It’s been a great experience but time to move on.

It’s now been 2.5 years since I started Create Your Life Story but really the story goes back to 2006 when  I discovered podcasting and spent the next couple of years learning how to produce my other podcast at Your Story. Very soon I realised I needed to find a business model to continue, so I learnt from the internet & content marketers all about finding a niche and selling to it.

In order to pull that off I had to find something in sync with my passion and ethics, which is where recording my uncle’s Life Story gave me the idea of teaching the same to others with Create Your Life Story. It was a great mix as it satisfies my interests and I know I’m doing good for the community and maybe I can make some income if I produce a quality product.

It’s been a great ride.

Over the course of the last 2.5 years I’ve produced:

• 200 posts of educational content somewhere in excess of 100,000 words or equalivant to 3 novels
• 72 podcast episodes – Close to 40 hours of audio
• 2.5 hours of instructional video
• 3 self-published E-books

This is still the best content on the internet to help people know how to produce a personal (audio) biography of yourself or someone else. There is nothing that even comes close but that doesn’t mean I’ve been a commercial success.

It’s about community.

Old media feeds the public information and entertainment as incitements in order to sell You as the product, to the advertisers. There is no need to communicate with the old media producer other than an occasional letter to the editor as really your not at all important to them, the advertisers are!

I’m not the old media, and neither are all the hard working new media producers out there on the internet.  I’m someone you know or yourself, working from home, wanting to help and make a difference, but without feedback it’s like working in a vacuum and screaming into the void and only possible for a period of time without some return of energy. Now, I didn’t expect a huge interaction with the greater world and I knew things wouldn’t happen overnight but it’s only possible to keep up the enthusiasm needed to create quality content for so long before it feels like no one is listening.

Above everything else, I’ve desired to build a community here with the feedback being more important than the income. An email, comment here on the site or on any of the social channels motivates more than you can imagine and with enough feedback (even without the income), this episode would never happen.

Income for survival.

I’ve put in thousands of hours to produce all the content you see here while receiving in return all but nothing, except knowing I’ve done well for the community. But this is what I wanted to do! Have a shot at the title, do some good and see what happens. Maybe good things could come of it?

Unfortunately it hasn’t really work out as I hoped. Maybe people don’t really care about this topic, maybe I’m incompetent at sharing the information or as I really suspect, maybe I’m just very bad at self-promotion and marketing.

Marketing & Self-Promotion.

I despise the manipulative marketing practices used today and feel it’s an insult to our intelligence, so it goes against my ethics to use them to convince you to act for my benefit. I’ve always felt that good work is rewarded by intelligent people recognising the effort and when they’re offered an opportunity to reimburse for that effort, will act accordingly. It’s a matter of mutual respect.

I don’t push for the financial return, actually I don’t want to charge for anything, I want to give it all away, which is the reason for having everything under Creative Commons and the depth of content in the posts & podcasts. I don’t believe in copyright and the abuse of the current patent laws. It simply stifles creativity and sharing knowledge, but I’ve followed some of the marketers strategies as they know more than me, in an attempt to encourage you to help me out .

But I think you can see through me… I want to just give it all away. It’s not in my nature to scream from the roof-tops about my efforts. I respect you to have the intelligence to recognise a good product and service and if you think it’s worthwhile I figured you’d act appropriately for yourself and me.

Ian Recording on the Berlin Rooftops for Your Story with Metroccolis

Two reasons for moving on.

I have two reasons for ending production of new content on Create Your Life Story.
Financially I’ve run out of resources and need to find some income before I dig a deeper hole but also I’m not getting responses from the audience and I can’t maintain the effort in a vacuum. There is just not enough demand for what I’m doing here. People only seem to care once their loved ones are gone, which is why genealogy is so popular. It seems people live in denial that their relatives will one day die and would rather dig around in old shoe boxes for information about their ancestors long gone, so everyone will have to live with regret once their relative’s pass.

Last episode of Create Your Life Story.

So this is the last episode of Create Your Life Story, with no more regularly posted content. All the content will remain here. I’ll maintain Create Your Life Story as a static site with all the resources available for the community at least for several years before eventually archiving it as I’ve shown here with individuals Life Stories. At the end of the day this all belongs to you anyway, it’s the human story and I’m just the messenger. If you feel it’s of value could you please consider the value you’re receiving.

Value for Value.

If the content here at Create Your Life Story has assisted you and you can see the value in the production and for your benefit, please consider making a Value Payment.

• What do you feel it’s worth?
• Do you appreciate the effort?
• What is the value and return for you?
• Make a payment for the value you’ve already received.
• Value for the additional content you’ll consume.
• The worth of the bonus content you’ll receive.

If you make a Value for Value Payment you can have one of the products as an extra bonus or split your payment across both products.

If you’re interested, go to either of the products and make a payment of your choosing based on on the value you’re getting from the entire site and while considering the value of the Quick Start Guide or the Prompts & Topics book you’ll receive.

Make the Value Payment of your choice for either product and with my thanks have that item as my bonus gift for you.

I trust your decision is based on what you can see and the value you’ve received.

Some new media content producers ask for simply a $1 per episode payment, which coincidently happens to be the combined asking value for both products to date:

• Quick Start Guide to Your LifeStory currently is $37
• Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story is $35
• 72 podcast episode @ $1 = $72

You decide.

If you feel the products are worth nothing and you pay a minimal amount, well that’s your opinion of the content of the entire site.

If you feel this site is of value, you could consider the amount of quality content, what you’ve got from it, the effort to produce, your personal situation and decide on another amount.

This is Ian’s style.

This financial model is much more in line with my style of life. Give it all away and the rewards will look after themselves. If it’s worth anything to you please consider what you see before you & make a Value Payment.

I’ve produced all this content from what I’ve found around me and from my personal experiences but at the end of the day we all stand on the shoulders of giants and no knowledge is new, just new ways of sharing it. I hope you’ve enjoyed the way I’ve been sharing this content and I hope you’ve gained a great deal from it, if you have please consider helping me and get additional content for yourself.

As always… Please leave your comments at the end of this post or make comment on the social systems. If  you want my personal attention please email me at chat@CreateYourLifeStory.com or via the Contact Page, I’m always up for a chat.

Thanks for a great ride and I hope we meet in person one day

Farewell.

Interesting Links from this Post

• All the available products
• Quick Start Guild for Your Life Story page
• Prompts & Topics for Your LifeStory page

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking here and be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Kirk Whalum

 ”Fit To Battle” (mp3)

from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III” (Rendezvous Music)
 Buy at iTunes Music Store
 Buy at Amazon MP3
 More On This Album

Kevin Eubanks

 ”Adoration” (mp3)

from “Zen Food” (Mack Avenue Records)
 Buy at iTunes Music Store
 Buy at Amazon MP3
 More On This Album

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band

 ”Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3)
from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis” (Temps Record)
 Buy at iTunes Music Store
 Buy at Amazon MP3
 More On This Album

Seth Ford-Young
“Gnossienne #1″ (mp3)
from “Seth Ford-Young”  (Porto Franco Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

The Glitch Mob
“Warrior Concerto” (mp3)
from “We Can Make The World Stop – EP”
(Glass Air)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Craig Padilla
“Lost In You” (mp3)
from “The Heart Of The Soul”
(Spotted Peccary)
More On This Album

Bright Moments
“Tourists” (mp3)
from “Natives”
(LUAKA BOP)
More On This Album

Jabberloop
“Area 51″ (mp3)
from “OOParts”
(Daruma)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

A Social Voice for your Community.

Now with the modern digital age it’s even easier for people around the world to keep the stories of a lifetime alive long into the future for others to hear, read and see. One person I’ve meet through producing Create Your Life Story is Kevin Farkis of The Social Voice Project. With a long interest in personal stories starting with capturing those of his relatives and moving onto gathering the quickly disappearing stories of returned Veterans of his community, Kevin is now working with others on Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh.All of the archived content from the Social Voice Project is available for you to listen to is here on Archive.org. Take some time to listen to some great stories and understand the subtle nuances of his story telling style to draw the best out of the people he records.

Kevin Farkas

In this interview here on the podcast with Kevin he mentions a video story of a father who went to war, never to meet his daughter and the thousands of letters he wrote over his time away. Take the time to have a look at the great work Kevin’s been doing including the video, All My Love, Always . . . A Thousand Letters which helps to share the story of a missed father.

We discuss some great tips for your project but more importantly use Kevin’s inspired story to help inspire you with your project.

Many thanks to Kevin for being on Create Your Life Story and the excellent work he’s doing for the community at large.

Let us know in the comments below of the experiences you’ve had recording the people in your life.

Interesting Links from this Episode.

• The Social Voice Project
• Soldiers and Sailors Hall
• Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh
• Archive Stories

Click to get the book now.

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band
“Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3)
from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

The best method to remember what you’ve forgotten.

A LifeStory, memoir, biography or autobiography is agreed by everyone as a great idea but a moment later when someone starts to make it happen they’re challenged with where to start and, “What would I talk about?”

I constantly hear requests for Prompts and Topics on  the survey associated to the download of your free copy of Recording Life Stories, so I’ve created a new approach to an old problem.

The traditional method of long lists of questions to prompt the conversations was both boring and generic and simply didn’t work. It missed the personal and didn’t promote the real passions someone has in their life. Over the years I had been using a different method when I connected with people which I knew had real power but I had to get it across in a way for you to understand.

A new strategy

A Topic will have some stories of your life and
the Prompt is a reminder of that topic.

The normal strategy to help people remember the topics they want to talk about is to start at birth and list out a lifetime’s experiences chronologically or copy one of the long… Loooong… list of questions and prompts. And there are plenty of these lists on the internet. The problem with them is they are general, often asking questions biased from the point of view of the interviewer or subject. This is not you! They’re simply a chronological list of your life.

After months of mulling the ideas of how we communicate, particularly when we first meet someone and start to explore and understand their life I hit upon the idea of approaching Life Stories in the same way.

A totally new, innovative way of personalising the prompts and topics for a Life Story biography or autobiography using simply, natural methods we all use every time we meet someone and want to learn more about them.

It’s about the reminders of life

This new book is not about telling stories or how to edit them but many ideas for that will evolve by understanding this new way of approaching your Life Story.

Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story is a way of jogging your memory, of all the interesting experiences in your life. It’s a strategic approach to re-explore your life in much the same way as someone would get to know you.

Rediscovering your life!

Too often we forget events only to be reminded when something appears in our life. The goal of Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story is to jog your memory of the things you’ve forgotten or things you didn’t even think of as important. Even the mundane memories are fascinating to the younger generation.

By following the advice in Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story you’ll create a long list of prompts to remind you of the interesting topics of your life. Then with these memories you’re away telling the stories and sharing your lifetime.

Start big then dig into the details

When you meet someone you’re introduced to a broad generalisation of who they are, then over time you get to know them better and in more detail through listening to the stories about the topics of their experiences.

This is the same approach Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story uses. Start with a generalisation of who you are then work down through the shared and personal eras, eventually to the individual stories which explain the topics of your personal Life Story. From this careful exploration of the interwoven topics of your life a long list of prompts are generated to remind you of what to talk about. Then it’s just a case of looking at a prompt, remember the story and turn on the recorder. Away you go…

This is not an approach for compiling your Life Story project but a strategy for discovering the topics to talk about. By taking this approach of exploring your life then capturing those memories, the obvious method to help explain it will evolve and aid you with the eventual formatting of the biography

Sneak-a-Peek at Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story.

Get underway

Too often the challenge with any project is getting started.
The moment you realise how easy it is to generate specific, individual, insightful prompts to the stories of your life, you’ll realise the wealth of knowledge you have to share. Then the excitement builds to tell of these stories.… But you have to start!

Click on Image to start discovering what you’ve forgotten.

In the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story I show you how to get started with your Life Story project. Part of which is to create the list of Prompts & Topics for Your Life Story and then the list will grow almost organically as you scan your life and realise how much you have to share.
And with the growing list of prompts, will also be your enthusiasm for your project until you’re bursting to ask the questions or tell the stories of this life.

Just having a long list of prompts shows you how much you have to say and reminds you of all the memories and stories you want to mention.  A list of prompts and topics is a huge motivator for your entire project.

How can you not be excited when you see all the topics you want to tell stories about!

Action:

• Get the Prompts & Topics for Your LifeStory now and rediscover the stories of your life.
• Let me know via email how your project is progressing.

Share you thoughts in the comments below.

Addition Links to help you further

• Prompts & Topics for Your LifeStory
• Free ebook Recording Life Stories
• Quick Start Guide to Your LifeStory
• Episode 7 : What to talk about – Prompts
• Episode 10 : Conversational Interview Technique – Let’s Have a Chat
• Episode 19 : Teaching Your Life Story to Others
• Episode 25 : Prompting Your Conversation
• Episode 50 : 5 Historical Timelines of Your Life Story
• Episode 60 : Remember the Stories of Community

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel
“Hesitation Blues” (mp3)
from “Willie and the Wheel”
(BISMEAUX RECORDS)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Hot Club Of Detroit
“Junction” (mp3)
from “Junction”
(Mack Avenue Records)
More On This Album

Bernie Williams
“Go For It” (mp3)
from “Moving Forward”
(REFORM)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Collect the content, then share your project!

You need content for a Life Story project. Not just the content you’ll generate yourself in the recording or the shoe box of old photos you have stashed under the bed. You also need that photo album you’re Great Aunt has stashed away. Or the old Super 8 films Uncle Bob shot back in the ’60′s. But you also want the new digital images your grandchildren are taking on their new fangled smart phones. You have an idea of what you want to create but you have to pull it all together to make it work. Producing the Life Story is for later but how do you collect the scattered information?

Herding Cats

Getting information from relatives is akin to herding cats. Everyone has their ideas of what they want to do. What works for me is to give them clear and concise instructions of what I want depending on the skills of who I’m talking to. For some people you may need to go to their home and scan the photos, while others can use email and online sharing services.

Physical Digital Media Systems …via By Danny Nicholson on Flickr

• What do you want?
• Who has it?
• What form is it in?
• Can it be digitised?
• Can they convert it to digital?
• How do you want it shared?
• Do they have the skills to share it?
• Do others near them have the skills?
• What are the alternatives?

And if all else fails you may need to travel to them and do all the work in gathering the information.

Sharing the finished Life Story Project

Once you’ve finished your masterpiece of this persons Life Story you’ll eventually want to show it to everyone involved so the same will apply but in reverse.

Types of information

First of all you need to decide what information you need, what’s available and in what format…

Physical – Analog

Tapes, cassettes, films, photographs

Physical – Digital

CDs, DVDs, Thumb Drives, Hard Drives, SD Cards, Floppy discs, In built memory in cameras, etc,.

Once you’ve decided what you want, who has it and where it is you have to decide how you’ll get access to it for your project.

Transfer methods

You know what you want and where it is, now you have to get it to you using one of these systems.

Get DropBox for easy file sharing

Physical

Post or hand deliver the physical items to who needs the information.

Email

Limited size of attachments could need multiple emails for a project. Okay for a couple of images.

Digital internet transfers

Digital transfer services for large files such as DropBox etc.

Internet and Web

Place the content to share with others on various sharing services. Some have ability to have private accounts while others are public only.

• Everything – Archive.org, Facebook, Google+.
• Images – Flickr, Panorama, Photobucket & many others
• Video – YouTube, VIddler, Vimeo.
• Audio – SoundCloud.
• Everything – Your own website.
• Everything – FTP. (If you don’t know what it is don’t worry, if you do, consider it)

Using variations on these systems could also be used for sharing your finished project.

Choose the system to suit the personality

Collecting and sharing your project is about communication.
Take the time to consider who you want to communicate with. What do they have in what system. Do they have the skills needed and change your responses to suit the different people involved. Maybe they can’t use the technology but they know someone who can help.

At the end of the day you can always go for a visit, grab a cup of tea, have a chat and share the information you’re after.

Ian’s Preference

If they have the skills (or someone can help them), my preference is the amazingly convenient DropBox. It’s free up to 2 GB (more with this link) and can be used for far more than just sharing a few files with friends. If that’s too much of a struggle then the old email or going for a drive and doing the leg work at least guarantees results but it’s time consuming and nowhere near as convenient as DropBox. WeTransfer is good for a one-off situation but inconvenient if it’s an ongoing situation.

When it comes to sharing the finished project using systems like SoundCloud and YouTube is a great way to get it to people but there is nothing better than watching their reaction when they watch the video with them.

I think the best system to share to the masses is to use the one stop shop in your own free WordPress.com web site where they can get to your production as it suits them.

Action:

• What do you want?
• Who has it?
• Choose the best sharing system to suit the individual.
• Get hold of the information.

Interesting Links from this Post

• Dropbox.com  Up to 2GB of storage then share folder and content to others.
• WeTransfer.com Up to 2GB file size free.
• YouSendIt.com 500 mb file size, 2GB storage, 14 day free trial.
• ShareFile.com Up to 10GB file size, Free 30 day trial.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band
“Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3)
from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis”
(Temps Record)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Wayman Tisdale
“Slam Dunk” (mp3)
from “The Wayman Tisdale Story”
(Rendezvous Music)
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Benjamin Drazen
“Jazz Heaven” (mp3)
from “Inner Flights”
(Posi-Tone Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Audio as prompts & atmosphere for your personal story!

The most obvious audio you have, will be the recorded conversation and the most obvious prompts for getting that audio are questions. But there are other types of prompts, including audio.

Old Time Radio Drama Sound Effects

When editing a Life Story there is nothing better than music for setting the tone. In your world you’re immersed in music from the radio, television, records, live performances and now all their digital versions. It’s impossible not be affected by the music that’s around you and often just hearing a snippet will remind you of  your past or that of your culture.

Audio to remind, other than music.

Some families are fortunate to have audio from private sources. These could be tape recordings, film or video of people when they were younger or the atmosphere of events. The audio reminders of you life, like music, can also be the sounds that take you back to the times long ago. Are you lucky enough to have audio of a wedding, a child’s first words or the sounds of an overseas trip?

The audio not normally considered is the background to the home movies you shot decades ago. Stripping out the audio track and using it as a prompt will remind you of things that are missing from the video, then you can build on the video with your stories.

Record your own audio atmospheres …via vancouverfilmschool on Flickr

Record your own atmospheres

Maybe as you wander through your life working on your Life Story project you’ll have access to audio to help explain the era being talked about. If you happen to visit a museum, workplace or performance you could record some contemporary audio to use as background for a historical period. For example visiting a steam-powered machinery day would give you a chance to record the sounds of traction engines to lay under the background stories you tell if relevant. The sound of an old telex machine working in a museum could be used to explain office life. Even a treadle sewing machine or manual type writer could be laid under audio of the relevant story.

Cultural audio to jog your memory.

You’ve been immersed in sound all your life. Consider the sounds about a time you want to talk about.

The internet with the power of search now gives you access to sound recordings to prompt and enhance your Life Story. Search for an atmosphere of a work period of your life, or an event you participated in and use that to create the prompts to talk about. Then you can lay the atmosphere or effect into the Life Story to enhance the audio of the stories as they’re talk about. Audio from your life to consider could be from the following areas.

Recorded Sound Effects …via Jacob Whittaker on Flickr

• Work atmospheres
• Clubs and organisations
• Hobby sounds
• Events and celebrations
• News broadcast
• Film, television and radio broadcast
• Historical events
• Natural atmospheres

Action:

• What historical recording do you have?
• Record some audio of your own – Be creative
• Have a look at the web sites below to discover  available audio.
• Write down your memories when you hear a piece of audio.
• Use those notes as prompts for recording your Life Story.
• Use the audio to enhance the stories you’ve record in the mix.

Do you have some audio for your Life Story? Comment below and share your thoughts.

Links to start discovering available audio…

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Transcribe your audio biography for as little as 20€ per audio hour and help people around the world.

A biography is not a book. A biography is a recorded story of someone’s Life Story using any system that is appropriate.

But a biography can be a book!

Once you’ve recorded your audio Life Story in conversation or as self directed storytelling you may choose to convert the audio into text. The advantage of text is, most people still think of a biography as a book and with the addition of photographs and diagrams you can tell the story in a richer more edited style, instead of the rambling of raw audio. An alternative is to also edit the audio to be more interesting and concise and possibly blending it with images into digital storytelling.

The problems of transcribing

The advantages test is to enable people to follow along with the audio or evolve it into a book with some editing and story structure.

The issues normally start with the process of transcribing the audio. Unless you’re trained, transcribing is time consuming at a rate of about 8 hours per audio hour and  frustrating task. Alternatively you could outsource the work but for most people it can often be prohibitively expensive. Sadly this is where most people stop as there are normally no alternatives.

One day machine transcription will make it possible for any audio to be converted into text but for the moment the best we can hope for is an accuracy of 97% with fully trained transcriptions software. If we use untrained  software on a normal conversation particularly with two people, the performance plummets making it unusable. So for the moment we need to contend with manual, human transcription.

Millions of trained professionals without work.

In the second world there are millions of university qualified people who aren’t using their skills but forced into menial, untrained or manual labour work, just to earn an income. They want to use their skills but don’t have any opportunity. This is like spending 4 years to qualify in something just to end up as a waitress.

What if there was a way of giving intelligent, qualified and skilled people in developing countries an opportunity to earn a living and help us in the first world deal with the cost of  transcribing our audio.

A cheap alternative to transcribe audio to text.

Stephan de la Peña & Sandro Langholz

Transfair‘s creator Stephan de la Peña tells us in this episode of Create Your Life Story about how he’s developing the market and talent to transcribe your audio for much less than normal costs while helping less fortunate people to have a future closer to their skill base.

What Transfair is achieving is

• Coordinating skilled workers with clients.
• Testing skills before assigning work.
• Assess tasks before assigning.
• Checking completed work.
• Coordinate payment.
• Respect local customs and workloads so as not to impact communities.
• Money back guarantee.
• Assess client satisfaction.
• Cost is from 20€ to 40€ per audio hour.

Action:

When it comes time to consider transcribing your audio look into the services offered by Transfair to see if they suit your requirements.

Have you had any successes with transcription not mentioned here or would you consider using this service? Mention in the comments below

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kevin Eubanks
“Adoration” (mp3)
from “Zen Food”
(Mack Avenue Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Enhance your skill & confidence while recording your LifeStory.

Getting started is often the hardest part of recording a life story and getting started isn’t all the preparation. It’s starting to record audio. Your Audio!

A good place to get some motivation is with the free Quick Start Mini-Guide PDF.

Record on Phone to AudioBoo & SoundCloud

This useful information will help your overview but if you want more, can get the complete Quick Start Guide which will get you started today while helping keep Create Your Life Story producing all this valuable content.

But what about the actual audio?

What are your excuses?

We often use one or a blend of several reasons not to start recording.

• Don’t know what to talk about.
• Don’t’ know how to tell the stories.
• Don’t know how to use the equipment.
• Haven’t got the correct environment.
• Don’t like the sound of your voice.

Any one of these can be enough to stop you from starting and a few of them is enough to paralyse you.

A simple system to get you started

Like all things in life, be it learning to walk as a child, dealing with the issues of adulthood or recording your Life Story, it’s all about starting and practicing. Here is a system to get you started with recording snippets of your life and with that, you’ll practice and gain confidence to continue.

Getting your confidence in 4 easy steps

1. Get a recorder. Phone with built in recorder or app, computer based recording software or portable recorder.
2. Record your thoughts about one (only one), topic you have on your mind.
3. Listen back to it uncritically but learn from the experience.
4. Pick a new topic and repeat daily or at least 5 times a week.

