear.

If every scene in a story cannot be placed onto a simple chart, it runs the risk of
boring the audience. There are exceptions, of course, but there aren’t many. Being
a good storyteller is a lot like being a good tennis player, first you learn form, then
you improvise. If you don’t learn form, you’ll never compete with the professionals.

Just remember this: Clarity is king.

As you begin to practice telling stories, focus on clarity first. You may not always
woo an audience with your robotic storytelling, but this is the only way to really
learn. Once it becomes easy for you, you’ll notice you don’t always keep the
same order or you sometimes leave out the guide. You may figure out you’re
exceptionally good at building up the internal conflict or that you’re terrific at
painting a picture of potential tragedy. That said, it’s all within a simple form and
it’s only by learning our scales we can begin to write new and original music.

I don’t think much about story structure anymore. Sooner or later it becomes
routine. Unless I’m studying a manuscript or helping a company with their
brand strategy, story structure remains in the back of my mind the way scales
and harmonics remain in the back of a musician’s mind. In fact, I often don’t
think about story structure until I realize something’s wrong. If I’m watching a
commercial and something doesn’t seem clear, I pick up a journal I keep on my
coffee table and plot out the structure of the commercial to see where it went
wrong. Or if I’m bored in a movie, I go through a mental checklist of about twenty
things that have to happen to see which one the screenwriters left out. Inevitably,
though, if the story is boring or unclear, there’s a critical element missing.
Understanding the structure of story is that important.

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 PART FOUR

How to use stories to connect

 story is the most powerful tool you can use to connect with another
human being. Whether we’re recapping our day or telling our kids
bed-time stories, our deepest selves reach out and connect through the
recounting of events.

Here are some of the different ways I use story structure in my life and work:

WRITING A BOOK

If I’m writing a book, I use the same structure I presented in this eBook, only I
repeat it over and over. Often, I’ll repeat this plot structure several times within
a chapter, almost like a wheel turning around, then I’ll wrap up the chapter with
either a happy or a tragic ending. And each of the chapters fits into a greater epic
that, hopefully, is the story or theme of the book. And so my books are simply
little stories within a larger story. Each chapter could be considered a subplot, if
you will.

For instance, if I’m writing the book about the creative process, I may use the epic
story of having to wrap up a screenplay for an unruly producer. If I don’t get it
done, I don’t get to collect the rest of the advance. So, within chapter one I use a
subplot story of how I overcame procrastination, then in chapter two I tell a story
about how I learned to develop a character and so on and so on. So there’s the
big story and then the smaller stories that feed into the big story. Make sense? Feel
free to use the same plot structure, though, whether it’s your epic story or your sub
plot.

In fact, as you outline your book, just come up with as many stories as you can
using the same structure, then place them into different topical chapters. You’ll be
surprised at how quickly your list of stories starts looking like a full book.

27
 IN A SPEECH

If I’m giving a speech to a room full of business leaders, I use the same story
structure to capture their attention. First I introduce myself, then I talk about
something I wanted for my business, perhaps a specific financial goal I wanted to
attain, then I describe the problem I had trying to get it and then I talk about a
person I met, a leader I trusted or even a book I read that helped me realize there
might be a way out of my troubles. I then talk about how scared I was to take
action because of how much could be lost. After painting a picture of potential
tragedy, I let the audience know how I took action and how it all ended well.

For each point I want to make I tell a story using the same structure. And it’s only
at the end of each story I allow myself to make a one minute editorial comment.
Most public speakers do the opposite. They spend hours making editorial
comments and use the story to cap their speech. I assure you, the only thing the
audience hears is the story.

As we tell our story, the audience begins to apply the story to their lives. You don’t
have to do the work for them.

While it may sound formulaic and manipulative, I make sure the stories I tell are
actually true. If we are lying, we are being manipulative, and that’s not what I’m
recommending. What we’re doing when we tell structured stories is serving our
audience by not being a boring speaker. We’re also helping them understand and
apply complicated information so our audience can succeed.

