Transcript

Hey there. My name is April Pertwee and I am with lightbeamers.com. I am so happy to be over here on the Mine Fit coaching channel sharing with you today more about storytelling. Storytelling has been a big focus that they have been talking about in their LinkedIn channels and in their newsletter. And I'm just so grateful for Kyle and Susanna for inviting me over to share a little bit more about storytelling with you and hopefully get you thinking more about. Storytelling and particularly how to use it inside of your business and inside your company. I have worked in the storytelling my entire career. I started out as a news journalist and video producer and I worked for many years really helping brands tell their story. And I think that we just don't think a lot about the personal stories that exist inside of the public or professional world that we live in with our with our jobs and with our companies and with our. Work. But the reality is, is that it's people that run the machine, and taking time to focus on really potent storytelling can do a lot for you as you grow your company, as you grow as a professional. And really taking time to examine your own personal storytelling has a big role in that. Another thing that personal storytelling can do is just help you connect deeper, not only with your audience at large, with the people. Who you are serving as a business, but also internally inside the company, especially true of teams and and people that are working together inside the organization. So storytelling is something that's been around for a really long time. We know it dates all the way back to the caveman days because when you think about what storytelling is, it's really just a documentation of our existence. It's a documentation or retelling of our experiences, our lived. Experiences, and this is really where the rich content lies, because it's in our lived experiences that we have so much that we've learned and wisdom that we've gleaned. And so taking the time to focus more on storytelling will allow you to not only, you know, impart that wisdom to others, but allow others to connect to you on a more relational level, on a more emotional level. On a more, you know, personal level that will build a deeper connection and build, build a whole lot of trust, which we really need in today's world. So storytelling is a fantastic worthy investment of your time and energy and focus. So whenever I'm working with people to encourage them to tell more stories and to infuse more storytelling into their work. The very next question they ask is like, well, I mean, how do I tell my story? What is the formula? What is the cheat code? What is how do I know what parts of my story to tell? And So what I'm going to share with you is a simple framework that will at least give you the middle ground. It will help you start to find purpose in the storytelling, understanding how to use that story in a positive, powerful way, not for the sake of just. During your dirty laundry or talking about something that's not important, but looking for the stories that you do have that can be useful to share with other people. And it's a simple storytelling framework that I have been using since I was in journalism school a long time ago. And I have used it now for the past 30 years of my career. Helping people tell their story. I like to liken it like a story arc. I also tell people to imagine it as a mountain. It's literally like you're going to. You're going to climb up and over a mountain. So when we have an arc, we have one side of the arc and we have the other side of the arc. Where you're beginning is on one side of the arc before you climb your mountain. And this is what I call the before. Very simple, it's before the climb, right? And the before is just basically some historical context. When you're looking at your story, the first thing you want to look at and think about is what is the story that. I have that would would be relatable to the situation that I'm sharing the story into. If it's a conversation, if it's a stage, if it's an audience, what is the purpose of me telling this story? And you always want to think about the purpose first. If you, I always say the number one rule of storytelling is to know who your audience is. When you understand who you're speaking to, who you're telling the story to, and you have that audience in mind, it becomes so much easier for you to identify. A story that you might want to tell. Now think about it. When you start to climb a mountain, it's usually because you have some sort of goal in mind getting to the top. Or in your case with the story, there's a problem you're wanting to solve. There is something going on in your own story that's causing some agitation, some frustration, some dislikes. And so when you start climbing your mountain, whether that's the literal image that I'm giving you right now, it's it's really the figurative piece of it too. Is understanding the journey that you've been on. This is your lived experience. And when we're climbing our mountains, sometimes we get lost, sometimes we don't have a trail map. Sometimes we fall down and get our knees bloody. And that's OK to tell some of those stories along the way. But when you get to the top of your mountain, think about it. If you've ever climbed a mountain before, you've been climbing, climbing, climbing, and it's just more mountain in front of you. That's all you see. But when you get to the top, you see the beautiful Vista you see. The view, this is the payoff for all of that hard work. That is what I call the transformation. So we have the before, which is the bottom of your mountain, and then we have your transformation. This is the second piece of your story arc framework and you had to go through that climb and order to transform your own thoughts, feelings, actions, decisions, whatever it may be, because now that experience has shaped you and changed you, ideally for the better. This can be even. Like walking through some really challenging times that we all walk through. You know, many people on this planet have walked through illnesses, they've walked through divorce, they've walked through failure, they walk through mistakes, they walk through lost, they've walked through grief. I mean, these were big stories, but they're very relevant because we all are living. We have a very similar lived experience. And that's why telling these stories will allow you to be more in a, in a relationship with your audience and with the people that you're sharing them with. They make. You more relatable to them. And so when you're walking through things like that, usually something does start to shift. That's your transformation. I always think about going down the other side of the mountain, which is really what I call the third part of the story arc framework, which is simply the other side. Because it's like once you're up there at the top and you've had these these transformations, or you've had this transformative moment or whatever it is, you now know that there's other people that need to know what you know and you want to run down that mountain. And go tell more people about your experience. This is where I say your message is really being born. When you decide to go down the mountain to the other side, you now know you have something to say. You now know you have something to share. And so that's the what you're sharing. That's what you're talking. You want to go tell them that message, whatever it is. So the story doesn't have to be long and convoluted until a ton of details. And it certainly doesn't have to tell. The details that you don't want to disclose, but you can tell the story from the lens of what does the person you're telling it to, what do they need to know? And these are the only three things they need to know. They need to know where did you begin? What was your before, What was your climb and your transformation like? And what did you glean from that experience? What is the message you want to share with them today? And that is a really simple way to start infusing more storytelling. Into your communication, whether that's internal communications into your company. External communications out onto your social media or emails and newsletters that you may be sending. Maybe it's communication as you go out to conferences and you speak, or you are networking and you're meeting with people over Zooms or coffee chats. Think about how you can start to inform your audience more about who you are and who you are as a company by telling better stories and by focusing on storytelling. To use it as what I call a secret weapon to magnetize your audience to you. I hope this serves you today. If I can be of any service to any of you, come check me out at lightbeamers.com or connect with me on LinkedIn at Light Beamers or follow any of my other social media channels. I would love to connect with you and support you on your storytelling journey if you need some.