Storytelling School

My husband Mark and I are back in California after our Hawaiian vacation. We loved the kayak adventure we had there, so we decide to get a two-person kayak. But not just any kayak. We need one that's built for speed. It's not as stable as others, but it's going to go fast and be so exciting! We take this kayak out on a maiden voyage and, after tipping over into the ocean a couple of times, we get...

At the age of 101, my grandmother, Beverly's, dementia is really starting to show. I'm over at her house one day when her new social worker comes by. I hear him talking to one of her caregivers in the other room. She says to him, "Sometimes Beverly says she wants to go home. Yet, she's in her own home. So when Beverly says that, we just tell her, 'You ARE home.' But it doesn't really register." He...

I'm working with a client in one of my Mastermind programs. She asks, "Kymberlee, what's the difference between a story that we will remember versus one we will forget?" At that moment, I can choose to hit the surface level and talk about story elements… or I can go deeper and talk about the science.  I choose to get all science-y. And once I'm done going in-depth with my answer, she says it's giv...

It's Tuesday morning, and I'm so excited! I'm leading a storytelling workshop for a group of speakers and entrepreneurs who give presentations as part of the work they do. To start, I ask all of them what their objectives are for the training.  One person raises their hand and says, "I really need help with rehearsing." Two other participants agree... and it seems odd to me.  Rehearsals have been...

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, nicknamed Moo. We always had fun; we'd play, make things up, sing songs, write poems… just be creative together. As she gets older, though, and reaches 100 years old, she develops dementia. Sometimes she's with us and other times not. I go over to her house one afternoon, and she's super happy and pleasant and lovely... yet she doesn't know wh...

I'm 12 years old. It's summertime, and we're on our annual family trip to Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle. I love going on these trips, and one of my favorite things about them is getting to see family friends Bob and Denise perform in a different play. This particular summer they're doing The Pirates of Penzance. After the show is over, Bob and Denise walk up to me and ask, "Kymberlee,...

I'm a high school freshman. It's 2 o'clock in the morning on a school day and I can't sleep, so I get up and wander into our living room. My Dad's in there taking notes and reviewing video footage of our rival softball team we're set to play later that day. He's the head coach of our varsity team and often sends someone to scout out the opponent, so this is a common scene in our household. I say t...

My husband Mark and I are at a venue about to give a presentation on the new software application we've developed. It's a big deal! We're in our hometown with a room full of people waiting, and this is the first time we're showing off what we've created. Standing at the front of the room and getting ready to start, we're plugging in our computers to test everything, and…  There's no internet?!? Ou...

It's a Tuesday night. I'm teaching my Improv class and ask the students to tell me one reason why they came. "I want to work on character voices tonight," says one person. A few others in the room are here for that too. "I want to work on being more physical tonight," says another student who also has others echoing the same sentiment. Then a third person pipes up with, "I want to escape."  It's s...

"Hello, Master Kymberlee." I'll never forget hearing those words for the first time. I'd just earned my Fourth-Degree Black Belt in Dynamic Circle Hapkido. And standing in the dojo, after receiving that greeting from a fellow martial artist, makes me reflect on my 20+ years of Martial Arts training. In that moment, I can't help but think about what it truly means to master something. Fast forward...

It's 2002. I've just come up with a brilliant idea with someone I met at a networking event. We're in the right place at the right time as this idea involves the creation of a software application that's never been done before. We get the greenlight to develop this software application for TED. But there's a problem... As a technologist who has written books on Flash programming, I have a vision f...

I'm lying in a hospital bed after my cement truck accident in Hawaii. While I survived, the doctor comes into the room and tells me that something didn't: "Kymberlee, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you've lost your taste and smell forever." When I get released, I'm craving everything you can imagine. I want to smell and taste it all, especially chocolate chip cookies. But I can't, and my friend s...

At eight years old, my Dad is living on a farm in Illinois. It's Christmas morning and time to open presents. His brother opens his first; it's a new train set and he's ecstatic! But my Dad notices that there's no gift with his name on it under the tree. Did he do something wrong? Are his parents upset with him? These thoughts run through his head when his parents tell him, "Your gift is outside b...

