Once upon a time…lessons from the greatest.
Posted on: Thursday, August 31, 2017 Category: Blog (58)2 min read
Why does storytelling matter so much? Or is it just the latest phase of consulting being offered to corporations? Is it the new ‘Mindfulness?!
Your story matters because it explains the reasons for you. It is a way to share two parts of your whole self – your authentic/empirical self (the you only you know) and the cultural or historical self (the reasons for you, how you got here). Telling your story, in your words, helps others to understand the reasons for you, your passions, beliefs and motivation.
Importantly, your story will engender emotional responses. And the emotional part of your brand is your key differentiator. This is how you make people feel. Once functional requirements are met, the decision to select you over others will be based on the emotional side of your brand.
You may meet people with a similar historical or cultural self to you. They may have grown up in a similar way, learned similar things – these form part of the ‘functional’ self. It is your story – how you reacted to certain events, the choices that you made and how your felt about these situations – these tell us about your emotional brand.
So…tell your story. Don’t list your accomplishments verbatim on LinkedIn, tell your story, weave details, embrace what makes you unique and find the vulnerable strength to expose the emotional side of your brand. Here are 6 tips from our master storyteller, Suzi Dougherty :
- You had me at ‘hello’–it’s you’re story, but it’s still a story. In this age of attention deficit – if you don’t get them on the first line-then you’ve lost them with the flick of an eye of the click of a mouse.
- You’re unique– That little town or suburb that you think no one has ever heard of, tells us a lot about YOU. It might have a little known fact –Frank Sinatra comes from Hoboken New Jersey- Nicole Kidman was born in Honolulu.
- We are all awesome in some way – no point keeping it to yourself. It’s okay to boast!
- What do you want people to know? Describe how your roles fits in with what you want to achieve. Think about the purpose of what you do….
- Create mystery…don’t give them everything at once…
- Add links – let people go deeper into you… if they want to.
