Storytelling has been an intricate part of my work with clients for years. This week I’m back from spending multiple days on the stage with story. Story on panels, story in my teachings, story in my mastermind programs.
When I started my business 13 years ago, I was really adamant that I wasn’t going to grow my business by speaking because I had this deep, deep fear of stages. When my business coach told me that the fastest way to grow my business is to get on stage, I said, “No, I’m going to grow my my business in other ways.” The ironic thing was I had been teaching people how to be on stages my whole career… I had always been behind the scenes, but not at the front of the room. Oh Lordy… that was a big one to overcome.
A few years later, I wrote my mission statement: To raise up the voices, visibility and businesses of one million women entrepreneurs around the world for impact.
When I wrote that, I realized that I would never reach one million women one-person-by-one-person. I really need to find ways to get over myself in this speaking world and find my way out of it. And so I made a commitment to myself that I was going to dive into this fear. I was going to work with it. So, the right teachers and the right opportunities showed up for me and the rest is history.
Today I love stages. And my business loves it when I’m on stages, because stages have brought nearly a million dollars into my business over the years.
Want to know the number one way I got over my fear? Stories.
I realized that I always knew my stories, and that stories were the windows to our soul.
We all have stories to tell. And the truth is we fall in love with souls, not faces. And when we share our stories, people remember us. Stories help us stand out amongst the noise. And the beautiful thing is that we all have a lifetime of stories that we have accumulated over the years.
I keep a list of story titles from my life:
- The Breath of a Horse
- Getting a Chicken Dinner in Chengdu China
- The Day I Got Laid Off
- When My Marketing Failed Because I Followed All the Shiny Stars
- Too Many Clients
- The Owl
- The Hot Air Balloon Pilot Fell Out of my Balloon
I have found the most amazing ways to weave these stories into my own teachings over the years. I invite you to make a list of stories that stand out in your life and keep a journal.
The process of speaking from our soul vs. our head, dramatically transformed how each woman shared their inner light, their fire. It was easy for the accomplished speakers to show up in their teachings, and they had to go much deeper to trust in the story to come up from the soul without thought. And the beautiful thing is that if we trust that the right story will come up, it will.
There was a visceral energetic difference between someone teaching their content and someone telling a story. Yes, we have to do both – whether it is online, on podcasts, or on stages… but the more we can weave in the story, the more people will remember what you’re teaching. That’s the magic.
Storytelling is an essential element in your brand and how you attract people into your business. If you make space to enrich and weave in your stories into your messaging you will energetically shift your client attraction abilities.
When you think of all of the experiences you’ve had over your lifetime, all of these stories cumulatively, make you WHO you are. This is what makes the brand of YOU unique. No one else has had the same stories you’ve had. That’s why this is so magical. You are lifting the veil to who you are with your stories.
What are some of your favorite story titles? I’d love to hear them!