As a bagpiper, I play at gatherings as varied as weddings and resorts at sunset. This winter a friend of mine, a funeral director asked me to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. No friend or family members could be found. My friend and a minister had kindly offered to provide a simple service at a pauper's cemetery in rural Kentucky.

They asked me to play. Yet I was not familiar with the backwoods. Driving out to the service I got lost and harried, looking for signs. I finally arrived an hour late. The minister had already left it.

Only the backhoe and the gravediggers remained. They were quietly eating lunch.  I felt badly and apologized to them for my tardiness. Yet I was resolved to honor this man in his death, thinking of the many forgotten people like him who had no one to acknowledge their life at the end.

I got out my bagpipes, walked to the side of the fresh grave and looked down.  The vault lid was already in place.

I paused, looked up at the sky, then held up my bagpipes and began to play.

After a few minutes of playing I glanced over and noticed that the workers had put down their lunches and were listening. Suddenly I felt the numinosity of this moment, a connection will this man and all those who are alone in their passing, so I played with all my heart.

Two songs later I started Amazing Grace, letting myself scan the countryside. That’s when I saw the diggers were quietly weeping. Soon, so was I. When I finished, I quietly packed up my bagpipes and started walking back to my car, feeling much more at peace with the world.

As I opened my car door I heard one of the workers exclaim, "Sweet Mother of Jesus, I never seen nothin' like that before... and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty-two years."

~ I adapted this from an oft-repeated, apparently anonymous story, shared with me by three subscribers to this blog.

Lesson: Tell a story with a poignant (or other emotion), unexpected twist at the end and it may stick in others’ minds so much that they can’t help sharing it with others.

See the Power of Surprise in Stories of Varying Lengths

1. Some stories with a twist at the end are told in a couple of sentences, sometimes evoking a humorous twist, as when Jon Stewart said, “I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

2. Others are longer vignettes like the Bagpiper.

3. Some dip us into another world, in books like Blue Zone, short stories such as O. Henry's, especially his Cabbages and Kings and gripping movies such as Body Double, Body Heat, The Sixth Senseand (my favorite) The Usual Suspects.

Regardless of the length we loved to be surprisedand to share that experience.

Craft Your Repeatable Story to Live a Bigger, More Adventuresome Life in 2011

What phrase, vignette or story could you tell, with an authentic and surprising twist at the end to underpin your description of those you admire, the cause you back, or your profession or product or service you sell?

Make Yourself Memorable

Want to make your story or description so compelling it helps you get what you want in your work or life? By phone, let me help you craft that captivating message. See what others have accomplished in just one hour of coaching. Or consider bringing me to speak at your meeting.

If you found this post helpful you may also be interested in these:

• Become More Frequently-Quoted

• Clever, Kind and Connected (What's your slogan?)

• The Most Vivid Labelers’ Influence

• The Gift That Taught Me How to Design

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663156/the-gift-that-taught-me-how-to-design?par...

See rest of links to this post here http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2010/01/want-them-to-remember-and-repeat-your-story-1.html

To heal a bitterly divided nation, Nelson Mandela characterized “our” goal of bringing the World Cup to South Africa in his motto, "One Team One Country."

Want to instantly shape how others feel about you or something that really matters to you? Set the context by making a vivid comparison.

Those who are fighting for more nutritious school lunches did exactlythat recently. "A McDonald's burger is safer than your kid's school lunch.  The government has given schools meat that would have been rejected by many fast-food restaurants across the country."  Wow.

Yes, negative comparisons, even more than positive ones, stick in the mind. It was back in college when my friend Jim told me his hometown, Stockton, was sometimes called “the armpit of the west.”

Make comparisons using analogies, similes and metaphors.

Here’s a rebutting analogy you may not forget yet wish you could, “It's absurd that we only have an oral tablet to treat vomiting. It's like treating diarrhea with a suppository.”

Metaphors are the most powerful of these three attitude-changers. Security expert Michael Spearman gave a metaphor. He characterized the prevalence of nonworking cameras in housing projects as "Using cameras without having anyone monitor them is like buying a condom and then punching holes in it.”

