Create Content That Connects

There’s a question I always ask to help innovators find and release their stuck stories:

What’s the story you’re NOT telling?

But even more importantly is the follow-up to that question:

Yes, THAT story.

Because what inevitably happens next is that a story pops into their mind, and they reflexively reject it. “Oh God,” they think, “not that story. Anything but that one.”

But that story, my friends, is exactly the one you need to tell. Because it’s the one that’s taking up precious real estate in your head, when it could be out there helping others cope with a similarly unpleasant experience.

Everything in life can be roughly divided into two categories: a good time, or a good story. Our most embarrassing, humiliating, demoralizing, rock-bottom moments are the most relatable to others. Because we all know what that feels like.

When I was writing Release Your Masterpiece, I knew I was going to need to open with a personal story. Something pretty real and raw that would both convey my contentious relationship with, and demonstrate the power and importance of, authenticity in storytelling.

But when I actually sat down to write, the story that immediately popped into my mind made me physically cringe. Was I really going to tell that story? Publicly??

Ugh. Taking your own advice sucks, y’all. But I did it. I fought through the cringe, and not only wrote that story, I wrote an entire chapter full of stories that did NOT paint me in a flattering light.

And when it came time to send out Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of the book, I breathed through the renewed panic that welled up, preparing myself for the flood of judgment that was sure to follow.