🌱 How to frame a story of personal hardship

If there’s one thing I’ve learned analysing 1000’s of stories over the last 12 years, it’s that…

Let me explain…

I was on a coaching call yesterday with the founder of a world renowned tech company who comes from extremely humble beginnings.

Humble beginnings which, to their discomfort they keep getting asked about on podcasts and at conferences.

When I asked them what it is that makes them feel uncomfortable, they said…

It’s funny isn’t it, how telling certain stories can make us feel so uncomfortable.

Yet it’s often those stories that enable our audience to understand who we are and what we’re about.

That is in essence, the purpose of an Origin Story.

So what do you do when your Origin Story is likely to make your audience feel uncomfortable?

Nora McInerny is the Author of the Hot Young Widow’s Club. Her origin story involves loss, grief and heartbreak. Her 75-second opening section has convinced over 7.5 million people to watch it.

It’s a masterclass in storytelling with intention. Enjoy… 🍿

Three things to take away from this clip…

1. Powerful stories are centred around trigger events ⚡️
   Sometimes they’re major events like Nora’s. Other times they’re hidden in everyday moments; for example a conversation that changed everything.
   
   Top tip: Try charting your life as a line graph of positive an negative moments. Any time the trajectory of the graph changes, there’s a potential story to be told.
   

2. Heaviness needs humour ⚖️
   ‘And then on November 25th, my husband Aaron died…
   So I’m fun… people invite me out all the time!’
   
   Notice how this sentence took all the tension out of the room? This allowed her to move her talk forward so she could focus on the change she wanted to use her talk to create. Specifically, how to shift how we approach grief.
   

3. A clear intention dictates what you share, what you don’t… 🧠

   And how you share it.
   
   Nora decided that she wasn’t going to use her story to dwell on the past. She was going to use it as a building block for her big idea.
   
   And that’s the power of intention. It turns a personal story from something that you carry into something that you can use.

I hope it gives you some food for thought with your talks and interviews this month!

Alex

P.s. This clip came from a reader recommendation. If you have a clip/talk that you think should be featured in this newsletter, reply with a link in this email!