The Story of You (an introduction)
or how to communicate your value(s) to the world
A NOTE OF GRATITUDE TO STARTÂ
Iâm so grateful for those whoâve trusted me, whether as their coach or communications consultant, whether you are a client or a mentee. Every time I work with you, I become a better person. I am grateful for your trust and I hope this âstoryâ serves you too.Â
I am so grateful for the eleven friends and friends of friends who came to my experimental salon on Saturday and indulged me in talking about âThe Story of Youâ. Your attention and engagement were meaningful and I feel incredibly motivated to build on this work, thank you! Iâm grateful to my brother for his thoughtful metaphor, it really gave life to what I was writing.Â
Iâd also like to thank the people whoâve turned me to âstoryâ as a space of exploration for my work. Starting with Seth Godin, my cohort on the altMBA14 (we told each other a lot of stories), Bernadette Jiwa, Robert McKee, Dr Andrea Wojnicki of Talk about Talk. Iâm grateful for all my teachers in recent years, and god knows Iâve done a lot of courses and workshops, so I canât name them all. A big thank you to Solwazi Johnson, my MMTCP mentor, who always led our group with intention. I hope Iâll remember every day to connect with my intention before I put any work out into the world. A word of gratitude for the London Writerâs Salon and A Very Important Meeting, two welcoming and supportive spaces for âstoryâ exploration, as well as the Lonely Writerâs Club.
Finally, Iâm grateful to
and Sheila for helping me correct my grammar and help me shape the stories I publish on Substack. I would never dare press the publish button without your help.ÂOh, and Iâm grateful to you, reader (and listener). May this inspire you, even a tiny bit, to create a new Story of You.Â
MINTING FOR STORIESÂ
âIâm writing my story so that others might see fragments of themselves.â - Lena Waithe,
âStory, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution -- more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.â - Lisa Cron, Wired for Story
Over a gorgeous birthday lunch (lucky me!) I shared with my brother Guillaume the topic of a presentation I was preparing for a new event format I was trialling at home.Â
To my surprise, exploring âthe Story of Youâ, meaning how to communicate our value(s) to the world, resonated with him strongly.Â
He brought up a recent example from his own life, fittingly illustrating the importance of the subject matter. Â
For someone who can occasionally be socially awkward, an introverted, shy type, attending large events like a wedding feels like an ordeal.Â
Sweetly, he revealed that he has been investing time in finding the right metaphors to better convey how he feels to his friends and partner. Because, indeed, his is a radically different experience than that of the average extravert attempting to chat with strangers at a party.Â
âTo explain how hard it is for me to connect with someone, I like to use the example of currency,â he explained.Â
âItâs really hard for me to do small talk if I feel I have no idea of how to connect to a person I donât know.Â
But letâs say they like cars, Iâll be okay, because I know I have âcar currencyâ in my pockets (*my brother is a VW nerd FYI). So Iâll reach for that currency and put that out to the other person. The currency becomes the basis for our exchange.Â
But when there isnât anything I can reach for, no currency I can grab to offer to the other person, it's near impossible for me to do small talk and to make a connection.â
Of course, currency, exchange, connection. What a way to express the importance of having something we can reach for to connect!
My brother was one of several people to respond strongly to the topic. Great news for me, but why?
Was I making the case so eloquently, or is it simply because the topic is universal?Â
Who doesnât need to learn to talk about themselves more effectively, eloquently and authentically?Â
Who doesnât want to communicate their value(s) to the world?
Who doesnât want to connect with meaningful others more easily, whether at work or elsewhere?
WHAT WE DO ISNâT WHO WE ARE
According to bestselling author Bruce Feiler, we are living through the fourth biggest change in the history of work. More and more of us seek meaning in our jobs, and when we donât find it, we either quit or create a path to find that sense of purpose.
Feiler believes this marks the end of the âlinear career,â which he argues in his new book, The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World.Â
What we do tends to be what we talk about. Our careers, or jobs, tend to be our âmain currencyâ.Â
When I first started to explore the topic of The Story of You, I centred on my clientsâ experiences, my own, my storytelling and PR expertise. But presenting ourselves authentically to the world around us goes beyond talking about what we do.Â
Spoiler alert: we are more than what we âdoâ for work. We are more than our job titles or our elevator pitches.Â
We are more than our activity. We are inherently worthy of attention, consideration and respect.Â
While what we do cannot sum up who we are, who we are greatly affects what we do.Â
Our beliefs, values, our dreams and aspirations, our intentions, they permeate and transform our lives, our relationships, and our work.Â
Yet in our Western society (the only one I can speak about), our identities are easily reduced to our jobs, the easiest common denominator, sadly, used to describe who we ARE (not what we DO) to others.Â
This feels problematic. Donât you agree?
