Or the difference between "that's interesting" and "tell me more"
So, tell me. When was the last time someone asked you to tell your story? Did you flinch? Were you ready? Did you start sweating a bit? (I do!)
Or did you shower the other person with a neat recap of your life to date, in ninety seconds flat?
If you're not on Instagram, you may not know that I've been testing different creatives and messaging there, with very mixed feedback. My 'story of Anne' reel, however, received much love. So thank you, if you were among the kind folks who left sweet notes in my comments.
For a self-confessed queen of longform (queen of my own fictional castle, of course), short-form messaging reminds me of when I picked up tennis again in my mid-forties. I hadn't run after a ball since my teens. Of course, I got the gear first, because much of tennis is about the outfit, as I'm sure you know from Naomi Osaka's Paris clay-court fashion show. As it turned out: I'm obsessed. Love tennis. Love it, love it, love it! Also, I'm not very good at all. Hopefully my sheer enthusiasm and determination will see me through to intermediate level.
Distilling my thoughts and methodologies into an IG caption, focused as I always am on insights, story, and communication, tends to come out in the shape of ideas. Slippery things, ideas. The stuff our grey matter doesn't like to hold on to.
Determined as I was to break through, I landed on an example from my podcast.
Ah ha!
I've interviewed over 100 people for Out of the Clouds, and a dozen for The Mettā Interview.
What stories have stayed with me? What do I actually retain of those conversations?
The shape of the answer finally turned into a gritty, textured image. Something worth passing on to you.
Not too long ago, I sat for a pre-interview conversation with a very interesting and attractive potential guest: mid-thirties, shaggy blond hair, nice demeanour. We'd met in person, and found ourselves on Zoom discussing what we'd cover should we do an interview together.
Very brainy with a scientific background, two degrees and a master's, he spoke mainly in concepts. I revel in the abstract and I knew enough about his field to enjoy the exchange, but I sensed an uneasiness in myself.
My mind turned to my audience, to you, essentially. How would you resonate with what he was saying to me? He wasn't mumbling his words, one could even say he was well-spoken, though his speech was peppered with a lot of 'uh' and 'you know'.
Since he was offering no anchor, no story or image or even metaphor, that my mind (or your mind) could work with, I found myself filling in with examples.
I went all in, painting a thorough picture (I won't share the details, given the specifics of the conversation, plus he may be a guest soon).
And then I saw it on my screen. I saw the impact of my word-picture, his energy became bright, a smile spread across his face, and his hand ran through his hair. The more I layered on my story to illustrate his point, the more he leaned in, within that Zoom frame. 'This sounds great,' he said. 'I'd love to hear more and discover…'
I had him hooked on an illustration of HIS topic.
This stayed with me. Of course it would. I love to speak in ideas too. All my first drafts are short and tight and as dry as a super dry martini. Which I find hard to swallow.
A lot of us (myself included) wish for better coverage. Press. Podcasts. Better adoption and engagement on social media. Or we want better jobs, more opportunities.
But how often are we making people lean in?
Someone I spoke to not long ago said communication was like hot air. I couldn't disagree more. Communication is what you make of it. Like anything you work on and craft, it can be shallow and forgettable, or it can carry a gritty thumbprint that says 'yes, this is undeniably mine.'
Now for the examples.
Last year, my friend Serge Mouangue granted me an interview. It was a huge honour, because Serge is a kind and brilliant artist, and someone very private. He said yes to me. Not so much to the opportunity of being on a podcast. You will not find Serge messaging on Instagram like I am. Or on any other network. You will, however, be able to watch his TEDx Talk, or discover that he was a TED Fellow, or find an article on his Wafrica project in Patek Philippe Magazine, for example. FYI, earning a feature in the uber-exclusive Geneva biannual watch glossy is a bright signal of exactly how brilliant Serge is.
Our interview started as all my interviews do. I asked Serge to tell me his story.
He could have said: “I’m Serge, I was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and when I was seven my parents moved to Paris.”
Instead, this is what he offered. Watch the clip if you can, it’s worth hearing the words.
Uploading video
Transcript (left verbatim, as recorded)
“So, I was born in Cameroon. Right? I was born in Yaoundé, which is the capital of Cameroon, regardless, my dad is from Douala, which is, let's say, the biggest city in Cameroon, and my mom is from Bamiléké. So, by Bamiléké, the bafang people are in the west of Cameroon, whereas the Duala people are in the central south. There's a hundred kilometers between both people. Regardless, I give you a very quick example of the diversity you have in in Cameroon, with the language first of all. So in my mother's dialect, you count from one to ten like this. Listen (he counts from 0-10)
ni’hi ·mtcheuh ·pah· tii · khouô· tâh ·tou’hou · sambǎ· houâ · vieud’heu· ghôp
In my father's dialect, which is a hundred kilometers away, its dialect sounds like that:
ewo · beba · belalo · benei · betanu · mutoba · samba · lombi · dibua · dom
The first one sounds like Chinese. Anyway, so in Cameroon you have around 250 different dialects, and we use English to communicate in the West, and French in the rest of the country. But every person can understand 3 to 4 different dialects from around where they live, and that's how they get by every day, to buy groceries, to navigate the market.
