How To Tell Your Story

It does not matter if it's a keynote presentation, or a social media video like this, or you're just talking to someone personally.

Here’s the thing: you have to be clear on what your story is.

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That is where most people drop the ball: they didn't think through clearly, what are the stories in my life that truly represent what I stand for? What I believe in, what's representative of my personal brand?

In this context, I’m talking about how to tell your story through the lens of a personal brand, but there are stories in your life, real life, personal stories-- not analogies and other people's stories-- that are your stories.

Those truly do to expose the elements of who you are, as both a human being and a personal brand.

And I just find most people don't think they have good stories, or they don't know how to connect those stories to their message or their personal brand.

Here's what I would say: step one, make a list of your stories.

And in fact, on my iPhone, I just utilize the Notes app.

I literally just make a list of stories and funny things that happen on an everyday basis that at some point, I could use as an inspiring story.

My son Jasper, who is three-and-a-half years old, was having a conversation with me recently about the family business. We’ve always thought one day the kids might want to work in the business.

He was trying to understand why we have this podcast studio set up in our basement and he loves to go in there.

He asked what we do, and after talking to him, we asked if he’d ever want to get into the family business. He stood there and he paused and said, “Well, I'm going to need a phone for that.”

This was one of those moments for me.

How do you collect these little stories and then connect them to what you talk about? And for me, as soon as that happened, I knew exactly how I was going to tie this into my next video. This ties into the way we talk about how you hire people and their perception of what's needed versus your perception of what's needed.

We were simply trying to have this really emotional moment when our three-and-a-half-year-old, and he was like, “This is my chance, I’m going to need a phone for that.”

That’s what I'm going to need a phone for, versus all the videos and the apps and all of the things that he likes to do.

It’s not hard, it’s just a small bit of intentionality and attention.

It's definitely not top of mind. But if you really want to know, how do you tell your story?

You’ve got to define your stories first. What are the stories that have meaning to you that other people could relate to? And how do you tell them in a way that's just not a cute story about your kids or your life, but it's a story that could be shared with anyone?

I can very easily take that very personal-focused story and turn it into a universal story that any parent, any mom, any family business could relate to.

That’s what you’ve got to start doing.

It's thinking about the categories you surround yourself with and immerse yourself in, and how those play into your own life and into your brand.

I suppose with this train of thought, we didn't get into the hardcore structure of how to tell a story.

Because the first step is just, you have to know what your stories are.

You have to have a stories list and it shouldn't be a list that you do one time – it’s got to be ongoing.

And then you forget, because guess what?

Life happens every single day, there is a story to be told every single day.

What's your story? Where do you have it documented? And where are you going to use it?