This one works well as a lunch and learn: accessible from the first minute, nothing to prepare, and easy to join for one hour of the day.
Lauren Maxwell is an Amsterdam-based storyteller, producer, and performer with over 30 years of on/off experience in theatre and comedy, both in the U.S. and Europe. She has performed extensively in the Netherlands in storytelling and theatre productions, although only recently making it her professional career. Prior to working as a full-time storyteller, she was in marketing and branding for 10 years in such companies as Walt Disney and Triodos Bank.
All sessions by Lauren →Lauren lets you experience how you can use a story from your own life to convey a message and convince the people around you to follow you. A leadership skill that has garnered a lot of attention in the past decade and has proven to be crucial for business leaders.
Lauren shows examples of the best storytelling and provides insights into easy-to-apply storytelling techniques.
During the expert session, Lauren Maxwell engages the audience through a mix of storytelling and interactive exercises using the Mentimeter app. She shares personal anecdotes and business cases illustrating the importance of effective storytelling in creating human connections and influencing decision-making.
The expert also introduces various storytelling techniques, such as narrating in present tense and incorporating sensory details, while encouraging audience participation through real-time polls and discussions. These activities help the audience grasp the practical uses of storytelling in diverse scenarios and inspire them to apply these techniques in their own work.
Incorporating captivating narratives into professional settings can create human connections, evoke emotions that aid decision-making, and enhance memory recall.
Utilizing storytelling techniques such as present tense narration, high-tension openings, sensory detail incorporation, vulnerability, and reverse engineering can significantly increase audience engagement and impact.
Choosing stories that resonate with your audience's important values is essential for inspiring action and overcoming objections in various communication scenarios.
In this expert session, Lauren Maxwell shares insights on effective storytelling in professional settings. Lauren starts by recounting a personal story and highlights the power of capturing an audience's attention through engaging stories.
She emphasizes the importance of standing up for what one believes in, even in uncomfortable or risky environments.
The discussion then transitions to the significance of storytelling in business contexts. Various reasons are explored for using stories as a means of communication, such as creating human connections, evoking emotions that aid decision-making, and enhancing memory recall.
Lauren shares an example of Antonio Deasio, a psychiatrist who discovered the importance of feelings in decision-making through a patient named Elliott. This story illustrates how a lack of emotion made it difficult for Elliott to make decisions.
Thus, storytelling emerges as a powerful tool to help influence and guide individuals toward favorable choices.
Lauren then delves deeper into storytelling techniques, explaining the impact of narrating a story in present tense versus past tense. She argues that using present tense makes the story more vivid and allows the audience to immerse themselves in the moment.
Next, she introduces "vertical takeoff," a technique that involves starting a story with a high-tension moment to grab the audience's attention. This method is useful when following other storytellers or trying to mix things up for variety.
Lauren also shares his favorite technique, called "lots of lots," which involves incorporating sensory details into the story to create a more immersive experience for the audience. She invites a volunteer from the session to demonstrate this technique.
Lastly, Lauren emphasizes the importance of vulnerability in storytelling, which creates an emotional journey and fosters compassion between people. She shares that allowing vulnerability in a story can lead to unexpected emotional changes and stronger connections with the audience.
Throughout the session, Lauren encourages participants to recognize techniques in examples that can be applied to their own presentations for maximum impact. The expert continues by discussing the concept of reverse engineering, starting with the end in mind.
She argues that the end is a call to action, emphasizing its importance in any speech or presentation. By defining the desired outcome, one can analyze and understand the reasons for affirmative (yes values) and negative (no values) responses from the audience.
This process allows the speaker to identify potential objections and find ways to address them, ultimately leading to a more compelling call to action.
Lauren's engaging and insightful session emphasizes the power of choosing the right stories and values to connect with audiences and inspire action. She provides various examples throughout the discussion, utilizing interactive tools like the Mentimeter app to encourage audience engagement and participation.
The session concludes with Lauren inviting attendees to share their thoughts on her questions in the chat and asking if anyone has any final questions for her. She also offers alternative ways for those experiencing issues with the survey link to access it, before thanking everyone for their participation and expressing interest in conducting longer storytelling workshops.
It is interactive, and the block above says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.
Lauren lets you experience how you can use a story from your own life to convey a message and convince the people around you to follow you. A leadership skill that has garnered a lot of attention in the past decade and has proven to be crucial for business leaders. It is built for a general working audience: no prior knowledge is assumed, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction.
Yes, and it is one of the sessions we would suggest for it. There is nothing to prepare, it is accessible from the first minute, and an hour over lunch is enough to do it justice.
Lauren Maxwell is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.3 out of 5, across 92 responses, and rate Lauren personally 4.6 out of 5.
It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Lauren, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.
A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.
The session is delivered in English. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.
No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.
We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.
You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.
"People will forget what you said... but people will never forget how you made them feel," - Maya Angelou This hands-on workshop…
Robert Wolfe lets you experience how you can use a story from your own life to convey a message and convince the people around…
“Netflix’s biggest competitor is sleep.”That statement captures the reality of today’s attention economy.
Feedback should help people grow, but too often it creates tension, confusion or defensiveness.
Skillful communication and warm connection are needed today more than ever before — whether that be in your professional or…
Public speaking is nerve-racking for most people and is often named as the one thing people fear most.