I Don't Care About Your Story And I'm Not Alone.

“I’ve got a great story. I should write a book.”?

People say that to me all the time.

I tell them I don’t care about their story. Neither does anyone else.

If I hurt their feelings, which I often do, I’ll soften that a bit.

“Maybe your mom…maybe. That’s it.”

We are talking about a business book, as in your business. That’s your kids’ braces or university, your car or your cottage or your child support. This is serious shit.

Write a business book to make more money not to tell your story.?

If you’re not selling, don't bother telling.

Understand this, nothing builds your brand like a business book. It can, and should, make you money in more sales and higher prices and fees.

• A book testifies to your service, your ambition, your passion for your work, your values, 24/7.
• It boosts your business just through its existence. If you are the only person explaining what you do, yours is the only explanation that counts.
• As a thought leader, an industry expert, you can charge way more. People want you to charge? more.?

My buddy Marc Petitpas has used his book, The 50 Year-Old Millennial as a warm up, a leave behind, a cornerstone to his social media. The book landed him two stories in the Financial Post, including a first-person advice piece.

Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng deployed his book, Unapologetic Leadership, to power a speaking career which has taken off on the strength of the book as well as his magnetic personality and message.

I told Marc and Kwadwo the same thing I tell everyone: you are not in the story business, you are in the conclusions business. Your wares are your instincts, your experience, your expertise, your ideas…not your story or, as I like to call it, your backstory.

The sole purpose of a backstory is to validate your conclusion, your proposition, the one-sentence idea that sets you apart and, not incidentally, makes you money.?

A wonderful writer named Annie Duke wrote a book called Quit: The Power Of Knowing When To Walk Away.

She devised a great, counter-intuitive proposition: we should all quit more often.

Really. Give it up.

We often stay with things way too long because we think quitting is shameful or that by pivoting we lack gumption. But escaping an unsafe workplace, breaking up with an abusive or manipulative partner or ending relations with a friend or family member who makes you feel terrible about yourself is an act of courage.

That’s a great take but here’s where the efficacy of a backstory shows itself.

Annie Duke won more than $1 million playing professional poker.

Who better than a poker star to explain the virtues of? quitting, of knowing when to hold them and, more importantly, when to fold them?

Great players are dispassionate enough to reverse their course when the odds shift. The stars of the game walk away with the most money because they know when to walk away.

“The best players,” said poker superstar, Phil Ivey, “make the toughest folds.”

Annie’s background story drapes her proposition - quit more often - with credibility and credibility equals relevance which, in turn, equals sales.

So while everyone knows their backstory, almost no one comes to me with their proposition, their nuclear kernel of truth.?

They want to talk about their stories. Spare me.

I find the proposition by mining the backstory. The rest, the great writing, the powerful display, the fun stuff, informative sidebars, design, all those things flow out of the conclusion which flows out of the story.

My friend Ron Foxcroft and I conspired to write a great book, The 40 Ways Of The Fox, a book laden with constructive suggestions entrepreneurs can use to thrive in business.?Tons of advice.

An inventor, trucking magnate and member of The Order Of Canada, Ron has led an extraordinary and prosperous life by leveraging his personality and sharpening his business instincts. His formal education ended in high school.

What makes a guy who has skated past his 75th birthday keep thriving with such a glorious joyfulness?

Well, the answer is something terrible.

As a child he was beaten regularly by his alcoholic father.?

“My dad was a could have, would have, should have kind of guy,” Ron recalled. “He said that all the time, I could have, I would have, I should have. I decided two things when I was a kid: I wasn’t going to drink and I was never going to say I could have, I would have, I should have.”

Waves of friends and admirers applauded Ron’s candor and spoke to him of their own experiences with alcoholic parents and that’s great.

The story about Ron’s dad’s alcoholism (by the way, his father became an abstainer for the last years of his life and restored their relationship) stood out because it was purposeful. Ron took risks in his career, lots of them,? because an opportunity left unexamined triggered his instinct for action. He was never going to be a could have, would have, should have kind of guy.

That one story told you the why behind all those hows. That's how you use a story.

You pay me to bring you past the stories to the conclusions. That's where the money is.

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