DO/STORY/How to tell your story so the world listens

DO/STORY/How to tell your story

so the world listens

By Bobette Buster Twitter Address:  @Bobettebuster

A book review by Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, December 8, 2018

Note: Words appearing in Blue and Underlined are links to their respective web sites

I was first attracted to this book when I saw the title but I don’t remember where I saw it.  I looked it up on Amazon.com and purchased the Kindle version and absolutely do not regret purchasing it.

Bobette Buster combines training with true life stories and explains what you just read and how people reacted to the stories told.  It is obvious as you read the book that the author is a teacher first.  She is teaching you how to tell your story so that people will actually listen and become emotionally involved in what you have to say and you leave them with wanting more.

I am old enough to remember the BTV Age of Man – Before Television.  That is when people actually talked to each other and as Buster suggests, one generation would tell spellbinding stories that would be repeated from one generation to another over hundreds and in some cases thousands of years.

Buster sets out exercises in the book to help you define your story so others will want more of what you have to say.  I wish I had read this book BEFORE I wrote a book for my four children, Things You Might Not Know About Your Father.  I didn’t pass on any deep secrets or incidents but rather what I thought were interesting stories from my first days I could recall to the present.  It made for a rather lengthy book.

My advice to everyone would be to do the same thing.  As time goes by you tend to forget faces, names, places, events and who knows what.  So while you CAN remember, take time to write down just words or phrases that you do recall as fast as you can think of them and then one-by-one go back and write the story that goes along with the words or phrases or events. 

It is almost impossible to leave a true legacy of your life if you haven’t told your life in story form.  Read this book!  Use it as a guide to write your story that someone like your children and their children and their children will have to remember you by.  If you do not write your story you will soon be forgotten and that is okay if that is your wish.  I prefer that my children and their children know who their father was and what he did during his life and what he stood for in the form of principles.

Important point.  I truly enjoyed reading the stories of people I know about and some I don’t know at all.  I particularly enjoyed reading Buster’s explanation of what made their stories great and so compelling.

Who should read this book?  Anyone and everyone interested in telling their story.  That would especially include people in sales for if you wish to be successful you must learn to tell a compelling short story about yourself to customers you have never known but who you want to do business with. 

Would I read the book again?  I would not read it entirely again but I will read the portions that outline the exercises the author recommends doing.

Would I give the book as a gift?  That’s a hard one because not everyone would be interested in reading a book if they have little value of developing “their story.”  Still it would make a great gift to someone you think would appreciate its value.