So already, at the very beginning, I come from that kind of different sound, variety of ethnicity, and that habitates [lives inside] me until today, that diversity, the richness of diversity.”
Can you see why Serge's introduction has stayed with me? In two minutes, he transported me (and hopefully you too) to Cameroon, through his ears no less. Not only that: if I asked you to name a leading trait or value in his art, what would you say it is?
Yes, that's right. Richness of diversity.
At that point in the podcast, I was beaming inside (maybe a little outside) and I felt glued to my screen, waiting for Serge to tell me more. I was leaning in both emotionally (from the surprise of how different those two dialects sounded) and intellectually (the richness of diversity, I had a sense of the goodness of what would come next).
Without needing to listen to the podcast again, I'll tell you that I also remember an image (which I made up of course) of Serge as a boy in the apartment he shared with his family, an apartment that was nearly empty, because they had very little money at the time. As a result, the future designer spent a lot of time imagining the furniture and appliances that could fill the space. He drew and drew. He has me remembering the origin story for his early career in design.
That's the gift. The image. The empty rooms, a scrawny twelve-year-old, drawing, envisioning.
That said, you should really listen to the podcast if you haven't already.
A PICTURE OF WHERE YOU’RE FROM
A few months after that recording, I worked with a client who was keen to get PR and podcast appearances around the launch of his novel. He was delightfully holding a full page of questions for a British magazine that had confirmed him for a feature.
With my super PR hat on, I announced I didn’t want him to write his answers. Instead, I suggested I ask the questions and we record the answers, see what comes up.
Anyway, in our case, the interview started with a question stack:
Tell me about yourself, where are you from…
His first answer to me was:
"I grew up in Northern Scotland and…"
I stopped him right there.
The question itself doesn't lend itself to storytelling. It took me a minute but I rephrased it:
What can you tell me about where you're from, and what it was like growing up there?
He took a beat and ventured:
"Growing up in the Scottish Highlands means you have to be pretty comfortable with nature. You have to be okay with being outdoors in all four seasons. And so, I grew up really appreciating being outdoors." Now, I've not been to the Scottish Highlands, but since that day I've had an image of it in my mind. Still do.
Does it correspond to reality? Doesn't matter. These words left their mark on me. Just as Serge's did with his dialect story and thanks to it, I nurture a delightful curiosity about Cameroon and the languages spoken by its people.
ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE QUESTIONS - OR THE REFRAME
One could argue that the journalist could have asked more interesting questions (think of the way I reframed it). Or equally, you could say Anne, you could do better than ask your guests “tell me your story” as the first question on the podcast. Maybe.
But responsibility lies on both sides: it's as much on the interviewer as on the interviewee to produce an interesting piece.
Want people to remember you? Give them something to remember you by.
And if you start thinking, 'oh, I don't have anything like that to tell', notice how my client gave me an outline, nothing like a complex structure or a narrative arc.
He brought something out of his lived experience, his psyche, in textured, illustrated story-shape.
'You have to be okay with being outdoors in all four seasons' is the start of a story.
I'm leaning in. Are you?
Serge, like some of my friends and clients, might emerge from an interview thinking: “I don't know who'll enjoy listening to my ramblings about what I do and where I'm from.”
Because putting more of ourselves out there, in story-shape instead of idea-shape, can feel uncomfortable.
Potential side-effect? A vulnerability hangover, as Brené Brown calls it.
But it's the place from which we can make a mark on others.
Choose your camp. Hide behind the glossy, slippery armour of ideas, or show us the shape of who you are.
Next week, I'm offering my first free masterclass, Story Is the Strategy, on 10 June 2026 - 9am LA · 12pm NY · 5pm London · 6pm Paris
Masterclass means it's less participatory than my Story of You workshop, so you can clean the house, water the plants (that's what I do when I listen in on courses), or simply lean back and listen.
Free, because it's the first time I'm delivering it, so you'll be my guinea pigs, and I don't want to keep out anyone who could benefit from the new perspectives I offer on the what, the why and the how of storytelling or the difference between "that's interesting" and "tell me more."
In this online session, do not expect me to talk about narrative structure or story arc; this is not a craft talk about writing short stories.
Instead, expect my favourite hot takes on how to make people lean in the next time someone asks you to 'tell me your story'.
Can't make it live? The replay will be shared the following day.
Hope to see you there.
Warmly, Anne
PS. My very own PR trick, free, while you're here. If you're ever sent written interview questions, don't answer them in writing. Record yourself asking and answering each one aloud (voice notes or Zoom, either works), then write your answers up from the transcript. A bit more work upfront, but it always over-delivers, because you end up sounding like you, rather than like a press release. One of my clients landed a splendid full two-page spread the last time we used that technique. Try it!