Repeat and learn until you have confidence and possibly recorded your entire life story and contemporary opinions while your at it. It’s really that simple

To help you with some clarity:

• Choose topics you care about.
• Talk from the heart.
• Explain who, what, where, when and how, but particularly why! (Doesn’t have to be all every time).
• Explain the details but don’t ramble excessively.
• Only make a single point per recording.
• Listen back to note what you like and what to improve.
• Share your sounds with others.

Share your audio

Once you’ve overcome any self consciousness, share your recordings with others. There are several systems where you can share your recording and possibly get some feed back. By sharing your sounds you’ll find the desire to improve your recording technique, storytelling and all general aspects of recording.

If you make them public even a few listens from others will encourage you to improve and comments will motivate you to consider that your stories are worth sharing, helping your confidence immensely.

Systems for sharing

• Record and send via email to friends and relatives
• Record to AudioBoo
• Record to SoundCloud
• Publish on your own website
• Save onto Archive.org
• Start your own podcast

With systems like AudioBoo and Soundcloud you can record direct from your smart phone or from your computer via the built in microphone.

I personally like to record via my iPhone using the Audioboo or Soundcloud apps while strolling the streets. There is something meditative about walking and chatting to a virtual friend that seems to give me more clarity than sitting at my desk in front of my computer but both systems have audio recorders from your desktop computer.

Advantages of online services

The great thing about these online servers is all the technical aspects are looked after. Audioboo limits audio to 5 minutes encouraging succinctness and single topics. This is excellent for disciplining you to make your point clearly. You can upload as many files as you like and over time maybe build up your entire LifeStory in five minute chapters.

Soundcloud enables you to record longer individual stories up to two hours allowing you to dig into the topics as much as you like.

Both systems allow you to keep your audio private or public, or a mix to suit your desires to share with others. You can even keep the files on these services then use email and embed on your own site or share on social networks like FaceBook and twitter along with their own communities of people doing the same as you.

Want to hear what I’ve been doing?

Check out Ian on…

• AudioBoo
• SoundCloud

Action:

• Sign up with SoundCloud or AudioBoo.
• Start recording! Keep it private if you’re shy but start recording.
• Use a portable or software recorder if you prefer.

Have you started recording and what have you learnt as you’ve recorded more content? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking here and be underway in just an hour.

It’s based on the value for value model. If you’ve got value from this content here you can return the value by supporting me and getting some additional value for yourself by getting the complete Quick Start Guide to Your LifeStory.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Nick Rixen Quartet
“Black & White” (mp3)
from “Points of View”
(Art of Life Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Jay Umble
“Falling Water” (mp3)
from “Spirit Crossing”
(Art of Life Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It” (mp3)
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Your Life Story is far more important than you realise.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been travelling through Europe, spending time with family in Megève in the French Alps where you can see a short video I produced at my other podcast at Your Story.

A Journey of Memories

This video and the other content that I’m producing as I travel are all part of the 2012 method of journaling a Life Story as it’s lived. I’m taking photos and sharing them on twitter and facebook with my friends while having discussions. All this content will one day be the story of my life, permanently digitally recorded forever. These are the new prompts that are currently developing to remind all of us of our lives in the future.

During my visit to Megève I had the opportunity to talk with people on topics that have recently been brought up in discussion with me via email regarding what’s happening in their Life Story projects.

Travelling through time.

I’ve realised the stories of our lives, shared as oral history from person to person, or recorded as audio as we’re doing here at Create Your Life Story, manage to take us to their distant past. We vicariously time travel, using the stories as vehicles to hear of another time. Often these stories aren’t written down either because they seem too trivial but they still have great value when heard spoken, not only because of the direct information in them but also through interperation of the back ground information that is too often gloss over. We can get a great deal from the tone of voice, pause and extraneous information that is associated with a story. Far more than what we could get from just the raw information.

There will always be surprises.

The surprises that come of producing a Life Story can’t be anticipated. Time and time again I hear of Life Stories that evolve into unexpected unfolding surprises. I mention in this episode a wonderful story of Keri, here it is.

You have a story also.

Sadly people constantly reference to other’s stories as being of value without realising that they too have stories.

Timeline of stories from the past

Too often people take their own story for granted or don’t think they have anything to say but on reflection (and often a little assistance), the stories start flowing, creating wonder for others in their world as they reference to the stories of their life. Everyone has an amazing story, at least to their family but possible also the greater community.

There are stories in all of us that will interest others. Stories that we’ve forgotten that may need a little help or a prompt to remind us. The people in your life also have great stories but may not think so requiring you to take the action to encourage them to open up. This can be done by taking the time to sit and engage in conversations with them, setting the agenda for collecting their stories or asking for help to get the stories of their life.

If you need help to get underway with your Life Story project check out the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story to help you understand what you need to do to get underway so that you follow through to completion of your project.

Who’s stories have you miss and are you taking your own story for granted? Leave a comment below.

Interesting Links from this Post

• Getting Help for Your Life Story
• Get started today with the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story
• Social Voice Project
• Audio of Florence Nightingale

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Seth Ford-Young
“Dolores” (mp3)
from “Seth Ford-Young”
(Porto Franco Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Nick Rixen Quartet
“Black & White” (mp3)
from “Points of View”
(Art of Life Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Christmas and a time to connect with family

Click to share on Twitter

Christmas and the holiday time that we have at this time of year, is often about family, catching up and talking about what has been happening over the past year. In this episode of Create Your Life Story I want to urge you to spend time with your family members to ask those interesting questions to understand and show your interest in their lives.

Normally we’re too busy with our lives to ask about their’s, but when we’re on task to record their life story we change our attitude to one of interest in them. Why not try the same during this time when you get together for these seasonal gatherings?

In doing so you’ll give them the opportunity to be heard in ways that people rarely are and what a wonderful to gift to give someone, that of being genuinely heard for a change.

Ask and listen

• Ask inquiring questions
• Listen intently
• Be genuinely interested in their stories
• Know that you’re giving them a gift with your attention

Thank-you from Ian

Merry Christmas everyone! Please feel free to make a comment below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Seth Ford-Young
“Dolores” (mp3)
from “Seth Ford-Young”
(Porto Franco Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kevin Eubanks
“Adoration” (mp3)
from “Zen Food”
(Mack Avenue Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Hindenburg makes editing your Life Story simple so you can concentrate on the Story

Click to share on Twitter

I know the feeling of getting bogged down on the details of Creating a Life Story. There are so many things that can take you attention away from what a project is all about… The Story.

One of the things that people get far too hung up about is, editing the raw audio. Nick Dunkerley of Hindenburg Systems gives us a bit of the background philosophy on Hindenburg and why it’s perfect audio editing software for our Life Story projects. Go and get your free 30 day trial version of Hindenburg to see what it’s all about.

Why edit?

We all know that the most important thing is to get the conversations of your Life Story recorded, but then what!
Yes, it’s paramount to record but ultimately, it’s about having the stories heard by others. What’s the use of the whole recording exercise, if afterwards they aren’t listened to?

Easiest Editor – Hindenburg

You should at least consider editing the audio to remove the unwanted interruptions to make it an enjoyable listening experience for others.

Within every conversation there will be distractions that are unnecessary for the listener to hear and spending some time to remove these will improve the listenability significantly. Then if you want, you can go as deep down the rabbit hole as you like, all the way to a full radio documentary if you choose.

Which editing software to choose.

There are many audio editing programmes available, from the expensive high end professional programmes to free systems possibly already on your computer. All have there place to suit specific applications but until now there hasn’t been a programme that is all about getting the job done for editing voice, for use in telling the story. This is exactly what we’re about with our Life Story.

Most other programmes are designed to be all things, to all people and are bloated with too many bells & whistles, making them a challange to find the few functions that we need to edit the voice, tweak the quality a little and add additional audio (music & effects), making it a listening pleasure.

I’ve mentioned Hindenburg in the past, as my preferred audio editing programme but it’s worth having an understanding of the philosophy that has gone into it’s design and how well that’s in sync with our task of creating audio biographies, using all the skills of storytelling, while still having all the technology necessary to get the job done ,while not getting in the way.

What I love about Hindenburg

Originally I used Garageband but found, as it’s designed for music production, to be more complicated than I needed. Hindenburg is designed for what we do, without the fat that is unnecessary.

• Fast editing – Removing stammers & pauses is a breeze.
• One click voice profiler – Makes you sound good without having to be an engineer.
• One knob compression – More or less compression is so simple it’s obvious when it’s right.
• Easy to view timeline to see exactly what’s going on.
• Beautiful interface that’s easy on the eyes.
• Level & fade graphical controls that make sense and are easy to use.
• All the back end control and manipulation if I need it – Rarely do I use these.

To try out Hindenburg for 30 days go to Hindenburg Systems

***Note: I’ve received no free samples, affiliate links or favours for this review.

Edit of this episode on Hindenburg

Have you used Hindenburg or do you prefer another editing programme? Comment below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Christian McBride Big Band
“Brother Mister” (mp3)
from “The Good Feeling”
(Mack Avenue Records)
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Music from Free Music Library

There is help nearby for your Life Story

Click to share on Twitter

Your great idea of recording a Life Story requires one major achievement. You to actually do it! That’s obvious and with all the content available here on Create Your Life Story you can get the knowledge to start and complete a project but you may need more.

Help for your Story …via Rainier N. on Flickr

The help for your Life Story project

Depending on what your project is and what you intend to create will determine any help you’ll need.

If the project is about yourself you may be self motivated enough to record your stories, edit them and have them in a final form for everyone without any help or if you’re going to record someone else you may know the topics you want to talk about, feel confident to have a conversation, then move onto the editing and publishing without any outside help.

If this is the case you need read no further however not everyone can do everything and sometimes we need a little assistance.

Maybe you need someone’s help for various reasons.

• Take on the whole project from preparation to publishing.
• Record a relative for you, as you’re too close.
• You know what to talk about but you want a conversational partner.
• Help with the technology once it’s recorded.
• Transcribe the audio for use in publishing a book.
• Edit the audio into something listenable.
• Edit images with music and stories to create a digital story.

It doesn’t matter if you’re recording your own story or someone else, you may need help with some aspect of the project. Chances are the information to get you started is here on Create Your Life Story but maybe you need someone a little more hands on. By working with someone on this project you don’t have to know or do everything that’s necessary but can concentrate on what you do best and allow someone else to pick up on where you struggle.

The important thing is to get started on your project then move methodically through to completion and having help at strategic points will enable your Life Story project to avoid the stagnating that can bring on despair and possibly missing the opportunities you have. Handballing parts of the project means you’ll keep focused and have someone the help you keep moving forward.

People who can help you

We all live in communities and within yours there are people who can assist you with your project. Depending on your needs you can consider help from various sources.

Your community may help you …via betsyweber on Flickr

• Family members
• Local community
• Friends
• Students
• Professional

Family members

Anyone in your family could be suitable to assist but the advantage of having someone at least one circle of influence away from you, like a niece/nephew, grandchild or other relative will helps to make sure that shared knowledge isn’t taken for granted and all the interesting topics are covered. Also the issues that families have tend to be lessened once you’re a little more distant.
Possibly a combination of close and more distant relatives could bring an interesting comparison of topics from the intimate to the more general and may be well worth considering.

Local community

WIthin the local community you may know people who have the skills to sit in conversation or deal with the more technical aspects of a Life Story. These people could be part of your network or within groups like History and Oral History Associations. If you have a story associated with a particular activity, maybe there are people within that organisation who would be able to assist you.

Friends

Within your circle of friends maybe there is someone who has the conversational or technical skills to be able to assist you.

Students

If you have access to a college or university you may be able to find assistance from students who need topics for their studies.
Many students of journalism, film making and history need people to interview as well as those studying the more technical aspects of video and audio production.

Professional

Assistance from a professional enables you to have a one stop shop in getting your project completed. Within every community there will be someone who can assist you for a fee with the end result suiting your budget and requirements. From a fully produced documentary, to ghost writing your biography, there are people who can help. Or maybe you just need someone for an aspect of the project. Maybe someone just to sit with you to engage in the conversation or possible someone to edit the audio into something that’s more interesting.

With the new era of digital internet based technologies it may even be possible to consider a professional who is not in you local for some aspects of what you require. Transcription, editing, writing, video & audio production is all able to be transferred over the internet to whoever can assist you.

Cost of a Life Story

What you spend on a Life Story is entirely up to you but before you start to consider what you may invest in capturing and producing it consider a few things.

Just ask for help …Dimitri N. on Flickr

What is a Life Story worth?

The amount of effort, meaning the amount of skill and time that goes into a Life Story will vary depending on all the different aspects of the person, the information, how it’s to be recorded and assembled and how it’s to be published but that’s not what I’m talking about.

What are all those experiences of a life that has been experienced worth. You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions having experiences. You would spend it all again if you could I’m sure. You’ve earnt, shared, pruchased and given away many times more than anything you would consider spending on this project.

Consider this…

What if you discovered your Grandsomeone’s Life Story?

Imagine the local library contacted you to say they had discovered, in storage your distant relative’s Life Story including audio recorded before they passed. How would you feel?

But storage fees need to be paid in order for you to access it and if you don’t they need to dispose of it to create space in the archives. How much would you pay to recover that Life Story?

I’m not asking what you think is fair storage fees but how important is it to you to recover this Life Story to prevent it being lost forever?

This Life Story is about to be destroyed

The truth is your Life Story is about to be trashed unless you act and cost is part of the equation. If you’re hesitant to spend any money realise that like my analogy above, the librarians are about to dispose of your Life Story and it could be at any time.

Action:

• What aspects of a Life Story do you need help with?
• Who do you know who could help you?
• What organisations could help you?
• Are there any professionals available to help?
• What is a price you’d be willing to pay for professional help?
• How important is this Life Story?

Do you need help with your Life Story? Comment below and let us know your thoughts.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• iMovie for Mac
• Movie Maker for Windows
• We Video
• Animoto
• Screenflow
• Camtasia

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To get a kick start, get the Quick Start Guide to Your Life Story by clicking hereand be underway in just an hour.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Pink Martini
“Hang on Little Tomato” (mp3)
from “A Retrospective”
(Heinz Records)
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Find something simple to start today.

The huge amount of content here on Create Your Life Story has created an issue of overwhelm for some people. I know that feeling from personal experience of starting on these projects and I want to help you.

Where do I start?

To help you cut to the chase, I’ve created this Free Quick Start Mini-Guide to Your Life Story. Not everything is here to know, but it’s a quick easy referenced overview to get you started.
More importantly, it’s designed to help you think of something today, to get you underway. Then once you’re started, it’s just a case of choosing another topic to maintaining the momentum.

The quick start mini-guide to Your Life story is…

1. Designed to give you an overview.
2. Links to valuable content to learn more.
3. Layout the basics of recording a Life Story.
4. Topics to start working on today.

In just a few minutes you’ll have an overview and possibly decide where to start.

Get Your Free Quick Start Mini-Guide

Just click on the above image to have it downloaded to your computer now.

Check out the detailed quick-start guide.

Depending on your browser you may need to…

PC:    Right-click – “Save Target As”
Mac: Control-click select – “Download Linked File”

Here’s another link to download the Quick Start Mini-Guide to Your Life Story.

To go deeper and discover the Single, Simple tip to do today, to start your story, check out the Detailed Quick Start Guide →

Are you fearful of telling your story, or just a little shy?

In this episode of Create Your Life Story I want to open a conversation about the reasons for people not wanting to tell their stories, particularly when they say that they are interested.

In recording conversations for Your Story, I’ve noticed several, sometimes contradictory reasons why people avoid wanting to have their story recorded.

What do you fear? …from shallowend via Flickr

• Private personality.
• Too long to think about it prior to recording.
• Not enough time to think about it prior to recording.
• Get bored with the idea.

I also realise that some of the stories aren’t told because of the feeling of the possible judgement by others. But have you noticed that you don’t have those same judgements of people of previous generations.

Something happens with the passing of time that removes that sting of judgment and evolves it into historical knowledge. If we consider the issues that we’re concerned about, is it possible for us to have the same attitude now of, not judging others and allowing ourselves to tell some of the more delicate stories, knowing that time will also remove any judgement?

I mention in this episode that fear is something that is always about the future and when it comes time to do the thing that we’re fearful of it’s never as fearful but often a positive experience or at least something that is just dealt with.

…from 2thin2swim via Flickr

I also realise that there could be impacts on people who are now involved with this information, making it necessary to be careful of harming others. This is why there are often delayed release of information so as not to cause this harm but still allow the historical knowledge to be shared into the future.

This is a huge topic that I would love your advice on, to help us understand why people don’t want to share information despite saying that it’s something that they want to do.

How can we help people to feel comfortable enough to open up, not be fearful and share their stories? Please share your thoughts below in the comments, I know I don’t have the answers but maybe you do…

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Grab the free Quick Start Mini-Guide to your life story, (soon to be released)

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you with your Life Story project. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Kirk Whalum
“Fit To Battle” (mp3)
from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III”
(Rendezvous Music)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

What we can learn from Oral History and how we travel our own path.

Oral history and storytelling bookend what we’re doing here at Create Your Life Story with our family Life Stories. Oral history is academic and storytelling is theatric.We’re not exactly in either camp but we can learn a great deal from these disciplines and this episode is about what I noticed in recently attending the Oral History Association of Australia national conference in Melbourne.

Some of the things I noticed Oral Historians have a strong interest in, that differs from us are:

Marvelous Melbourne

• Copyright and attribution
• Ethics
• Procedure
• Written context

They are after all approaching oral history with a strong history agenda, often involved with other organisations. These are fundamental differences from most people interested in family history and the gathering of individual stories for personal and family reasons. This enables us to have the agility to design our Life Stories to suit whatever we choose without the need to answer to anyone.

I did see one example of the power of using the different technologies to tell stories in non-traditional ways using artistic style in The South Sydney Project but most of interest was of a more traditional style.

Individual centric rather to history centric

It became clear to me that this larger community or societal history context, is what gives people the reason to want to record other people’s stories and the reason for the existence of oral history. This is the same for our family history life stories which will eventually be mined for information but we’re approaching this information from the opposite direction to oral historians.

Oral historians understand the topic and use the individual to find the stories of that topic. In family Life Stories we’re interested in the individual first, then along the way we gather information to possibly flush out the stories of the cultural topics, giving them a personal context.

We may end up in the same place of personalising major themes but these approaches are coming at history from opposite directions. This is the fundamental difference between traditional oral history and family history. We’re interested in the individual first and their stories only because we personally know them.

If you’re an Oral Historian what are you thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Genies Down Under
• Oral History Association of Australia

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form →

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Monty Alexander
“Strawberry Hill” (mp3)
from “Harlem – Kingston Express Live!”
(Motema Music)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jason Raso, Tony Monaco
“Nightcrawler” (mp3)
from “The Red Arrow”
(Summit Records)
More On This Album

Remember the groups of people and the stories of shared lives.

We all live in different communities that change over time. Some we leave some change but all are filled with the people who we share our lives with, forming the stories of our lives. What are the stories of your communities through your life?

Look at the communities that you have around you. They start with the largest of the macro and move to the smallest and most intimate micro but all are communities of the interests in your life.

Community …from Flickr via BC Gov Photos

• Global
• Country
• Regional
• Local
• Cultural
• Personal Tribe
• Greater Family
• Intimate Family
• Self

You have differing relationships with each of these groups and many of them overlap, sharing many of the same events and people.

Today we have online communities both with social networks and on virtually every web site on the internet.

• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter
• Forums
• Every online site

Most web sites have some form of community through the use of forums to comments on the posts.

Look at your online and offline communities. All those groups that you’ve associated with in your life that you can tell stories of.

All those communities are part of you life.

• Childhood friends
• School
• Social
• Education
• Sport
• Work & Career
• Hobbies

Action:

What stories do you remember from communities you’ve belonged to. Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Genies Down Under
• Social Voice Project
• Oral History Assoc of Australia

Get your free copy of the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you with your project. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Jason Raso, Tony Monaco
“Nightcrawler” (mp3)
from “The Red Arrow”
(Summit Records)
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Make your Life Story more than the sum of the parts

Once you start digging into it, your live can seem like an archaeological expedition. There are just so many things that you can start to bring to surface to help remind you of your life story. Just some of them are:

Home movie projector

• Photos.
• Documents.
• Journals & diaries.
• Films & videos.
• Audio recordings.
• Bric-a-brac and souvenirs.

Dragging out all these things as reminders and prompts of your Life Story are fine but what is there amongst these things that you can use as part of your story, in ways that maybe you’ve never considered. In amongst all the ‘things’, in you life there are the components that make them up, that can be used for various other applications.

Nowadays you have the ability to break apart, then mash back together, in different forms, all the components of these things in your life. To make something different, more engaging and entertaining in ways to tell the stories that wasn’t possible even just a few years ago.

From the list above look at each of the different things that you have then break them into all their components of:

Tools talk of a life of work

• Text.
• Still images.
• Moving images.
• Audio.

Now look at the ways things could be converted or deconstructed into the components that they are made of.

In the case of film and video there is the possibility to break it into:

• Moving images.
• Freeze frame static images.
• Text on scenery or signage.
• Strip out the audio.

Documents can be broken down to:

• Actual text.
• Images on the document.
• Images of the written text.
• Graphics from within the document

Even the text itself can be seen not only as text to refer to but as an image of that text.

Stories from magazines

All of these component pieces can then be thought of as separate parts, of what can be combine to form something entirely different to it’s original form.

In the case of film or video, you could strip out the audio and use it as a component within the audio Life Story or turn the audio into text and scroll it across the video to present a reinforcement to the audio of the dialogue.

You could take a document and while showing it as an image, narrate the text in relation to where in the story you are.

Within a story there could be mention of a time and by including an image of a journal entry you can show the relevance to the whole story as an historical event.

Really there are an infinite number of ways to go about deconstructing and recomposing the information that you have. It’s possibly the most creative thing that you can do and one that, with some thought, you could discover a whole new world of possibilities to explore.

You have five senses that potentially could be creatively used. What are the images of the items from you life?
Where is there sound or where can sound be recreated using the information from a piece of content?
What written text is there and how can it be used as it is or by converting it into different media?

Action:

• Collect together everything that you have that tells of this Life Story.
• Look at each piece and see what are the components that make it up.
• Consider each of the components or each piece.
• Where can each of these components be recombined with other components to make something different.
• Look past the obvious.

What bright idea do you now have to use something in a different way? Let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you get an overview. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Jason Raso, Tony Monaco
“Nightcrawler” (mp3)
from “The Red Arrow”
(Summit Records)
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Oral History shows the professional methods to a Life Story

Creating your own personal family history, Life Story will utilise some the methods of various different techniques of human communication. In the past we talked about the skills of Storytelling and how to get across the story with the emotional impact that we want. The other discipline that is most relevant and balances storytelling is Oral History.

Assoc. Prof. Helen Klaebe

Oral history is…

…study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews, …with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record.

We can use some of the academic and quantifiable techniques that are used by oral historians to help us form and organise how we approach a Life Story.

What is Professional Oral History?

To help us understand exactly what oral history is and the attitudes of the professional approach to it, we have a conversation with Associate Professor Helen Klaebe from the Queensland Institute of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty.

Helen takes us through the similarities and differences of the oral historian approach to what we’re doing with Life Stories, which as she mentions is one in the same anyway. Family Life Stories are part of oral history, it’s just the motivation for recording the stories that may make it different. Oral history in our context is primarily family history but it could also be community, company, local, regional, national or even global history.

Helen has recently be awarded a Queensland Smithsonian Fellowship, to evaluate in the US for four months, the public programmes that incorporate oral history and ways to make sure that communities get the most out of the monies that they have available.

