Business Innovators Radio - Pollie Rafferty – Speakers Storyteller – Mark Stephen Pooler

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Pollie Rafferty Pollie is known globally as the Speakers Storyteller, she Is an international speaker, story consultant and trainer.She discovered the beauty of oral storytelling back in 2005 when she was working her way out of crippling anxiety. She started training, performed regularly and ran her own story circle before moving to the south coast and starting her family.As a lifelong learner Pollie noticed a difference with speakers that really inspired, informed and interested her,these were the storytellers! Pollie has a Diploma in narrative therapy, higher certificate in Psychology and trained with a former storytelling laureate.Spent time researching the effect of storytelling, why it makes a difference in any speaking situation and how it generates an instant connection.Pollie has used her unique perspective and experience to create the STAR storytelling system, Teaching Speakers how to harness the power of storytelling to set them apart from the crowd https://www.facebook.com/thespeakersstoryteller https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollie-rafferty-thespeakersstoryteller/https://www.thespeakersstoryteller.com Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/pollie-rafferty-speakers-storyteller-mark-stephen-pooler

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Welcome to Brilliant Business TV, Conversations with Leading Experts in Business. I am your host, Mark Stephen Pula. We have a wonderful guest today, Polly Rafferty. Everyone has a story and we should always share our stories to serve the world. I'm really looking forward to a conversation with Polly. We are streaming live on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. We're also on the E360 TV network. We're also on USA Radio Global Radio Television Network. We're also on MSPNewsGlobal.com, Android, Fire, Roku, many, many other platforms and we're also on business innovators radio network. bring in our incredible guest, Polly Rafferty.

Polly, welcome to Brilliant Business TV. Hi, Mark. I'm very happy to be here. It's very exciting. Thank you for inviting me. You're welcome. I'm looking forward to a conversation with you. Everyone really does have a story, doesn't they? Absolutely. They've got at least one, possibly multiple stories that will really connect with other people that they need to share. But we've been told so often that nobody wants to know about you. Nobody wants to hear your stories or somebody else has got it worse than you.

So nobody tells anything and it needs to change. How did you get into storytelling and speaking? I originally got into storytelling way back in the early 2000s when I was on my way out of anxiety. It trapped me in my own home. I couldn't even go out into my garden to put my washing on the line. I was that paranoid and anxious and I just felt like. the world was against me. There was no way I was going to leave the house. But luckily I had some friends who weren't going to leave me to rot in my four walls. So they gathered me up and

sort of helped me get out and about. And it was on one of these outings that I discovered a storyteller. And she was absolutely amazing. She held the whole room, the whole room's attention. Normally if you're in a pub or something, there's little muted conversations going on and things like that, but everybody was listening to her. Everybody was watching her. Their faces were wrapped and they were just, she just transported us into another world and it was fantastic. And I just wondered if there was something I could do. I'd love to be able to do that. And after a while, I plucked up the courage to ask her whether, you know, how do you do it? Can you, can you do it? And could I do it. And she says, of course you could do it. You just, she gave me some pointers and tips and sent

me off to discover the joy of oral storytelling. So I started off actually telling traditional stories with a message. I used to pick ones with a strong female character or a really important message within the story to pass on to other people. And the first time I actually stepped onto a stage to tell a story, all the anxiety came flowing back, all the feelings that I had when I was too anxious to step outside my front door. all came flooding back, but in a much more powerful and controlled way. I had controlled, I'd tamed the beast almost. I'd fought my dragon and it was at my feet now being tamed.

And from there on, I started going out and telling more stories, traditional oral storytelling. And it was only in 2019, I started to think more about telling my own stories because I had gone through that. Nobody wants to hear about what I've gone through. Nobody wants to hear about my experience because there's so many people with so much going on in the world. I don't want people to think, oh, look at her. She's going on about herself all the time.

