I realise I’ve missed the trend by about eight years, but, I’ve finally read Tim Ferriss’ ‘Four Hour Work Week’. It took me much longer than four hours by the way, so that was me done for the week.
The guy does make some interesting points. While a lot of his advice may not be right for me right now, I was impressed by his interesting storytelling style. Intrigued, I typed him into Youtube and binge watched a bunch of his clips.
Most of his clips on youtube are of him telling stories of his adventures in deconstructing how something is done so it can be quickly and easily learnt. He deconstructs a variety of skills from swimming to martial arts to cooking. Whatever skill he has deconstructed, I found that he uses the same formula for how he tells you the story about it.
First he builds rapport with his audience by telling them stories about what an average guy he is to make himself relatable. Then he inspires his audience by painting a fabulous picture of the end result. Next a step by step breakdown of his sequence of actions, followed by a retelling of the amazing outcome, and finally the ‘you too could do this’ close.
The Lesson I took from this is that if you are a regular storyteller there’s value in working out an effective formula. If you find a formula that works you don’t need to start from a blank page each time, you have the scaffolding already that you can pack your different story elements around to build the finished narrative structure. Tim Ferriss does it time and time again to great effect.
So in true Tim Ferriss style, I have deconstructed how Tim Ferriss tells stories about deconstructing stuff. Here it is in sketchnote form:
