Hi Reader!

I arrived in London earlier this week as I kick off a 110-day travel adventure. I was a little suspect of how easy it was to pass through customs and immigration, so much so that when I rounded the corner and realized I was already on the other side of International Arrivals, I was a bit underwhelmed.

Every winter, Love Actually makes its rounds. Despite the fact that it's aged poorly, it's still one of my favorite holiday movies and one of the first I put on for the season. It's a tangled web of stories about love, heartbreak, and everything in between.

The film opens with scenes at Heathrow Airport, capturing ordinary reunions. Seeing them stitched together, however, is what makes them feel extraordinary. I cry every time.

Turns out, Love Actually really romanticized the hell out of this moment. Other than a few drivers lined up to collect passengers, it was nothing like this:

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Even so, as I stood there and realized where I was, I was inspired to deviate from my planned content for this week's story.

Although Love Actually isn't the first film to use the multi-narrative/ensemble cast structure, it does it very well. (If you want a true masterclass in this style of storytelling, also check out Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia).

The multi-narrative structure is exactly as it sounds, a way of telling one story through many lenses. Each character has their own micro story within the larger tapestry. Then they converge around a shared theme—in this case, it's love, connection, and longing. The viewer becomes the thread that ties them all together.

Sometimes the most resonant talks are built from several small vignettes that connect the same theme or idea.

For speakers, this structure works beautifully when you want to:

• Show the universality of a theme (“love actually is all around”)
• Contrast experiences (success/failure, past/present, you/the audience)
• Create emotional rhythm by layering short vignettes rather than one long arc

Think of your talk as a constellation. Each story is a star, and your overall message is what connects the dots.

The multi-narrative structure gives audiences room to find themselves in your message. As you share your stories, you're also holding space for our stories to meet them.

When drafting your next talk, I invite you to find three mini-stories that connect to your theme or idea and see how you can weave them together into a bigger picture.

You might just find that love, actually, is all around.

See you next week,