Ruth Milligan

So I always start with the points.

The points are far outweigh the stories.

And they're very difficult to organize, bring hierarchy, find the highest level meaning.

And if I can get somebody, I did this yesterday on a call, there's a high, you know, I'm working generally in high stakes presentations, things with lots of consequence that could, and the consequence is how you define it, but it can go from a job interview, your first interview for a scholarship in college to a $5 billion contract.

It's your definition of high stakes.

And somebody had written out a script and I said, what are the three points?

What's the one thing?

that you want to get across that's most important?

And the sort of puzzled look comes.

And I said, how can we support that?

And it becomes the shifting and organizing and debating.

And I give people this visual, which hopefully will help your listeners.

I say, think of it like a family tree.

And there's a grandparent.

And that grandparent had three kids.

And those three kids might have had three kids on their own.

And those are the most number of points you're going to get.

And that's the hardest part.

Once we get through that mess, the rest of it starts to fill in.

The stories then support those points.