And all of these stories that I'd internalized over my years on this earth of people saying, I don't want to hear it, be quiet, and things like that. Even when you're a small child, people say, be quiet. You know, back then it was children should be seen and not heard to an, extent and it was still very much part of who I was that I didn't want to stand out too much from everybody else. But in 2019, I'd started to share my mental health journey with other people. And the feedback I'd got from that was absolutely amazing. People were saying, I don't feel alone anymore. That's thank you so much for sharing or they'd talk to me about it. And they'd be so

grateful that they had a way of knowing that they could get over the problems that they're, they had. It was giving them hope. So it was back then that I decided I was going to go out and start sharing my stories to people. It was originally going to be like groups of women who had abuse sufferers, survivors, women that had had mental health issues and that sort of thing. So I started looking into doing that and stepping out into that. And of course, then COVID hit. So there was no in-person events. So I hit the internet to see what I could do. Because this time, around I was not going to stop. This is this is really important to me and then I discovered the importance of storytelling in in business and I was doing lots of training, online training all the

time and it was the speakers that shared stories that really resonated most with me that stuck with me that became part of my own journey because I related with their stories or it helped make a difficult concept more understandable. And it's just gone from there. I love stories. I love the history behind stories, why we tell them, how they work.

I've investigated the neural pathways and the science behind it, the history behind it. And it just fascinates me. And I just want to get oral storytelling, traditional storytelling back out into the world. So people don't feel so ashamed of talking about. about themselves and sharing their stories because you could tell one story to somebody and that could be passed on and passed on and passed on and really help more than just that one

person. You never know what your story is going to have on somebody else. Definitely. I think a powerful storyteller can really give you inspiration, hope. And really it can change your life when you hear someone else's story. It can really, really make you look at yourself and think, whoa, if they can do it, I can do it. I can do it. So I really know the power of storytelling and I share my story and I used to share it a hell of a lot. So I know the power of a good story. Tell us a little bit about the history of storytelling, Polly. Well, we've actually been telling stories since we were back in the cavemen days. The paintings that you see on the wall are the original storytellers, the original stories where they

didn't have the language to express that we've got today. So they used the picture. The pictures on the wall along with gestures and grunts and things to actually tell a story. And they taught the next generation how to hunt successfully. And because of those stories of how to hunt successfully, we got better at doing other things. We developed fire. We sat down around the fire and had time for the first time. And then we started to ask questions. And those questions were often answered through stories, how a lot of our myths, legends and fairy tales came about.

so that we could, because we don't like not knowing things. So the stories was made up to help us know things and know why the sun went around the world and just to help us feel more comfortable with the world around us. And then as civilisation progressed and got more complicated, stories were used to help us learn how to interact with those civilisations, taught us how to learn new skills, taught us how to interact with other people, ways to behave and also to give hope to people that were struggling. A lot of the Jack stories and a lot of the Rags for Richie's stories is about keep going.

You can do it because the Jack stories tended to be they were their underdog. They were the person that everybody hated or didn't like. So they had to progress throughout different things through their wit, through their talents, through their learnings and they could overcome and come out on top. So it just gave hope to everybody that. They could improve their life, they could change their life, they could have a better ending than the life they've got now. And I think a lot of our stories that we're telling now don't fit with the society and the environment that we're in now. And a lot of them have been changed from the original as well because a lot of the old traditional fairytales were quite actually grisly, very, very grisly.

So we've changed them. So it alters the story and it alters the message at the end of the story or the message that people, subconsciously absorbing over the story. So why I want to get this out into the world so much is so we can create our own myths, legends and our own fairy tales for our young people and ourselves to feel better and have more hope for the future. Well, we all have a good fairy tale and we all want hope for the future, Polly. And tell us a little bit about how it impacts. The audience, the storytelling.

When you tell a story to an audience, it will help with your connection automatically. It will help to make you feel more human, make you feel more approachable, make you feel more like your audience. Because as soon as you step up on stage, you just put onto this sort of pedestal where people sort of a bit of stage-struck, almost.

It's sort of like, you're better than me, which isn't the case. you're better than me because you're up there on stage because public speaking is one of the biggest fears in the world, you know, along with spiders and snakes. But it's not going to kill you. It's not going to hurt you. But as soon as you step up there, people think because you've taken that step, you're better than them.

And it's not the case. You're the same as everybody else. And you share your story with them and they start to feel that connection back again. Also, when you tell a story, you fire the neurons in your brain that are connected with that story. So the neurons start firing. And the person actually hearing the story, their neurons will start firing as well. So if you're talking about you went to the coffee shop and you were having a coffee and you had a latte and you were sitting there sipping the latte just looking around, then the neurons that connect with that person about sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a latte looking around will start firing in their brains as well.

