What Story Are You Telling in Your Business and Your Life?

From time in memoriam story telling has been instrumental in the lives of humans, their faith, their communities, their governance, their businesses and even their survival.? It may sound bold, but the importance of storytelling has never been more important than now.? Why?? If for no other reason, there has never been a greater ability for a person, an organization, or a business to be able to tell their story than in this 24/7/365, globally connected, digital media dominated world.?

Anyone, even a child, can tell a story that can garner international attention in a matter of hours and days.? This is not simply a matter of digital technology enabling this.? It is the end audience who is consuming it that is really driving the growth and the ultimate importance of storytelling.? Ironically, in the world of digital chaos that people are perpetually attached to, they still long for human connection.? They long for human stories that they can relate to, whether it is based on some current needs they have, a desire to be inspired, a desire for connection, or simply the desire to "unplug" from work and life, all of these drive people to listen to other people's stories more than ever before.? This means we all have the opportunity in our lives and our businesses, to not only tell stories, but to genuinely have an impact on the world in the process.? As wise philanthropist I know once said to me "We create value for others by telling stories."????

Steve Jobs once noted that “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”?

This raises some seminal questions we need to ask ourselves in our business and our lives: What story am I telling? What story is my business telling? Am I actually telling any story?? Hint - if you are not telling a story, it may be that the world is telling one for you.? Even in the absence of words we tell a story with our lives.

These questions are not just personal or philosophical.? They are critical for business leaders to ask in the context of their business.? What is the real story of your business? Is it really what you set out to tell when you started the business?? Does the story your business tells align with your own personal story in terms of your real gifts and your vision for your life?? Or has your business story and your leadership story been created only opportunistically by doing whatever it takes to sell your product?

If you are not really telling your personal story as the leader of the business, how can your business tell your story??

If you are not clear about the business story, neither will your employees be clear, and eventually, neither will your customers.?

Failure, plateauing or frustrations in business, often means that you have not found the right story to tell or at least not entirely the right one.? When you tell the right story, the true and full story of who you are, there will always be people that want to hear it - but not everybody.? In fact, there is much of the world that could not care less about your story.? But they should not be your concern.? Your concern needs to be telling your story to the right people who will benefit from it, and this is not just your customers.? It includes your peers, your employees, your stakeholders, and your family.

I have often marveled at how businesses operating in crowded market spaces, with marginal differences in their end product, are able to achieve growth year over year.? It somewhat defies the logic of traditional strategic planning principles that says you must be truly differentiated to succeed and maintain success.? If it is not product differentiation, what drives their success? The secret is in the story they tell.?

While differentiation is definitely a factor in product success, it is secondary to the story a company tells and how the story meets the needs of those who want to hear it.? This is why the power of relationships is paramount in real success, in business and in life.? Relationships are built, won, and lost, based on the story we tell, not just with our words but with our actions.? As I mentioned above, "we create value through the stories we tell".? We then find success in business and life when our story adds value to someone else's life or business.?

So, what makes for a good story?? What makes it worth hearing?? It all starts with authenticity.? If our story is not truly our own, it will not be of lasting value.? For a story to be authentic, it needs to begin with an honest assessment of who we are and who we really aspire to be.? It is the same for our business.?? Any story that is based only partially on who we are or only partially telling the value we bring, will never lead to lasting success.? We will either tire of telling a story that is not ours or the listeners will see it is not really our story. ?They will then seek others who authentically provide the story which they are searching, that provides that real human contact and that real solution to their needs.?

This is not to say that people and markets won't be fooled by a good liar for this happens from time to time.? But in time these frauds are almost always discovered and typically their story unravels rapidly once this happens.?? But why did these fraudsters succeed in the first place?? Because people wanted to hear their story, they wanted to receive the value represented in the story.?? Again, people are hungry for a good story and the value it brings to their life.

So what can you do to tell an authentic and lasting story?? It starts with getting to honestly know your own story.? Hint- as a person in business, your story is not necessarily your career.? As singer Lauren Daigle asked and answered, 'we are not just the sum of every high and low' in our lives.?? We are all blessed with a unique combination of God given attributes and abilities.? In business terms, Patrick Lencioni refers to these as our Working Genius .? In life overall, they are the unique combinations of our skills, our temperament, our weaknesses, and how we use the knowledge we have gained, that combine to write our real story.?

If you are uncertain about your real story, I highly recommend two assessments as a starting point, even for those late in their career.? For our working abilities, take Lencioni's Working Genius assessment.? I have taken all the major assessments out there in business and I have never seen one that better captured the true essence of who I am and how I should be telling my story (my Wonder and Discernment).? The second one is the Clifton Strengths Finder.? This is a broader assessment and provides a very accessible understanding of your strengths overall.?? What both of these assessments have in common is that they will show you both your strengths and your weaknesses.? In order to authentically tell our story, we must know our weaknesses.? If we do not understand them, and try operate for extended periods in our areas of weakness, our story will prove inauthentic and we will lose the audience.?

Having said this, understanding our weaknesses is not simply to avoid them.? In the words of Matthew Kelly, if all we do is focus on our strengths then we have permanently limited our capacity to grow, and therefore, the ultimate potential of the story we can tell.? Whereas if we make part of our story working on our weakness along the way, we are able to enhance our strengths and continue to grow and be examples for others.? A good story therefore needs to include the willingness to continue to grow.? If not, our story will eventually plateau, as will our ability to continue to add value through it.

This is a good place to pause and let us contemplate this partial story. Thank you for listening!?

If you have any uncertainty about your story or about whether you are really telling it, you won't be wasting time to stop and reflect and pray about it. I would highly suggest scheduling some quiet time with no distractions.? Take the assessments above and then take them into undistracted contemplation.? Put the electronics and the media away.? Get out some old school paper and pen and start noting what comes to mind as you reflect on your assessments.? As you reflect on them, honestly ask yourself if you have been telling your real story or if you were telling a story that someone else has written for you.? This will not be a one and done exercise, particularly if you have some water under the bridge in your career.? That water can be very muddy and hiding your real story, and only time in contemplation will make it clearer.? ?

We understand that it is not always easy to put your story into words or to translate it into executable strategy.? We love to help people tell their stories and can help you find the right words and translate them into executable strategy to communicate to those that want to hear it.? If you would like help clarifying and telling your story, please reach out to me [email protected].

I want to thank Thomas J. White IV for inspiring this post by reading his Once Upon a Time post in his blog White Noise.? Stay tuned for more on Tom as one of our guests we will feature in future newsletters.?

Go forth and tell your God given story!