33 Shorts. One sky.
Rob D. Willis teaches storytelling for leaders in 60 to 150 seconds at a time. Here are all 33 Shorts as stars, grouped into the five stages of the Story Engine. Tap a star or a cover to play it. A star lights up once you have watched it.
The archive368 ideas became 135 rules and 7 laws.
Every rule in every Short was pulled out and merged where Shorts agree. A rule backed by several Shorts glows brighter. Every chip plays the exact second it was said.
The atlasThe 7 Laws
Each law is backed by four to eight different Shorts. If you remember nothing else, remember these.
All 135 rules, by stage
Open a stage. The number on a chip is the Short; the time is where the rule starts.
Myth or truth?
Popular advice, flipped. The scores are Rob's own ratings out of 10. Tap a card.
Five scenes. Your stories.
The 33 Shorts join into one method: Find, Choose, Shape, Tell, Land. Each scene has three checkpoints. Pass them and the next scene opens. You can always peek ahead.
The constellationsYou don't lack stories. You lack a system.
Almost everyone says they have no stories, then finds about twenty in ten minutes. The people who always have the perfect story are not gifted. They collect. Jobs generated hundreds of stories for Stanford and kept three.
"you are not short of stories"
- The 5Fs: Firsts, Fears, Frustrations, Failures, Fiascos. Four of them are hard moments, because lessons live in struggle.
- Homework for Life (Matthew Dicks): five minutes a day, the day's most story-worthy moment.
- Prompts: run any topic through best, worst, first, last.
- Triggers and spotting: hesitation, surprise, annoyance, delight, a time and a place.
- Five stories to have ready: how I help, adversity, what I stand for, why I'm here, where I'm headed.
Your Story Bank
Pick a spark, think of one real moment, and save it with a time and a place. Three moments unlock the next scene. They stay in this browser and come back in your playbook.
Checkpoints
Use the Story Bank above.
Pass the three checkpoints in Find, or take a look first.
Stories are not interchangeable.
"Use more stories" is incomplete advice. Where a story sits decides whether it carries your argument or works against it. An opening story builds stakes, a middle story brings clarity, a closing story gives proof.
"a story that will carry your argument and a story that can undermine it"
- Ask: what does this moment need? Stakes, grounding or proof.
- Ask: is the room in its head or its body? Logic or emotion?
- Ask: whose story is most credible here?
- Talking up: the higher the listener, the further into the future your story must reach. CEO in years, VP in quarters, manager in weeks.
- Their problem in their words: the pub test.
Story Picker
Plan your next talk or meeting. Put a different moment from your bank into each slot. The picker tells you what each slot needs.
Checkpoints
Use the Story Picker above.
Pass the checkpoints in Choose, or take a look first.
The Master Arc.
The Shorts teach fourteen structures: Rob's four parts, Hannah Fry's beats, the TED five, Pixar's stakes, Brené Brown's comedy triple. Lay them on top of each other and they are one arc in different clothes: Ground, Tension, Turn, Change, Call.Save 5 Hours synthesis
"a story needs to create and resolve tension"
- Tension appears in 12 of the 14 structures. The two without it are not arcs, and plain beginning, middle, end is what Rob calls technically sound but emotionally flat.
- Business communication skips two beats most: the stakes and the call.
- "Problem, fix, fine" is a status update, not a story.
- Never just describe the problem. Say what happens if it is not solved.
Lay the structures on the arc
Tap a structure. Its beats fall into the Master Arc. Explore at least three.
Pick a structure above.
The arc is fractal Save 5 Hours synthesis
The same five beats repeat at every zoom level, from your first ten seconds to your whole company.
| Zoom | Ground | Tension | Turn | Change | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hook | Moment | Emotion, relevance, an open question | Left open on purpose. That is why they keep listening. | ||
| One story | Named person in a scene | Struggle | Dialogue and emotion | Emotional shift | Lesson |
| One talk | Opening story | Thesis, stakes | Middle story, evidence | Closing story, proof | Call to action |
| Your career | Why I'm here | Adversity | How I help | What I stand for | Where I'm headed |
| Your company | The old world | Why now, what if not | The movement | How you win | The 3 to 5 year future, tied to today |
Structure Composer
Take one moment from your bank and write it in five beats. A sentence or two each. The checks turn green as the story comes alive.
Checkpoints
Use the arc tool above.
Use the Structure Composer above.
Pass the checkpoints in Shape, or take a look first.
Make it impossible to skip.
Most stories die in the first few seconds. Never announce the story: throw them into a moment, let them feel it, show why it matters to them, and leave a question open. Then keep it alive with a named person, dialogue and a real feeling.
"the best stories work though when people don't realize they're being told a story"
- The hook: moment, emotion, relevance, question.
- Obama's three: moment, emotion, dialogue.
- Brené Brown's opening: construct, confirm, confound, in cycles.
- Show, don't tell: McConaughey's father dancing with gumbo and a Miller Lite.
- Energy and participation: never let the room sit back (Tony Robbins).
- A surprise that reinterprets the start: the boy at the kettle was James Watt.
Opening Rewriter
Paste the way you would usually start, then rewrite it until at least three of the four hook elements light up.
The pub test
Write the problem the way your company would say it. Then say it the way your customer would tell their best mate over a beer. No jargon allowed.
Checkpoints
Use the Opening Rewriter above.
A pub version of at least eight words and no jargon.
Pass the checkpoints in Open and tell, or take a look first.
Facts explain. Stories persuade.
We decide with the gut and use data to justify it. Ten thousand children a day does not compute. One named child lands. Keep your facts, they hold the door open, but let a person walk through it first. Then end with a door, not a summary.
"facts explain, stories persuade"
- Facts for the brain, stories for the heart: win hearts to change minds (Rob Biesenbach).
- One person beats 10,000 statistics (Paul Zak).
- It matters that they are convinced, not you. Fit their narrative (Seth Godin).
- Sell a movement, not a product (Andy Raskin).
- We store scenes, not explanations: three Titanic frames.
- A call to action is the biggest lever, and most people skip it.
Facts-to-Story converter
Take one number from your work. Find the person behind it, the stakes and the moment. Then decide what they should think, feel and do.
Fill the four fields and your story appears here.
Your call to action
Checkpoints
Fill the four fields of the converter.
The "do" needs at least four words.
Knowing which story, when.
Knowledge is the method. Wisdom is judgment: which story, which structure, which opening for this room. Here is your playbook from everything you wrote, a compass for real situations, and the tensions the Shorts leave you to resolve.
The North StarPass all 15 checkpoints to light your North Star, or open it now.
Built from your answers.
The Compass Save 5 Hours routes
Pick the situation you face. The compass points to the story, the structure and the opening, with the Shorts behind each.
The tension dials Save 5 Hours verdicts
Where the Shorts seem to disagree. Set each dial where you would lean, then see the verdict.