How to Use Stories to Know Your Super Skills

I love seeing how many of you used the previous article or this post to test out sharing a source story. Here are some great examples:

Yunzhe's introduction

Rachel's reintroduction

Laura's reintroduction

A Common Issue When Creating A Source Story

While some people were inspired to share their source story, others got stuck when it came to their super skills. I define super skills as “The three things that you excel in no matter what the situation.”

Many didn’t know what their super skills are or how to find them.

We want to know our super skills because we can base our story strategy on them. You don't need to highlight everything you’re great at -- the more you try that, the less you are understood. You only need to share stories about your top three skills, so everyone says the same thing about you. Later on, you can add details and more skills -- if you build a story strategy right people will be eager to learn more.

The Best Way to Find Your Super Skills

I didn’t always know my super skills. This hurt my career and confidence because I focused all my stories on what I thought people wanted to hear. This lead to applying and taking ill-fitted work and making less impact. I did an assessment (maybe Myers-Briggs) and while the results highlighted some skills, it didn’t inspire me or help me know myself better. I also doubted the results because I didn’t connect the skills to the work I had done. It prompted imposter feelings.

The Best Way To Sell Yourself Is Through Stories

I read somewhere that the best way to sell yourself was through stories. I liked that sentiment and it helped me to figure out how to use stories to find my skills. I am a playwright.

I write the first draft of a play on my computer, a few scenes on paper, and I’ll even make a pretend stage on my desk, using a highlighter and scissors as characters to help me develop dialogue. That didn't help me know my skills.

I recalled what I do after I’ve written the first draft of a play. I take the scenes of the play and write the main actions out on index cards. Then I play with the order of the events to build tension and improve the story.

Our careers are like a first-draft play.

• We know the characters (us and everyone we have worked with).
• We know the setting (all the places we studied, volunteered, and worked).
• We know the places of tension (jobs we left, jobs we hated, and jobs we didn’t get).

So, if the heart of a play is about a character going for something and what they did along the way, we can examine our career like that. Except, we want this to be a positive play – so we only need to bring in career scenes where we felt we made a difference, experienced flow, that held meaning, and where we felt happy.

The Index Card Exercise

I did that. I took a week to let my favorite moments at work come to me. Every day I wrote one story down on an index card. After a week, I examined all of them and saw the common skills in each story. I noticed that three skills were mentioned in almost every story and knew those must be important to me. They became my super skills. All three together are your career brand.

I walk through how to do this exactly in my book The Career Stories Method . There are over 25 prompts to help you find these stories and it comes with a free course to help you too.

The Top Three Skills are Your Career Brand

Here's my story strategy chart again. There are 10 different story types you can use to share your career story. One of those types is a source story. You can't build any of the 10 stories without knowing your career brand.

How Knowing Your Three Skills Help Your Career Story

Once you know these super skills, your work gets easier. You no longer have to prove that you know everything. You simply need to highlight these skills in every story you tell. You don’t need to name them in your story. But, it’s good for you to know. When I found mine, I found it useful to write a statement like this on a sticky note; “I am best when I get to (skill 1), (skill 2) and (skill 3).” You stop sharing stories about work you don’t want to be offered. Your career brand helps you to:

• Redirect people to experiences you want them to know about
• Be seen as someone who knows themselves and how they best others
• Know and trust yourself

It’s Hard to Sell Something You Don’t Know

The other day I was shopping for a kayak. I asked the store employee for some information about choosing a kayak. He seemed resistant to help me, but showed me some kayaks and listed off a few features and their lengths. I asked him what kind he used, and he said, “I don’t kayak.”

That explained his hesitancy. It’s the same with your story. Of course, you’re not going to want to introduce yourself or tell stories about your work if you don’t know. People pick up on that.

It’s worth knowing your core story.

About Kerri Twigg

Kerri Twigg has spent the last 20+ years helping people discover, hone, and express their stories. After crying about money while working in fun, but low-paying arts jobs, she discovered a way to merge storytelling with career development. She created a program,?wrote a book ?about it, and now splits her time between writing short stories, and helping people use stories to enhance their careers.?She loves it.