To Tell Your Story Effectively, You Need to Master These 5 Simple Concepts

The following is adapted from Story Like You Mean It.

As the existential psychologist Rollo May said, “Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy, and mutual valuing.” In other words, communicating with someone is how to connect with them. 

But how do you do that? If you’re at a networking event, how do you connect with someone and start to build understanding? If you’re meeting with a new colleague, how do you get them to see you as a worthwhile member of their workplace community? If you’re interviewing for a job, how do you show the value that you bring? 

The answer to all of these questions—and any question about how to connect on a deep level with another person—is to tell your story, in an effective and authentic way.

But presenting your personal story is not as simple a task as it might seem. It needs to bring together your personal identity with your work story, which is a challenge, but the good news is that it will be worth the effort in the end. And if you master five simple (but important) concepts, you’ll be that much closer to success. 

Let me show you what I mean.

#1: Identity is Key

When you find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to connect with someone, you have to be able to draw them in. The good news is if you can launch into story versus starting with let me tell you a story when someone asks, “Who are you anyway?,” the chances are very good you’ll hook them.

I call this identity wrangling because identity has always been seen in different ways. At one end of the continuum, people see identity as fixed; at the other end, they see identity as a construct that is constantly unfolding. 

Our social identity, or self-identity, is certainly the result of the interaction between the two, between how we’re born and how we change. Sometimes people say, “Well, this is just who I am.”

It’s probably not.

#2: You are the Director of Your Own Story

The great thing is that now it’s you holding the pen, using the keyboard, or shouting through the megaphone. You’re directing your own story. You get to control how much of the story you let out. You get to come up with possibilities for how you’ll live, work, and be in that next chapter of your life.

One approach that can be helpful is to iterate many possible options: living in a particular neighborhood or place; recreating differently by hiking or being by the beach; raising horses; or teaching or mentoring for a nonprofit. Write a list of all the possibilities (what we call imagined variations).

Why? Because you’ll have to—in some cases—imagine or develop those possible next moments in your life (remember, you’re the director!) that you find both plausible and worthwhile. And not only that, but you will also have to imagine variations based on the now, near now, near past, and the far past to make sure your story is relevant, prevalent, and makes sense. 

#3: Make Your Story Relevant

To tell your story effectively, you have to take parts of your life that don’t seem to make sense now and see how they fit into a story that is relevant and sense making. 

Let me give you a real-life example of what that might look like. I once had a student who had been in prison. He was a college graduate who had a few cocktails and decided he was going to move a police car. That’s not a good idea if you’re a black male in a white town in New England.

So this guy wanted to get a job mentoring and helping others, in particular in a college setting. How was he going to make sense of that in his story? 

When we worked through it, it became clear that he was an explorer but an overactive one. He had no guardrails. So the process helped him say, “Look, my exploration got me into trouble because I didn’t understand I was about to go off the road. And because I didn’t understand that, that’s exactly what I did.”

As a result of this self-understanding, he was able to put together an authentic, relevant story that makes sense. Now he speaks nationally as an advocate for incarcerated folks who are denied certification possibilities, whether it’s in physical therapy, healthcare or whatever. He also got that gig in education that he wanted; he’s now in front of the class doing the mentoring he wanted to do for others.

Learning to tell his story effectively helped him ready himself for public speaking and also allowed him to take stock of his internal narrative and those off-kilter moments where his competencies were knocking him out of balance. 

#4: Stay Grounded in Truth

There are elements of some formative experiences that maybe don’t show us in our best light. Not for public consumption, right? 

Don’t lie about them. Your story’s value is grounded in truth. That’s why others can’t question it and you can have confidence in it. Instead of lying, you can flatten the story. Don’t accentuate areas that are not in alignment to the audience or the telling. 

If you go too heavy in one area, ask yourself whether that content is disruptive to your positive value claim. If you identify a moment that has all the right juice but also has something that’s not so great, maybe don’t unpack all of its qualities. 

Take my client who moved the police car. Perhaps he might say, “I had a short time out years ago where I kind of went out of balance and I was pushing limits. In fact, I moved someone’s car. I didn’t want to steal it; I just wanted to mess with them and see how far I could go. Let’s just say, it got me into a little bit of trouble because they hadn’t really consented.” He doesn’t have to say that he moved a police car if he’s at some national summit in Washington, DC, but he might if he’s speaking to incarcerated people. They’re different situations requiring different approaches.

#5: Fit it All Together

Now that you’re thinking about those past events and your imagined variations, maybe you’re thinking, “Hey, I have this part of my story that I think I want to tell, but I don’t know how it even fits.” 

If that’s the case, your task is to see how that event is relevant today. Once you understand that yourself, when you tell others how it fits, they will accept it. 

Go back to something that was clearly important, and rethink how it could be joined up to or lead toward this “now” moment in time or link up to the near future, to your imagined variation of your next season of work or life, whatever your focus may be.

Story is the Difference Maker

Learning to tell your story effectively is a difference maker. It’s a difference maker in getting funding for your nonprofit, getting the promotion you want or getting into the school you want. In the world of stand-up comedy, it’s the difference between getting the front row laughing and getting the entire house laughing. 

It’s an engagement thing. It shows you reached everyone. And it shows everyone you interact with that they can connect with you. 

I’ve seen it time and again: by mastering these five concepts, you will be able to form those connections (no matter who you are or what the situation is) and demonstrate to your audience the value that you bring.

For more advice on telling your story effectively, you can find Story Like You Mean It on Amazon.

Dr. Dennis Rebelo is a professor, speaker, and career coach. He is the creator of the Peak Storytelling model, his research-based method for crafting the narrative of who you are and what drives you and why, utilized by former professional athletes turned nonprofit leaders as well as entrepreneurs, CEOs, guidance professionals, and advisers throughout the world.

Dr. Rebelo, former president of Alex and Ani University and co-founder of the Sports Mind Institute, recently received the 2020 Thomas J. Carroll Award for Teaching Excellence at Roger Williams University. He currently resides in Rhode Island.