I'm running TEDxSantaBarbara in 2017 with my husband Mark. Our committee is gathering to select the speakers for the upcoming event, and we're going through hundreds of applications. One particular application stands out with a bold statement. It claims that half of all blindness in the world is just a 10-minute surgery away from being cured. That's an idea that absolutely deserves to be heard far...

It's 2015, and I'm ready to take the next leap. I've been working with speakers one-on-one for a while and want to try my hand at hosting my own event. Except, I've never done this before, and if I do it… will anyone even come to it? How long should it be? What content should I cover? And what about the whole performance aspect of speaking? These are the questions going through my mind when I real...

"Black belt, don't think!" Those deep, stern words from the Grandmaster echo across the dojo and ring in my ears like a loudspeaker at full volume. Eight fellow black belts surround me in a circle with weapons in their hands while I have none. We're doing a dynamic circle knife drill exercise where, one by one, they attack and I have to disarm each weapon and take the attacker down while avoiding...

I'm in high demand as a high school softball pitcher. Colleges want to recruit me like crazy to come play for their school. The all-expense-paid recruiting trips begin. There's one to a college with snow on the ground which appeals to me because I'm a snow skier, too. There's another college where the coaches are amazing, and another one with an unstoppable team. Then I get an invitation from a co...

I'm preparing to teach my Mastermind class about being a premium brand. But there's one issue: I'm tired of using the same old Apple, Ritz Carlton, Mercedes types of examples… As I'm sipping on my homemade matcha latte, it hits me. I have the answer right in the palm of my hand!  I remember being out of matcha and scouring the Internet looking at one site after another to find one that stands out....

It's showtime. I'm wickedly nervous as I prepare to deliver my monologue in my very first acting class. I've been rehearsing relentlessly and memorizing my script so that I don't forget any of my character's dialogue. I begin. And not two minutes into it, my teacher Peter stops me.  What he says next changes me--not just as an actor, but as a speaker, storyteller, and communicator. He tells me, "K...

I'm at The Groundlings Theatre for an Improv class. We're doing two-person scenes when our instructor says it's time for a drill. "This next exercise is a way to go deeper into your characters, fast." For each pair, he instructs one person to start with a mundane statement about the other. The second person repeats the statement and adds something about what it means. Then it goes back to the firs...

I'm about to deliver a Talk, and I want to open it with a really good story I remembered from a couple of months ago. The problem is I can't find it anywhere! I look at my whiteboard, thinking, "Surely, I scribbled a little message about it somewhere there." Nope.  I search my notebooks. Zip. I sort through my stacks of sticky notes, and still nothing. After spending over two hours hunting for thi...

I'm running my software company in 2015 when this email comes in. As we open it, we're beside ourselves with excitement because it represents the opportunity of a lifetime. We've been selected as one of the very few technology companies to present at the DEMO conference. I eagerly read the details, including how much time presenters have to speak. I'm looking for our company's name, and I don't se...

It's 2014. As the year draws to a close, all of my friends come up with their New Year's resolutions, ranging from dropping bad habits to losing weight. But while I create my list of resolutions on the eve of the new year, I realize it isn't going to work. Sure, I write them out every year with the best intentions in mind, but I forget some of them by February and even blow by others in January. A...

As a 14-year-old, I'd rather do a million other things than clean. So I'm not happy when my dad tells me, "Our renters just moved out, so it's time to clean the house before the new renters move in." He notices the look on my face and says, "When I moved to California after high school, I put a down payment on a rental house that turned into two houses, then three houses, and many more. One day, y...

I'm coaching a client on her TEDx Talk and she says, "Kymberlee, I don't know if I can get through this story I'm telling. Every single time I get to a certain part, I start crying and I can't even stop!" Having an emotional response like that means you're very present in your storytelling - which is what you want! So I tell her, "Try refocusing on your audience while you're telling the story. How...