About The Book

 

Are you a sage on the stage—or a guide on the side? Good leaders are one. Great leaders are both.

 

In a market crowded with books about how to tell your story better, Winning Without Persuading offers a breakthrough approach: leadership storytelling built on uncovering the hidden stories that change everything. Esther Choy turns conventional business storytelling on its head, showing that the real power of story in leadership isn't only about spotlighting yourself—it's also about uncovering the overlooked moments, the unseen truths, and the stories waiting inside others that can elevate teams, energize cultures, and drive transformational outcomes.

At the heart of Choy's approach is what she calls the T² principle: Transaction × Transformation. Storytelling begins with a goal—to win trust, inspire change, or unlock new opportunities—but its real power lies in what follows. As leaders shift how they see their work, their teams, and themselves, they become more attuned to the hidden stories around them, the unspoken insights that, once surfaced, can reshape everything. Story facilitation isn't just about telling better stories. It's about building a new way of seeing, connecting, and leading.

About The Author

 

Esther started teaching leadership storytelling in 2010, long before it was a
‘thing.’

Over the years, through her firm Leadership Story Lab, she’s worked with
clients in industries as wide ranging as airlines, CPG, healthcare, investment,
manufacturing and tech. A family enterprise biographer, Esther has combined
the science of persuasion and the art of storytelling to help her clients find
more meaningful ways to connect with their audiences.

Her business storytelling book, Let the Story Do the Work, quickly shot to #1
New Release on Amazon in 2017. Her latest book, Winning Without
Persuading, published by HarperCollins, offers a breakthrough approach to
leadership communication: storytelling built on uncovering the hidden stories
inside others that can elevate teams, energize cultures, and drive
transformational outcomes.

As a top 3% most read Contributor, she currently
writes for Forbes’ Leadership Strategy channel. Her thought leadership have
appeared in leading media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, the New
York Times and Entrepreneur.com. Esther is also a MFA candidate in Creative
Writing at DePaul University. If she hadn’t run out of space, she’d tell you
about her three other degrees. But more importantly...

Every Monday morning, you’ll find Esther beginning her week with a 1000-
meter swim and a raw jalapeño. She’s a mom of two trilingual girls, wife of a
German who’s not very punctual, and is a very humble student of
kiteboarding.