As Helen mentioned some of the points to remember are:

• Have general knowledge about the topics to discuss
• Know your agenda for recording this Life Story
• Reference to the needs of the listener
• Respect the needs of the interviewees
• Archive an unedited raw version of the recordings
• Mash-up the digital information to suit your needs

What do  you think of  the professional approach to Oral History?

Click thu to iTunes

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help Just sign up for it in the side bar form and also be on the news letter for more information on the upcoming live broadcast on 17/18 September.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Tony Guerrero

“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

A simple tool to discover the topics of your Life Story
and a different way to share the whole of your life in one view!

Music in a Life Story

Today’s episode of Create Your Life Story is full of listener feedback about how their individual projects are developing including a conversation with Paul Harbath about his personal Life Story project and the use of a novel prompt to both inspire him to discover the topics to talk about and a way of sharing his Life Story with others.

Paul takes us through setting up his Life Storyboard from a collection of images that made obvious the important parts of his life and how it’s shown to others his life in one quick and easy way. Then through visually connecting with the images to sync to the audio of him talking about his life he has a blend of images and audio to tell his story.

Surprise discoveries from your own life

Paul also reveals what completing this project has meant for him and how it’s made him more purposeful for the future and helped him appreciate how wonderful life has been to date and what more he can look forward to in the future.

Make a Life Storyboard to see your Whole Life in one View ( click to larger image)

Listen to Paul’s introduction of his Life Storyboard

What I learnt from Paul as some of the advantages of using a Storyboard are

• Alternative way or publishing a life story
• Discovering and remembering things of your own life
• Whole of life in one view
• Self evident what to talk about
• Reflection can put you on purpose for the future

Action:

• Collect a few dozen images and look at them.
• Is there a theme or topic that you may have forgotten?
• When you see you whole life in one place does it seem any different?
• What stories do you feel inspired to talk about when you reference to the images

Have you been surprised with what you’ve discovered as you’ve been working on your project. Share your comment below or via audio on Soundcloud

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you with your project. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band
“Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3)
from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kirk Whalum
“Fit To Battle” (mp3)
from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III”
(Rendezvous Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Your infatuation will cause them to open up

Great storytellers can draw you into their world of interests but most people need someone to be a provocateur to help them express themselves. That’s your role! It’s never an interview but a directed conversation where you keep the conversation on track through engagement.

But how to engage them?

Engaged Conversation …via Chris Guillebeau on Flickr

It’s all about them!

If you’re interested in them, they’ll know it and want to tell you the stories. So your number one priority, is to be interested. No! More than that, you need to be fascinated, enthralled, infatuated in them and their story.

In this episode of  Create Your Life Story I’m reverse engineering my naturally recorded conversations from my other podcast Your Story. As I looked at the best of other interviewers and what I do, I’ve realised a few things that will help you engage with the person you’re recording, to help them to open up and express their story better.

For your sake you have to find that, “Something”

Andrew Denton from the ABC’s Enough Rope once mentioned an interview with the Danish Royal Couple, who he admits he’s not particularly interested in. He engaged in the interview but it failed because he hadn’t taken the time to find that “Something”, for him to be interested in.

It's the world shared by the two of you …via K. Praslowicz (Sjixxxy) on Flickr

You have to find Something, that you’re fascinated in. If you can’t find it don’t start until you have. It may only be a small glint in a huge mullock heap but it’s that gem of interest that will provoke the questions and keen interest to dig further and develop a great conversation. While on that journey you’ll inevitably find other topics of interest but you need Something to get started.

Everyone has something fascinating about them which you have to discover to be interested in. Then they’ll know it and tell you everything. That’s the secret!

To break it down just a little, here are some of the many aspects of this:

• Humility – It’s not about you
• Show keenness to hear their opinions
• Shut up – It’s still not about you
• Remain actively engaged with non-verbals – Body language
• Show that you’re thinking and absorbing what’s being said – Body language, facial expressions.
• Proof of listening – Being able to pick up where you left off
• Sensible thoughtful questions based on what they’ve said
• Challenging questions to ask deeper questions
• Challenge by playing devils advocate – “Some people would say…?”
• Show respect for their opinion
• Show that you’re interested – everyone wants to be interesting to others
• Mention that you’d never thought of a new concept
• Mention that it’s some interesting information that you can now explore
• Want more information
• Don’t bluff interest – If you try to fake it they’ll notice
• If it’s boring you, stop and find the interest – if you’re bored so will the listeners be
• Laugh when appropriate
• Keep verbal sounds to a minimum – for the sake of the listener
• Repeat their point (shows listening) and ask a deeper question to show desire for more interest in the topic

Action:

• Practice in general conversation – Find a topic and ask engaging questions
• Pick up topics when interrupted
• Find your most interesting topic in them before you start recording
• Remain enamoured in them throughout the whole recording process

What are the conversations that you’ve had where someone has opened up to you?

Click thu to iTunes

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Jason Raso, Tony Monaco
“Nightcrawler” (mp3)
from “The Red Arrow”
(Summit Records)
More On This Album
Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

One sentence to sum up your philosophy on life

Push, pull… Fight, kick and scratch or just let it be and do as you like, or not! How do you do this thing called your life?

All Important Family

If you’ve had the good fortune to raise children you’ll sometimes find yourself sharing your beliefs on life. What it means and how to have the best life possible. Particularly for your own children and grandchildren. This of course, is to help them with their life and hopefully give them the leg up to have a life better and learn from your own life experiences. You have thousands of experiences on how to live a life but if you had to dig deep, and think of just one, what would be your single, take away, philosophy, that you’d want to share with others as your philosophy on life.

Step 1 – Why we share our philosophy of life

While some people never share their attitudes, others are all too happy to tell you how they lived their lives and in their opinion what you could learn from their experiences. Ultimately we’re saying these things for selfish reasons.

Consider for a moment  your motives for sharing your philosophies on life.

• To be seen to be helpful
• Explain our motives
• Justify our mistakes
• Help them to learn from our experiences
• Be remembered

Some of these reasons are to help people while others are to protect and justify what’s happened in the past. Either way it’s the way you see yourself and your life. Take some time to reflect on your motivation and what’s the single most important attitude that you think is important to living a life. I’m avoiding using adjectives to describe the way you may see life but they could be terms like Good, Family, Respective, Happy, Empowering, Powerful, Dominant, Honorable, Successful, Memorable, Courageous, Calm, Nurturing… and the list goes on. It depends on the way you see it but what is the (                    )Life that best represents your philosophy of your life.

Step 2 – Your attitude and philosophy to life

Take it easy

The adjective that you put just before the word life is the lock to the door that is your philosophy. Now what is that philosophy? Consider the (adjective) Life,that you now have in mind as the way to live life and flush it out into a statement. A few simple ideas.

• Always be happy
• Strive for excellence
• Family is all important
• Respect others
• Take what you can get
• Money is your only friend
• Never stop moving
• Always keep learning
• Life is nothing without health
• Once you get power fight to hold it

A lot more and longer personal philosophies on life are at ISO Personals

Step 3 – The proof is in the story!

Find the best of times

It doesn’t matter if people agree with you or not. This is the way you see the world! It’s your philosophy based on your experiences and the ideas that you present through your stories, tell a lot about who you are and your philosophies of life. With these ideas in mind, there are very specific moments where you know that this attitude has played out in your life to be reenforced from experiences.

• Where were you?
• Who was with you?
• What did you intend to do?
• How did events play out?
• What was the end result?
• What did you learn?
• What would you do differently?
• Has this lesson been reinforced again and again?
• How have you changed because of it?

Not only is this relevant to the big, whole of life philosophies but it’s also about the smaller things that you’ve learnt from life. Take some time to reflect on these points and jot a few notes. From these stories people can learn a lot from and about you.

Action:

• What’s your underlying motivations for you life?
• What adjective would best describe your attitude and put before the word ____ life.
• What is your philosophy to live the life that you just described?
• Think of a significant occasion of this philosophy playing out
• What is the story that you can tell of that time to explain you philosophy of life

We’d love to know you attitudes and philosophies on life. Please share them in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you get started. Just sign up for it in the side bar form. To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here. Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes. …Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band “Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3) from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis” (Temps Record) Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at Amazon MP3 More On This Album Kirk Whalum “Fit To Battle” (mp3) from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III” (Rendezvous Music) Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at Amazon MP3 More On This Album

What I got from creating a Life Story for my family!

In 2010 I originally record the Life Story of my uncle for entirely selfish reasons only to discover that I could do so much more for others and myself than I could have every imagined.

Bill & Judy cutting the cake

In 2007 when I started Your Story I decided that I needed to take the time at some stage to record my eldest remaining uncle in my father’s family before it was too late and learn of the history that only he knows. But you know how it is? Life got in the way and the months turned into years only to be reminded from time to time that I needed to act soon but then again I became distracted. Well in February last year I decided that I just had to book a date to travel and make the time to sit with Bill or else one day it would be too late and I’d curse my procrastination. Fortunately for my family I did, as we now have all of his stories to listen to and share and fortunately for us he’s still in our lives and can share in his own Life Story and what it means for us.

What I wanted

I started this project with the idea of getting information. The people, places and understanding of our greater family type information. During the process of recording Bill, I did managed to get that information. Not everything, somethings he didn’t want to discuss or he’s forgotten but what I did learn was more than we had before so my initial goal was achieved but there were other things that I didn’t expect to come from the whole experience that possibly may be of more and greater value than just getting information.

As Jane mentioned about the unexpected surprises of what she achieved from her fathers Life Story there are things that aren’t expected that can develop from taking the time to record someone’s Life Story.

I managed to spend a considerable amount of time with Bill, which gave us an opportunity to connect in ways that we had never been fortunate to do in the past. You can’t rush someone in their late 80′s so we lived by the body clock that suited him, with plenty of tea and the occasional nap but over the days Bill got used to me being around and slowly we recorded the six hours of audio that became his Life Story. In amongst that time I scanned photos and documents from his life and spent some time videoing him around his home and interests. All of this brought us closer together and gave me a connection to him in ways that I didn’t expect.

What it means to them

As is the case with the therapeutic use of recording a person’s Life Story, things were shifting also for Bill. After I completed the initial recording his daughter mentioned that he’d said to her, “I don’t know why Ian want to record me, but oh well…”.
At the time the recording didn’t seem that important but I know he enjoyed having me around and telling his story but couldn’t see what we would see in his stories.

Bill Thanking everyone for coming

This past week-end it was time to bring it all together for Bill’s 90th birthday celebrations. All the usual family members assembled with his friends from the local community to wish him a happy birthday, where I revealed two videos for everyone to see for the first time. These videos you can see below are the assemblage of snippets of audio associated with the images that I had available to tell the visual story of his life along with a little of who he is today. We played these videos on the large screen to absolute silence bar the occasional sniffle and wiping of eyes.

Bill like many men of his generation (my father included) don’t show their emotions and rarely pay compliments directly to anyone but the measure of the impact of these videos is the heartfelt look in Bill’s eyes as he held my hand, shook it and thanked me for a bloody good job. For his generation this is tantamount to screaming his appreciation from the roof tops.

Different impact from alternative systems of a life story

The long form audio contains all the interesting detailed information and with time to listen to it, family can learn a great deal but there is something just as powerful in taking some of this information and creating a short, concise, and poignant presentation that shows what we think of a person and share that with them.

Too often a presentation like this is left until after life as part of the eulogy or to reminiscence about someone but to create a Life Story and share it with them and the greater family is akin to opening the flood gates of possibilities.

Bill's 90th Celebration Luncheon with family and friends

Action:

Rather than action, I’ve discovered from Bill’s Life Story…

• Great way to express affection that they understand
• Involves other in the story
• Audio for long form conversations
• Video for emotionally impacting and consice storytelling
• Continues to evolve with time
• Recorded early gives them the chance to appreciate the stories and impact
• Spills over to encourage others to become involved in recording Life Stories

Have you seen an impact from a Life Story that you didn’t expect? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Bill’s Site

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Monty Alexander
“Strawberry Hill” (mp3)
from “Harlem – Kingston Express Live!”
(Motema Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kirk Whalum
“Fit To Battle” (mp3)
from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III”
(Rendezvous Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

What is a vase? The container or the space within?

Silence is like empty space, it doesn’t seem to be anything. But in actual fact, without the silence, the void, or the margins, the space around things is needed to make sense of the thing.

Imagine for a moment walking up to your home, putting the key in the lock and opening the door only to find another door. Then unlocking that to find another, and another all the way. Imagine if the outside of your house looked fine but was a solid block of “house”, without any space inside it. Would you even call this a house? No!

The space sometimes says more

A house is the external shape, the internal walls and fittings – but also the void between each of these items. It’s in the space that you actually live your life and just as important as the box that holds that space.

Silence is like the space within you house, or inside the vase, or the white space on a written page. Silence is what parentheses the spoken words and silence can do two things.

• Create a void
• Parentheses emphasise before and after content.

The Void

Silence is where you consider and ponder your thoughts and reflect for a time before starting some new part of your Life Story. This isn’t a time to be rushed but a time where a process is happening and in time something will come of the void.

If you’re telling your own story, just let it be. In a moment something will come to mind and you’ll be on your way again or if you’re recording someone else give them the space to allow whatever, to develop for them. By creating this void sometimes amazing things happen.

Other times a conversation will come to a natural end where there is no more to be said. This is where silence signals that it’s the time for you to reach for your list of prompting topics  and choose a new line of conversation.

The Parenthesis Pause

There are times where something is said, maybe long convoluted stories going into detail and building to a conclusion, then it ends and there is silence. There is often no need to hurry to the next points but simply take time to let the echos of the story ring into the silence as you contemplate what was said and the significance of it within the whole Life Story.

Or there will be silence first to set the scene, creating the tension for what is about to come. Maybe looking at photos, some tears welling up in your eyes or just a moment of contemplation that builds until the story starts. Allowing the tension to build will create what is needed to bring about the significance of the story and to interrupt it too early, will remove the power from the moment.

Much more detail of all the different pauses was covered in Episode 44 where we talk about the power and strategies of different pauses.

Silence in Interview

Your roll in recording a conversation with someone is to simply provoke responses, through comments and questions, then to remain silent but never inactive! The audio recording needs to be their story, as spoken by them, clearly understood but your roll is to help them continue with the flow of the topic, using all the silent, non verbals cues at your disposal.

Silence creates space for thoughts …via bupowski on flickr

• Eye contact
• Facial expressions – smile, smirk, frown, quizzical
• Body language – lean forward, open position, hand movements
• Nodding
• Prompting – to items around you

All of these techniques will still fully engage with them while you remain silent for the audio recording and not get in their way of telling the story.

To the listener you’ll be silent but actually still fully engaged. If asked they would say you were a great conversationalist and wouldn’t realise that you spoke very little.

Silence is the space for emotions

Often on reflection of emotional aspects of your life there will be times where all of a sudden, emotions well up. This is the time to pause and consider. Sit and allow the silence to just “be”, while the words develop out of the void.

Sometimes there are no words to say and it’s the silent pause, that says more than any of the words around it.

It’s okay, it’s only quiet

Like the pregnant pause or awkward silence, quiet is not something to be concerned about. If there is a moment of self reflection, just leave it be and allow the moment to pass. Often out of these quiet times things will develop and some people need to be confronted with a void before they will say something. Let them sit awarkwardly with it until they open up. Interrupting the silence will only give them an out of dealing with the subject.

The quiet void of silence is the place that shows what’s around it and allows other things to come into existance. Allow it to happen and use it as a tool to help explain your Life Story.

Action:

It’s worth remembering:

• Remain silent as they talk but stay engaged
• Allow silence to provoke a response
• Silence can speak louder than words
• Silence is where emotions grow

When have you seen silence work it’s magic to help someone express themselves? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Some other ideas are in the Free e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Jason Raso, Tony Monaco
“Nightcrawler” (mp3)
from “The Red Arrow”
(Summit Records)
More On This Album

Kirk Whalum
“Fit To Battle” (mp3)
from “The Gospel According To Jazz – Chapter III”
(Rendezvous Music)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

LifeStory Designing your life in all the different ways.

Once you’ve recorded the audio of the conversations and it’s time to Create Your Life Story, what do you do with all the other wonderful things from you life? Just have a look at what you’ve managed to collect to help you with remembering and flushing out Your Story:

All that you need for Your Life Story

• Photos
• Documents
• Journals & diaries
• Videos & movies
• Souvenirs
• Awards & trophies
• Scrapbooks
• Brick-a-brac

Just as much as the stories that you’ve told are part of your life and add the all important personal aspect, the things of your life add an extra layer that tells more of the story than just your memories.

A Picture is worth a Thousand Words

You know that you can tell all the stories, taking the time to describe people and places. But with one picture all that you’ve been expressing can be revealed. This is even more so with movies and audio from the past. They all help to explain in ways that flush out the story and make tangible the stories of you life.
How much more real will those stories you’re thinking of telling be, when you include the items that were important at the time?

The Things of Your Life

A Thousand Words are worth a Picture

Then the other side of the coin is when you look at those photos and wonder who’s in them and where were they taken. What are the stories in those old sepia images, if only they could speak! That’s the advantage of talking about the images while recording your Life Story. It adds to the images and helps others to make sense of them.
Too often it’s just an image but when the story explains the photo (or for that matter any item of memorabilia), then it comes alive and places it in context.

All the things of your life combined with your memories and stories don’t just add to each other but multiply the significance of everything. And it makes the whole process easier and a lot more fun because it’s all there together with real understanding of all of the components.

Get the ideas of what you can do

Today’s interview is with Kathy Tarochione of LifeStory Designers about how, out of her personal story, she has come to be a LifeStory Designer using her digital art skills, to help people express their Life Stories in bigger ways than they thought possible.

Working in collaboration with others in the LifeStory Designers Community, she’s helping people use the things from their life to tell fully formed, enriching Life Stories that will be shared with future generations for years to come.

If you like the idea of creating part of your Life Story as digital multimedia you will get many ideas from what Kathy and her associates have been doing along with others in the community.

Action:

1. What are the general stories you want to tell?
2. What supporting things do you have to flush out those stories?
3. Pick one of them and consider how you could tell a bigger, richer story by incorporating multiple media types to include these items.
4. Learn the skills that you need to wrap all this together or find people to help you with aspects of it.

What ideas could include with the audio to help tell your stories better? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• LifeStory Designers
• LifeStory Designers Community

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Joan Chamorro, Andrea Motis, Bobby Gordon, Sant Andreu Jazz Band
“Lousiana Fairy Tale” (mp3)
from “Joan Chamorro presenta Andrea Motis”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

This is how to edit your Life Story audio in Hindenburg.

Your Life Story biography should be all about getting the wonderful stories recorded and shared with family and the world. Everything else should get out the way of that result.

For that reason I suggest you use the Zoom H1 Handy Recorder with Giant Squid Audio Labs Stereo Lapel Microphones for ease and simplicity. Then once you have the audio recorded, the easiest method of tidying it up is with the Hindenburg Audio Editor from Nsaka.

As mentioned in Episode 51 : The Simplest & Best Audio Editor for Your Life Story the Hindenburg editor has everything you want, without being weighed down with all the additional features included in music editing programmes such as Garageband and Audacity.

This short video gives you an overview of how easy it is to use Hindenburg. There isn’t much more to the Basic version of the programme but the full Journalist version has additionally some equalisation and compression features and well worth the cost of $65.

The best, easiest and simplest audio editor for conversations.

Life Stories need little technology to edit but until recently there hasn’t been anything available that did the job to make the spoken word more interesting and engaging.

What do you need?

Most editing systems aren’t designed for the simplicity that we need for editing Life Stories. All we need an editor to do is…

• Removal of stammers, stutters, verbal and real pauses, umms and arghs
• Rearrangement of audio components to help tell the story
• Addition of music and effects
• Audio enhancement of compression and equalisation

I’ve been using Garageband for years to edit Your Story and Create Your Life Story but I’ve realised they have far more than I need and don’t do what I want. There are other programs like Audacity and all the heavy lifting professional, music editing programmes but the story is always the same. They all have too many bells and whistles that get in the way of what I’m attempting to do.  Tell a story in voice with minimal interference!

What I want is a programme that will quickly and easily help me to tidy up the audio by removing the pauses, verbal stammers and blunders, simply rearranging of components and enhance with music and simple effects. That’s it! – If the programme has some compression and equalisation that’s all the better.

In the past I did all of this in Garageband but found it’s functionality difficult to deal with but with Hindenburg I now have a programme that is blisteringly fast in removing the edits in the audio. To date I’ve only had the free basic version, which I used to edit the audio then, I exported it into Garageband and added the music, compression and equalisation. This is no longer necessary as I’ve now upgraded to the Journalist version of the programme and can perform all these functions with ease in Hindenburg itself.

The best programme for Life Story editing

Video Tutorials for using Hindenburg

If you’re after a programme to simple tidy up your audio, have a look at Hindenburg. If you don’t want to spend the extra for Journalist, you can then export it to Audacity, Garageband or other programmes to perform the more fancy functions but if you want the all in one package the Journalist version of Hindenburg has everything you need including compression and equalisation as well as automatic level prior to exporting and profiling tracks to get the best sound with one click.

The main benefits of Hindenburg as a voice editing programme are…

• Small, fast and simply programme
• Everything you need for voice without the complexity of music editing programmes
• Fast removal of parts of track with instant shunting of what’s left
• Easy to understand level controls
• Everything that’s needed in the free Basic version with additional features in Journalist

If you need an audio editor you’ll find all that you want with Hindenburg and a lot more to make your life easy.

Action:

• Have a look at the video I’ve made for you.
• Download the free software version of basic.
• Have a look at the great instructional videos on nsaka.com.
• Record some audio and start fiddling.
• Get some confidence and know that you can make it sound a lot better.
• Send it to Ian using Soundcloud.

Don’t forget to have a look at the short video of Hindenburg in action.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Hindenburg Basic and Journalist
• Hindenburg videos

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

Music is from

Monty Alexander
“Strawberry Hill” (mp3)
from “Harlem – Kingston Express Live!”
(Motema Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Hey Naa” (mp3)
from “Livin’ A Tremé Life”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.→

You don’t live alone. You live with people in your family, community, culture, country and world.
From each of these groups you’ve been impacted by all the events that occur in them. Obviously family occasions tend to be very personal but event international events can impact you in ways that says a lot about you and the times you live in.There are individual stories in your life that you’ve forgotten that will be part of the greater story of the groups that you’ve associated with over the years. Take a moment to look at the history timeline of these different groups to remind you of some of the times of your own life.

Five historical groups of your life.

There are primarily five groups that you’re part of and their history is worth considering for it’s impact on you. To varying degrees some of these histories will tell stories of your life.

1. 1. Family – Your intimate family
   2. Community – People you live with in society
   3. Cultural – How you identify yourself
   4. Regional – Your macro community
   5. Global – The big events of the world

Timelines to discover your forgotten stories.

Each of these groups have timelines of history. Some of these events you have memories and stories that you can share as part of your Life Story.

The obvious and most intimate of your history is enmeshed with that of your family. From your grand parents to your grand children, your family have participated in activities that you’ve been part of. Ignore for a moment your own personal history and consider the timeline of your family. Then consider the stories that are directly related to you. Maybe your family migrated and that is a catalyst to some stories of your life. Or there is a specific, unique family trait that that you all have which has some interesting stories from your life.

A community is whatever you want to make it. The obvious is the people who you associate with during a period of your life and as an example, it could be social, career or religious communities. You may have belonged to one group during a period then moved to another. All of these communities will mean different things during different periods of your life and with each of them stories of varying degrees will say what those eras meant to you. With each of these communities there is a timeline of history where events happened. What were you involvement with those events?

