How to Collect Your Stories For Every Audience

Episode 182 podcast cover art with quote & image of Sarah Elkins

"I just don't think that way - in a linear timeline of events. I read your book, but I couldn't start collecting my stories, even when I tried to use the exercises and worksheets you provided."

Mary was getting ready for a series of interviews, and she knew preparing a few personal stories would be critical to truly engaging her interviewers and their audiences.

Page 133 of the book, Your Stories Don’t Define You

When I started as a communication coach, my intention was to guide people toward useful self-reflection. That's the only way to be a good communicator, you have to know yourself, understand your role in miscommunication, and be aware of how you're being perceived by the people around you.

It's not about being a chameleon, changing who you are based on the person you're speaking with, it's about being intentional about what you want as the result of any interaction, and making adjustments in how you present information so you're more likely to be understood - and to understand.

I use storytelling as the foundation of my work because the stories people tell - and how they tell them - say a lot about who they are, how they think, and where they're getting in their own way.

After two sessions, Mary was getting frustrated at her inability to recall key parts of her life with any detail. She struggled with the structure I created in the book and felt like it was her failure in memory that was causing the problem.

At the beginning of our third session, I had a moment of clarity.

"Tell me about someone who was in your life briefly, and had a profound impact on you."

She immediately recalled a professor she struggled with during her master's degree program.

"What did he look like? Can you see him now, can you imagine he's in front of you?"

"Where would you have had a conversation with him? Put yourself there."

"When you think of a time you sat in that place with him, what is the conversation you're having?"

Suddenly a world opened up in front of us. My client had a vivid memory of a pivotal conversation she had with the professor. She recalled where they were standing, what had happened in the hours before, and exactly what happened in the days following.

It was a powerful memory and an incredible story.

Book cover image, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will

The book Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will includes worksheets and exercises to guide readers to begin collecting stories in a story portfolio. The intention is to have a variety of stories ready to use at an appropriate time, with an appropriate audience.

The worksheets begin by asking about particular eras in the reader's life, a broad description like: "First year out of high school", "the year my father died", "my engagement and first year of marriage."

As the reader continues through the book, they're asked to recall certain pivotal moments within those eras, like a particular adventure or situation they experienced right after they graduated from high school, maybe a car accident or moving into the dormitory for their freshman year of college. The worksheets guide the reader to dig into those memories to uncover details about where they were, who was with them, and what made the moment scary, enlightening, exciting, awesome...

Working with Mary made me realize there are many other ways to collect these stories, and that some people don't think in such a linear way to be able to pick out eras as being pivotal parts of their lives.

At the end of our third session, I asked Mary to do some homework prior to our next appointment.

"Write down the names of two other people who had major influence on your life. Not your parents or direct family members - yet. Think about both positive and negative experiences, I know I have some unhappy, challenging memories of particular people who had influence on who I am today, for better or for worse."

She came back to our next session eager to begin, and we uncovered three more great stories for her portfolio.

Mary was ready for more homework.

"This week, jot down a few locations, places you visited or lived, that you know now were meaningful to you. Think about your first apartment, or maybe a house you lived in for a short time, but where important things happened when you lived there."

Our sessions from that point forward were full of energy, memories, and incredible discussions about her experiences with particular people and in particular locations.

By our sixth session together, she had a portfolio full of great story ideas, and she was ready to start fleshing them out into stories to practice telling in person, to prepare for the interviews she had scheduled, and to write as blog posts to share.

But we weren't done yet.

Now that she had great story ideas, it was time to categorize them so she'd have a better idea of when to share them!

We worked through her StrengthFinder results and discussed what was important to her in terms of how she was perceived, especially for the upcoming interviews.

Mary said: "I want to be known as reliable, knowledgable and competent in my field, and as someone with a sense of humor."

Slowly and carefully, we reviewed the many stories in her collection and categorized them:

These demonstrate my reliability.
These demonstrate my sense of humor.
This story demonstrates my knowledge in my field.

There were some that crossed multiple categories, of course.

Having this structure gave her confidence, particularly as we uncovered specific work-related stories that, instead of saying "I'm reliable!", she could share one that demonstrated her reliability. It no longer felt like bragging, it felt like a story, complete with an obstacle, other characters, a specific project, a location, and a successful conclusion.

As any author will tell you, I never really thought Your Stories Don't Define You was complete. If I hadn't made certain promises, it might never have been published. I always found changes I wanted to make and additions that would make it better.

But I remember reading the story portfolio instructions and reviewing the worksheets and thinking they were good, they were ready for readers to use.

They're still good, and many readers have found them to be a great start for their own story portfolios, but I suppose if I had it to do again, I might consider a few other options beyond starting with general eras in a lifetime.

If you're collecting stories for your story portfolio, remember that there isn't just one way to do anything. Use the tools that work for you. The important part is that you realize how your stories can influence your internal messages and the perceptions of others, and that you're beginning to collect them.

And when you have one of your own "ah ha!" moments with one of these vivid memories, I hope you'll reach out and let me know.

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ABOUT SARAH:

Elkins Consulting logo plus image of Sarah Elkins with dog and Gallup StrengthsFinder Coach logo

"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."

In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.

My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.

The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!

Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.