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Use The Ice Trucker Effect Easily, Lots of Times

January 28, 2025

Does my story have to be 100% true?’. People ask me this all the time.

The answer? True yes, but you can embellish any story if you master the Ice Trucker Effect.

I discovered this effect while binge-watching ‘India’s Deadliest Roads’ with my partner. Picture this: long-haul truckers battling thick fog, crazy roads, and floods. Every episode, we’d sit there, stress-eating snacks, convinced this was finally the time a truck would cartwheel off a cliff. Spoiler alert: the drivers and the trucks always made it. Maybe slightly traumatized, but they made it.

Here’s the genius part: we kept watching, not because of what happened, but because of what could have happened.

The TV series uses a gold storytelling principle, which I later learned from Rob Prince* is called the Ice Trucker Effect.

Take your most mundane story. Like that time, you pitched an idea as a new employee. “I pitched an idea, and they liked it” has all the excitement of watching paint dry.

But add the Ice Trucker Effect: “I walked into that boardroom knowing my boss had a reputation for stealing ideas or firing people who outshone him. The last person who pitched something brilliant? Legend says they’re now selling sand in the Sahara. As I opened my PowerPoint…”

See what happened there? Suddenly, your audience invests in your story, wondering if you’ll end up with a promotion or on the unemployment line. When you reveal your success, it’s not just a win—it’s a triumph over all those delicious what-ifs.

The secret isn’t in what actually happened. It’s in all those heart-stopping moments that could have happened but didn’t, just like those truck drivers who never drove off a cliff (but we did think they might).

So next time you share a story, remember: the best embellishments aren’t about changing what happened—they’re about highlighting what could have gone hilariously, terrifyingly wrong.

Because let’s face it, your stories are more enjoyable for your audience when you’re teetering on the edge of disaster, even if you never actually fall off.

Just don’t use this technique on your resume.

*Rob Prince is the creator and host of Dark Winter Nights: True Stories from Alaska, a storytelling radio show and podcast that The New York Times called the best winter podcast for storytelling lovers.

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