183. Steve Donofrio: Crafting Extraordinary Stories From Ordinary Life

Steve Donofrio is a former Non Commissioned officer (NCO) in the US Army with deployments to Iraq and Kuwait for the first Gulf war as well as other real-world missions.   As an international motivational speaker and leadership trainer, Steve utilizes his 20 years of speaking and training to help leaders move things to done through and with others. Steve is passionate about helping leaders unite people in harmony and move them to action. He believes, the true measure of a leader is defined within the actions and accomplishments of those they inspire. He is the lead author of the book Mama Manual and former contributing writer for Japan’s leading professional security journal, Security Research Magazine. Steve has appeared and spoken live and virtual as a subject matter expert on local, regional, and national media platforms on 3 different Continents. From trainer to speaker Steve’s journey started after he returned to America in 2015, after many years living in Japan being a trainer. He was figuring out what to do and someone recommended him to be a speaker. So even without knowing that there was an industry and without knowing what it was to be a professional speaker. His background of speaking and training for so many years helped him to start a career that lasts until now. Storytelling and its importance today According to Steve, storytelling is just as important as it has always been. Humans used storytelling to pass information long before writing and technology. Even today we educate children with stories. Sometimes we forget the importance of these stories and how even today our societies are built upon stories that were told from one generation to the next no matter the format we use. The most powerful words ever still are: “Once upon a time …” Top Mistakes in Telling Stories #1 Trying too hard. Sometimes we try to force and fill up stories where they don’t fit. #2 Always making the story personal. This means the story is always about the speaker. #3 The stories about you have to be always amazing. Most of the time, simple stories and even our own mistakes are the best stories of all. #4 Not understanding the narrative arcs. This is not knowing the protagonists, when the story starts,