282 Turning Points For Our Growth
Stepping out of your comfort zone can feel frightening, from massive changes to the tiniest ones can feel like the world is ending if you are not stretching and growing as a person. Traveling, whether it be a new way home from work or halfway across the world, can impact your perception on life, as can being open to the thoughts and feelings of others, and accepting what you cannot change.
In this episode Sarah Elkins and Tom Jackobs discuss the importance of allowing yourself to stretch and change but also staying true to yourself and your values despite all these changes.
282 Turning Points For Our Growth
Stepping out of your comfort zone can feel frightening, from massive changes to the tiniest ones can feel like the world is ending if you are not stretching and growing as a person. Traveling, whether it be a new way home from work or halfway across the world, can impact your perception on life, as can being open to the thoughts and feelings of others, and accepting what you cannot change.
In this episode Sarah Elkins and Tom Jackobs discuss the importance of allowing yourself to stretch and change but also staying true to yourself and your values despite all these changes.
Highlights
You need to set the stage for your stories.
Perceptions of yourself change over time however it’s up to you to take accountability for your actions.
Expanding your horizons is imperative to your growth and health as a human being let alone as being a storyteller.
What do I have control over and what don’t I have control over?
Quotes
“That’s part of really good story telling, is I call it color and texture. Bringing color and texture to your story because a lot of times if I would have just said ‘It was an old school that I went to,’ then everyone would have a different image of what that school would be. Even if I said, ‘Oh yeah I was driving my car,’ you have a different idea of what that car is versus what I have a different idea of what I’m saying. However by adding in that color and texture of the story, like the smell of the wood and the recital hall, or the car example it was an old beat up BMW three series. Now everybody now knows what that image is and that draws the listener in because now you’re on the same page in terms of the details of the story.”
“Has my identity really changed? And certain elements I think have changed overtime, but I think that’s apart of society in terms of kind of forcing you into a title or an identity, but what’s deep inside of me, who I really am, that hasn’t changed but that perception of how it comes across to other people I think does change over time.”
Dear Listeners it is now your turn,
When will you take a small step out of your comfort zone, into your stretch zone so that you can take more of those steps, gradually seeing all of the improvements and the changes and the satisfaction you get from doing those small steps out of your comfort zone. Those things that scare you a little bit will scare you less and less so that the bigger things that scare you now won’t feel so overwhelming when you’re ready to take that step.
And, as always, thank you for listening.
About Tom
To say Tom has been through a few things in his 30+ years of being an entrepreneur is an understatement. He’s had more failures than successes, but wouldn’t have it any other way. In 2017 he sold his fitness business which he owned for 9 years to become the Impact Pilot, helping entrepreneurs generate more income through better sales conversion strategy and using stories to sell.
Tom has a BFA Degree in Theatre from DePaul University in Chicago and holds his private pilot license for single-engine airplanes and is SCUBA certified. He has licenses for Land, Sea and Air, which will come in handy during the apocalypse.
Be sure to check out Tom’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram! As well as his website Here!
About Sarah
"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.
Be sure to check out the Job Interview Storytelling Course as well to make sure you nail that next interview!
215: Not What You Expected
Now you're on the plane, and you can hardly sit still with the excitement and anticipation. Eventually you fall asleep, dreaming of the Eiffel Tower. You feel the plane jolt as it lands, and in a strange accent you hear from the cockpit:
Welcome to Hong Kong!
Even Tragic Stories Leave Room for Beauty and Potential
How do your stories, even the most tragic, give insight into who you are as a person?
In this insightful episode, Sarah Elkins discusses changing your perspective through the stories you experience and how to embrace a new reality. Even if it comes from the unexpected. Sarah outlines the main points of building a story- the characters, audience, conflict- to improve a story’s value and purpose. If you’re searching to enhance your conversations and perception of yourself this episode might be just what you need!
To learn more about the article Sarah references in this episode, visit the author, Emily Perl Kingsley’s website.
Discovering Clarity One Bite at a Time course is now available!
Sign up for the No Longer Virtual 2022 Conference.
