What’s improbable about you?

I am only ten pages into Ari Shapiro’s The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a life spent listening, and I am sucked in from the first sentence:

“I became a public speaker in the first grade.”

Don’t you love the sense of sinking into something and experiencing the wonder of beautifully crafted paragraphs that culminate with great insights?

In just the introduction, we learn Ari’s “why” story, and if we take the time to examine his, it might inspire how to form yours (or scroll down below to see how I can help you with it). He explores how his life experiences have brought him to the work he does today. Our lives are rarely by design but more often an unfolding, and it takes a retrospective to see that they were (perhaps) by design all along. We just didn’t know it when we were in the middle.

Ari was the only Jew in his elementary school in Fargo, North Dakota, where he’d present to classrooms about Hannukah (thus being a public speaker in first grade). Then, his family moved to Portland, and he was the only gay teenager in his high school. How did all that lead to becoming a journalist, host of NPR’s All Things Considered, and a guest member of the band Pink Martini?

“It felt like a superpower, this ability to move between worlds,” says Ari in the introduction.

As a Jewish kid in Fargo amidst descendants of Scandinavian immigrants and later as a gay teen in Portland navigating honors classes during the day and all-ages gay clubs at night. As a journalist, he plays a similar role as a liaison between groups, bringing “invisible people to the surface.” 

It’s natural for humans to look for ourselves in stories.  For example, I did it just the other night, getting a tour of a friend’s new home and mentally noting what I loved about it and could do in my house, like the art on the walls and the bench at the foot of the master bed.

Of course, as I read Ari Shapiro’s story, I admired how he connected the dots in his retrospective of his life. I immediately went to work reverse-engineering the story so my clients could identify their stories.

The power of creating our stories is boundless. Editing the experiences and circumstances of our lives into a coherent story not only changes our perspectives (and, therefore, our confidence) but also influences the people around us. By the way, this is also a kind of therapy, the idea of rewriting our stories. This is not to say we tell misleading stories. It’s to say we have a choice in how we react, process, and invent ourselves in light of those events. 

Here are some prompts to help you get started:

• Take a moment to journal the significant chapters of your life. Ask yourself what was happening beneath the surface and the driving forces behind your actions and decisions. This introspective exercise can lead to profound insights. 
• What are the recurring themes in your life story? What are the threads that connect the different chapters of your life? 
• How does it inform how you show up today?

Investing time in this activity is invaluable as it gives you insight into who you are, connects you to your purpose, and makes you attractive—not “hot” attractive (although you are undoubtedly hot in my book, however, that’s not the goal here) but magnetic attractive—the kind where we all want to be on board with you and your idea.

I’m a big fan of Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah, and how their storytelling habit has saved them from having to close their doors forever. You can read their story on their website (it’s one of the few “Our Story” tabs that is actually a story!). You’ll learn the improbable tale of a small woman-owned, Buddhist-based restaurant becoming a community anchor in a small Mormon town.

Good stories have contrasts – like small things in a big world. Unexpected things in a predictable space. Improbable stories in a probable world. 

What’s improbable about you? 

Have an important meeting or presentation coming up? If you want to level your presentation skills, I am here for you with a personal, one-to-one program. In four months (or less if you need it), we can transform how you communicate so you have more compelling stories that move your audiences and make you a more effective leader. I’ll be your guide and sounding board, and everything will be better. Comment below or schedule a time here, and we will make sure this is a fit for you.

Take care out there.

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