What happened when you were there?

A culture is often handed down through the generations but it can also be the culture of an industry or a nation. Within a culture there is often a timeline of history that evolves over time. As these cultural events changed how did they impact you and what were your involvement with them.

As you have an impact on the more intimate communities around you, there is also the greater group we would call the regional group that is too large for you to have an impact on. These are the large scale provincial, national and ethnic groups that we all belong to at the more macro level. This is what we identify as when someone asks our nationality or heritage. These timelines of history affect millions of people and some of them will involve your personal experiences. What are the events from your regional group that you have stories of from your life?

Finally the global group is the international community that we all belong to. These are the global events that impact billions if not everyone on Planet Earth and with this timeline we have all of the major international events. Through out your life there have been global events that may or may not have been specifically in you life but due to the size of the events still had an impact on you. What are the global events that you remember and how did they affect you. Your story may only be about where you heard about an event (i.e. J.F. Kennedy assassination) to your actual participation in a global event (i.e. World War 2).

With each of these timelines, your story is the personal aspect of the family, community, cultural, regional and global events, putting a human perspective on global history.

Your Stories are wrapped amongst other bigger stories

Look at the timelines of each of these five categories and consider your personal stories as you look at the events of that timeline. Search on the Internet for timelines and histories for all for all of the groups that you have an interest. Here are a few to give you an idea of what’s available.

Fashion
Music
Australian History
Modern History
New Zealand History
Canadian History
South African History
American History
UK History
World Disasters
World War 2
Agricultural History

Action:

1. Gather the timelines of each of the five groups relevant to your life
2. Look over each of the timelines to jog your memory of specific stories in your life
3. Write notes of each specific story
4. Use these story topics as prompts to talk about

What stories do you now suddenly remember that you had forgotten? Pleas leave a comment below.

What do you Know and Need? Please fill out this Survey

Click thu to iTunes

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you with your Life Story. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Don’t forget the important insignificant people

Too often we look to the things of our life to talk about. The places, adventures, heartache, career even the family but we don’t take the time to consider all the people of our Life Story.

Who are the people you've forgotten from your past

A story is not just cold information. As we look into the themes of our life we will talk about the things and automatically talk about the people associated with them, as they are often the facilitators of those stories but there are numerous other people who just don’t get mentioned. Instead, let’s start with the less important people, to help remind us of our stories.

Initially if you look over a period of your life you will see many themes, topics and events to tell stories from. Amongst these stories will be people who you can include, to flush out the topic and help us understand it. Because you’re focused on the topic and the people are only in the story to help that topic, many other individuals will be missed and not even remembered because they’re not important enough to include.

The unimportant people can lead to great stories

Systematically consider each person who you can remember during a time in your life. Now your focus has shifted from topics to people, with these people reminding you of stories within a topic.

Some of the people (like some topics) will matter little to you, whereas once you consider others in their own right, you’ll realise that there is a story that stems from your relationship to them.

From a superficial point of view, these people may be unimportant but if you focus for a moment on them you may realise that there is a story worthy of mentioning. Maybe that kid down the road, who you never played with and you had never thought of until now, said something once, that lead you to be aware of an event that taught you a lesson. Without remembering this person you may never have remembered the lesson and chances are there is a great story wrapped up in learning it.

As an exercise, remember a time in your life, say one specific holiday as a child.
Normally you would talk about how you got there, where it was, what you did, what it meant to you and the like. In amongst those stories will be people.
Now look at the same holiday but instead of the topics and events of it, remember all the people.

• Who did you travel with?
• Who did you meet?
• Who did you participate in activities with?
• Who did or told you something that you remember?
• Who did you find attractive or who did you have a falling out with?
• Who was involved in adventures with you?
• How did you feel about these people?
• What were their personalities like?
• How did everyone interact together?
• Do any of them fit into you Life Story in a more significant way?

By focusing on the people you will add a more personal aspect to your stories but you will also discover new topics to talk about that wouldn’t have been considered without using the people as the prompt to take you deeper into that topic.

Action:

1. Choose one of the existing topics that you will tell stories about.
2. Change your focus from the stories of your topic to the people who populate it.
3. What are the stories that stem from each of these people in this topic.

Who do you now remember by placing people first? Please let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

More ideas on prompts are in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Download it from the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

What is the cost and the benefit of recording a Life Story

Value, cost and worth are all interesting terms. Most of the time we associate them with the financial cost of something but when we’re talking of a Life Story it’s important to consider the emotional and physical effort along with any financial cost.

Cost and Benefit of everything including a Life Story

This is not only the cost of the actual production of the Life Story but also the cost of what a Life Story means emotionally to you and those around you. Take a moment to look over all of your life, what has been of value, in all the different forms and compare it with the relevant costs of producing a life story to ensure that those things aren’t lost.

Costs of producing a Life Story.

A Life Story produces several benefits and the associated costs from three main groups.

• Financial out of pocket expenses
• Emotional issues and benefits
• Physical effort and time

And the costs can be paid before or after it’s too late to capture a Life Story, with the cost and benefits being different depending on if you have acted earlier or not.

Insignificant financial costs

Often the first consideration is the financial cost of a Life Story particually if you intend to use the skills of a professional.

Just for a moment consider what has been your income over your lifetime and what have you spent all those hundreds of thousands of dollars on? How many meals, clothes and holidays have you spent money on because it was important? How much money have you given away out of good will, invested and grown in worthy projects and how much have you spent on whimsical things, just because you could? What are the things that all that income has been spent on?

As a very loose comparison of what is earned over a lifetime… Based on income of $50000/year, over say 40 years, in today’s dollar value, a lifetime’s earnings is somewhere around 2 million dollars. When you look at the financial cost of recording a Life Story, even if you were to contact a professional, it’s insignificant to the money that has moved through you hands over that lifetime. And if you were to use some of the stratigies and ideas that are mentioned here at Create Your Life Story the cost can be considerably less. Compared to a lifetime of income and expenditure, capturing a Life Story is an insignificant financial cost.

Emotional costs are expensive

A higher price and one that is impossible to measure is the emotional cost of a Life Story. What are you going to have to face up to in recording a Life Story? Are there issues that need to be discussed or avoided and how do you feel about these points? Maybe these emotional issues are too expensive to pay and you have to let it be or maybe the benefits out-way any angst that you will feel.

Effort of finding the time

At it’s most simple, the physical effort of recording a Life Story is just several hours of conversations captured while an audio recorder is located nearby. That’s it – Sit down, have a chat and let the recorder do it’s job, game over. Or you can take some of the ideas that are here on the site and in the free e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you and with just a little more effort, produce a much better quality recording worthy of sharing. The highest physical cost is in finding the time to set aside.

Costs for not paying early

But there’s a price for inaction.
Until a certain date all costs will be a blend of financial, emotional and physical, with a return of a story to share forever. After that date though, it’s no longer possible to pay any price to get the story, it’s forever gone. The cost of your inaction will have to be paid with regret of lost opportunities.

Your inaction has saved you some money, that you didn’t spend on the Life Story but does it compared to what has been lost. What if you could turn back the clock knowing what you now know? How much are you now prepared to pay to capture what is forever gone? It’s only money after all!

Despite being busy for so long and not having the time to spend recording this Life Story, now that you have all the time in the world without them, how much time would you be prepared to spend, if you could turn back the clock? But no, that time is gone and the price to be paid is only having the time without the richness of someone in your life.

The biggest cost of inaction is the emotional price of knowing all the things that weren’t asked or said. No longer are there opportunities to explore and share and you’re left with the emotional angst that maybe some things should have been told and asked. The emotion of not dealing with these issues is the price to be paid for the inaction and regret is the price to be paid.

Which price will you pay for a Life Story?

All things in life have a cost and a benefit, a Life Story is no different!

To act now will cost you physically, financially and emotionally a small amount, with the benefits of having a Life Story to share with future generations.

Or…
Have the benefit now of not facing any fears and issues, along with being complacent and saving some money. Then one day you will pay the price with a lifetime of regret knowing that an opportunity has been lost.

You’re interested and know that a Life Story is a necessary in your life. It’s entirely up to you, to produce a it but there is a price to be paid if you do or if you don’t! It’s up to you to choose if the price paid is regret for your inaction or if it’s your effort now with the return of having a living memory of a Life Story for future generations.

Action:

• Spend what you need on equipment or assistance to record the conversation
• Deal with the emotional issues
• Set up a date to make the time to act and record the stories

What is the price you’re prepared to pay? Action now or regret later! Let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Grab a free copy of the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you get started. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

← If you want to hear some other great stories about the interesting lives that people have, listen to my other podcast at Your Story or on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

The excuses driven by underwhelmed motivation

You know that capturing a Life Story in some form is a great idea and maybe even occasionally at 2:30am you have had a little panic attack knowing that you need to get underway, NOW!
…But then the moment passes and, well, you just feel a little underwhelmed again. There’s always time to do it later anyway.

Underwhelmed & Unmotivated …via Benoit Dupont on Flickr

The underwhelm is really just having a lack of motivation to do what you know needs to be done. If you had the motivation you’d be excited and you’d find every opportunity to get the job done and all the excuses would fall by the wayside.

The underwhelm is the motivation, the overwhelm is the excuse.

Welcome to the Overwhelm

The lack of motivation is the crux of the matter but it’s the excuses that drives that lack of motivation and the excuses can be overwhelming giving you a justification to procrastinate.

• No one really cares
• I won’t get any return from my efforts
• I don’t understand the technology
• I don’t know what to talk about
• My life doesn’t matter
• I have too many things to talk about
• Where do I start?
• It’s too hard
• I don’t have anyone to talk to
• There is still plenty of time
• There are more important things at the moment
• I’ve done nothing noteworthy

…And the list goes on.

4 types of excuse

We all make excuses for what we’re not motivated to do. Often it all seems too hard and we feel completely overwhelmed but really there are only four categories that the above list falls into and there are ways to resolve each of them.

Content
You may not have done anything noteworthy to the greater world but your family, above all else will care about your life and what you know. Even the lives of the larger than life individuals are primarily made up of everyday events with just the occasional grand adventure. Everyone has a life time of stories to talk about and the younger generation is always fascinated in those stories.

Support
The technology is now simpler, cheaper and easier to use than at any time in history but if you still find it too challenging, look around your family and community for some assistance. There are also people you know who may also be able to sit in conversation with you to discuss you Life Story. It is always easier to record a Life Story with someone else.

Reward
Take a moment to consider why you really want to record this Life Story. I don’t mean all the issues about the importance of capturing it but the actual return that you’re going to receive for all this effort. Things like praise, respect, understanding, immortality, forgiveness, etc. These are the “return on investment”, of your time and energy and if you don’t understand what you need and that it may be some time before you receive it, your motivation will fade.
You may never, Ever, get this return on your effort! Are you happy to know that it may only be appreciated long after you’re gone, much as you would appreciate discovering an old 78rpm record of a long departed relative?

Time
With a lack of motivation there are always going to be more important things and never enough time for a life story project. Then if the desperate panic of motivation does appear because time is finally running out it may be too late to act.

Focus on the negatives of each of these four items and it’s easy to be overwhelm but they are only the excuses for not proceeding and each can be easily overcome. The real issue is the underwhelm and lack of motivation.

Motivating past the Underwhelm

The reality is that unless you know that there is a date at which this Life Story will no longer be possible, it’s easy to delay and not be motivated enough to overcome all the other distractions of life. Your life needs to be attended to today, with the demands of career, education, finance, family, etc. and not wanting to miss the latest episode of your favorite television show. They are all more urgent now, than the Life Story that you can create tomorrow. There must be a motivation beyond all these distractions.

The reality is this Life Story is ending one day,  you’re just delaying acting today.

Take the time to reflect and consider, beyond the normal 21st century motivations of our society. What is truly important to you regarding this Life Story. Yes, this is a mental exercise of imagining…

• the loss
• the appreciation of capturing the recording
• the advantages to family and community

Sit with your thoughts and really imagine these aspects of capturing a Life Story. Your motivation will be primarily derived from within yourself rather than from any external rewards. By maintaining your focus on these personal benefits you can move forward to action.

Each journey starts with the first step, then it’s only necessary to keep moving.

Your motivation will come from your desire for a completed Life Story, generated from within you and derived from knowing that this is something that is of the utmost importance to you. That motivation will dissolve any underwhelm and procrastination, starting you on gaining the assistance and knowledge that you need. With the information available here at Create Your Life Story and people in your community you can overcome any issues that come along and share your Life Story with the world.

Action:

1. Contact others for assistance
2. Generate a list of prompting topics to talk about
3. Set dates to start recording
4. Back up and edit audio as soon as it’s recorded
5. Publish in the style that suits you
6. Repeat sequence until your Life Story project is completed

What self motivation techniques do you use to succeed? Share with us in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form→

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

A life story for your family and the world

So you want to produce a life story of someone… Maybe your own story, maybe someone else. And you want to record this life story because there is some information that you feel is worth capturing for posterity.

You don't know who wants to hear your Life Story?

Maybe they were involved in some interesting events in history, or saw many and varied things that few people have the chance to see or maybe they know somethings about the people in your world that no one else knows. All good reasons for wanting to capture the memories of a person but what is the ultimate reason for going to all this effort?

After it’s recorded, then what?

Once the recording is captured you have half the project completed but if this is all you do, you may as well not have started in the first place.

The reason for creating a Life Story project is ultimately to share the information with others, enabling them to hear and learn about someone else’s world.

A Life Story is for other people to know.

It’s in the sharing and hearing a Life Story, where the real value exists. Without being heard a Life Story has no value but in sharing, these stories will live for as long as people listen. If you think recording a Life Story is a good idea it will be because you want to have others hear it, that’s the only valid reason for it’s existence.

Three groups want to hear your story

Peoples interest in your Life Story will vary, depending on interests and fall into one of three groups

People love listening to Your Story …via Melvin Gaal on Flickr

1. Immediate family
2. Relatives and close friends
3. Greater community

Initially those interested will be the immediate family who know and care about you and their involvement in your Life Story. These are the family members who are most emotionally involved with you and have the most detail knowledge and interest in your Life Story.
Then there will be your more distant relatives who share in the same heritage or the associates of your life who mixed and shared events with you during your lives. They don’t need to know everything but they have a general interest in how life has been for you.
Lastly, the greater community who aren’t emotionally involved and possibly don’t even know you but are keenly interested in the experiences of someone, “On the ground” during the events of a particular time. These are the historians and social scientists of the future who will be looking through this information to understand how life was during particular eras.

Locking a Life Story away

If you have concerns for privacy and feel that your Life Story is something that you want to keep close, to only your immediate family, you have several options for sharing. These include sending the digital files via email, sharing on removable systems such as CD’s and USB thumb drives or similar or using a private web site that requires password logins to access.

Some people never think that anyone, beyond immediate family would be interested, so never consider having a Life Story available for the greater community. What a shame to lock a story away only to be available to the few who know about it and not be available for the many who may be looking for information but will never find it because it secreted away.

Unless you’re active in physically distributing your Life Story it will simple fade from existence over time as components are lost. This will never happen with a fully maintained web site.

If privacy is of serious concern it’s also possible to use a combination of publicly available information while keeping any sensitive information held back until a future date or only shared in private using limited sharing techniques.

Sharing in your style to the world

Of all the systems to share a Life Story, the blog format, (this site is a blog) is the easiest and most dynamic mechanism to give you whatever style and needs you desire. It’s up to you to decide how detailed you would like to go but some of the benefits and features that you can choose to help hide or reveal your Life Story are.

Go to WordPress.com

• Enable others to discover your Life Story
• Post date information for future release
• Design options to suit your personality
• Include text, images, audio and video
• Involve others through contact & comments
• Simple easy to use interface
• Fully maintained, permanent and free
• Access internationally
• Download information to use off line
• Involve more than just the immediate family
• Password protect all or only some parts of the information
• Aid researchers from the various topics mentioned
• Allow connection between distant or disconnected people

With a blog you have the ability to interact with as few or as many people as you choose and develop possibilities that are not possible off line. The opportunities for you to engage, interact and share your knowledge cannot be underestimated and if you desire contact with only a few people various levels of privacy are available

A blog site to share your Life Story will continue to make it available forever, to whoever you want, long after we’re all gone

Action:

• Consider who you want to listen to your Life Story
• Are there people who you can’t imagine who may also be interested?
• What would you like to keep private and public
• Look at WordPress.com as a blog platform

What are your thoughts about sharing and would you use a blog? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Privacy survey
• Previous episode about WordPress
• Signing up for WordPress
• More reasons to get a blog

A general overview of some of these ideas are in the free e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form and get it downloaded to your computer in a couple of minutes.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Your Life Story can be anything you want.

Your auto/biography is only relevant if it’s captured and if it’s consumed by others. So the best system is the one that people are most comfortable with using to create and share your Life Story.

A biography is an account of someones life written by someone else.

People think of a biography as a book?

Audio speaks unlike books …austinevan on flickr

We’re conditioned to think that a biography has to be a book, simply because up until the last few years there hasn’t been any other reasonable way of capturing a persons story if it wasn’t written down. Sure there are a few film, radio and television documentary biographies but you had to be either famous or wealthy to have your story in one of those systems and even so, most people still preferred a written book anyway because it was easy to consume.

Really a biography is just a fancy term for telling a Life Story and if it’s as simple as telling a story there are multiple systems for telling anyone’s life story.

• Written text
• Audio biography
• Private storytelling
• Video biography
• Digital Photographical storytelling
• Oral history recording
• Photo montage
• Various art projects

With these systems available using all the senses to add so much more of a persons personality, it’s such a shame that they aren’t being used in whatever combination suits the individual. Why not blend all these systems and make the most of them?

Why written text is preferred

Not only is text our  first consideration for producing a Life Story but it’s also often the only one. At it’s most basic we can all pick up a pencil and start writing now! So why aren’t we deluged in personal accounts of people’s lives? Because even though we can all write, few of us can write well!

Good quality written storytelling, that is interesting and engaging for others to read, is a skill that takes many authors decades to refine. Sure we can all put a few ideas on paper but few can we actually create an engaging interesting Life Story that others will want to read. This is the reason many people have their biography written by ghost writers.

Writing needs dedication.

As an overview, consider what you need to do to write and publish a biography.

1. Gather all the information
2. Write the component stories – Many, many hours or work needed here
3. Assemble all the stories
4. Weave a Life Story from all the different individual stories
5. Edit and re-edit the manuscript until it’s an enjoyable read
6. Design and style the book content
7. Publish

It’s easy to understand why many biographies are started but very few are published when you consider the herculean task of all of these aspects.

Although publishing a Life Story as a book is far easier today using print on demand with the much lower overall cost, the per book price is still high and once published there is no opportunity to add or change any of the story without another print run and associated issues and costs.

Lost Life Stories

They Love Hearing Your Voice …from p4nc0np4n on flickr

For all of human history all but the fortunate few’s Life Stories have been lost to time.
It was the few famous who were written about in antiquity with many more being captured with the advent of popular printing in the 19th and 20th centuries but now in the 21st century we have mechanisms to help capture a Life Story in quick and easy ways.

The original method of recording a Life Story going back to pre-history has always been oral storytelling. What we’re doing here at Create Your Life Story is returning to our roots and simply telling stories but instead of those stories being ephemeral they can now easily be recorded using digital recorders and kept for others to listen to later in ways never dreamed of only a few years ago.

Evolution of easy to use recorders

Recording a Life Story started with written text, eventually to be augmented with painting, drawing and eventually photography and film but for most people these methods were out of their reach. It wasn’t until the development of Super 8 film and reel to reel tape recorders, was it practical for people to capture a personal biography. However once recorded what is to be done with the film or audio? Things improved somewhat with the development of video and cassette tape recorders but there was still the issues with evolving it into an enjoyable experience to consume and share. If someone had the skills it’s been possible for 40 years to create a multimedia production using these systems but for most people the cost and expertise prevented all but the most dedicated from completing a project. This is why writing has continued to be popular.

Now you have cost effective (cheap), easy to use consumer recorders (audio & video) to capture a life story. Then you can edit in free editing software on you home computer and share it with your family and the world for minimal effort or expense.

It’s too easy to think that as you already know how to write, why take on this new technology as it will be easier to create a biography using text. And yes, there is a learning period with using the new digital technology and the concerns with learning any new skill but now the new digital technology isn’t as difficult as you may have once considered. Create Your Life Story is all about helping you realise more than was once possible and now available to everyone in ways far easier than by just using text.

There’s nothing like hearing their voice

A biography is a series of stories, about a persons life but it’s also something more profound. It’s also a “record” of them at the time that the audio was captured. It’s who they are with all their personality expressed through their voice and no amount of editing and skill in writing a story can capture their essence in a way to hear them actually speak and tell the stories in their own voice.

Take a moment to think of someone special from your life who is no longer with you.
How wonderful would it be to hear their voice again in some long forgotten recording?

Here is the audio of Florence Nightingale that I used in this episode 

1890 Audio of Florence Nightingale

Great way to start a written biography

Using the methods that are being shared here on Create Your Life Story, is not just about using audio only. Audio recorded conversations are just the starting point and like a biographer writing your Life Story, audio is often used to gather the information. Once the conversations are recorded and transcribed the audio can be used as background to images from your life as digital storytelling, laid under film and video as a voice over description or edited and published as a book either online or in physical form.

Anyway you look at it, the sensible place to start any Life Story project is with a microphone and digital audio recorder capturing your personal stories in your own style as you tell them. Then if appropriate the audio can lead to many other wonderful possibilities that are never possible if it wasn’t there to start with.

Action:

• Considering alternatives to just writing a Life Story
• Consider the other options mentioned in this post of recording audio
• Find someone to record with in conversation
• Can audio be used for other than a transcript for a book
• Consider who wonderful it would be to hear that special person in your life again

Let us know in the comments below how you feel about using text versus using the new technologies.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Pause to create the space and rhythm of a conversation

One of the things that always comes up when you decide to Create Your Life Story is how to deal with the breaks in conversation or the pauses. Sometimes pauses get in the way but often they can scream loud. Do you wait or interrupt, edit them out or leave them in? Are they personal traits or annoyances?

Pause and see what happens         …via notashamed on Flickr

There are many types of pauses in a conversation. Some are silence and some use verbal utterances

• Pause  as we collect our thoughts
• Pauses to consider something emotional
• Verbal pauses to join to the next piece of content and prevent interruption i.e. um, ah, uh & you know
• Repeat the last word to consider what to say i.e. and, and, and.
• Joining words i.e. and, but & so…

Pauses in all their forms are a way of developing cadence and rhythm. To create a melody of the stories being told. It doesn’t matter if you’re telling a story or if you’re listening to someone while recording them, the rhythm of the conversation needs to be respected and allowed to flow. If it’s interrupted the dynamics of your personality changes and the chance for the obvious natural flow of stories will devolve.

The additional pauses that are included consciously or unconsciously during a conversation then create interest by allowing the space to expect something or a chance to reflect on what has just been said.

Power Pause

When asking a question, the use of the power pause after a question creates a space for the other person to fill with information. By remaining silent, they have to fill the space which gives you additional opportunities to listen and gain extra information about them.

If telling a story the fore power pause can create anticipation of what is about to be said and the post power pause can give an opportunity for reflection on the part of the listener.

Pregnant Pause

Space lets things happen

During a conversation once a point is made, the following pause can make them uncomfortable. It’s too easy to let them off the hook by breaking the silence. Resist this temptation (yes, I know it’s tempting) and wait for an answer. Pauses cause the other person to feel awkward and want to fill the space with additional information. Let the silence and discomfort do their work.
However when they have finished speaking or you’ve made a statement or question that has no possibility of response you’ll be simply creating dead air and awkward silence.

