Everyone wants to tell stories. Businesses, politicians, influencers — even my mother says she does storytelling. But in practice? Most people completely miss the mark. They confuse telling a story with delivering a message, end up sounding preachy, and put their audience to sleep within 15 seconds. Here are the five most common mistakes, and how to avoid them so you become a storyteller no one can forget.
1. Thinking storytelling means delivering a message
If you're saying "my goal is to get our message across," you're already on track to miss the story entirely. Messages are dry. Stories are alive.
Example:
- Message: "We empower women." (yawn)
- Story: "When Sigalit first came to us, she couldn't bring herself to speak in a group. Today, she leads an entire team and presents to hundreds of people." (wow!)
2. Believing every personal experience makes a story
Not every little thing that happened to you this morning is a story worth telling. A good story needs real transformation, drama, something that moves your audience at the core.
Example:
- Not a story: "Today I launched my business and I was excited."
- Story: "Today I launched my business, and I was certain no one would show up. Then one customer walked in and said, 'I've been waiting for exactly this.'"
3. Thinking you're the hero of your own story
You might be amazing, but that doesn't make you the hero. The best story is one where your audience feels they are the hero, and you're just the guide, the mentor, the helper.
Example:
- Not a story: "We're the most creative marketing agency."
- Story: "A small-business owner from a rural town shattered her glass ceiling thanks to a single campaign we ran."
4. Trying to cram a story into a single sentence
Stories are like good food: sometimes you need to let them simmer. Not everything has to be short, fast, and instant. You need space for emotion and detail to do their work.
Example:
- Too compressed: "We change lives."
- Effective story: "Amit was on the verge of shutting down his business. Today, two years after we met, he just hired new employees."
5. Thinking a story is just pretty words
No, a story is not just poetic description and marketing buzzwords. A good story is a clear structure: character, challenge, transformation. Without that, there is no real story.
Example:
- Empty words: "We're trailblazers, innovative, and industry leaders."
- Clear story: "When we started, people told us 'you're crazy, this will never work.' Three years later, our biggest competitors were copying us."
Bottom line: don't deliver a message — tell a story
If you want to be remembered, to move people, to keep them coming back — just stop delivering messages and start telling stories. Real stories, the kind that touch, shake, and change something deep inside people. Because once you've told a story, no one will ever forget you.
The confusion between storytelling and messaging is exactly why narrative engineering exists — to provide the structural rigor that surface-level storytelling lacks.