So as long as they've had a similar experience to you, the fight. the neurons will fire and they'll have that instant neural connection with you. And that helps to create a bond. It builds the no like and trust so much quicker when you're telling a story like that or wherever you're telling a story that will impact your audience. And plus it just helps them feel better as well. When you tell a story, it releases chemicals in the brain. so if you've ever sat and watched a film

and you've been on the edge of your seat and you've been rearing to go and if you go, don't do that or anything like that, that's because the chemicals are going through. You've got your dopamine for the pleasure and the oxytotion is emotion and emotional connection

and you've got your cortisol which it helps to bring attention into the focus of the film. So if somebody connects with your story, they're going to be paying attention to you. They're going to be feeling what you're going to be feeling what you're feeling. And it just really builds that remembrance because we remember people more through emotion connection and things like that. So stories are so, so important when you're doing

a talk or when you're even trying to connect with any part of business audience, really. Yes. Can you share, Polly, just a little bit about who you serve in the world and how you help people with obviously storytelling? Well, right now I'm teaching. speakers to utilize storytelling within their speeches because they're already up there, they're already talking, they're already on the stage, and they just want to enhance their performances and can make a greater connection with their story. And from there, I'm hoping that I can reintroduce storytelling to the world, change social stories for the better, and have a really big global impact within society, and not just in this.

country worldwide because I went on a United Nations women's event recently and all of all of the delegates whenever I was there they were saying society needs to change we need to change perceptions we need to change this and the best and the easiest way to do that is through storytelling because if people are grown up with stories of equality and that they can do things then they will believe them for a lot longer and it will eventually change the society that we're in. The stories that we tell can change the society and how we perceive other people around us. So it's really important that stories are out there that are positive, encouraging and really giving hope for everybody. I love it. Now, I know you're offering a free

discovery call as well. I am. Just share who should connect with you and what they will get with the discovery call, Polly. Yeah. Well, with the discover a call it's to see whether we can work together because obviously everybody clashes, you know, we don't get on with everybody in the world. I'm quite a large personality. So it's nice to have people that can match your energies when you're working with somebody. So you get to see a bit more about me, get to ask me some questions, get to see how I can help you in your speaker journey, whether it's a new speaker who wants to join one of my courses that I'm going to be developing to help new speakers get up on the stage or whether

you're an existing speaker who wants to make a bigger impact and get more from your talks, then contact me. We can have a work. We can have a chat. See what you need. See if I can help you. And if that's the case, then we can start working together. It would be great. I love it. I would encourage everyone to connect with Polly, send her an email at Polly at the speakers storyteller.com. That's Polly at the speakers storyteller.com. Polly at the speakers storyteller.com and get your discovery call and get storytelling. My last question for you today, could you share one top tip of how to be a great storyteller, Polly? One top tip. I'd put you on the spot. there. We have. That's a good one because I'd say just do it, just start telling stories.

But then that's not really a top tip, is it? It's how to do it. Tell your friend. Start to share with a really trusted friend who you know, because one of the fears that we have when we share our stories is that we worry that people will perceive us differently. So that's one of the things that stop us and it will affect friendships or relationships or it will affect other people. So find a close friend that you know it won't affect that it doesn't matter. They'll love you regardless. They'll love you anyway. And tell them. And then tell another person. And then tell another person. Tell a stranger. You can tell so many strangers because it doesn't matter what they think about you. Because they're a stranger. If they like it, they can become a friend at a later date, maybe.

But yeah, just start telling the stories to somebody that you know, like and trust or look. love, like and trust, or a complete stranger. The person's sitting on the bus next to you. Just tell them the story. It doesn't matter. You could be the weirdo on the bus for once in your life, and it will have no impact in the rest of your life because you were never going to be on that same bus

with those same people ever, ever again. I agree, Holly. I really agree. Because when I started public speaking, I started speaking to one, two people. You don't have to get in front of a huge audience. to start. You can just speak to one person. Even in the mirror, I used to practice just in my living room doing my presentation to myself as though it's to a crowd and even videoing yourself as well and

watching yourself back is really powerful. So I love your top tip. Polly, thank you so much for being a guest on Brilliant Business TV. I've really enjoyed having a conversation with you. Thank you for having me. It's been great. I love talking about stories. So it's something I could do for forever and a day anyway. But it's been really, really nice speaking with you, Mark. You're such a fabulous person and I'm really having a conversation with you. The pleasure's being all mine. Thank you everyone for watching Brilliant. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovators.com today.