The Power of a Story

Zonya Foco is a nutritionist and motivational speaker who can masterfully handle large crowds.  I have seen her speak in person a couple of times and have always been impressed.  It's not always easy to invite audience participation, as she does here with my daughter, but she is so skilled in what she does that it seems to always pay off for her without mishap.

Zonya's public speaking skills could be the subject of multiple blog posts, but I would like to mention today how she uses the power of a story to impart information about health and nutrition.

We've probably all heard about the importance of planning ahead when it comes to healthy eating.  But instead of just putting that advice on a list of tips, Zonya took the time to tell us about that through the use of a quick story.

She set the scene by telling us how she was visiting an old college friend and how they got caught up with each other's lives while sitting in her friend's kitchen on a school day afternoon.   Zonya told the story of how her friend was trying to prepare dinner for her busy household and her kids started coming through and asking about what they could eat until dinner.  Zonya's friend pulled out a beautiful glass plate from the fridge that was laden with cut up vegetables.  The kids were able to snack away while dinner was being prepared, thereby averting any unhealthy snacking.

Zonya told us how impressed she was with this and how she asked her friend about it.  Her friend told her that the dish was a family heirloom and she decided to use it more often and get joy from it.  She told Zonya that she simply kept it filled with washed and prepped veggies so that when the kids needed to eat and she needed to prepare dinner, it was ready to go into service.

The power of a story is that it allows the audience to create a visual and a scene while learning the information.  I have often wondered whether this is a true story or if it was crafted by a professional motivational speaker to effectively illustrate a point.  Does it matter?  What does matter is that the speaker is able to share information that will be remembered long after the presentation is over.

Thanks for the tip, Zonya!