ONCE A PR, ALWAYS A PR
New clients, including friends and former colleagues, have reached out for my support this year. There was a surprising red thread between them.
They each needed help communicating who they are and what they do.Â
Once I noticed the trend in the requests, I decided to investigate.Â
Upon examination, it turns out that they were all asking for the expertise that I used back at Christian Louboutin, when I was doing PR. Or rather, an evolved version of that expertise. The building blocks, however, reflect the way Iâve always worked:Â
Leaning on the truth of who we are to tell stories that resonate.Â
Christian was very clever about how to build his business. One decision he made early on was to have an in-house PR. So few people understand this, but Malou, his first Parisian press contact, was a story amplifier (and a buffer to an extent) between him and the world.Â
So was I, when I took the job and became his PR in London.Â
Christian knew this to be true:
itâs incredibly hard to talk about ourselves.Â
Between self-doubt and bigging ourselves up too much, it is hard to strike the right balance. Many of us refuse to teeter and prefer to ignore the challenge altogether. For a long time, I was one of those people.
Christian delegated this role (as many smart people do) and the rest is history (okay there were a few other things to his success story but for the sake of my story, weâll leave it at that).
Writing a bio, a business pitch, updating a CV or creating an online profile (for dates or work), are daunting and uncomfortable tasks.Â
Iâm sure youâve been there. I have certainly been there.
WHY IS IT SO HARD?
First, talking about who we are is a high-stakes effort.Â
Depending on how well we do, whether talking or writing, online or IRL, we face rejection at every turn.
For some of us, our deepest, primal needs, like safety and security, are affected by our results: our livelihood is literally on the line if we donât do a good enough job of presenting ourselves.Â
Second, to make sure we are âdoing it rightâ, we tend to look at how others are doing it. We want to both stand out and fit in. Another hard balance to hit.Â
We peer on LinkedIn, finding those who are great at reporting on their skills and achievements. We get very critical about our words, our tone and our style. So we borrow, we copy and paste, we build within the margins of whatâs acceptable to help tell people who we are.Â
The result often feels not quite right and comes with a whiff of imposter syndrome, like we have handed over an assignment while knowing we cheated using someone elseâs answers.
LE CORDONNIER EST TOUJOURS LE PLUS MAL CHAUSSĂ*
(*the cobblerâs children go barefoot)
I am a prime example of the above. For many years, I was lucky to receive a lot of peopleâs CVs, good ones too, so when I last had to put mine together, donât think I didnât heavily borrow from the slick industry lingo that I saw on mostly US execs resumes in the fashion industry (pitching for roles in my department).
Itâs not like what I said was wrong, there was no lie, but it equally didnât feel true. It felt embellished; that I was more than the sum of those entries on my CV.Â
Kind of like a bad make-up appointment, when you come out looking scary and immediately need to wipe your face, taking off the goo that was covering your prime features.Â
I eventually got help.
Synchronicity was at play when I found myself enrolled in Seth Godinâs altMBA, right after I left my last job and launched into a life of consulting and freelance work.Â
One extra prompt we were given was to get creative and write a short biography, and to do it with a partner (for the much-needed support). I figured yes, right on! And I knew who to call, my friend Jack!Â
Here is what came out of this project, and bear in mind I would have never dared write that about myself, so this was a lot of Jackâs work.
âSinger and musician, aspiring yogi, avid reader, sun seeker, business and communications strategist. In order of importance, these are some of the things that might define Anne.
Moving forward in life with an open heart, Anne continually seeks to interact with people who inspire her and share her values, and when she finds those people, she thrives in supporting and inspiring them in their vision.
Also, Anne is the fixer. She knows how to get things done, and she does that with passion and kindness.
And above all, she likes to make magic happen.â
Ta dah!
Some things have changed. Iâm no longer an aspiring yogi, I am a certified yoga teacher. I wouldnât use the word musician - I abandoned my piano last year (itâs still here, thereâs a story there), but yes to being a singer.Â
Today Iâd add that I am someone who loves to use (stretch, exercise) my voice and amplify the voices of others through varied platforms like my podcast, the writing I publish via my newsletters, and my new salon series.
