You can inadvertently bore people to death by telling long, uninterrupted personal stories that offer no entertainment value whatsoever. At the same time, people may take you too lightly if you don't have much to say in conversations either. One of your main objectives as a master communicator is to learn how to effectively tell an interesting personal story with the freshness and color that grabs and holds an audience's attention. That way, you can naturally affect other people emotionally with each tale you share.

The following suggestions are designed to help you gain more skill and self-confidence at telling interesting personal stories:

o Say that it's going to be quick.

Before you begin launching into your story, let your audience know that you're going to be brief. Right up front say, "I've got a quick story for you" or "This will only take a minute." This alerts your listeners to pay attention for only a short period of time which is something that most people are willing to do. After you've done this, it's up to you to deliver on your promise by making your story brief, briskly paced, and to the point.

o Don't waste time setting the scene.

Cut to the chase and don't spend much time at all describing the circumstances of your story. If your audience is captivated by your story, they will naturally ask you for more details after you finish. Your objective in telling a story is to give your audience a taste of your experience. Give them the short version and then if there's more time and sufficient interest you can fill in the details later.

o Relive an action moment immediately.

Within the first ten seconds, make a point of getting right into the action. An example of this would be to say, "Last Tuesday afternoon, I'm walking across the street and out of the corner of my eye I see a car coming straight for me. I'm thinking to myself, 'I'd better jump out of the way or I'm a goner.'" The key