Opportunity Pause

Pauses allows speech to make sense. Obviously, speech would be pure gibberish without some pauses. When they pause you have an opportunity to add some content. This is where it’s imperative to be actively listening so your response is genuine and relevant to what they’ve been saying, to ask them to go deeper into the topic. It’s also a time for adding a non speech utterances like oh or aha, to say, “Yes I’m listening please tell me more”. The opportunity pauses can be the briefest of moments to connect and show you’re still engaged or they can be the space that is the linking connection to the next topic.

Editing

During the editing process we need to consider the purpose of pauses and where they should remain and be removed. Some significant pauses can create great effect while too many of others can be distracting.

Some people can maintain an engaging conversation while in physical connection so that you don’t notice their verbal pauses but when listening to only the audio these verbal pauses can be annoying.

In both cases it’s important to be sensitive to how much removal of pauses is required to make the audio an enjoyable listening experience or when to leave some in, so as to allow the character of the person to continue to shine through.

• Look at the issues you expect to have to deal with regarding pauses
• Can you discipline yourself or the other person to avoid too many pauses?
• Maintain the balance between too much and adequate pause removal
• Use pauses to create opportunities to express yourself better
• Use pauses to allow the other person to express themselves

Where have you seen pause used to allow things to happen in a specific way? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• What are your thoughts about Privacy
• Send audio via SoundCloud

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help give you an overview of your project. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero

“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Get the attention you want with some storytelling skills

Daryll Bellingham Master Storyteller

For all of our lives we tell stories.
Stories to get our message across, to help others and to share some entertaining information. We share stories in all parts of our life, the most common being during the most mundane of conversations. But importantly for us here at Create Your Life Story we share stories in specific conversations about our life.

We are telling stories using storytelling

Storytelling is an art form in it’s own right, using some of the aspects of performance to share the story with a little bit of showmanship to help make it more interesting for the listener.

With your Life Story you too can use some of the aspects of storytelling to help get the information and stories of your life across to those who are listening in both an entertaining and engaging way and keep them enthralled in hearing what you have to say.

Confidence in storytelling help the stories flow

Daryll Bellingham Storyteller

Daryll Bellingham has been performing for decades as a professional storyteller to adults and children. With his corporate work he’s been reminding grown ups that the storytelling aspect of our inner child is still alive and well to help us share our stories if only we allow it’s expression in what we really want to share.

With just a few tips from Daryll on some of the aspects of the storytelling method you will have more confidence to know that you can share your stories with the appropriate impact that you want to get across and engage the listener. By knowing how to tell a good yarn you’ll be prepared to tell the stories that you were hesitant to mention previously.

Practice with normal conversations

Take some of the these ideas that Daryll mentions in this episode and practice in your normal everyday conversations whenever you have a chance.

• Tell stories in first person
• Changing your voice to suit that of the person  you’re quoting
• Developing emotion by using physical movement
• Using stories for give feedback to others
• Tell stories while maintaining integerity
• Understand the benefits of telling someone your life story

Use the narrative story structure

• Who are the characters?
• Where is the setting?
• Explaining the problem, challenge or issue
• How are the issues resolved?

Action:

• Look into the various techniques that Daryll has mentioned
• Use these ideas in your normal conversations
• Think of specific stories to tell that require you to use these methods
• With some attention and maybe a little practice you skills will improve

Daryll Bellingham is a storyteller in my local area of West End here in Brisbane. His blog is also at Austories.

The full conversation with Daryll including how he became involved in storytelling and what he’s personally got from it, is available to listen to on my other podcast at Episode 61 of Your Story.

Tell us in the comments about some memorable storytelling experiences that you’ve had.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Echoes of Home
• Episode 32 : 5 Simple Steps to Starting Your Life Story Project – Today
• Privacy Survey
• Full version of this conversation with Daryll

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

You’ll never know what surprises there are until you Create Your Life Story!

Jane and Keith Today

Here on Create Your Life Story I’m constantly wanting to motivate you to start on your personal Life Story project but I know that there can be several issues with getting underway and we’re all working to resolves those points. What you don’t know though, is what surprises await you once you start and eventually complete the bulk of you Life Story project.
Sometimes things can happen that will amaze you but you’ll never know until you actually get underway with your project.

Amazing results from a Life Story

Today we’re looking at the effects of having completed a Life Story project 12 months ago and some of the wonderfully surprising things that have come from it. Things that could never be expected and lessons that have been learnt along the way.

This is not an episode for me to share with you some tips and ideas of how to produce a Life Story but one for you to listen to someone and the experiences that she’s had from our efforts last year. Today Jane shares with us her original motivations, initial results and eventual surprises that have come from producing a Life Story of her father last year.

Like Jane you’ll be starting on your project with only some ideas of what will come of it but as we find out over the course of a year things that no one could expect have evolved making life better than anyone could have hoped for.

…and the Story Continues

Action:

• Start your own Life Story project
• Know that things will eventuate that you can’t expect
• Have a look at Keith’s site and make comment
• Feel inspired to know that, like Jane, you too can do this

Have you seen results already that have surprised you? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Keith Papps WordPress site
  Jane’s reasons for recording her Dad
• Privacy Survey
• Recording Life Stories e-Book survey
• SoundCloud instruction video

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you get underway. Remembering to fill out the initial survey before and then after you read the e-Book. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Genuine listening is the key to their confidence

It’s not what they say but the way you listen, that helps people to share the deepest parts of themselves.

Listen in wonder to what is told

We often think we listen… but do we?
Are we really listening or are we just taking turns to speak?

In a recorded conversation we’re away from the distractions of other things as we’re on task, with a job to do. There are two important parts of any conversation, speaking and listening. When you’re recording someone their role is to speak and your role is to listen. Obvious, yes! But I don’t mean listen I mean – “LISTEN!”

Creating confidence and connection are the first things needed for someone to feel relaxed enough to open up and reveal the more interesting  parts of their Life Story.

When recording someone it’s not our role to speak. Sure, we have a role to engage from time to time, to ask a pertinent question, add a little context to the story or even add some of our self to help the conversation flow but our primary role is to help them express themselves and speak their story. Our roll is to stay attentive and to listen.

Get active – Listen

Unlike speaking which is obviously an active task, listening which appears passive is a very active task, albeit in a different style.

Listening can be a task that requires great effort or it can be a sheer indulgence with no effort. Where you’re simply swept away with the stories being told. Compare for a moment listening to a boring lecture versus an amusing and skillful storyteller. Your active in ways you don’t realise when really listening.

Proving to them and yourself that you’re listening

As a great listener, when someone speaks to you they know you are hearing and understanding them, that you care what is being said and therefore you care about them. What greater compliment can you pay than show that. Once realised,  they start to open up and build on their confidence to express themselves more.  Only then will they share those amazing stories with you. This can’t be faked, you really do have to listen, care and respond genuinely. There are many places during a conversation, due to interruptions where you’ll be caught out if you don’t.

Have you had the experience where you’ve been talking and the conversation has been interrupted?
Then on returning the other person has no interest at all in continuing to hear what you had to say. Possibly they’ve even forgotten what you were saying or even the topic. Doing this to the person your recording, is like saying, “I’m only going through the ropes here and I don’t really care what you have to say.”

To prove to them and yourself, that you’re listening, are you able to remember, quote and recommence a conversation that’s been interrupted, at any time?

What you say in that one act is “I care so much about what you say, that despite the interruption, I remember what you said enough to ask you to continue, as I want to hear more of what you have to say.” Anyone would be complimented by that level of attention and with that sign of interest their confidence increases and they continue to open up.

Attitude to good listening

Even if you’re unsure how to listen well, there are a few guidelines that you should keep in mind.

• Make a conscious choice to find the topic useful and interesting
• Listen with a purpose and expectation of what you hope to hear
• Maintain an open mind
• An enquiring attitude will maintain an interest
• Desire to learn and have fun

The way to become a better listener is to practice “active listening”. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being expressed.

Active Listening

Active listening is about you hearing and understanding the other person and they know it.

Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge what they say. Notice the non-verbal signals as part of what they are saying.

• Look at the speaker directly.
• Direct your attention to what they say
• Don’t mentally prepare a rebuttal!
• Avoid external distractions
• Observe the non-verbal signals

Show you’re listening by using non-verbal cues.

• Nodding
• Smile and use other facial expressions.
• Face them with an open posture.
• Use small verbal comments like yes, mmmm and uh huh.

Expressing what you thought they said or playing devils advocate in a way of digging deeper to help draw them out. This shows that you were listening to understand but maybe need clarification. This also shows that you’re interested and would like to go deeper into their knowledge/experience.

• Mention what you understand, but could it mean something else? As a means of expanding the information
• Ask questions to clarify certain points
• Mention that “Some people would think that…”, to provoke a response from them

Defer judgment, opinion and desire to assist. Your role is to encourage their opinion. Your views are irrellivant and don’t add to their story but only breaks up what they’re saying and could cause them to feel judged and want to shut down or argue. If you’re not sure about some points offer feedback rather than opinion.

• Allow them to finish each story before adding additional information or questions
• Don’t interrupt with arguments
• Even if you don’t agree, respect their opinion as being valid for them
• It’s their story. If you must engage with them there is always time later after the recording is completed

Active listening is about showing that you’re listening. Respond appropriately were necessary to help then know that you’re still fully engaged in listening  and find what they say of value.

• Comment to them based on what you find interesting or has been said
• Engage with them showing that you are interested but have no opinion
• Respect them as you would like to be shown if the rolls were reversed

As a good listener you will not just hear what is being said but will also understand the reasons. Then with empathy you can ask a probing question referring to what was said, in order to dig into what may be the actual reasons for the story.

Action:

During the general conversations you have, take the time to practice some of these attitudes. Maybe it could be a conversation that is underway or you may start it by asking a specific open ended question that provokes a full response.

• Concentrate on what is said at all times
• If the conversation is interrupted test to see if you know where to pick it back up
• Find the gem that intrigues you and ask more about it
• Show that your listening using non-verbal cues
• Use techniques of questions and response to draw more out of them

What conversations do you remember that engaged you because of how intensely they listened? Let us know what they do in the comments below.

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Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

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Music is from

Kolektif
“Ştipski Köçek“ (mp3)
from “Balkanatolia”
(Baykus Music)

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More On This Album

Nick Rixen Quartet
“Black & White” (mp3)
from “Points of View”
(Art of Life Records)

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]]> http://createyourlifestory.com/motivation/listen-theyll-tell-you-everythingthing/feed/ 0 Conversation,Family,Listening,Recording,Skills,Story Telling Genuine listening is the key to their confidence It's not what they say but the way you listen, that helps people to share the deepest parts of themselves. - We often think we listen… but do we? Genuine listening is the key to their confidence It's not what they say but the way you listen, that helps people to share the deepest parts of themselves. We often think we listen… but do we? Are we really listening or are we just taking turns to speak? In a recorded conversation we're away from the distractions of other things as we're on task, with a job to do. There are two important parts of any conversation, speaking and listening. When you're recording someone their role is to speak and your role is to listen. Obvious, yes! But I don't mean listen I mean – "LISTEN!" Creating confidence and connection are the first things needed for someone to feel relaxed enough to open up (http://createyourlifestory.com/2010/12/make-someone-tell-their-story/) and reveal the more interesting  parts of their Life Story. When recording someone it's not our role to speak. Sure, we have a role to engage from time to time, to ask a pertinent question, add a little context to the story or even add some of our self to help the conversation flow but our primary role is to help them express themselves and speak their story. Our roll is to stay attentive and to listen. Get active – Listen Unlike speaking which is obviously an active task, listening which appears passive is a very active task, albeit in a different style. Listening can be a task that requires great effort or it can be a sheer indulgence with no effort. Where you're simply swept away with the stories being told. Compare for a moment listening to a boring lecture versus an amusing and skillful storyteller. Your active in ways you don't realise when really listening. Proving to them and yourself that you're listening As a great listener, when someone speaks to you they know you are hearing and understanding them, that you care what is being said and therefore you care about them. What greater compliment can you pay than show that. Once realised,  they start to open up and build on their confidence to express themselves more.  Only then will they share those amazing stories with you. This can't be faked, you really do have to listen, care and respond genuinely. There are many places during a conversation, due to interruptions where you'll be caught out if you don't. Have you had the experience where you've been talking and the conversation has been interrupted? Then on returning the other person has no interest at all in continuing to hear what you had to say. Possibly they've even forgotten what you were saying or even the topic. Doing this to the person your recording, is like saying, "I'm only going through the ropes here and I don't really care what you have to say." To prove to them and yourself, that you're listening, are you able to remember, quote and recommence a conversation that's been interrupted, at any time? What you say in that one act is "I care so much about what you say, that despite the interruption, I remember what you said enough to ask you to continue, as I want to hear more of what you have to say." Anyone would be complimented by that level of attention and with that sign of interest their confidence increases and they continue to open up. Attitude to good listening Even if you're unsure how to listen well, there are a few guidelines that you should keep in mind. * Make a conscious choice to find the topic useful and interesting * Listen with a purpose and expectation of what you hope to hear * Maintain an open mind * An enquiring attitude will maintain an interest * Desire to learn and have fun The way to become a better listener is to practice "active listening". This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being expressed. Active Listening Active listening is about you hearing and understanding the other person and they know it. Ian Kath no 42:30 http://createyourlifestory.com/podcast/saving-your-life-story-2/ http://createyourlifestory.com/podcast/saving-your-life-story-2/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:05:16 +0000 Ian http://createyourlifestory.com/?p=2116

Loose it and your story ceases to exist

What if you were to loose all those recordings that you’ve worked so hard to produce? All those hours of conversation… gone! As far as future generations are concerned you’d cease to exist. Maybe it’s best to have systems in place so that it doesn’t happen.

What if all your data crashed?

Recording your Life Story using any system is better than not recording it at all but lets use the best practice for recording and archiving this important data and get it right first time.

Fortunately we live in the era of cheap, easy to use digital recording equipment, with every reason to use it in a manner so the recording last forever. It’s just a case of using the equipment and the appropriated settings.

Getting the recording is always the first priority and using any equipment is better than none meaning that you may be using, or have old format recordings that are available and should be converted to digital at some stage. Old records, wax cylinders, reel to reel tapes or cassettes can be converted to digital by a professional or accessing an Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC). An ADC processes the analogue audio and converts it to digital data directly before it is imported to your computer and are far more accurate than playing your analogue audio through an audio output on the tape player into the mic in on your computer, or worse, into a microphone where there will be inevitable quality loss.

Most of us will be making fresh recording and utilising digital recorders in the first place so instead of converting the data it’s appropriate to record in the correct format from the get go.

Digital audio is recorded in one of two standards. Uncompressed (lossless) and compressed (lossy)

Digital Recording Formats

Lossy compressed audio formats such as MP3 & OGG are wonderful for transferring and sharing recorded audio but are generally not the best system to use for the initial recording. Some devices such as mobile phones have the ability to record audio but only use MP3 compression.

Lossless audio formats such as WAV & AIFF are uncompressed full dynamic files and the preferred recording format for recording our Life Story projects. All audio recording programmes and digital recorders can record and export in uncompressed file formats and some mobile Apps are available for mobile phones.

Recording Standards

The recognised standard to convert analogue audio to, or archive audio in, is as a WAV file at a minimum of 24kps at 48kHz. It’s perfectly okay to record at a higher standard and finally archive to this standard but if you start at a lower standard you can never recover the missing data even if your programme can format the audio at the higher standard. If the audio is missing it can’t be created in any programme. If in doubt always start at the best standard of recording possible.

Archiving

With some editing and mixing with music and effects the initial recording can be enhanced to be an easy and enjoyable listening experience, then compressed to MP3 for easy sharing but this is not the original that needs to be archived.

Always archive the original recordings as a WAV file, with minimum settings of 24kps 48kHz. This is the original, non edited, full of lumps and bumps recording. It may be ugly before it’s edited but it’s the original that the researchers of the future or you can always return to for additional information. Always make sure you have multiple copies on different devices.

I always make two copies of the original recording immediately after the recording is completed as a safeguard during the editing process.

Recording Media

Deterioration of the recording media and technology obsolescence are the two enemies of your recorded audio.

The originally recorded media can deteriorate with time and needs to be updated to digital before the audio is destroyed.

• Magnetic tape can become brittle, delaminate from the plastic backing or slow deterioration from stray magnetism
• Cassette mechanisms can break so cassette tapes can no longer play
• Records can become scratched

The most insidious destruction comes from the obsolescence of technology. Some already or soon to be outdated technologies are…

Try Playing a 78 rpm disc today!

• Wax cylinders
• Record players 78 & LP’s
• Wire recorders
• Cassette players
• Reel to reel tape players
• Digital audio tape players
• Floppy discs
• CD/DVD (soon)
• Hard Drive (fast approaching)

Although CD/DVD’s are still a valid media for recording data, it’s important to store them properly.

• Only uses CD/DVD safe markers
• Use archival quality
• Sticky label adhesives can penetrate plastic coatings
• Store in cases away from dust, water and heat sources

Over time corrosion of the aluminium recording film used in discs prevents them from being a permanent archiving medium.

An alternative to using small size recording media is to use hard drives which are now very large and very affordable. A 1TB hard drive will hold the equivalent of approximately 1000 hours of high quality WAV formatted audio. At the time of this post for about $80. The only concern is the deterioration of the discs and the possibility of mechanism failure of the drive. For these reasons multiple back ups is, as always, a good practice.

Updating Files

As the technology of digital storage continues to evolve it’s necessary to migrate data from one system that is becoming outdated onto the next evolving storage system, before the technology is obsolete and the playback machines are no longer available. At present we need to urgently migrate all tape to digital and realise that CD/DVD’s time quickly coming to an end.

Hard drives have matured as the latest storage medium but we’re seeing the continued introduction of flash memory, (currently used in removable USB thumb drives and memory cards), as the next generation of recording media of choice. In just a few more years we’ll be migrating all of our data from hard drives to flash drives and then the next new storage system will evolve.

Always keep all of your data updated onto the latest storage technology before the previous system becomes outdated.

If you follow the simple guide of saving multiple copies of your original audio as WAV files on the latest technology and share multiple copies of edited MP3 versions with friends and relatives, you’ll never have to be concerned with your Life Story being lost and being forgotten.

Having the completed edited audio available on a web site also ensures that there is another copy that is also safe.

Action:

• Transfer and create at least two copies immediately after recording
• Maintain original unedited recording in original format
• Original files need to be WAV, minimum of 24kps 48kHz format
• Update all files onto latest storage systems prior to obsolescence
• Use only stable media storage systems

What old audio files do you have that need attentions? Let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

History is philosophy taught by example.

How many things have you done and lessons learnt that you could share with others. The challenge is in helping them understand the lesson without them having the same experiences. A wiser way for them to learn is from others rather than make the same mistakes in life as you. But how do you get these lessons across?

You have stories to tell

Emotional or Logical view of Your Life

Stories can be told in two ways. Either from a technical or emotional point of view, very much in the way as shown in the old ’60′s television series Star Trek. Would you choose to approach a Life Story like Captain Kirk or maybe Mr Spock. Will you look at everything from an emotional point of view or will you look at things using the cold calculating methods of science and engineering.

Both systems are valid and depending on the topics, times in life and your personality, you may vary your approach from just explaining the facts to expressing the feelings and emotions that you have. Maybe it’ll be an ebb and flow of different styles even within a topic, depending on the points that need to be shared.

Most often it’s important to work with both of these methods. Sometimes there are experiences in life that bring with them emotions that can impact in negative ways if they are rehashed again. In these cases having a cold calculating attitude of “that’s just the way life sometimes is” can enable you to work through the issues and move onto getting the facts out so that others can understand the situation.

Then there are the times when talking of situations without any emotion misses the very essence and importance of those experiences, when all they needed was to include the creative aspects of emotion and description.

Sharing the lessons of life

There are many times in life where we all make mistakes and wish we had known better but that’s the way we’re told life is. We have to learn from our mistakes! But what if we can be told that the stove is hot rather than having to touch it.

Now that you’ve had some experiences in your life and learnt from others, you have the opportunity to share the lessons that you know. The trick is to explain and hopefully enable others to learn from your experiences. But how do you explain in a way they can grasp enough to learn from.

Lessons through the ages

Throughout the ages, myths and legions share the knowledge of how things are and how to live life. Some of these stories are designed to cause you to conform to the social norms, while others are to help you learn lessons from the past. Some are based on real stories, some are fabrications but all are designed to grab your attention and create an emotional response. It’s this emotion that causes you to take notice and hopefully learn from what is being shared.

The Pied Piper Of Hamelin

Remember the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. A story filled with graphic descriptions of a rat plauge, followed by an opportunity to rid the village of the rats by the Pied Piper. If you remember the town folks eventually refuse to pay the piper, so he steals the children away never to be seen again.

That story if told to young children with all the graphic horror of the middle ages would cause an emotional response that would teach them a lesson to pay their dues or else there may be terrible ramifications. Sure, in this day and age it seems cruel to tell stories of stealing children but the power of emotive storytelling, in getting a lesson to be understood is still practiced with all great films, plays and television today. The emotional triggers used today teach you to learn the lessons of everything from drink driving to what toilet cleaner to use. So why not use the same story telling emotional power in sharing the lessons of your Life Story.

Storytelling is an art form in it’s own right with technique that can make any story better. You may or may not have this skill but what you do have is the ability to speak from the heart.

Speaking with emotion

When telling of an experience in your life remember take the time to relocate back to that time. Do all that you can to relive the experience and share all those subtle events and emotions that you remember. Do everything you can to relive it so that those listening will be drawn into your memories and travel with you as you recap on the experience that you’re sharing with them. If you take the time to recreate everything that there was for you and you share enough of what it meant to you, allowing the emotions of the time to come through, the listener will share the experience with you.

If you allow your emotions to show through the story, any lessons will be apparent for listener to understand and what that experience meant to you.

As an example, consider hearing from one of your parents, how they met and their reaction to falling in love. The story can be told as a cold dry list of events that lead to the outcome of their time together or it could be carefully told explaining all the subtle nuances of what they were feeling and their reactions to each other at various events.

Why, Why, Why…

The simple question of Why? is one of the most powerful single words to use in this situation. It often can take a staid story down an emotive path to continue to open up and express more of yourself for others. If you really want to find the emotion in a story, ask the question or variation of it. “How did you feel when…?”

By answering the “why?” question we share more of ourselves and open the door for others to really understand what was going on in emotive ways.

Like the little children hearing the story of The Pied Piper we grasp the real meaning behind the story, hopefully learn the lessons that you learnt and what also, it means to you.

Action:

• What are the lessons that you’ve learnt?
• Why do you want to share these lessons with others?
• Think of the times and answer some of the What, When, Who, Why and How questions
• Use emotional descriptions to make the points that are the most important
• Reflect on how these lessons would have made your life easier if you had have known

What are the biggest lessons you’d want to share? Tell us in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Privacy Survey
• Dan Carlin’s Hard Core History
• Send me some audio via the SoundCloud button in the right sidebar

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Audio editing is easier than you think!

Unfortunately there is some fear of editing, especially when you first see editing software but it needn’t be so. In this episode of Create Your Life Story we’ll look at some of simple things that you can do to make your recording amazing.

Basic editing with an 80% in improvement of your recording is quite easy to achieve. Sure to get professional results you may need to put in more effort but for most of us, particularly as we’re primarily working with voice  and in a relatively controlled environment, we can achieve quite spectacular results with minimal effort. The biggest effort is the time involved in going through the audio in it’s entirety.

