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Why Your Stories Fall Flat (And How to Fix It)

I spent two years building an AI startup to help people improve their public speaking.

We had the tech. We had the vision. We were going to scale to millions of users and raise VC funding.

It failed.

So my wife, Lydia, suggested I teach public speaking on TikTok instead. I thought it was the worst idea I’d ever heard. Unscalable. Unreasonable. Not a “real business.”

But I listened anyway.

In 2023, I bought a $20 whiteboard from Target. I shot one video teaching the PREP framework on that whiteboard.

That single video hit 5 million views and changed my life.

Today, I have over 400,000 followers on TikTok. The entire Impromptu Speakers Academy exists because of that whiteboard.

I’m telling you this story today because most people don’t know how to structure stories the way I just did. They ramble. They report facts instead of reliving moments. They forget the most important part: making it matter to you.

 

The Storytelling Framework That Actually Works

During our recent ​ISA​ coaching call, I taught my students the Past/Present/Future framework for building compelling stories.

This is the same storytelling framework I used in my whiteboard story above. It works in interviews, presentations, sales calls, networking events, and executive meetings.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Past: Set a Specific Scene

Don’t say “many years ago.” That’s too vague.

Instead, transport your audience into a specific moment with real details:

• Specific age or date (“When I was in second grade” or “In 2023”)
• Real names (“My wife, Lydia”)
• Actual dialogue (“She said, Preston, what if you just shot videos on TikTok?”)
• Sensory details (the $20 Target whiteboard, the PREP framework video)

The mistake most people make? They report instead of relive.

Compare these two openings:

See the difference? The second version puts you there. You can feel the ambition and the collapse.

Present: Connect to Today and Your Audience

This is where you bridge from your past story to why it matters now.

Use signposts like:

• “And I’m telling you this today because…”
• “The reason why I’m sharing this is…”
• “What you’ll see now is…”

In my whiteboard story, my Present bridge was:

That sentence connects my past to your present moment.

It explains why this story matters to you.

Without this bridge, stories feel self-indulgent. With it, they feel valuable.

Future: Project Ahead and Add Value

The final part of your story should give your audience something to take away.

This could be:

• Advice you’d give (“If you’re trying to build a business, start with the simplest idea”)
• The lesson you learned (“The best ideas often sound unreasonable at first”)
• A resolution or next step (“What I hope to do is help you avoid the mistakes I made”)

Use signposts like:

1. “In the future, I hope to…”
2. “What I would give as advice…”
3. “If you were in my shoes…”

Without the Future component, your story has no payoff. Your audience is left thinking, “Okay, so what?”

Here’s The Problem With Learning This On Your Own

Most people read frameworks like this and think, “Great, I’ll try it next time.”

Then the moment arrives. You’re in the interview. The meeting. The networking event.

And your brain freezes. You forget the structure. You ramble anyway.

Here’s why: You can’t learn storytelling by reading about it. You need reps. You need to practice in a safe space where the stakes are low so you can perform when the stakes are high.

That’s exactly what we do inside ​The Impromptu Speakers Academy​.

We're running a live coaching call this Thursday at 4pm Pacific Time where you'll see how I apply the framework for you to model. You get 20 days of structured exercises, templates, and modules that turn storytelling, articulating yourself on the spot, and presenting like muscle memory.

By the end, you’re not hoping you remember the framework. You’re using it automatically.

Next time you’re in an interview, a presentation, or even a casual conversation where someone asks about your experience, you’ll use this structure naturally:

1. PAST: Tell a specific story with real details (30-40 seconds)
2. PRESENT: Connect it to why it matters now (10-20 seconds)
3. FUTURE: Give a takeaway or next step (20-30 seconds)

Preston