I still like to read this bio. It feels like me.Â
GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
What I failed to do is use this biography. What I forgot is to adapt it so I could actually use it. I donât even remember putting it out online anywhere meaningful.Â
It gets worse.Â
For the following years, I offered a laconic âI'm a consultantâ with no context to juice it up to the poor souls who asked the dreaded question.Â
Right. Thatâs not vague at all. I completely missed the point of the work Iâd done. Why was that?
It was a steep transition, parallel yet far from my previous roles and my previous work identities. My earlier job titles combined with the company name brought up rich images in a few words. Instead of trying to create something as powerful, I left this short bio in a corner of my computer and got on with my life.Â
Did my line âOh Iâm a consultantâ help me connect with clients and like-minded people in my industry? What do you think?Â
Luckily for me, the work came by word of mouth. Though what people said about me Iâm not sure about - I was certainly not owning the narrative [more on that in a following post].
IN THE END, MAGIC REMAINS
The line âlikes to make magic happen âšâ, however, I still use. Itâs in my Instagram bio, I even include it in my work presentations. Itâs a small line and certainly feels far from corporate jargon, which is probably why it sticks. It also represents something true about the work I do and the âmagicâ I yield.Â
You know, when you are doing really good work and your whole body feels that magic sense of alignment and flow. This brings to mind an old article in The Times where this designer who really âgot meâ compared me to Tinkerbell. đ§đŒÂ
ITâS NOT JUST ME
âFor a growing number of people, work is no longer about the numbers; it's about finding meaning in their story.â Bruce Feiler explained in his interview with the Big Think, adding:
âWork is not exclusively about salary or benefits or hours. Itâs not just productivity, profit, and loss. Itâs also about meaning. Itâs about purpose, identity, exhaustion, renewal, and happiness.
[âŠ]Today, a person will go through 20 âworkquakesâ â moments of instability when you are forced or choose to rethink and reimagine what you do â throughout their lives. Thatâs one every 2.85 years, and thatâs just the average. [Generation] X-ers will go through more [workquakes] than boomers, and millennials more than X-ers. The idea of coherency is no longer the most important thing.â
Writing is what I use to make sense of the world. I cut and paste and edit and draft, I rework until itâs there in front of me: structure, clarity, understanding.Â
Despite having dropped out of university, I am a pretty diligent student. I wish someone had assigned me the task of continuing to craft my bio. Iâd have applied myself.
I know now that The Story of You (or The Story of Me) is an exercise in sense-making that connects us not just to others, but to ourselves.
It cements our identity; helps us create meaning out of the disparate threads of our past and our hopes for the future.Â
As I posited publicly later that week, perched on my piano stool facing a dozen friends in my living room (the setting for my presentation):
Most of us are bad (or terrible) at talking about ourselves, unless we learn to.Â
They all seemed to agree.
All but one. But then again she said she never talks about her work and her favourite question when she meets someone new is: âWhatâs your story?âÂ
Some brought up big caveats. What if we reveal too much? What if our trust gets abused? Who do we trust with telling what about ourselves?Â
When the first question people ask each other is âwhat do you do?â, not âhow do you do?â, what do we want to convey about ourselves?Â
Can we go beyond the job title?Â
Whatâs appropriate, and whatâs not?Â
What is worth exploring?Â
What are the stakes if we choose the status quo?Â
CREATING A NEW CURRENCY EXCHANGEÂ Â
Building on my brotherâs metaphor, I feel like Iâve found THE angle for this topic.
And if you doubt we need this now, remember that given how work has evolved, weâll all need help making sense of our âworkquakesâ.
So what if we could unlock the power of story to shine a light on what matters to us?
âStories are a communal currency of humanity,â offers author Tahir Shah.
What if we decided to MINT FOR STORIES? Â
Then weâd have pocket-full of the precious currency we need to power our social connections.Â
Iâm convinced the world would be a better place if we all learned to express ourselves better. Iâm convinced that weâd solve the loneliness epidemic if we normalised that kind of work, from childhood onwards. Weâd learn to connect from a place that matters, not just our minds, but our hearts.
After all, we are all born loving stories.Â
Stories are how we connect.Â
Stories are what bind us and what can separate us.Â
I suggest we all get creative and get to work.Â
What do you say?
Letâs mint for stories!
PS.Â
Iâll be back to tell you more about the journey of self-discovery and the treasures that lie on the other side when you start writing on The Story of You.
WANT MORE ON THE STORY OF YOU?
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Anne always nails it! Because not only is she brilliant,articulate and curious but totally authentic.
Gosh, I feel like you've captured how I feel without me even being aware of it! I think that's why I'm in the role I am - so I can push others forward and not have to talk about myself!! Yet again, Anne, you are so insightful and completely spot on!!!