Mixed metaphors aren’t effective behavior-changers yet often a source of humor:

“When Frank smells blood, you’re toast.”

“It’s a long road to open a can of worms.”

The more vivid, credible and relevant your comparison the more likely it is that others will repeat it. Repetition creates familiarity. Familiarity hastens acceptance.

What comparisons have influenced your beliefs and behavior?

Now, want to trick your mind (or other’s) into making smarter choices?

See links to this post here: http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2009/12/index.html

True Love was the name of college friend Jim’s beloved Alfa Romeo. Why? Because, as he admitted repeatedly, “It never runs smooth.” Ah the power of naming something.

What will we dub this decade? What will you name your new effort? “I want to define myself before someone else does,” George W. Bush said as he took office. Similarly yet perhaps more successfully you want to make your brand name so memorable that other’s less flattering nicknames don’t become more popular.

If, for example, you want your product to seem swift and reliable then give it a name that has an “e”’ in it to evoke speed and a “b” for reliability. So suggest linguists. That’s why that vital gadget Obama won’t give up was not named Strawberry (“straw sounds slow”) but alliteratively dubbed the Blackberry. Avid users soon adopted the irreverent, stickier name - Crackberry. Yet many made-up names, especially hybrids of other names, sound bland and forgettable, especially those for scientific or medical companies and products.

Qualcomm may be intended to mean quality communication yet it evokes a soulless corporation to me. And the angular typeface looks like it was designed by an introverted mechanical engineer.

And does Verizon make you think of “horizon,” as in forward-looking. Does it remind you of anything? Does it evoke a positive emotion – or any emotion at all?

(No, I am not talking about the actual service you may have experienced.)

Or does to Intel instantly cause the image of “intelligent” and “electronics” come to mind?

Does Cialis sound “sensual” or remind you of “relationships” as the company intends? Or, only slightly less euphemistically, “a couple’s desire to engage romantically?" Any doubt that a committee involving their pr and legal department concocted with that phrase? Like Viagra, when companies spend millions on advertising many of us finally got the point. Ahem.

Sometimes, but rarely, a company needs to hide behind its name.

While psycholinguists were involved in naming Prozac and Zoloft, neither relate to a real world image, are easy to remember, nor do they evoke an emotion – positive or negative.

Perhaps the big corporations are trying too hard – or are wary of taking on the risk for naming so they subcontract it out.

That doesn’t mean you have to.

As a usually upbeat person I’ll stop this rant now.

Memorable Labels Can Shift Perspectives, Then Opinions

Here’s a simple secret to creating names that stick in the minds of your kind of customer:

Evoke a familiar image that has an emotional, commonly-viewed trait that reflects and reinforces  the Main Differentiating Benefit of your service, product or company.

As a Fallback Evoke the “Familiar Effect”

At least use the name of a familiar object upon which you can project your own emotional brand image – like Apple, reflecting the crisp, clean, simple and “tasty” design of Apple’s products. (What do you think if the rumored name of their new product?)

Or make up a name that easily and emotionally evokes the image that highlight the main benefit. Spicy Baconator sounds like a hearty serving of something with bacon in it. This name reinforces themouthwatering intensity of the double cheeseburger photo that appears next to it.

Warning: Be sure to say the name out loud to avoid embarrassment. I’ll bet PETA has taken a lot of ribbing for its first blog title.

And some names are just too precious- even for their upscale, ever-so-politically correct (0rganic only) market.

For more ideas on naming see the blogs Igor,Business Naming Basics, Strategic Name Development and The Kitchen Sink. Notice how much easier it is to remember the names of the first and last blogs I just listed?)

Find links here http://sayitbetter.typepad.com/say_it_better/2009/12/index.html

Also consider perusing these related posts:

Save Your Unborn Baby from Embarrassment Later in Life

The Art of Naming: How to Make it Positively Stand Out

Where Do You Want People to Focus Their Attention When With You?

One for One: Creating Slogans and Subtitles