Hindenburg Recording and Editing Software

Five Aspects of Editing

Audio editing can include as much or as little as you want to be involved with but it involves a few simple aspects

• Removal of any unwanted recording
• Rearrangement of segments
• Enhancement of quality
• Chapterise into manageable sizes
• Addition of music and sound effects

The most important aspect of editing audio is the removal of all the lumps and bumps of a conversation. When listening back to a conversation the natural interruptions which are tolerated during a face to face conversation because of the non verbal cues will only hinder the listener and it’s much better if the bulk of these are removed. There is no need to be obsessive with this but for some people with stammers and multiple pauses, particularly if brought on by a medical condition, they can be helped with editing out the bulk of these in order to improve the listening experience. The trick is to improve the audio without removing the personality from the audio. Note: Sometimes the pauses say more than the words.

With any long conversation covering as much history as a Life Story, there will be some tendency to rehash items or return and mention something additional that fits elsewhere in the timeline. These items can be removed and rearranged into whatever order is more appropriate.

Audacity Editing Software

You could be discussing a topic that needs to have all the audio clips combined together to make sense of that topic or maybe it’s important to maintain the order so as to get the importance of the development of a subject. All these things can be achieved by rearranging the audio. It’s even possible to reuse audio to make a point that was mentioned earlier.

Often the quality of the audio could do with a little enhancement. Maybe removing a little of the background rumble that we normally don’t notice, particularly in cities. This can be done with the equalisation features available in most editing programmes or using compression to bring quiet passages up to the level of the rest of the conversation. Programmes like The Levelator can help with this to bring all the audio to the approximate same level.

Again using the technical aspects of enhancement will only improve the listening experience and is well worth experimenting with to see the results that can be achieved.

Music and sound effects can take an adequate listening experience into the realms of a unique listening experience. Music can add emotion almost like nothing else and I would recommend using it at the beginning and end of a chapter of audio to ease into and out of the conversation. Particularly using music that is classic for the era that’s being discussed can create the feeling of those times.

Effects can add an almost subliminal nature to the conversation, placing you in the time being discussed. Background atmosphere of a summer thunderstorm rolling in while chatting about that big storm many years ago will help to create a feel for the time and events.

Garage Band from Apple iLife

All or nothing it’s up to you

The thing with editing is that it’s there to enhance your project. The first and foremost importance is to make the recordings. If considering the editing causes you to feel overwhelmed, ignore it for the moment but if during recording you screw up something just repeat it knowing that you can fix it in editing and if it’s never fixed at least the information is still there.

If you do take the time to tidy the audio up with some simple gap tightening and umm removal or go the whole hog and create a radio documentary style with effects and music you’ll improve the audio to create a better listening experience for others.

It’s easy to make significant improvements easily once you have the conversation recorded. Then you can let your creativity flow.

Action:

1. Recording the conversation is always first priority
2. Remove the stammers, interruptions and unnecessary conversation
3. Chapterise the Life Story
4. Add music to suit the era or personality
5. Include effects if necessary

Have you heard some audio that has taken you breath away? Let us know in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Hindenburg Basic
• Audacity
• Garageband
• The Levelator
• OMMWRITER
• Privacy Survey
• Andy Warhol Tapes

There are more ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Chase a Theme or Flow with the Times

We know a Life Story is about an individual’s life and we want to include certain key points but how do we go about tying all the other elements together, to flush out this life, to understand the points that need to be made?

Tell Your Story in your style …via Paul McClure onFlickr

Primarily a Life Story is made up of two key modalities that we’ll look at in this Episode 37 of Create Your Life Story – Themes and Chronology.

The themes are the events that weave through a person’s life, coming and going depending on the experiences. In the case of some people there could be a theme (service for example), that is the overarching influence within their whole life and throughout their Life Story, we may return time and again to that theme. Or for a period of time there may be a theme that is relevant, which due to some change morphs into some new theme, that is significant for another period of time. This is by far the most common type for most people as our lives change depending on the times.

Chronology is simply the idea of starting at the beginning and working your way through the eras of someone’s life looking at everything that happens as they mature. These are the, let’s start at the beginning and explore your life experience themes, relative to each time, as the years go by. Chronological is the easiest way to grasp and work through a Life Story as it creates the back story to the major events as they come along.

Thematic Storytelling

The advantage of creating a Life Story around a theme is the ability to build interest and manipulate the listener with many of the storytelling techniques. If a person has a single grand experience that everyone knows about there is no advantage of creating mystery in the revelation of that story, it’s already well known but we can start with it and create intrigue in how they happened to end up in that place. Then there is a whole new story of wonder about the journey in how they got to the major event. If there are other lesser known events in their life these can still be evolved towards in the storytelling, slowly allowed to unravel and helping the listen discover the other adventures they had along the way.

The great advantage of thematic storytelling is the creative aspect of jumping from subject to subject amongst different eras or whatever is necessary to create interest in the final revelations.

In Buzz Aldrin’s autobiography, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon, he starts with sitting on the launch pad about to travel to the moon in July 1969. Immediately we are thrust into the heady experience of travelling to, landing and returning from the moon. The story then evolves through the post landing era weaving in the back stories of his education, family and training ending with a reflective look back on his life and aspirations for the future. We know that Buzz went to the moon so there is no use hiding it, we might as well start with it and capture the reader from the get go and then reveal what makes up the man that could have achieved this main experience of his life.

If however there are lesser known adventures, the story could build from the obvious to reveal the unknown. Say a World War 2 veteran who we know served could reveal the unexpected story of capture and escape that no one had ever heard of before. There are multiple ways of developing thematic story-lines that can add a whole level of creativity to the way you build your Life Story project.

Chronological Storytelling

The most obvious way to tell a story is to start at the beginning. Who were your ancestors and what was it like when you were a kid. Then move through the years to now and let’s look at what is hoped for into the future.

This is the most natural and ordered approach and the one that most people would be familiar with. The main challenge with a chronological approach is wanting to stick to the timeline. Stories don’t do that!

As you start a story there will be a natural tendency to skip eras and events and rewind time to fill in the missing details. Although this may “mess up ” the timeline we can always return to where we drifted off. The important thing is to keep the story flowing while we have it. Sometimes if it’s relevant we can edit the audio and move things around to make the story more timeline friendly.

Your Life Story exists as one mass inside your memory. It’s not as though you just remember a time after you thought of the preceding experience. All experiences live inside you at once and you can remember any time and event at any moment of your choosing. That’s why the story will jump around between times and themes but we need to tell it in some order.

The extreme is where someone has no sense of order and it seems like your herding cats. This more scattered thought process needs to be pulled back and the use of some strict discipline will help to keep things in some order. If this is allowed to run away the listener will loose track of the conversation and interest in the story due to confusion. Allow some wandering around the timeline and themes but once a story is started stay on track.

Telling a story to completion

The importance of a Life Story is that it’s a series of individual stories interwoven using the thematic or chronological method as a means of creating an interest in the overall story. This is where your creativity can shine but the construction of the Life Story is still only the glue that holds the whole together. It’s still the individual stories that are the meat of the Life Story.

Themes and time interwoven together

Once an individual story is started it’s important to continue through to the conclusion. Along the way there may be detours to fill in some gaps and explain how certain things came about but the general direction of the story needs to be towards completing that particular story. If a new diverging topic appears, noting it for returning to later is preferred to going off topic.

It requires attention to what is being said to maintain this general flow with the occasional reminder to come back on track and pick up the story in order to take it to completion. Otherwise it could wander off and seem like a story that is left in the air, leaving the listener wondering what the point was.

Once the individual story has been completed, only then is it time to recap on something that may have come up or choose a new prompt to start a new topic.

Your style is the best method

It doesn’t matter which method of telling a Life Story is chosen. For most the chronological method is the easiest and most natural but for some individuals it may be worth considering the thematic style. It’s possible you could record using one method and with some creative editing change it to the other style.

It doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day it’s a thematically told chronological (or a chronological told thematic) story of a persons Life. It’s only about your style of creativity.

Action:

• Look at any themes that are significant
• Does a theme require particular attention?
• Could the theme be a pivotal point of the Life Story?
• Can that single theme be constantly linked to from most other aspects of the Life Story?
• If there are no strong themes, using a timeline is all that is required

How do you intend to structure your Life Story? Let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

• Please let us know Your Privacy Concerns in a short survey

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help while remembering to fill out the initial survey before. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Forget what you learnt at school!

It’s time to record an interview. But first we need to prepare, know the personality and everything about them – Correct?

This is what we’re told. All the professional interviewers say this. University courses say, in order to be able to engage with the interviewee we need to know everything about them, to know what to ask and get maximum advantage over them so we can get something juicy.

It's a facinating conversation …via *clarity* on flickr

So you prepare, read the biographies and papers. Listen to other interviews and do as much research as is possible to find the specific areas where you can dig around and maybe find some interesting angle to ask them, maybe even a little dirt.

This is the method that is mentioned everywhere to help you interview and if you intend to interview a celebrity or someone of note, it may be a valid approach. It’s a way of showing that you have done your research and you respect their field of expertise. What’s actually happening here though, is you’re going into the interview with your agenda to get what You want. You know everything about them and you have a line of questioning that suits you. This is not what we’re doing here with recording a Life Story.

It’s not an interrogation

We don’t want them to feel like it’s an interrogation where we’re drilling them for information as if they’re a British spy caught by the Stasi pre 1989.

Ultimately you want to create enough confidence in them so they feel as if you’re a friend, a very close friend at that. This will enable you to get what you want and they will get someone engaging to talk to. But this will only happen if you help them to feel.

• Comfortable
• Engaged
• Open to tell stories as a conversation
• Free from judgement or opinion

Our priority is to help them to relax and be completely comfortable so they’ll engage with us in casual conversation. This is not about us, this is entirely about them and what they want. If we concentrate on their comfort and care about who they are, with true genuine interest in their story, they will feel that interest and then open up to reveal, through the stories of their life, the things we want to hear. After all, we all want to be heard and one of the greatest gifts we can give them is to listen.

Your attitude is written large

We’ve all had those conversations where someone is pretending to be interested in us but we know, despite what comes out of their mouth, that they really find us tedious. The classic is where they are reading, taking a note or sending a text message while saying “It’s okay I’m still listening please carry on…”

We know when someone is disinterested and so will the person you’re talking to. Our body language will give it away in a flash but so will the way we engage with them.

We show our interest by

• Looking directly at them
• Giving non-verbal responses, like nodding or smiling
• Asking a question relevant specifically to something that was mentioned
• Referencing to previous comments. If several hours ago all the better
• Allowing them to take the conversation where they want to take it
• Noticing when they are becoming tired, bored and uncomfortable

There are rabbit holes that need searching

Having an agenda means it’s about us and what we want to acheive. We have our list of topics and questions and all we want to do is work our way through it to know that we have done our job. That’s all well and good but along the way a subject will come up that will take us down an unexpected and potentially wonderful rabbit hole. To ignore this new direction is to disrespect their interests and express that you don’t really care and it’s all about your own agenda.

The fact that they have brought up something unexpected indicates their interests, which will inevitably lead to some great stories. Ignoring the rabbit holes is a sure fire way to miss the very best stories.

Once you have travelled down this new path and searched out what is to be found, it’s then time to return to your list and recommence where you diverged from the original path but additionally, you now have an interesting new branch you never knew existed.

Listen – That why you have two ears and only one mouth

This is their story and your only roll is to facilitate their telling of that. So ask the questions and add a little of yourself to show you’re listening and engaged with what they’re saying and assist them in storytelling but if they’re talking Shut Up. Only start saying something once they have finished talking and there is a pause. If they’re on a roll just sit back and enjoy the ride and the fact that you’re listening intently will encourage them to open up and express themselves.

I measure my listening skill by how well I can pick up a conversation after a distraction. Often even the person speaking won’t know what they were talking about but if I can quickly recap, I know I haven’t spaced out and I’ve reafurmed to them that I was truely listening and not just faking it.

You’re not there to judge

They may say some things that you don’t agree with and maybe that is something you can discuss later but when it comes to your opinion it’s irrelevant to their story. Your roll is to facilitate them by showing an interest and not showing any judgement of what they say.

It’s worth remembering that if the situation was exactly the same you would have done as they did so leave all judgement out of the conversation and operate out of empathy for them so you won’t have to pretend. It’s their life after all.

Prepare from 30,000 feet

The easiest way for you to be facinated in their life story and remain engaged is to not know in detail their topics but have a ‘lay of the land’ world view of the general topics that are to be discussed. Additionally some understanding,  about the overall cultural aspects of these topics which can add significantly to the overall conversation. Prepare as if looking down from 30,000 feet but allow them to fill in the details.

Things to remember during the conversation

• It’s all about them
• Listen
• Engage non-verbally
• Shut-up
• General knowledge of topics
• Have fun

What are the elements that made the best conversations you’ve ever had? Let us know in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

• Please let us know Your Privacy Concerns in a short survey

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help while remembering to fill out the initial survey before and then after you read the e-Book. Just sign up for it in the side bar form, (it’s over there to the right up the top)

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Carles Cases
“Rosita Please” (mp3)
from “Tribute to Humphrey (Recomposed 3)”
(Temps Record)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

A Life Story – For most it’s only, a Great Idea!

Everyone I tell about Create Your Life Story say what a great idea it is, then something like, ” I wish I had have recorded my Gran, she had so many wonderful experiences in her life.” Then depending on who they are, something about…

• The young kids today have no idea of how it was in my time
• I need to talk to my Dad he did…
• I’m the last person with this family knowledge, I need to get it recorded before I go
• We had better get his memories before we miss them
• I wish I had have recorded my youth, I’ve forgotten so much
• I’ve had such an amazing life, I should share it with others
• Her memory is now gone and I missed the opportunity.

I’ve heard all these reasons for why it’s a good idea to record a Life Story biography. Everyone gets all sentimental and start to talk about someone in their family who they miss and should have recorded. Mentioning some grand adventure or period of time. They talk with fondness of how they wish they had or how they need to act now but then I know they won’t.

You may never see a return on you investment …via Steve Snodgrass on Flickr

It’s easier to do nothing, then have regret.

The pay-off for taking action

Everyone knows of the benefits later but why should they act now? I’ve been wondering why that is.

Why are there so few sites on the Internet mentioning the idea of recording Life Stories either in text, video or audio? Yes there are some but compared to Genealogy with 270 million search results, Life Stories only have 3.4 million. This got me thinking.

There are many other things we care about before we care about recording a Life Story. As an example we can search on the Internet to see how popular they are. Things like:

• Weight loss
• Dating advice
• Money in all it’s forms from a employment to gambling
• Sex in all it’s variations
• Career
• Entertainment from music and films to sports and trivia
• Recreations including activities and crafts like scrap-booking cooking and genealogy

All these activities achieve or promise one of two things

1. Make life better now or in the future
2. Remove a discomfort now or in the future

As an example genealogical research specifically recognises there is some missing information (discomfort) and resolves that issue with the discovery of new information (pleasure) all the while creating an entertaining distraction and recreation.

The addictive quality of many activities (as is the case with genealogy), is the more you dig, the more there is to be discovered and when you break through an impasse, the feeling of achievement is wonderful, making all the head banging worthwhile. Family can then gather around in wonder of the story that is unfolding, creating in you a feeling of satisfaction from the compliments you receive.

What you don’t get from producing a Life Story

With a Life Story you don’t get the same sense of achievement like in the world of genealogy. There is no banging your head against the wall of misinformation. You don’t have to spend hours struggling against insurmountable odds and the person is available to talk to, so big deal. There is no pay-off.

There is no sense of grand achievement! That’s actually a problem. Not having those struggles and ultimately the pay-off from overcoming them along with still having the person to talk to is an issue and a lack of motivation for recording a Life Story.

Your pay-off for recording your own Life Story

You’re aware that you have knowledge and it’s worth sharing. The difficulty is people may not appreciate it at present so you won’t have a reward for all the effort you put in. Why should they take the time to listen to the recordings now, they can just talk to you about the things they want to.

They will appreciate it in time, much as you would be happy to discover your grandmothers diary and photos but she will never know that. Your reward has to be magnanimous, knowing that now is not the time for people to appreciate it. People will take your Life Story for granted, as it’s here now and they can ask you anytime they like, so there is no big deal. That will not always be the case.

What you get from recording another’s Life Story

Your personal reward for recording someone else will be satisfying a level of curiosity about topics that you’ve wondered about but that can also be achieved by just having a discussion about specific topics. Your main pay-off for the effort will be from the individual who you record. They will feel appreciated in ways that are rare today but beyond that, there will only be superficial interest from others.

There will be a real pay-off later but that will hopefully be many years away, so for the moment there is no immediate return on the investment of time and effort and by the time it does arrive your need for motivation is no longer required.

There is always more time

Complacency and lack of urgency is the most difficult to overcome. We always have more time to meet up and get the Life Story recorded and there are always other, more urgent things to get done.

If you knew that you had one week, you would act, then by the skin of your teeth you would feel rewarded for your efforts in getting it done just in time. However with no urgency once you decide to produce a Life Story there is no reward as they are still here. It’s not until they pass, that your efforts will be appreciated.

No one cares until it’s too late

Capturing a Life Story as a biography or autobiography, in text, audio or video is a project that we all know is worthwhile. We can see the benefits as we have all lost someone but it’s not an activity that gives us a satisfactory return as we would get from building something or assembling information like a genealogy history. There is no bonding around the item, appreciating how life is now richer in some way. There is no appreciation that makes the effort worth while in the short term because there is no loss or pain. The person is there to talk to so there is no urgency.

It’s all rather anti-climatic.

Will you record a Life Story?

The people who take on the task of starting to recording a Life Story as a memoir realise that there is no immediate pay-off for doing it. If you do record a Life Story you will have to

• Work individually being shown minimal interest
• Know you may never see other’s appreciation
• Notice awkwardness in others about the topic
• Need to be generous in giving of yourself
• Know that it will be cherished one day
• Work for a benefit that you may never see

These lack of immediate benefits are what creates the complacency and lack of focus to overcome the challenges. It all seems too hard without a reward to help motivate us.

The benefits are insubstantial but last forever

The person who achieves a Life Story project either of themselves or of someone else will be more like a great painter who was never appreciated in his own time but cherished later. Much like Vivian Maier, you will be creating something for yourself, knowing that is enough and anything that comes from it will be later, much later. Maybe you’ll see the rewards, maybe not. But you know that the returns will be part of history.

Many of things that drive us have quick and easy rewards to remove the pain and give the pleasure but like sex or food we are always hungry again soon. A Life Story satisfies in much richer ways than just a quick fix.

Are you motivated enough to Create A Life Story. Comment below and mention your thoughts

Click thu to iTunes

For a general overview get the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Links from this Post

• What are your privacy concerns?
• How do you intend to use Recording Life Stories?
• How helpful did you find the e-Book Recording Life Stories?

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

*************************************Double/Seperate tracks Ioda Links Below ************************************

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

************************************************************************
Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Share all of Your Life Story in One System

A life is not one event or experience. We all have multiple events throughout our lives often recorded on various pieces of memorabilia along with our personal memories.

To share all those events with others we can tell the stories, which is what Create Your Life Story is about. But once we have the audio recorded, how do we best share it and blend it with the other things that we have?

Combine Everything for a Complete Life Story Biography

During the process of recording a Life Story we will be digging up documents, photos, brick-a-brack, old movies and recordings, possibly even discovering people who we have never heard of before. We are on an archaeological dig, through our personal lives, much as with the genealogy of our family history. We have the information on our relatives and we have our personal story. Some of it independent of each other, some of it blended together.

In assembling all this information we are then presented with the challenge of how to present it so that others can access it and enjoy the content. In the past the audio conversation is just left on the tape to be played back at some stage. Often it’s just raw audio, without any editing or attempt to make it a more pleasurable experience for the future listeners. The documents are often collected, possibly just in a box or maybe assembled into a folder. Very rarely someone may go to the trouble of compiling the information into a book. But what about all the different types of media and the fact that they are still separated from each other.

If we can combine all the components of a Life Story, we then have a richer interwoven story, containing more than the sum of the individual parts. We can include historical and current versions of

• Documents
• Photographs
• Text
• Audio recordings
• Video and film

All these components can be combined to tell a full rich Life Story, in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago.

For example if you were to consider some of the interactive web sites that you can find, you will see this very example in action to promote a product or service. We can do the same!

We could create text to tell the story, with a slide show of images, narrated with the audio recordings, interspersed with video content. How much richer is the experience when it’s all interwoven together to read, hear and see the story of someone’s life in front of you.

Then this can be shared with others on a web site or a DVD with additional supporting physical items such as a books.

There are many services and software solutions available to help you with achieving this. Some are turnkey solutions such as 3D Ancestry who can take your shoe boxes of stuff and combine it into a genealogical Life Story presentation that others will be happy to spend time listening, watching and reading as they learn about this Life Story.

If you’re interested in getting some help with compiling your Life Story into some sort of easily available format Jim at 3D Ancestry.com is looking forward to showing you the advantages and seeing what he can do for you.

You can see his web site at 3dancestry.com and contact him via email at jim@3dancestry.com

Let me know your thoughts about privacy with this quick survey. Click Here

If you have any ideas of how to share the various parts of a Life Story or know of any similar services please mention them in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help give you an idea of how to start. Just sign up in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Don’t you dare take your stories with you!

Don’t you dare, not at least consider the importance of someone’s or your own story before you start procrastinating about creating a Life Story project.

Here it is.

Our Life Story is something that we take for granted. Maybe we don’t think that we have anything to say and even if we do, would anyone really care.

• Sometimes the world cares because we did something amazing
• Sometimes people care in a specific area of interest
• Family will always care because it’s their story interwoven with ours

We may or may not have a story that interests the world at large but we all have an amazing story in one way shape or form but it will be lost to the passage of time unless we take the time to consider it and get it recorded in some form.

Audio recording is just having conversations and capturing the stories of those conversations. It’s something we have always done – tell stories. So why are you stuffing around? Why are you procrastinating?

I’ve given you 5 Simple Steps to Starting Your Life Story Project to get you underway but I know that there are people I meet as I’ve mentioned on this podcast episode who just don’t yet get the importance of recording their Life Story.

Don’t be like Vivian Maier and have no idea of the importance of your story and not tell us. We need you to act:

• Get a Start on Your Life Story
• Ask a family member or a close friend to help
• Approach a professional to record a Life Story for you within your community
• Tell them that you want to record their Life Story as it’s important to you

Action:

1. Fill out the Survey on the post How Private do You Want to Keep Your Life Story
2. Watch the video about Vivian Maier on the previous post
3. Go and listen to Episode 32 : 5 Simple Steps to Starting Your Life Story Project – Today

Are you serious, or are you just a Tire Kicker? What are you doing? Let us know in the comments below!

Click thu to iTunes

Get more ideas from the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you get underway. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

More On This Album
Jeremy Cohen
“Sweet Georgia Brown” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Get started today on your Life Story or “How to avoid the overwhelm.”

Welcome to the overwhelm. ……via Matt Madden on Flickr

Don’t look at this web site!

Looking at Create Your Life Story for many people, with the amount of information that is now available, can be intimidating. Do you sometimes say to yourself…

• Where do I start for my own life story?
• Do I have to know everything before I start?
• Is all this equipment needed to produce content?
• I just don’t understand everything!
• How can I make this easier?

…welcome to the overwhelm.

With any new skill, task or learning it’s all too easy to be overwhelmed by the enormity of what is needed in order to achieve your goals, especially if you compare yourself with others and look at everything that is necessary to achieve all the possible results as one giant pool of information.
The answer is don’t!

