The Ripple Effect Of Storytelling For Trainers, Mentors & Consultants

What Stories Do You Need To Tell?

To answer the question Who are you and why should I believe anything that you have to say?

You need to tell your Epic Story. The story that explains why you wanted to make a change in your life, the challenges you faced along the way and what happened when you reached your goal.

Your Epic Story explains how you created your system and why it is better than anything else you've ever used.

Your Epic Story shows that you are just an ordinary guy that refused to give up.

Your Epic Story shows that you didn't have any special skills. You learned a better way of doing things through study and practice, until finally you created a life-changing system.

Your Epic Story shows that amazing results are possible.

My Epic Story explains how I made £672,989 in 9 days!

My wife tells me all the time "that sounds like spam".I can understand why she thinks that. So, what should I do? Should I reduce the result that I achieved to make it more believable? Or should I explain how I achieved that result?

What would you do?

I'm not going to lie. So, my only option is to show how it took me 7 years to discover a system that made £672,989 in 9 days.

As a trainer or mentor, you are always walking a fine line. You've got to make a big enough promise to catch your ideal customer's attention. But if you make a promise that's too big, you risk sounding like spam.

I've opted for the 100% honest approach. Even if this does make my system sound too good to be true.

You see, I'd much rather grab someone's attention with an outrageous headline, that I have to immediately justify. I'd rather pull them into my dangerous journey of discovery with breathless excitement. Rather than write a weak, everyday story that is not true.

So your Epic Story is your most important story. It's the story you need to tell most often. It's the story that you will become known for.

Why Do You Need To Tell Your Epic Story Often? 

Because no one will remember it. If you tell your Epic Story well, then you will give your audience something much more powerful...

... you will inspire them to change their lives.

It was Maya Angelou who said

"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."

People never tire of hearing an inspirational personal story. They want to get to the end and feel inspired to do the same thing in their life. They want to know that they can achieve anything they want to... if they learn new skills and work hard enough to get the results they want.

So, why do you need to tell your Epic Story more than once? Because you aren't the most important person in your reader's life.

The only person that remembers everything that I say is my daughter. Everyone else will forget the details of my story because I'm not the most important person in their life.

So use that knowledge to your advantage. Tell your Epic Story often. Fill your community with the belief that they can change their lives. They will thank you for it.

So that's the first story you need to tell. That's the most important story you need to tell. But, it's not the only one.

After all, you'll have other stories of struggle and success before and after that moment.

As long as you are trying new things, you'll have more stories of struggle and success.

The reason why you need to tell multiple stories is so your community feels like they know you. You are also trying to earn the trust of your community. You do that through the stories you tell.

So What Do You Want Your Community To Know About You?

What do most people you speak to NOT know about you? And why?

You see, we hide the stories of our struggles and failures. Yet these are the stories that earn trust.

By having the courage to talk about your challenges, your worries and your insecurities. You make your audience see that you are just like them.

As an athlete and musician, I always thought the superstars never felt nervous. I thought they wouldn't feel nervous because they knew how good they were.

The truth is that they felt more nervous than most people. Certainly more nervous than I did. The difference was that they learned to control their nerves. They learned to channel that energy into a better performance.

I tried to hide and suppress my nerves. I wanted to focus on the job at hand and visualise success. I didn't want to feel sick. And I didn't want to admit to myself that I felt like this.

Then I spoke to some amazing athletes and musicians about how they felt before a race or a concert. To my surprise they were open about the terror they felt before the most insignificant performances.

The musician that I spoke to, George, played piano in my jazz band. George had been Head Chorister of Ely Cathedral. He had his own CD at 10 years old. So George was a classical music superstar. He went on to study Singing, Trombone and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music. To get in for one instrument is a huge achievement. Getting in for 3 instruments was unheard of.

George told me the terror he felt every time he had to speak in public. Something of little importance made him feel sick. Imagine how he felt before a big concert or an audition.

I was never a great violinist because I didn't practice enough. I loved playing music and played with a lot of passion. But I didn't put in the hours of dedicated practice to be great.

So, when I was the soloist in a concerto I knew this would be the pinnacle of my classical music career. (A concerto is when a soloist is accompanied by the orchestra).

I practised harder for that performance than I ever had in my life. I remember walking on stage awkwardly. My heart was beating so hard that something as simple as walking was hard.

Once I started playing, the months of practice flooded back. I remember the audience and the orchestra. I remember the terror and the joy. Most of all I remember the relief at the end.

When I heard my jazz hero Wynton Marsaslis say that he felt the same thing when playing a concerto I realised that superstars get nervous. Superstars feel the weight of expectation on their shoulders. And what makes them great is how they control their nerves.

Those stories helped me with my music. They helped me see that nerves are something that never go away, and if you want to perform to large audiences. Then you have to accept that nerves are part of the journey.

As an athlete, I idolised Carl Lewis. It's easy to idolise people on TV. People that you've never met. But what about the superstars in your life.

I'll never forget the first time I raced against Matthew Clements. Matthew was a year older than me and because I hadn't lost a race all season I was invited to compete at the county championships in an older age group. That makes no difference if you are running the 100 meters. With hurdles, it was a different distance and a different hurdle height. So there are technical differences. Differences that I had not trained for.

In the car to Peterborough, the teacher said "You won't win today. The guy that's going to in is going to break the national record."

"What do you mean I'm not going to win."I responded"I've won every race this year. Of course I'm going to win."

"We need that kind of arrogance in this car" came the reply from a much older athlete in the back of the car.

I didn't want anyone to think I was arrogant. So I was even more determined to back up that statement with action.

What happened?