There’s a growing phenomenon in Business, specifically in Marketing and Branding trends, of increasingly emphasizing the importance of telling your story — or more truthfully, selling your story.
This concept confuses me.
Asking me what my story is confuses me. You knowing what your story is confuses me.
When I’m asked what my story is, for instance, I may think about my “Innerpreneurial” story just to help my mind focus, but even then I fragment into a million directions. Do I want to share about getting my business starting? Do I want to share about reclaiming my artist and overcoming my creative and mental blocks? Or do I share how I’ve managed my home when both my husband and I are entrepreneurs? What about how I’ve needed to and have completely redesigned my life and world? Where and what part of my life experience is the part that sells?
Maybe this whole story business is suppose to confuse me. Maybe there’s benefit for me to be confused and feeling unsure. Maybe there’s benefit to you seeming clear in your story, and I, not. Maybe then I will more easily buy your story.
Maybe I’m to be confused by the idea that I have one powerful story to tell and sell, and that I can neatly fit my life and my experiences into it. Maybe that’s the point. To present life, or me, or my product, as more simple and clear, together and whole, than your life currently is. Maybe then you will buy the story I’m selling and telling.
There are so very many experiences and learning within me that when I attempt to present you with just one, I wholly feel the incompleteness of the perspective I am presenting. This feeling leaves me wondering, how valuable is it for us to be attached to our own and others stories? What value do we get from these stories we repeat about our Self and others?
There are so many potential stories within us, the ones we attach to and share, what do they say about us and how helpful are they?
photo credit: Venture Vancouver