• Don’t compare
• Don’t know the end result
• Don’t expect perfect
• Don’t have all the answers

Just gain what you need to know to move to the next thing, to achieve whatever it is. One step at a time, while maintaining the overall goal of creating your Life Story. This episode 32 of Create Your Life Story is all about starting today with the minimum information that you need to start producing the first results.

Five easy steps to follow:

One Step at a time……via .eti on Flickr

1. Download the e-Book
2. Look over some content
3. Listen to some podcasts
4. Think of prompts
5. Record today

* Detail list of steps in the “Action” below

Once you have been through the above list and done each of these items, work your way through some additional content that interests you from here on Create Your Life Story for the next part of your Life Story project.

Don’t run ahead with these steps, just do them in order to get you started, there is plenty more information here on Create Your Life Story to help you understand the subtleties of what needs to be done which you can look and listen to once you get started. Just do these few things and you will have achieved some success which you can build on.

The process of creating a Life Story project

What to do and not to do to keep you on track:

• Don’t learn everything there is to learn – Skim over the content and only dig into what you need to know now for the next task.
• Look to learn what is needed for you to achieve only the next task.
• All the information is here at Create Your Life Story for you to come back to and reference so you don’t need to learn it.
• Listen to other great audio Life Story biographies and storytelling to stay inspired
• If you’re frustrated walk away and return later – Consolidate your learning and memories while resting
• Know that it takes time but persevere

Helping you feel the accomplishment so you’re inspired to continue:

• You’re learning – don’t expect perfection
• Any content is better than no content at all
• Family in particular will love anything that is produced
• If it breaks put it down and return later – It’ll always turn out better later
• Listen back some time later to what you produce and hear it with fresh ears (like your family will hear it)

Action:

1. Download the e-book Recording Life Stories – there is a sign up form in the side bar to the right →
2. Look over the content on Create Your Life Story and listen Ep 4 : What do you Want to Achieve with an Audio Life Story?
3. Listen to Ep 5 : Audio Recorders – What You Need to Record a Life Story about recorders in general and Episode 24 : Zoom H1 a Perfect Personal Life Story Recorder. Please consider purchasing a Zoom H1 recorder for only $100
4. Think of just three topics to talk of or ask questions about. Look at Ep 7 : What to talk about – Prompts
5. Record yourself today using whatever you have available. Computer, mobile phone, cassette player/recorder anything. Perhaps listen to Ep 12 : Recording Technique. Remember, this is just practice

Do you feel inspired? Has this helped to remove the overwhelm? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Interesting Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• Download free e-Book Recording Life Stories
• Episode 4 : What do you Want to Achieve with an Audio Life Story?
• Episode 5 : Audio Recorders – What You Need to Record a Life Story
• Episode 24 : Zoom H1 a Perfect Personal Life Story Recorder
• Episode 7 : What to talk about – Prompts
• Episode 12 : Recording Technique
• Your Story conversations
• A Prairie Home Companion

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen “Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Jay Umble
“Falling Water” (mp3)
from “Spirit Crossing”
(Art of Life Records)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

What would you do if that event happened on you?

Welcome To Episode 31 of Create Your Life Story but this episode is my story and the reason I’ve been out of the loop for three weeks

Flood Waters Creeping Towards My Home

It’s been a while since my last podcast and post about the events of the impending doom of the Brisbane flood of 2011.

I mentioned the flood that was the start of what happened to me being a deluge in my home town of Toowoomba. Here is a bit of video of a creek turning into a raging torrent. After the deluge was the flood followed by the clean up.

What of the large experiences have you had in your life and what can you share with us?

In a week or so I should be back up to speed but for now I’m finalising the last of the finishing touches of returning my life to normal but if you would like to read the full story of my experience please read my story of the Brisbane Floods of 2011 on my personal blog.

Action:

1. List out the big community events that you’ve experienced.
2. What are you specific experiences?
3. Create stories to share those stories using storytelling techniques.

What are your thoughts? Make a comment below and let us know your experiences and the big events of your life.

Click thu to iTunes

To give you an overview use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen “Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Get your WordPress.com blog with this helpful video

The greatest thing about WordPress.com is how easy it is to sign up for an account and have your own Internet publishing tool (similar to a site like this one) in just a few minutes. You will be able to publish and start developing the skills that will eventually enable you to produce and publish your own stunning personal Life Story project on your own free web site.

Using WordPress.com for your Life Story project is…

Go to WordPress.com

• Free of all fees
• Fully maintained back end
• Easy to use and publish
• Well matured WordPress.com community
• Fully hosted for all time
• Stable well designed infrastructure

In just a few minutes you can start blogging on your own site today. Just watch this video and follow the instructions to have your WordPress.com site up.

In the last podcast episode How Do I Write My Story – Get a Blog we looked at what is needed and the great advantage of using a blog to help you to understand many aspects of the process of your Life Story project including developing a better understanding of your computer, the Internet and how to produce content, then have a place to publish online using your own blog as a web site. We talked in detail in Personalised Life Story Web Site about how to sign up and get a blog along with Posting Audio to Your Web Site on how to link audio so as to play on your WordPress blog.

Your computer and internet skills will develop by expressing yourself on a blog.

Note: I’ve created a fictional person for demonstration purposes with WordPress.com by the name of – Hugh Ignatius Know, He’ll be turning up from time to time.

If the domain name you would like to use is taken, use variations on the name until you find one that is available like hughiknow.wordpress.com or maybe hiknow.wordpress.com. Using the persons name or combinations of it will enable it to be more easily discovered who those who know the name, rather than using unusual URL characters or cryptic messages – Leave that creativity for the actual blog title.

As an example, my personal blog (not a WordPress.com site), URL is iankath.com but the blog name is “Iam Ian”.

How was your experience from getting a blog and what have you learnt and discovered? Please leave a comment below.

Click thu to iTunes

Use some of the ideas in the Free e-Book Recording Life Stories to help while remembering to fill out the initial survey before. Just sign up for it in the side bar form→

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jay Umble
“Falling Water” (mp3)
from “Spirit Crossing”
(Art of Life Records)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Russell Malone
“Honeybone” (mp3)
from “Triple Play”
(MAXJAZZ)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Mike DiRubbo
“Minor Progress” (mp3)
from “Chronos”
(Posi-Tone Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Get a Blog to Learn How to Creating a Life Story Biography

It takes time to produce a Life Story. Along the way there are many distractions. Some are from outside influences of your life, while some are due to the issues with actually creating the content that will become the Life Story. A blog can give you the reason and motivation to keep moving forward.

If you follow my guidelines there are many aspects of creating a Life Story. These are:

Get a WordPress Blog

• Equipment and use
• Prompts or inspiration for topics
• Storytelling or conversational interview
• Editing of recorded audio
• Publishing audio
• Associated images and text
• Sharing content with others
• Storing and safe guarding data

For many of these aspects, having a blog can help you in getting over these issues sooner and easier. A blog can help you find topics for stories, share with others, get your thoughts down while helping you ask for help and becoming more familiar with the computer and the Internet in general. Even finding some audio online to share on the blog will teach editing and embedding if you want to go that far, it’s up to you.

Let’s get a blog…

Blog is short for Weblog = WeBlog.

A blog is a reverse chronological order, series of articles or posts, generally with the latest most recent at the top of the home page.

There are several free blogging platforms available including Typepad and many others with Blogger being particularly popular amongst genealogists. At present the general consensus seems to be WordPress as the stand-out superior product for ease of use and viewing with WordPress.com being the free, fully hosted service available to you.

A blog from WordPress.com is the perfect way to have a fully hosted, free blog, that is easy to use and requires minimal back-end issues. There is no need to maintain it and if you walk away for years or forever it will remain available for others to view.

Ultimately the Life Story that you are creating should have it’s own blog with a sensible URL or domain name (different to blog title) with the persons name in it. Something like hughknow.wordpress.com.

Using the persons name or combinations of it will enable it to be more easily discovered who know the name, rather than using unusual URL characters or cryptic messages, leave that creativity for the actual blog title. As an example, my personal blog (although not a WordPress.com site), the URL is iankath.com but the blog name is “Iam Ian”.

Learn through doing

Set up an additional blog to play and practice with, seperate to the blog that you are going to have for the Life Story that you’re producing.This additional blog will enable you to get the feel for blogging and help you to understand many things.

Start writing to discover what you'll learn

It costs nothing to have more sites and the advantage of getting a blog sooner, well before you’re ready to post the Life Story is:

• Understand computers better
• Become more familiar with the Internet (use & search)
• Publish to the Internet
• Develop writing skills
• Getting thoughts down
• Sharing ideas with others
• Receiving feedback
• Understand style, form and function
• Loose the fear of producing content

The most important part of blogging initially is to become familiar and comfortable with the technology so that when it’s time to produce the actual Life Story blog you’ll be up to speed and comfortable with the whole process but there are many benefits beyond just that.

By starting a blog now and using it, you’ll start to develop skills and motivations for things that you may never have considered. I can’t impress enough how important this can be for you in developing many of the skills that you may find challenging at present.

Start by writing about your experiences of starting a blog and producing a Life Story. Talk from the heart and get your thoughts down on the blog. If you feel too shy to publish you can always keep it private but I would encourage you to keep your blog public as the support you’ll receive will surprise you.

I started an initial Your Story podcast blog at WordPress.com for exactly these reasons, then eventually I copied it to my own self hosted site but the confidence that I gained form it has lead me on to starting numerous blogs for different purposes. That initial blog is where I learnt some of the fundamental aspects of using the Internet. In order to write a post I had to learn to use the WordPress.com site, how to put my thoughts down in some sensible readable way, embed videos and dress a post with images. I developed an interest in writing that I’ve never had and slowly my style has developed along with my typing speed and accuracy along with grammar and spelling.

Discovering opinions you never thought you had

I discovered that I had some thoughts that I wanted to get down even if they were never read by anyone else. These mental ramblings are ideas that only occasionally I had a chance to discuss with others but now, with my own blog, I could take the time to craft my thoughts and see what developed. Many of these posts surprised me as I didn’t even realise that I had some of these opinions until I put them down. By starting a blog you’ll start to realise not only the things that are in your mind but you’ll also develop interests in ideas to write about. Some things will appear and you’ll decide that you need to share your thoughts on that topic.

Dealing with all the issues of writing a blog you’ll learn strategies for dealing with problems and how to get the results that you want. By taking the time to dive into the world of blogging at WordPress.com you’ll develop the same skills with the technology that you can see I’ve developed here on Create Your Life Story enabling you to develop your own blog in your own style.

Action:

• Go to WordPress.com and sign up for an account
• Choose a URL title for your blog – your name maybe
• Sign up for a blog and choose a blog name – something interesting
• Set up a theme to suit
• Adjust settings
• Start writing and learn as you go
• Send me the link so I can see how clever you are

How do you feel and what is your experience of getting started and having your own blog? Leave a comment below this post…

Links from this Post

Click thu to iTunes

• WordPress.com
• Learn WordPress.com
• WordPress.com support page
• WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
• WordPress.tv How to site

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book – Recording Life Stories to help, particually the prompts section for topics to write on for you new WordPress blog.  Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes – Thanks

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen “Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)
Buy at Napster

Buy at iTunes Music Store

More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

How do you celebrate those special events in your life?

End of the year celebrations are the time when we often assemble with family and carry on family and famular traditions that we take for granted but what are the stories of those traditions that we take for granted?

Christmas morning under the Christmas tree, ca. 1935

There are many events in our lives that we can think of. Just a few of them are:

• Birthdays
• Christmas
• Weddings
• Funerals
• Coming of age – Bar Mitzvah, debutant, christenings
• College/ University ceremonies
• Reunions
• Miscellaneous school/sport/community events

The stories of these events are not so much the event itself but the differences in the way these celebration are conducted between, cultures, societies and eras.

• 

  Christmas drinks at the front, New Guinea Ca. 1945

  How have celebrations changed over time

• How does your family do things different to other families
• What were the celebrations that are no longer around
• What are the unusual happenings within standard celebrations

Take the time to think over your life or consider the events and celebrations in your life and how they may be different to how those same celebrations may have changed since the time of the person you’re recording.

How have things changed in your life or what are the unusual things that have happened? Share your memories in the comments below.

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

SWING REPUBLIC – BOOGIE WOOGIE SANTA by FreshlySqueezed

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How to help someone talk about things they don’t want to

You can't force the conversation via Flickr

It’s an oft asked question. How do I get someone to talk and reveal something that they just refuse to talk about?

This is not just for us and our desire for the stories of someone’s life but it’s also the same for finding out who batted the ball through the window or how did the political sensitive documents come into the hands of the enemy. How do you get someone to talk about something if they don’t want to?

Ultimately, when push comes to shove, if despite the most severe ramifications, someone doesn’t want to speak, there is nothing that can be done. Secret agencies and thugs around the world have always used torture in attempts to achieve these ends and are still thwarted by people who will make mortal sacrifices in order not to reveal what they know. If in the most severe of situations people can remain silent how would we help someone to open up that we care about and don’t wish to cause distress? We can actually take some ideas from the world of espionage and psychology to help us with the winning of confidence. Whether it be when a spy infiltrates a group, or the good cop, bad cop routine or simply when someone feels comfortable enough to talk to their therapist, in each case they have been won over to revealing information to someone they trust.

Unlike the world of force, coercion and inquisition we are approaching these topics with compassion, with an interest in understanding things without causing any distress.

I’ve had the good fortune of having some conversations where people open up for the first time in their lives about topics and in my experience it will only happen if they are prepared to share and feel comfortable, particularly if it’s a sensitive topic.

There are several reasons why someone will feel comfortable to open up and share difficult to express topics.

Empathy helps them share

• Comfortable with the relationship – mutual respect
• Knowing that what is said is clearly understood
• Environment that fosters memories and discussion
• Respect and non judgement
• Clear understanding of a non threatening agenda

Not all of these points need to be achieved but depending on the personality, topic and emotional baggage a variety of these will assist in help them to express the subject.

Understand and relate to the them with empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand the situation of another person, without personally emoting with the experience that they have had. To understand deeply the joy or sadness of their story, without feeling joy or sadness but simply relate to the story as if it’s being told from a film or book. You understand but are not involved emotionally. Buying into the emotions is sympathy and disables your ability to discuss the topic from a neutral point of view, whereas empathy enables you to relate and be deeply connected to the stories while still remaining on task as someone directing the conversation because your not emotionally involved.

By having and showing empathy with a person’s story they will feel relaxed and confident to know that you’re involved, understanding and non judgemental of the stories being told, helping them to open up and share as they know they are on safe ground.

How to be empathic and express it

Generally descriptions of empathy are – The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It’s all well and good to feel empathy for the story that is being told but it’s possibly even more important to be able to communicate that empathy to the other person. This will give them the confidence that you understand the emotional content of what they are saying and help them to know that they can express whatever they choose without concern.

To be empathetic

• Listen – Shut up the self talk and answer development and just Listen!
• Self awareness of your own biases, values and prejudices and put them to one side – be neutral
• Genuine interest and understanding in what is being told
• Know some of the back story
• Respect their points especially if you comment inappropriately
• Have an attitude of fascination with their story
• Take time to build connection

Expressing empathy

• Ask questions and comments to show that you’re listening
• Your opinions and experiences of a topic can be used with caution to connect
• Listen intently to express that what they say is important
• Expressing non-verbals including body language and facial expressions
• Mirroring with conversation, body language and personal mannerisms
• Don’t minimise their experiences with off the cuff expressions i.e. Everything is fine, you’ll get over it, etc
• Give them space in the discussion. Remain silent after asking a difficult question
• Take time to evolve a relationship that expresses empathy
• When the topic is being discussed do not interrupt the natural flow of storytelling
• Share something of yourself relevant to a challenging topic

Genuine Interest in their story

As Dale Carnegie said in How to Win Friends and Influence People – “Become genuinely interested in other people.”

Everyone has some interesting topics to talk of and if they know that you have a genuine interest in what they have to say they will spend more time and effort in expressing what they have to say. This helps them to open up and build better and more interesting stories for you and the listener to enjoy. If they are starting to drift into less interesting topics ask questions or make statements that show that you have been listening and would like to know more or other things that you (and the listeners) will find interesting. There should always be a sense of anticipation from you that the next subject or story may have a gem in amongst it. Surprisingly there often is. If you are from outside of the immediate family you may be missing the importance of some topics and even if what is being said seems inconsequential, it may be significant to family. This is where having an overview of their life is invaluable.

Genuinely listening is the single most important aspect of recording someone’s Life Story. Most people don’t listen, they just take turns to speak. By actively listening they’ll know that you care about what they say and will feel comfortable to share more and more detail as your relationship develops. A measure of, if you are really listening is, can your repeat what the other person previously said if the conversation is interrupted at any point?

Your comments and questions are to solicit more information from them but also to add some of your personality to the recording. By also revealing some aspects of your life that relates to the topic being discussed you will be showing them that you care and understand where they are coming from. If they understand that you have had some similar experiences they may choose to open up about their stories.

Take time to build and express empathy using all the points laid out above, laughing and crying, kidding and pausing where appropriate, all the time showing respect and fascination for their story without a hint of personal opinion towards their life experience. From this will come a respect for you, that they are safe to express anything they choose and just maybe they may mention things they have never mentioned to anyone else.

Props to Assist in connecting with telling stories

When delving into the difficult subjects of someone’s life, changing the dynamic of the conversation can create the opportunities for them to open up and reveal information that they may not be prepared to share in normal situations. It’s for this reason that having someone outside of the immediate family conducting the conversation can open opportunities as they won’t bring any family baggage with them. Other things that may assist are:

• Place them in an environment that supports their story
• Travel to the place where the story occurred
• Consider with them items that remind them of the time i.e. Photos, films, documents, bric-a-brac…
• Meet with contemporaries of the experiences i.e. Reunions, clubs, discussions…
• Remove them from the normal recording environment i.e. Bar, museum, long drive…

The environment and props that are used will assist them to be reminded of the situations that you want to ask about. They may bring up emotions or prompt connection with long ago memories but that will only start the process in them of remembering, it will not cause them to speak of those times, that will only happen if an empathetic relationship of trust has developed between you. Then with the jog of their memory started, a well placed question or statement could cause a flood of fascinating stories.

Or not… Ultimately, it’s up to them.

Action:

• What is the topic that is causing the issues with sharing
• Develop a shared understanding that you have no opinion but only find the topic interesting
• Develop connection and mutual respect
• Create an environment that supports discussing the topic
• Allow for them to share whatever they choose without interruption

Have you found some methods to help people discuss topics that they find challenging? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Use some of the ideas in the free e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you develop the overall plan for your personal life story project. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Thank-you for supporting Create Your Life Story by using one of the services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen “Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-ba8c99434e7f46340adf1f89df57d67e}

It’s the little things in your Life Story that we relate to.

Think of some great person and their story. Particularly one of those biographies where you know the back story. How they got to greatness or how the fell from grace. Consider those everyday parts of their story that is behind their greatness. Maybe Lincoln’s humble upbringing on an Illinois farm then studying law from a barrel of books that he bought, the death of his child then that of his great love. Or maybe Gandhi and his childhood marriage at 13 then studying law. It’s the everydayness of the back story that helps us to relate to them, and see them as people. Without these humble stories they might as well be Gods. Instead they are like us and we connect to their story and eventually relate in some way to their greatness.

Every item has a story

Think of the stories that you’ve heard from someone in your family about those everyday things.  It’s the everydayness of those stories that puts so much of their and maybe your life into context. These stories often say more about what a person is really like. So what are the everyday stories?

We relate to the small things

Much of our life when considering prompts for subjects to talk about fit into three general importance groupings of life events:

• The larger than life rare events of study, business, sport, military, adventure, spiritual, travel etc
• The important marriages, deaths, births, vacations, study, career and all the things that we all do but are particularly important only to us
• The insignificant non-events that we don’t even notice but only reflect on once the time has passed

We are all interested in the huge events of a person or even a culture. These are the things that change us and our societies with stories of the individual interwoven amongst the events of a culture. But in amongst these large events it’s the individual stories that we are interested in. These stories could well interest the greater community as they put events into some sort of context by relating to the event through the experiences of an individual.

The events that we all have in common are the the stories that connect us as family but are not relevant to the outside community as each individual family group has their own version of the same stories. How much do you care about someone’s baby photos?(Come on be honest now). A standard wedding story would move into the previous category, for example, if the earth opened up and swallowed the bridal party.

The insignificant non-events is the area of a Life Story that is surprising in that it is a much richer area of stories and context than would be expected. This is where the stories of a forgotten time are hidden and often not considered when building a long list of questions and prompts. We my not consider what is the significance of the clothes that we wore to school or church but if the only time that shoes were worn was to church it says a lot about the lifestyle that someone was brought up in.

Stories from precious objects

Your Life as an Archaeological Dig

Archaeologists search through all aspects of a societies remains. The obvious is the buildings where a great deal of the important aspect of a society is recorded in the methods of construction, tools, paintings and messages written on the walls.  Or in the graves and tombs where the methods of burial and the trinkets and keepsakes buried with them can reveal a lot of the culture or individual. But everything, even the insignificant things on a person can say something of the times of their life as is the case for Ötzi – The Ice Man.

Stories of a different time

The richest diggings on a societies everyday circumstances is often found in the rubbish, the trash heaps of cast offs. From marks on bones that identify hunting and butchering practices to bottles of long gone health giving elixirs. These all tell a story if only we take the time to look at them. What are the things from your everyday life that tells the stories of your time.

Look at your life now and compare it to how it was into the past. Compare how your childhood compares to the childhood of children today. Some things worth considering:

• Schooling and childhood club activities
• Technology changes, work, home, entertainment and societal
• Parenting attitudes
• Celebrations and events. Birthdays, weddings, religious, etc…
• Sporting
• Fashion
• Music

If you’re still struggling to understand go to an antiques or brick-a-brack store and look at the things that people collect that you remember from the past. Old newspapers and magazines have advertisements for what are now your memories.

Remember when it was modern

Developments around you

What has happened with your community and how has it changed

• How has you city/town changed
• Farms converted to housing or visa-versa
• Gentrification
• Freeways, road development and public transport
• Industry opening and closing
• Introduction of electricity, phones or party lines

From these ideas will spring all the memories that lead to the stories of your life with the emotions interwoven amongst them. Sometimes it’s the small things that will bring back the strongest emotions and memories. Just have a look at what you’re about to throw out.

If you’re recording someone else consider all these same topics from their point of view and build enquiring questions based on your curiosity.

Action:

• Look at the brick-a-brack around home
• Think back over the changes in all aspects of your life
• Look for items or changes in surrounds of photos
• What memories, opinions and stories relate to these items
• Write down notes for creating stories or asking questions

What are the inconsequential things in your life that mean a lot and you could tell a great story about? Let us know in the comments below to inspire others.

This post is just one aspect of creating your Life Story project. To help you with a full overview get the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help you. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

It’s more than just a conversation when you tell a story

Have you ever noticed when you have those very casual conversations that sometimes there is a shift in the way things are mentioned. Instead of it just being a back and forth exchange of thoughts and experiences someone will capture the conversation with a story, there has been a shift in the dynamics. The gathering has moved from a conversation into telling a story but what is going on?

Conversations that move to Storytelling are engaging

In recording a Life Story, we are not chasing the art of Storytelling but embracing the emotions of Telling Your Story. There are components of storytelling we can utilise and if you have those skills all the better but this is more about remembering, then telling the stories, in your voice, as you know them. Even if you have no storytelling skills the people who want to hear these stories are those who know you and accept that your style is as it is, with or without storytelling skills.