"Your most insightful and inspiring stories come from unexpected situations."
*podcast show notes contributed by Tracy Ackeret
---
ABOUT SARAH:
"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.
Episode 133: Choosing Yourself is a Vast Improvement to Settling for Less
Adolescent years are hard on anyone, to add challenges like moving to a new town and school, particularly as someone who naturally stands out, and you have serious potential for confidence busting.
Karyn Beach Loves the Skin She's In
Adolescent years are hard on anyone, to add challenges like moving to a new town and school, particularly as someone who naturally stands out, and you have serious potential for confidence busting.
Karyn is a force, and by her stories you can tell she has always been that way. But for many years, she struggled with confidence, and ended up in relationships that were just not good for her - personally and professionally.
She decided to choose herself and realized being by herself was far more pleasant and satisfying than sharing space with someone who didn't value and respect her. In fact, she loves being in her own company. And that's part of what makes it so wonderful to be there with her.
---
Connect with Karyn on LinkedIn, check out her website, and be sure to catch her podcast, Fun. Feisty. Fabulous!
---
"The choice of Sarah Elkins (as our conference keynote) was inspired. Her emphasis that we need to think more carefully as advocates about how we are perceived, that we need to demonstrate our values authentically (and bravely) so as to build trust, was perhaps more important than all the specific storytelling tools discussed.”
Sarah is a storyteller, communication coach, author and professional musician. Her keynotes and workshops are entertaining and engaging, because she uses storytelling as the foundation of her work. Her podcast, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will was named in the top 50 in 2019 in the category of emotional intelligence on player.FM, and her book of the same title is now available on Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.
Episode 67: Resilience - Drawing Strength From Past Experience
Our Stories Offer Evidence That “This Too Shall Pass”
If we consider the struggles we’ve already survived, we can see the evidence to suggest we’ll survive any future challenges, especially if we really think about what it took not only to get through a difficult situation, but to thrive as a result of having that experience.
That’s what Charlotte Wittencamp and I spoke about in this episode; drawing strength to get through a challenge through recognizing the value of our past experiences.
During our conversation, we spoke briefly about Johari’s Window, a concept drawn to describe aspects of self awareness. If you’d like to learn more, here’s a great article from Charlotte’s website. She also published an ebook to download free about crossing cultural divides. It’s a great guide for people trying to settle into a new culture.
It Can Take Decades to Process an Experience
It Takes a Long Time to Realize How Some Stories Impact Our Lives
Ronan had been dating his (then) girlfriend for six months and hadn’t shared a huge story from his past. Not because he didn’t want to, or was keeping anything from her; he simply didn’t see the relevance.
It Takes a Long Time to Realize How Some Stories Impact Our Lives
Ronan had been dating his (then) girlfriend for six months and hadn’t shared a huge story from his past. Not because he didn’t want to, or was keeping anything from her; he simply didn’t see the relevance.
Then she saw an image of him on a safety training video for the cruise line she was working for, and called him to say: “Hey - in the safety training video I was watching today, there was a guy who looked just like you on a sinking ship, helping passengers!”
It took Ronan decades to dig back into that experience, and when he did, he realized how much it taught him, and how much it influenced his life. He had decided to leave a successful career and business behind, and spend some time figuring out what he was really good at, and what he wanted to spend his days doing. That’s when the memory of his experience in a sinking cruise ship came back into his head.
We humans have such an amazing way of remembering things, and our memories are so dependent on our frame of mind, not only at the time of the experience, but also when we choose to tell the story. At the time, and for years afterward, Ronan’s memory of that event was limited to the story of the event itself, and he rarely shared it. Again - not because he didn’t want to, or wanted to hide it in any way; he didn’t share it because he just didn’t see the relevance, and he didn’t want that story from his youth to define him.
What stories from your past will suddenly make an appearance again in your life? What do you think triggers memories of long-forgotten episodes of joy, trauma, and grief?
Hearing other people share their stories always triggers your own memories of similar experiences, giving you an opportunity to connect with the person, and also allowing you to look back at that time in your life, and choose to process it in the context of your experiences following it. How did it impact who you are today? How do you apply that experience to current interactions?
