🧵 Is Your Story...Storying?
Recently, I had a feedback session with a client around storytelling — and it left me thinking a lot about how we actually find our voice, especially in professional contexts where we’ve been taught to hide it.
Maya (not her real name) is a powerful community leader doing deep systems-change work in rural areas. She’s spent years building trust, designing public health equity strategies, and navigating relationships across agencies, partners, and community members. Her leadership is full of personality, very relational, and absolutely transformative.
She’s also deeply sensitive, thoughtful, and wildly self-aware.
When Maya came to me, she wanted to work on her messaging and storytelling skills. So in our "Storytelling For Influence" session, I asked her to complete a “Story Map” — a tool I use with leaders to surface real moments from their work and connect them to the deeper learning underneath. Think of it as narrative muscle-building: we start with real events, identify what they taught us, and start shaping those raw materials into usable stories for visibility, leadership, or advocacy.
When I reviewed her draft, something felt off. Instead of professional stories about her career, her Story Map read like...a government report.
Lots of “we.” Lots of “the community.” Lots of funder language. Technically correct, but it felt...emotionally distant. There was nothing wrong about it, per se, but it just wasn't particularly true to the magic of the person I experienced coaching with. Maya is someone who is so full of spunk the second you meet her, and her story map didn't quite reflect that on Day 1.
🧠 Inside This Issue
If you’re new here, 👋🏽 welcome!
This newsletter lives at the intersection of storytelling, leadership, and what it means to be a complex human with something real to say. I write about the things most people avoid in professional spaces: messy identity shifts, the impacts of politics, and the hard, human work of growing into your leadership. Through my work, I help founders, creatives, and execs own their story and lead with resonance.
This week → Where is the YOU in your professional story?
🧩 The Missing Piece In Your Story
So many of us have been trained out of using our own voice in professional contexts. Especially in public or community work — where institutional trust is fragile and credibility is currency — we’re taught to flatten ourselves in the name of neutrality or legitimacy.
But the most powerful stories — the ones that connect, influence, and build trust — don’t come from sounding perfect. They come from sounding like you.
🫣 Why Storytelling Feels So Vulnerable
Maya later shared that getting feedback on her story drafts was tough. She felt like she was doing it all wrong — and I had to sit with that for a minute.
This is tender work. When we ask leaders to step into personal storytelling, we’re asking them to shed the armor. To speak from their lived experience. To share not just what happened, but what it meant.
And for high-performing people who are used to doing everything “right,” that can be terrifying. We're asking you to share what was hard, what didn't come easy; we're asking you to share the ups and downs before the pretty, buttoned up outcome.
As her coach, I had to take accountability too: for how I frame this work, how I introduce it, and how I give feedback around it. People like Maya don’t spiral because they’re not capable, but because they've worked so hard to cultivate a high-achieving persona, and it feels vulnerable to expose the cracks.
🛠️ If You’re Struggling, Try This
Whether you’re a leader, founder, or builder, and you're trying to bring more storytelling into your public presence — here are a few prompts that helped Maya get unstuck:
🌀 Instead of the linear timeline of “what happened,” ask: “What changed in me?”
🌀 Instead of “what we learned,” ask: “What did this moment teach me about myself as a leader?”
🌀 Instead of “what we did,” ask: “What surprised me, challenged me, or made me doubt?”
🌀 Instead of writing for an audience of peers, funders, or execs, try writing as if you were texting a close friend. What would you actually say?
Remember: When we stop trying to impress, we start to find the messy middle that people actually want to hear about.
💡 Here's The Takeaway
Storytelling is hard... even for folks with a big presence, who’ve been known as strong communicators, and who are high achievers. It’s a new skill to develop — and a powerful one. A great story has high stakes. It has characters, mentors, guides, and an underdog. It has a scene you set — a world you bring the listener into.
You want that program to succeed? Tell a great story about what went into building it — and what world it unlocks.
You want that promotion? Tell a great story about what you overcame to get to your current role — and how that sets you up to lead even more powerfully.
You want to make $X in revenue? Tell a great story about how your customers’ lives change because of what you offer.
👉🏽 Here’s the big takeaway from this session: Being able to tell a great story will change your life.
Ask yourself:
What did you learn?
Where did you get stuck?
Why should others care about where you're going?
🗓 Book a call or reply to this email for a free consult to amp up your story.
🥨 Snacks:
🍉 Palestine: The one sentence that's objectively true about Gaza...but is also slightly untrue.
🌎 Learn How To Learn: An entire generation is currently studying for jobs that don't exist...and what to do about it.
📡 Professional Development: Your network has three layers, where are you stuck?
