1-on-1 Coaching

I was asked to design a course for graduate students on communicating science through storytelling. This felt quite daunting, so I took one-on-one coaching sessions through The Story Studio to hone my storytelling skills and learn best practices for teaching others. Through working with Cyndi Freeman, I was able to develop my own stories and successfully teach my students to communicate science through storytelling.

Cyndi is a highly skilled coach for both presenting and crafting stories. She rapidly assesses what is good and what needs work and helps me efficiently improve my story. She is quick to offer multiple suggestions on where to take my story to leave the impact or message I am going for. She always knows how to make my story more cohesive and engaging and fit the required time limit.

My coaching sessions with Cyndi were well organized and helped me learn how to tell my stories. As a result, I have created three solid stories appropriate for my class and to share with a general audience. Cyndi is bubbly and energetic and was easy to connect and work with. She has a great sense of humor, and her manner in coaching is one of honesty, integrity, and positivity. I always walk away from my sessions feeling like I learned and achieved a lot and that I would be able to create my best story.

The classes and coaching I’ve done with The Story Studio have all been so helpful as I’ve embarked on a new chapter in my career that includes more exposure for my work on social media and podcasts. Everything The Story Studio instructors taught me was clear and accessible and helped me develop content and use storytelling to connect to audiences.

I am most proud of a recent animation I made to highlight a key concept of my work. My coach from The Story Studio, Cyndi Freeman, helped me to get the wording just right, and pairing that with animation has led to me creating something I know will be helpful for anyone interested in learning about the work I do. The people who have seen it so far have been blown away!

Storytelling has never been my strong suit, so when I was asked to give a presentation on “how my non-traditional business background has enhanced my career,” I was at a true loss. Cyndi from The Story Studio helped me identify three stories from my life, shape them into compelling narratives, and plumb them for digestible “takeaways.”

At first, the task seemed impossible, but Cyndi was wonderful at helping me break down the goal into pieces, encouraging me with positive and constructive feedback, and building on each session as I wrote and performed the presentation. She gave me tips on how much detail I should add to ground the audience in the story, and how I could use voice techniques to create drama and color.

I enjoyed doing the “homework” Cyndi suggested, as it made me more confident in myself and my skills each time. I highly recommend working with Cyndi, and I look forward to hiring her again for another presentation!