Dig into those questions, and you’ll have more material for writing, speaking, and connecting with those around you.
Ronan Leonard teaches niche business owners and subject matter experts how to leverage their IP into additional revenue models and increase their industry profile all through the innovative concept of virtual Masterminds.
He lives in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where he helps small business owners connect with people and resources that they can share their wins and challenges with, as well as to find complementary expertise to improve their bottom lines.
Connect with Ronan on LinkedIn, and visit his website for more information.
Connect Deeply Through Travel and Adventure
What traveling teaches us is how to be resourceful, and that we have a choice in how we react to obstacles and challenges. When we're traveling, we're really at the mercy of the people around us, the weather, and all kinds of things over which we have no control. But what we can control is our choice to see it as part of the adventure, and to make the best of whatever we're faced with.
Our Experiences with Others Create Shared Stories from Different Perspectives
The irony is that so many of our shared stories aren't about the beauty and perfect experiences we've had, they're usually about the things that went wrong. Not always, of course. There are those magical moments we share with others, like the one Julia Shamis describes in this episode, those moments when everything is right and beautiful, and we share a vivid memory of something truly fantastic.
I've found the majority of the stories we share are the ones were something went wrong, we struggled, were generally uncomfortable or in pain, and we found a way out to live and explore another day.
That's what travel is all about, right? The adventure of getting there, via road trip hazards, flight delays and cancelations, train schedule issues, and then the adventure itself that always presents itself with something that goes not quite right.
The beauty of travel and exploration is what we learn about ourselves, how we choose to expose ourselves and our children to the world around us, and the humility and gratitude with which we experience that world.
That's what this episode is all about. Julia has had some amazing adventures and definitely knows how to share a good story. The theme we originally planned to discuss was simply travel and family travel, and how that impacts our priorities and relationships. But very quickly in our conversation I realized it wasn't just about travel, it was about taking risks and exploring the world around us, and what that does for us and our personal growth.
What traveling teaches us is how to be resourceful, and that we have a choice in how we react to obstacles and challenges. When we're traveling, we're really at the mercy of the people around us, the weather, and all kinds of things over which we have no control. But what we can control is our choice to see it as part of the adventure, and to make the best of whatever we're faced with. Because, as I mentioned before, these are the parts of your story that you're more likely to tell over and over again, laughing about it, learning from it, and embellishing it as you share it through the years.
Julia Shamis is a career coach and avid traveler. You can connect with her on LinkedIn to learn more, and be sure to listen to this great podcast episode to learn what she does, how she does it, and why she's so good at it.
Road Trip Stories to Build Relationships
What You and Your Children Remember of Their Childhood Can Be Wildly Different
Max
Ridiculously fun travel partner.
He knows it's never really about the destination.
It was just a short road trip for our younger son, Max, and me; around 1.5 hours for a spring break spontaneous getaway. I took advantage of our time alone together to record this podcast.
We've done quite a lot of traveling with our two boys, via air and car, and have made incredible memories. The one thing that makes a road trip different from any other kind of travel is the long hours in the car together, with little distraction, and lots of opportunity for frustration, connection, and snacks.
You'll hear the sound of the road in the background of our recording, adding just a little ambient sound to our discussion. I love to ask our boys what they remember about our family road trips; their memories are so different from mine, and when I hear their memories I learn even more about them, and how they see the world.
Road trips offer great opportunities to get to know people. I think traveling together, particularly in the car, can be the best test of a relationship. How compatible are you, really? When it comes to spending hours together with little distraction, and lots of opportunity for frustration - getting lost, bad weather, questionable road conditions - you learn quickly whether you can rely on each other to solve problems and keep a positive attitude in trying situations.
Max and I had a great, though too short trip together, and this recording is just a snippet of the kind of conversation we have when we spend time traveling together.
Here's an article I wrote about another road trip with our boys. I'm so grateful not only for the time I get to spend with them, but also for their sense of humor, their insights, and their incredible warmth and sparkle.