Monday Minute: Location, Location, Location!

It is time for your Fearless Monday Minute. This week, I want to chat with you about the power of a geographically specific reference. I was just at the East Bay Women’s Conference as emcee host of their annual event. And as part of the festivities I taught throughout the course of the event, a workshop on story and storytelling. And there is a part of the story where many storytellers go south, which is what we call the Rising Action, where all of a sudden I’m clearly in a moment and “the next thing I know I’m in Hackensack, New Jersey, at a Quick-e-mart eating Raisinets, and I’m thinking to myself, why am I in Hackensack, New Jersey, and why am I eating Raisinets?” Now when I’m in New York City or New York City adjacent, that makes a lot of sense, but in Northern California, not so much. So on the fly, I changed it to Sacramento. And I said “the next thing I know I’m in Sacramento, at a Quick-e-mart eating Raisinets” and the audience ate it up. So if you want audience gold, make sure you have a geographically specific reference.