What Is The Point?
When you are telling a story, anecdote or joke to an audience, it is imperative that you have a message point that is being brought to life. Unless you are rich and famous, nobody cares about the minutiae of your life unless it reveals lessons that are applicable to all.
If your joke makes an important point, then it doesn't have to by hysterically funny. Without the point, you are just another amateur at open mic night and that can be painful.
So make sure your story has a message. It's Ok to spell out exactly what the message is before you tell your story, or after or both. But ideally, your story is so powerful and memorable, you won't even have to tell your audience what "the moral of the story is" because it will be so abundantly obvious.
For the business communicator, you should never have to come up with message points as an excuse to tell interesting stories. Instead, your message points are what count. Your stories serve as learning and memory devices for your audience so that your messages do not float away into the ether after your speech is concluded.
Your mother may think you are a witty raconteur, your friends may think of you as a brilliant conversationalist. However, a fresh audience that does not know you will not be so easily impressed. That is why you must minimize your risk by simultaneously communicating at several levels: intellectually with message points, emotionally with stories about real people, visually by describing stories. One way is bound to work.
Remember, the professional storyteller tells stories with the goal of entertaining. The successful communicator tells stories with a message with the goal of communicating a message. (Hint, it's a lot easier to be a successful communicator than it is a professional storyteller)
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