Learn to Tell Your Story. Yes, a Story.

I mean the title. How many times have you rattled off your "story" as a basic number of facts - I'm from here, I work in this industry, and I like this activity. Snore! When I say tell a story, I mean it.

[[note: this blog post is part of a series previewing the work we do in Potencia's YOLO Program]]

When I'm networking, I feel like I’m in the 6th circle of hell, repeatedly asking and answering the

question: “What do you do?” “Where are you from?” “How’s the weather there?”  

Or even with family, how many times do we relegate our time together, on the phone or in person, to surface-level updates, asking what we did the previous day?

Here’s a challenge to you: make these conversations interesting. What if networking were truly an opportunity to engage in mutual storytelling about our lives and see how our lives intersect?  What if our everyday conversations with family and friends can be storytelling and connecting by seeing similarities in our experiences?

The Science of Storytelling

Science proves that humans are wired to want to hear stories. Hear from Joshua VanDeBrake's Medium article:

"When we hear a story that resonates with us, our levels of a hormone called oxytocin increase. Oxytocin is a “feel-good” hormone. It boosts our feelings of things like trust, compassion, and empathy. It motivates us to work with others and positively influences our social behavior. A group of neuroscientists at Princeton University studied this:

'Communication is a shared activity resulting in a transfer of information across brains. The findings shown here indicate that during successful communication, speakers’ and listeners’ brains exhibit joint, temporally coupled, response patterns.'

In other words, when you hear a well-told story, your brain reacts as if you are experiencing it yourself.

Your brain places you inside the story...Stories make us feel like part of something bigger than ourselves."

Story of Self

That is why we include personal storytelling as part of our YOLO curriculum - stories are an effective way to:

• Put your life in perspective and make sense of your journey

• Frame your story as empowering and necessary to have gotten where you are now

• Connect and relate to others through stories

• Any number of other ways that storytelling helps you - influence, public speaking, marketing, networking, etc.

And by the way, your story doesn’t always have to be the same synopsis, you just have to do the preparation of having multiple stories, or multiple versions of those stories. Think about your stories as a collection, and each of those stories might have a Twitter, short story, and novel version.

The Genesis

As any good Story of Self, you are the protagonist, so you have an important origin story: the genesis!  This is all about your upbringing - what made an impression on you when you were young that carried into your journey towards adulthood?  

• Where did you grow up? How did that shape you? 

• Who raised you, and how did they raise you?

• What were you taught when you were young? 

• What experiences did you have to survive, and how did that shape who you were growing up?

  
  

  

  
  

Main Conflicts 

This is the juicy part - what are the main journeys or conflicts in your life?  These are major moments that challenged you and forged the grown adult you have become. 

Most people tell about their lives chronologically, as it’s the easiest to recall. Instead, think of the narrative as focusing the plot in 1 specific thread.  

Many of us are tempted to choose our career journey in our stories, but I would challenge you to tell a more personal story. For us gay men, it is natural to tell our "coming out" story of how we first revealed we were gay, having faced our ultimate fear. For others, it can be a story about travel, about overcoming hardship, about performing on stage for the first time; whatever feels like it's a primary plotline in your life.

Sometimes, I have clients frame the plot as a question for the protagonist:

• "Will Mario ever feel settled and at home?"

• "Will Peach finally believe in herself enough to start that business?"

• "Will Bowser recover from divorce and start dating again?

It doesn't have to be a Hollywood movie, but honor that you have been on a journey of ups and downs that contain stories worth telling. And, they point to whatever plotlines are right in front of you!

Climax

Just like in the movies, perhaps less Hollywood-esque, we have these moments in our lives that are pivotal. Moments can be a very specific point in time, or a period marked in some way, like a vacation.  These moments are the climaxes in a journey toward some goal or overcoming some challenge.  It doesn’t matter if the climax is about achieving or overcoming… as long as the moment is significant.  These moments live with you in your body and still bring up emotional reactions. 

Climaxes are your opportunity to really dig into details - when was this (year, date, your age, time of day)? where were you? who was with you? what were you and the others doing? what was the important moment? after that moment, what were you feeling and thinking? what were others saying?

We need to paint the picture so our listeners can place themselves in the story.

Resolution

The resolution is the aftermath of the climax. What happened afterward? What were you feeling and thinking, often days, months, even years after? The resolution describes a "new normal" for you and your life.

Remember that resolution is often the kickoff to a new plot line, like in the movies that have a preview scene after the credits. What might be next? What questions are you, the protagonist, thinking about now?

An Example: My Story

Genesis:

You would never know just by looking at me, but my Mother is from Cuba, and I grew up with Abuelos (grandparents) who couldn't speak English. Every once in a while, we'd visit them in Perth Amboy, a working-class neighborhood that speaks more Spanish than English. In retrospect, it was a really stark picture of how my upbringing and identity were completely disconnected from my Mother and Abuelos' own Hispanic immigrant experience. I was...a middle-class white American.

But as a child, I didn't really think anything of the situation; I'd have a café con leche, Cuban bread, ropa vieja (shredded pork) - a small taste of Cuban cuisine. And we'd have momentary frustrations of communicating only through body language and my Mother's translations. But to me, it was just normal.

Hero's Journey

But when both of mis Abuelos died when I was in middle school, I had this sense of guilt and regret of not trying enough to communicate with them, and hence, not loving them enough. And while I ended up in AP Spanish years later, I didn't have the courage or motivation to study enough to pass the test. I think I was afraid of facing the fact that I was, in fact, just a white kid. I buried this shame, this longing to "be Cuban", underneath jokes, even a racist Halloween costume of me on a raft my freshman year in college. I believed I'd never learn Spanish, and hence, never could "be Cuban".

Climax

But something changed for me when I was 26 - I had this conversation with a coach who asked me what I wanted in 10 years. It was the first time someone asked me that and gave me space to think. That conversation led to my decision not only to pursue business school, and an international business school, but a Spanish international business school, where I made the commitment I would learn Spanish once and for all. This was the first time I took a major financial risk (investment) in myself, and 2nd biggest risk in my life.

Resolution

I am so proud that I worked my a** off and ended up graduating with a bilingual MBA (don't ask me if I'd consider myself bilingual...). More importantly, I felt like I had access to a part of me that had felt dead inside. I felt more whole and complete. And, I've expanded my network of Spanish-speaking friends, including traveling around Latin America.

While I continue to negotiate my ethnic, racial and cultural identity, I've had fun branding myself so as to also not overstate my "Cubanness", nor take this too seriously: I'm the "Cubano Gringo" or "Gringo Picante" - the spicy Gringo. I savor having a complex identity and living between many worlds - that's the spice of life! Very, very...me :)

(Mi Abuela: 1st photo on the right, 2nd and 3rd, Abuela is on the left)

Closing

Telling your story is not just some utilitarian exercise to influence people. Telling your story brings connection, explores meaning and purpose, and helps you see yourself as a perfectly flawed, typical, but totally unique and special human being.

For Learning and With Love,

Chris