Storytelling ads to a life story

Recording a Life Story is often a conversation with someone involving back and forth comments but from time to time a subject is broached that emotes a response that creates a story. These stories are the gems in a Life Story and any storytelling skill will enrich the experience.

If a question is asked say… “What did you get up to with your friends at school when you were very young?” In a casual conversation this could be dismissed or answered in a very indifferent way but to engage for a Life Story it’s important to go through a quick process to harness the power of the story behind the opportunity of the question.

• Remember an event that represents the point to be made
• Feel all the emotions of this event
• What is the point that sums up this event
• Where does the story start

Often we go though all these points in an instant. Remembering the event that is prompted by the question, which is the point that answers the question and it’s obvious as to where to start the story. We’re almost jumping out of our skin to tell the story. But once we start the story it’s time to follow the rules of storytelling.

What, Where, When, Why and How.

The easiest place to start is by looking at the points of the story you’re considering telling and asking, What, Where, When, Why and How.

• What is the point you want to make? What was going on around you? What were you and others doing?
• Where were you? Where were you going?
• When did this happen, life, times, culture?
• Why were you there? Why was did this happen? Why is it relevant?
• How did you get there? How did this event happen? How did it evolve?

In the previous Episode Nine on Storytelling Skills and Techniques we talked about the structure of telling a story. These are the skills that all great storytellers follow and it’s worth recapping in brief.

• Stay on subject
• Leave the punchline/resolution to be discovered after you have drawn the listener deep into the story
• Use all the emotive tools of description to build the environment and experience.
• Be yourself and natural

We all love listening to stories. Books, radio, television and movies are all storytelling mediums and the original of all of these is personal storytelling as we are doing here. To help you get into the head space of telling the stories of your life, take the time to listen to some others tell of their live stories. Choose topics that you have an interest in then sit back and enjoy. Just by listening you will start to understand some of these points but if from time to time you reflect on the intricies and technique that they have used to weave the stories you will increase your personal storytelling skills.

Listen to some others telling stories from their lives at…

• Your Story my other podcast available on iTunes
• The Moth stand up storytelling available on iTunes
• Spoken Word a range of 100′s of shows and podcasts
• This American Life available on iTunes
• A Prairie Home Companion available on iTunes
• Stories of Our City personal stories from around the world available on iTunes
• Teller2Teller personal stories available on iTunes

Use every opportunity in your daily life to practice this skill by taking the time to tell engaging stories about your life during normal conversation. To modify your storytelling skills to suit different situations not only will they improve but you will become a better conversationalist also.

Within a normal conversation there is some engaging tension between the participants as the points go back and forth. In telling a story this tension disappears and it’s the stories that are the focus. There is an emotional shift in the listener, to just listen intently to the story and in the speaker to know they have the space and time to evolve the story in the way they want to express it. This is a profoundly different way of engaging in a conversation and is the difference that we hope to achieve.

It’s time for you to hold centre stage and share your stories, to allow them to develop and engage with the listener, to take them to places they have never been to and show them a different way of living. This is the way to show them, that this is your life.

Action:

• Listen to other people tell their stories
• Grab every opportunity to practice
• Review Storytelling Skills and Techniques

How have you found telling stories using storytelling techniques. Let us know in the comments, we would love to know your thoughts.

An overview of the whole process of recording a life story is available for free now by download in the e-Book Recording Life Stories . Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Jeremy Cohen
“Rose Room” (mp3)
from “Jeremy Cohen: Violin Jazz”
(Violinjazz Recordings)

Buy at Napster
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Kermit Ruffins
“Panama” (mp3)
from “Happy Talk”
(Basin Street)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

The prompts of your Life Story are around you.

Prompts, ideas or any of the conversational topics are one of the first things that people seem to struggle with when it comes to recording their biography. What will I mention? I don’t have anything to say… Or maybe, I have so many things to say but I just don’t know where to start. To Create Your Life Story it’s helpful to be reminded of all those wonderful experiences of your life. Some people can list a long timeline of their experiences while others need a gentle poke to remember how it was.

Memories in a Box of Photos

It’s about the conversation

The ideal method of recording a life story is in conversation with someone else. They can ask those leading questions and show the interest that provokes responses and engages. to draw out more information and travel down the memory lanes digging up old experiences. If the Life Story is being recorded by individually it’s necessary to be self disciplined in the storytelling to continue the conversation as if someone was sitting there listening intently to the stories as many people will be when they listen to the recordings long after you’ve completed the production of Your Life Story.

It doesn’t matter if it’s in conversation with someone in person or with the distant listeners off in the future it’s still just a conversation, about topics and experiences of your life. One experience at a time, combined to tell the story of your life in it’s entirety. But where to start?

As mentioned previously in Conversational Interview Technique,  the topics should be in roughly chronological order allowing each topic, as it’s encountered to run it’s course then return to the timeline to pick up where you left off with a new topic. The trick is to have a long list of topics to talk about the tell of your life and engage the listener. We’ll cover the subject of the topics that the listeners are interested in a future episode but lets look at what are the subjects of a life story and how to generate that list of prompts.

Collect prompts for conversations

There are two main ways to drive the generation of prompts and topics for a conversation:

1. Chronological contemplation
2. Provoked inspiration

Timeline or chronological remembering is where you consider the long list of your life experiences starting with your ancestors and heritage of where they came from and what you know of them that has been passed onto you. Then starting with first memories moving through the experiences of childhood into adulthood and all things that happened on the way. A strategy for working your way through your life chronologically is in Prompts of Your Life Story episode.  This method is particularly good for ensuring that you’ve covered all the topics of your life and haven’t missed anything, however sometimes due to the ordered way of considering all the topics, it may seem a little clinical and dry.

Provoked inspiration is a powerful way of connecting with many of the past experiences by taking you back to not only the memory of the event but particually the emotions at that event and what came of those times that you remember. This is where we use those memory jogs that we all have around us today, sitting on shelves and in drawers ready to remind us of our past.

Remembering a birth date is one memory, seeing the birth photos is an entirely different thing.

Topic reminders are all around you

In our homes and those of our relatives is the paraphinilia of our lives, just waiting to be uncovered or just noticed. A wealth of notes can be generated to remember the stories to tell by looking at:

What is the Story that You Remember?

• Photos
• Documents – School, work, service, awards, certificates and medical
• Journals and diaries – own or others
• Home movies/videos
• Scrapbooks
• Memorabilia of holidays
• Stored items in the attic, basement or relatives homes

Provoking your memory can also be with the use of non personal aids that are available like:

Impact of Major Events on Your Life

• Prompt topics from Plinky
• Contents and index of biographies

Timeline reminders:

• Local news events
• Major world events through life
• Read historical contemporary text from an Encyclopaedia and reflect of the era
• Use time-lines of history such as on About.com and Wikipedia timelines of the 20th Century

If you want to dig deep into some of the physiological aspects of a life, explore the motivation and intention of each topic. This is wonderful way of revealing the “Why” behind many of life’s choices but this can be confronting and not everyone is willing to open up too much.

Action:

1. Review the prompt timeline in Episode 7
2. Note the memories that are provoked by considering the items listed above creating topics to talk about
3. Order the topics into roughly chronologically, thematic order
4. Work your way through the prompt topics generating the questions or stories of Your Life Story
5. Use the technique on storytelling to structure your story from the listed topic or
6. Create some insightful questions to ask
7. Sit down and start recording with someone else or by yourself

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help.  Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Please take the time to help me understand what you’re looking for here is the survey that I mention on this episode.

Please comment below on what techniques you use to jog your memory?

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar. Thank-you for commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Add Giant Squid Lapel microphones and the Zoom H1 is just the recorder for all Your Life Story needs.

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The Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder from Samson is the ideal recorder for our application of recording personal audio Life Stories. Recently I mentioned about the pending sale of the Zoom H1 and suggested that this could well be the ideal recorder for our situation or recording stories for our audio biographies.

Zoom H1 and Giant Squid Stereo Lapel Microphones. A winning combination

This Episode 24 of Create Your Life Story has examples of audio recorded in various situation.

• Direct into the built in microphones
• Two person recording using stereo lapel microphones
• Solo recording using stereo and mono lapel microphones

First of all the Zoom H1 is not intended nor is it priced to match the high-end portable recorders like the Zoom H4n (I have the Zoom H4) so direct comparisons with it aren’t fair. The Zoom H1 is designed for a much more simple application of grabbing quality audio without fuss. That is the exact situation we have with recording audio Life Story conversations. We just want something that records and works, this is what the Zoom H1 succeeds at brilliantly.

With the addition of lapel microphones for ease and comfort during the recording we have a powerful, professional quality recording at a modest cost.

From the Samson site the features are:

• Stereo X/Y mic configuration captures perfect stereo images
• Records Broadcast WAV (BWF) at 96kHz/48kHz/44.1kHz at 16-bit or 24-bit
• Records MP3 from 48 to 320kbps for maximum recording time
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port
• Built-in reference speaker
• Includes 2GB microSD memory card and one AA battery
• One AA size battery allows 10 hours operation
• Accommodates up to 32GB micro SDHC memory cards
• Track marker function
• Low cut filter
• Built-in tripod mount
• 1/8-inch external mic input
• 1/8-inch stereo line output
• Auto record level

The audio of the Zoom H1 in this episode has no post production adjustment to improve the sound. The quality of the audio for capturing voice is very good through the built in mics and with the addition of some quality external microphones as I suggest from Giant Squid Audio Labs you will have an even better recording and the ideal solution for recording your Life Story Project.

For Your Zoom H1

• Buy the Zoom H1 from Amazon on this link here
• If you’re in the US or Canada and are unable to use Amazon as is the issue here in Australia you can access the Zoom H1 at Zzounds.
• Additionally for those outside of the North America who can’t utilise these links, I sourced the Zoom H1 on eBay from a merchant in New Jersey. As this link is to the ever evolving eBay it may not be valid with time and you will need to search eBay to find a similar deal.
  

  Stereo Lapel Mics from Giant Squid

• To get the great lapel microphones, I recommend you talk to Darren at Giant Squid Audio Labs. Remember to mention that you came from Create Your Life Story when you order and he’ll throw in Free Shipping, that’s the sort of guy he is

Action:

1. Do you think the Zoom H1 would suit your needs
2. Do you want Lapel/Lav mics with it
3. Go to the links above and buy your Zoom H1 and Lapel mic
4. Get into recording when they arrive in a few days

Grab the e-Book Recording Life Stories now to help you understand the overall aspects of recording a Life Story and as I mentioned on this episode please remembering to fill out the initial survey to help me understand what you are after from Create Your Life Story. Just sign up for it in the side bar form.

Comment below and let us know your thoughts. Do you think this is the sort of recorder that would suit your needs?

… or send an email mentioning your thoughts to Chat@CreateYourLifeStory.com

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below and please write a review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Introduction to Create Your Life Story at Tamborine Mt U3A.

The University of the Third Age is an international organisation of individual chapters where seniors can share their lifetime of knowledge with each other about anything of their choosing. It’s all about open sharing of skills that helps to keep seniors active and motivated in learning and teaching.

Recently I was fortunate to share with about 25 people at Tamborine Mountain U3A what we are doing here at Create Your Life Story and open up their minds to the exciting world of possibilities of recording their Life Stories.

If you want to listen to Ian’s presentation press play below.

Zoom H1 Recorder and Giant Squid Lapel Mic

This is my first use of the new Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder. I kept the recorder in my pocket and used a lapel mic to pick up me speaking. If you’re are interested in getting one for yourself please use the links on the services page including the links to Giant Squid Audio Lab for the microphone I used.

What is the Basic Recipe for a Life Story

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If you’ve ever watched one of those celebrity chef cooking style shows, the number one thing that is noticed is the individual styles that they have. Whether it is Jamie Oliver, Stephanie Alexander or Gordon Ramsay they all have their particular personal style that is who they are. It’s this personality that we resonate with. You also need to embrace who you are, not to imitate anyone else but just let your personalities shine through, after all that is what people who care for you will be coming to hear – the real you.

Choose Your Style of cooking Your Story

Like all things in life you can choose the ways of doing something to suit your personality from thoughtful and exacting, to spontaneous and carefree, it’s entirely up to you. It’s your style, your personality and your choosing in how you do whatever you want including approaching a Life Story project.

The problem however is, you may be so spontaneous that you don’t get the basic skills that you need to complete the task. That is something that Jamie Oliver is all about, giving people the skills and belief in themselves to start cooking, even if it’s at a very basic level. Or you may be so concerned to create a perfect Life Story that you study diligently perfecting your skills to the exacting standards of Stephanie Alexander but continue to only work the issues and obsess until you get bogged down on details without every getting under way. Then you become overwhelmed with information in order to achieved your unreasonably high standard.

What style of Life Story do you want?

Here on Create Your Life Story you have all the knowledge available to go as deep into a subject as you wish and if you feel the need to go further into a specific topic there is always google and the Internet to take you as deep down the rabbit hole as you can go.

Many different ways to make Your Life Story

A life story can be as simple as raw audio that has been thoughtfully recorded at a decent standard so the listener can relax and enjoy the stories being told or the audio can be edited, mixed and developed into a radio documentary style production or even blended with accompanying still images and movie footage to create a multimedia life story with an accompanying web site and digital DVD’s to share with family and friends.

The choice is entirely up to you, how much effort and time you want to put in, if you’re prepared to learn and develop the skills and the standard of production that you feel this Life Story deserves. Whichever style you plan on choosing the most importantly thing is the belief that you can achieve this end goal of creating a Life Story.

Too much information can lead to overwhelm.

Often the problem is when someone looks at the overall, entire project and see all the possible combinations that are available to them using equipment, methods and technology with each aspect of recording, editing and then publishing they can become overwhelmed with all this new information.

Don’t look at the big picture, keep it simple and all will be good.

KISS – (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Like many others you can achieve this project of creating a Life Story, all you have to do is follow the recipe of your choosing and make it in your style. And there is really only one recipe for the basic version, which is at the core of  producing a Life Story. The rest are additional ingredients and methods that embellish but take nothing away from the story.

Keep it simple

The basic Life Story recipe is:

Ingredients:

• Record
• Copy and Share

Method:

1. Sit down and record audio of the life stories in conversation with someone else or by yourself.
2. Copy audio onto systems to share with others.
3. Share.

—That’s it! No more!

Too often we get hung up on all the details of producing something and forget the basics. These are the basics of what you need to do to record a Life Story, the rest is additional and sure, the details can be important for a bigger experience but the danger of the details is, they never end and if that causes immobility, it’s a bad thing. So rather than looking at the enormity of whole creating a Life Story project just look at the basics that need to be achieved. You can add the rest later once you understand the basics.

The basic Life Story recipe with just a little extra

I know you would like the basic recipe with just that little bit of extra secret sauce that will make the difference in quality and listening pleasure without causing you to be overwhelmed with too much information. Yet again it’s the 80/20 rule where you get 80% of the result for 20% of the effort and it’s only a small amount of effort that will make a huge difference. The basic Life Story Recipe with extras:

Ingredients:

• Preparation -  Stories and questions
• Recording equipment – Recorders, software and microphones
• Recording location – Environment to record in
• Storytelling and conversations – Telling the life stories
• Recording technique – Capture the best quality audio
• Audio editing – Make the audio a listening pleasure
• Sharing with others – A personal web site

Method:

1. Work your way through the list of ingredients using each podcast episode and post as a guide to the method
2. Use each part in the best way to suit you, remembering all the while the basic recipe is all you absolutely need  and all this additional information is simply to enhance what you already have.
3. Look through this information cursory or in detail but only utilise what you feel comfortable with in order to not become overwhelmed.
4. Add additional information as your skills develop

I could write a longer post that goes down to China but the rest of the details are included throughout Create Your Life Story (that is what this site is about), to give you the information to go as deep as you want but the basics are all you absolutely need and all that you should concentrate on, at least initially. If you want to go deeper in a concise easy to understand way just follow this incredibly easy Advanced Life Story recipe:

Make Your Life Story as good as you want

Ingredients:

• Download the free e-Book Recording Life Stories

Method:

1. Work your way through the e-book information
2. Follow the Create Your Life Story podcast and site for additional detailed information

As a way of practicing your storytelling skills particularly if you have an iPhone (or you can upload from your desktop) consider using Audioboo to publish short audio like I have here on my profile.

It’s all here for you to use, just get started and let us know below in the comments how you go with your Life Story.

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes, which will only appear in your individual country’s iTunes store.

Just to show you how, here is my latest Audioboo:

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Your life means something to me, can I record you?

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The way we perceive ourselves and others has a huge affect on what can come from producing a Life Story. It will be reflected in everything from the initial approach through the recording and the questions asked, eventuating in the way in which the completed project is shared to others. By definition we only know our own life, what others think of us and what others feel we think of them are based on the communications that we have had over the time that we have known each other.

How do other see us?

The fact that we want to record someone says a great deal of what we think of them. No longer are we just taking them for granted but by asking, “Can I record your Life Story?”,  what we are saying is that their life means something to us. They are significant, important, special and we care enough to sit and listen while we record them.

• How do you perceive the person you want to record?
• What do you want to know about and why? – Have you told them? – Can you tell them?
• What do others say about them and their interests?
• What are they quietly proud or ashamed of? – How much do you care?
• What are the things that impress & annoy you most about them?

We all take each other for granted

If you’re a parent you know the feeling. You work hard – strive, kick and struggle at a career to provide for you family. Cooking, cleaning and doing all you can so the kids get a great education. Spend hours, days, even years helping them to achieve what they want to do with their childhood activities. Taking great pains to help them through the difficulties of learning to become adults until they are on their way. Then they’re off with a, “Can I have some money or the keys to the car”, never looking back to see how we are.

What about our parents, do we do the same and take them for granted? Have we taken the time to say to them what they mean to us? We care about our parents and we know at some level that our children care about us but do we activily communicate this to each other?

If we don’t have this understanding of what others think of us, how do we feel? How do they feel? What we’re left with is our own concept of what is significant, from our own perspective, based on our life experiences and prejudices but, by definition, not based on theirs.

If you are preparing to record your own Life Story have you considered the real story or do you just think you know it?

• How do you perceive yourself?
• Why do you want to share your story?
• What do people want to hear from you? – Are you sure? – Have you asked?
• What do people ask of you?
• Do you shy away from sharing some things? – Maybe some of these are what they are most interested in?
• Do you have an inflated ego of yourself? – Maybe your real story is not what you may think?
• How would you know what is you most interesting points and stories?
• What would you like to remembered for?

It doesn’t matter if this Life Story is about you or someone else, the affects that producing it will be profound on everyone in ways that vary each every individual. We all learn so much about others, about the way they perceive us and about ourselves.

Creating a Life Story can help everyone know what others think and feel about each other in ways that will amaze all as you discover the reasons for so much of their life and why things happened as they did

Action:

• Take the time to mention to them the significance that someone has in your life
• Mention how you feel about yourself and how that relates to others
• Share what you would like to give or receive from others
• Act by doing something that shows in a physical way these significant points

How have you helped others know of the significance of their lives and help them to open up and share it with you? or How have people managed to express what they would like to hear from you.

Please let me know a little about your perceptions of Create Your Life Story by making a comment below, sending and email and explaining your motivations in this quick survey that I mentioned in this episode.

To help you get a good overview of how to produce a Life Story grab the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help while remembering to fill out the initial survey before and then after you read the e-Book. Just sign up for it in the side bar form →

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Create Your Life Story by using one of these services from the top navigation bar, commenting on this episode with social network sites below or writing an amazing review on iTunes.

Music is from

Tony Guerrero
“Carumba”
“Dizzy Does It”
from “Blue Room”
(Charleston Square Recordings)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Ghost Writing an autobiography – The easy way to write your book.

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Your Life Story project need not only be about the audio that you’ve taken the time to record and edit, it could also include using that content in writing a book. But do you have the determination and skills?

Today on Episode 21 of Create Your Life Story we talk about how to write a biography even if you don’t have the ability, or how to finish writing it, now that you’ve started but stalled.

Michael Collins-Your Ghost Writer

Create Your Life Story is all about recording editing and publishing audio Life Stories. Once the audio is recorded we have the ideal core resource material for publishing that content as a written biography. As mentioned in last weeks episode Record a Life Story then Write a Biography, the audio is a great content source particularly if you’ve gone to the trouble to have it transcribed as a written version of the conversation. This transcript is fine as a searchable document on our personal WordPress.com site but it doesn’t really work as a book. It’s just a series of anecdotes and stories with no real theme running through the Life Story. What we need to do now is knock the text into shape, to write it into a story form so we have a much more entertaining read. But maybe we don’t have the skills.

What we need is someone who can take the audio or transcript and thread these story gems onto a storytelling strand and make the string of pearls that it is. We need someone who is at a little more distant from the story, maybe a co-author or at least an editor… How about a Ghost Writer?

Interview with Michael Collins of Your Ghost Writer.

This episode includes a conversation with Michael Collins of Your Ghost Writer about how the skills of Ghost Writing can be utilised for creating a biography of your Life Story.

Additional to this edited conversation with Michael is the full length conversation on my other podcast at Your Story on Episode 55 : Michael, Ghost Writing Your Story, about how and why he came to become a Ghost Writer, with some fun anecdotes of his life story. You could do a lot worse than to listen and use Michael’s example of a skilled Life Story, storyteller for your own personal Life Story project.

Giving you a voice in text, additional to the recorded audio.

By utilising the skills of a Ghost Writer we’re still the author, it’s still our voice, written in our personal style from our stories, it’s just written by someone else with the skills and the time that we may not have.

A Ghost writer can bring to a Life Story project:

• Expert advice on all aspects of publishing
• Objective approach to the Life Story to see it for what it is
• Create a story from audio recordings and interviews
• Composition and editing from a transcript
• Edit an existing manuscript
• Ability to tie stories together into a complete Life Story theme
• Unbiased view on delicate information
• Complete discretion and anonymity
• Expert writing, editing and publishing skills

Is this Life Story being written for the general public or for family members only?

Let the expert write Your Story

One of the issues with producing a Life Story is we make assumptions with what is understood from certain background information. Who are related to the different family members, where particular people came in or fell out of the family and cultural events that most, but not all people are aware of.

By introducing a Ghost Writer as an outside expert we have an editor who has an interest but not the background prejudices to fall into the trap of making assumptions. This enables the Ghost Writer to objectively decide to remove tiresome information or to include additional content for thematic purposes in order to place stories within context of what the reader will already know. They have the skills to create a theme that weaves all the components together drawing on additional information that may not have been mentioned in the initial recordings in order to place each individual story within the greater time, place and circumstances of the overall Life Story.

Rather than thinking of a Ghost Writer as the author, it’s important to think of them as a skilled technician who can give their client (who’s story it is) a voice and enable this Life Story to appear in text as an interesting engaging story that will bring entertainment and pleasure to all readers whether they know the individual or not.

A Ghost writer can give a voice to our Life Story to compliment the audio recordings and website information. After all  this effort we’ve gone to record and edit the audio, we might as well finish the task and have our Life Story autobiography as a book.

Action:

• Transcribe the edited audio
• Rough edit the text if you have the skill
• Contact a Ghost Writer for consultation
• Allow them access to additional knowledge as they work on your Life Story biography

**UPDATE: 4/10/11 – Michael has just published his latests thriller The Last Book
on Amazon **

Use some of the ideas in the e-Book Recording Life Stories to help with the overview of your project while remembering to fill out the initial survey before. Just sign up for it in the side bar form to your right.

Do you think you have the skills to write a biography? Would you consider using a Ghost Writer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

Click thu to iTunes

To automatically receive this free podcast, click on the iPhone image to the right or search in iTunes for “Create Your Life Story” or Subscribe in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.