The story is the vehicle. The truth inside it is the destination. Keep both in view.
When you’re in this energy, you have a real and remarkable ability to take an experience, yours or somebody else’s, and shape it into something that teaches. Something that opens a door in the listener’s mind that wasn’t open a minute ago. That’s not a small thing. That’s the thing that makes great teachers, great coaches, great communicators. The story isn’t decoration. In your hands, it’s the whole method.
In everyday life, this looks like being intentional about which stories you tell and why. Not scripted. Not calculated. Just conscious. What is this story really for?
Sometimes I share very personal stories. Sometimes the subject matter makes people uncomfortable. I’ve learned to be very careful about my sharing. I’m okay with telling a story about abuse, depression, or other challenging times, as long as I believe the listener will benefit in some way from my sharing the story.
I ask, what do I want the person to walk away with? When you know the answer to that before you start, the story finds its own shape and lands right where it needs to.
It also looks like staying connected to what really happened underneath the telling. The emotional truth is what makes a story land. But the literal truth is what makes it trustworthy. When the two start drifting apart, something gets lost, even if nobody in the room can quite name what it was. Staying grounded in what really happened, while still bringing all your color and feeling to the telling, that’s the practice.
The hunger for new experiences and new ideas is real, and it’s productive. It feeds the well you draw from. The trick is not letting the hunger for the next thing pull you away from the depth of what you’re already carrying. You’ve got more than enough. The work is going deeper, not wider.
In our next chat, we meet the fullest expression of this energy, the Captivating Narrator.
I wouldn’t miss it. I hope you don’t!
Find your happy. Love what you do. Make a difference. Come back to me safely. See ya!
