How to Stop Settling For Safe Stories
We’re always told to tell stories.
As speakers.
As business owners
In our marketing.
Because stories connect us with other people, etc, etc, etc.
Even though we know this, we stick to the ones which are safe.
And they’re not crap stories.
They’re just the ones that you could tell in your sleep while counting sheep.
They are familiar, they are safe, and they work.
When you start to work with people, helping them to find their stories so that they can speak, it’s always fascinating how many stories we have but we just don’t tell.
The stories we do tell are probably about 20% of what you’ve got.
The other 80% are there, but they just haven’t been looked at properly.
In the work I do, particularly within the brain part of my process, I ask a lot of questions about them and their life.
Not just about the work they do, but about stuff which might seem totally unconnected to them professionally.
What appears is delightful.
The academic who loves crochet.
The finance human who was an elite-level athlete as a teenager.
The CEO who played for a band.
All of these experiences feel like a different life.
And yet they are totally connected to who and where they are now.
One of the questions which almost always appears when we start to look at these stories is - can I actually talk about that?
The answer is always yes mate, you can.
I spent many years living with anger, and it was something which I never spoke about.
Partly because I couldn’t see the connection to where I am now.
Partly because I was embarrassed by it.
Partly because I was scared what would happen if I did talk about it.
In 2018, I stood on a stage for the first time and talked about it openly.
I talked about how I live with anger, and I talked about the effect that it had on people around me from my perspective, obviously. I talked about what I had done to help change my relationship with anger.
You know that my bum hole was twitching like a rabbit’s nose when I did that.
The content was raw, it was personal, and my parents were in the audience.
That one delivery eight years ago was the starter for the work I do now.
It gave me permission to explore it more, to share it, and to use it to help others.
I know that my first TEDx on mindfulness and men wouldn’t have existed without that first delivery.
When I work with clients, we talk a lot about these stories.
Some of them, we work on how they can be told.
Others, we don’t.
Because there are still some stories which are not the right stories to tell.
And it’s important to understand that distinction.
When you’re speaking on stage, it’s not therapy.
We often talk about speaking from the scar, not the wound.
And when you’re starting to explore these stories, some of it will still be really raw.
I’ve been in the audience when people have opened up the Pandora’s box of their life and not known how to close it.
When you speak about these things that might well be uncomfortable or triggering for people, you have to know how to keep your audience safe.
Which is why we did the work on understanding those stories and the impact they have.
So how do we find these stories?
There’s no one way to do it, but you could try this.
Sit down with a piece of paper and your writing implement of choice and spend some time writing down the stories that you tell on a regular basis.
These are the stories that you tell to clients or on social media to illustrate points.
The ones that you always come back to because they work.
Then ask the people close to you (family, friends, colleagues) to tell you what stories they hear you tell often.
Because they will see patterns that you can’t.
They might even tell you that they’ve heard that story 200 times before and they could probably tell it better than you.
Ouch.
These are your 20%.
When you’re ready to go even deeper with your stories, I have a river of life exercise which is definitely worth exploring.
Because that gives you a chance to explore stories throughout your life and create a library of stories that you could potentially tell.
These are your 80%.
The stories that you are currently not telling are often the ones the audiences really need to hear.
They are the ones which will connect you with people far more than you can imagine.
Every time I do this work with people, they are always surprised.
And they always come out with stories which are so much more fun and powerful.
Of course, as a call to action, if you want some help finding yours, give me a shout.