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 INTRODUCING MYSELF

When somebody asks what I do for a living, I don’t tell them I’m a writer who
runs a brand-strategy company. If I told them that, they’d just sit there and
wonder what kind of books I write and I’d get no brand-strategy business. If
we’ve got time, and the conversation permits, I tell them a story. It goes like this:

Years ago I was a writer and I had a small conference company. We were doing
fine, but I realized nobody was coming to my conferences unless they were fans.
I really wanted to reach out of my fan base, but I didn’t know how to do it. One
day I got on an airplane and sat next to a person who was reading my latest
book. I joked with the guy that I’d heard the author was kind of a jerk. But the
guy never figured out I was actually the author. I ended up spending a couple
hours talking to the guy about my book and what I found was that even though
he loved my books, he couldn’t explain them. My book titles were elusive, my
writing was poetic and they were hard to describe. I realized then that I hadn’t
given my readers language they could use to spread the word about my books.
So I ended up renting a cabin in the mountains and I created a brand-strategy
using plot structures hollywood has been making billions off of for years. By the
time I was done, I’d created an entire process a business could go through to
clarify their marketing. And after I took my little conference business through it,
we quadrupled in size in only 18 months. The results were phenomenal. And not
only this, but once I formalized the process, people started asking me to help them
with their businesses. The first companies who expressed interest were Pantene,
Ford/Lincoln and even The White House. So, I started a second company called
StoryBrand and we help brands go through the process of clarifying their brand
communication.

You know, I’ve told that story a thousand times and I’ve never had anybody fail to
understand what we do. Not only that, but we’ve helped brands like Chick-Fil-A
teach their entire staff how to structure and tell their personal stories as they relate

29
to their brand. Imagine a company in which staff members could tell a clear story
about who they are and why their work matters. An entire staff is converted to a
passive sales force the second they learn to tell their personal stories as it relates to
the company they work for.

UNDERSTANDING OUR LIVES

You know by now telling a story is all about organizing a series of events so they
make sense. What I’ve found, along with connecting with others, is story is an
incredible tool I can use to understand my life. My day job is to help companies
develop their brand strategies, but every four or five years I have the luxury of
being able to write a book. Most people know me as a writer and don’t even realize
I work in marketing, but the truth is I don’t get to write as often as I’d like. When I
do get to write a book, though, I always start with the same question:

What in the world happened to me since the last time I wrote a book?

Because I write memoirs, and because my life isn’t as exciting as, say, a Russian spy,
my books are mostly about inward journeys, little ways I’ve developed as a human.
What happens when I write one of these books is I better understand my life. Until
I sit down and organize the events that took place over the last few years, I hardly
realize anything happened at all. But after thinking through the seven elements of
the story structure I’ve been talking about, it becomes obvious I’m not at all the
person I was only a few years before.

We are all on a journey, of course. We all want things for ourselves and our families
and those desires launch us into stories. And stories are filled with risk and fear and
joy and pain. In each of our stories, friends and guides have passed through and
those friends have taught us things. But how will we know what we’ve learned and
allow those lessons to change us unless we translate the events back to ourselves?

30
The point of any story is always character transformation. I am so grateful to
have studied story if for no other reason than it’s helped me realize how much I’ve
changed over the years as a human being. Story has given beauty and meaning to
my life because it’s no longer passing by without me reflecting on it and noting its
positive and negative turns and what those turns have done to me to make me a
better person.

I believe it’s true every person should write their memoir if for no other reason
than it helps them understand who they are, what’s happened to them and who it
is their lives have caused them to become. A person who understands themselves is
easier to connect with, more settled and, most importantly, can see how their story
interconnects with the stories of others.

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CONCLUSION
 tory, in some ways, is still as mysterious to me as music. I can’t pretend to
understand it fully, but I feel its effect and I’m grateful.

I’ll conclude with this quote from Robert McKee. It’s from his exceptional book
called Story. It’s my hope for you.

“Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For
above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage,
courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories
told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the
hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.”

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APPLY STORY TO YOUR LIFE AND BUSINESS

CREATE YOUR LIFE PLAN

Want to tell a better story with your

life? Try Donald Miller’s remarkable

process Creating Your Life Plan.

Visit creatingyourlifeplan.com today.

CREATE YOUR BRANDSCRIPT

Donald Miller has created a 2-day workshop in which business leaders

come together to create a BrandScript for their brands. The result is clarity,
unity of mission and a marketing strategy that will increase your revenue.

Sign up for a workshop at storybrand.com