Your stories may help you get our of your head.
“If you want to change the world, tell a better story.”
~ Gail Larsen, author of Transformational Speaking
I stood in front of my fellow Transformational Speaking Immersion students in a suite in Santa Fe’s Las Palomas hotel and began to tell my story.
When I was three or so sentences in, Real Speaking Founder, Gail Larsen, looked up from her notes and interrupted me: “You’re too cerebral. Stop thinking and scripting your story. Connect back to your Home Zone and speak from your heart. Trust the words will come.”
In other words, she was telling me to ‘get out of your head and into your truth.’
I started again. I got a bit further into my story before I ran back to the barn of safety by leaning into my brain for language. Gail stopped me again. This time, she pointed out where I had made an impromptu action with my journal to illustrate a part of my story, and how much it had resonated with her.
“I’m on that beach with you when you dropped your journal. Speak from that place.”
I kept telling myself, ‘get out of your head’ but it wasn’t that easy. I bumbled and fumbled my way through my story, falling into and out of my pattern of wanting to control a presentation, rather than share a deeply-felt experience. I was relieved when I finally arrived at the end and could sit down, out of Gail’s scrutiny.
Heat rose in my chest, upward to my face and ears. It turned out that the woman who aced public speaking couldn’t speak her way out of a paper bag. My mind turned gelatinous with shame.
Tapping into Our Creative Power
We worked intensely over the course of four days, connecting with and deeply dropping into the truest and most vulnerable parts of ourselves. We uncovered what it is about us that is uniquely powerful—gifts only we possess that hold the keys to transforming others when expressed authentically.
It was an exhausting and profoundly powerful experience.
When I boarded my return flight in Albuquerque, I knew something inside of me had shifted forever, and that I possessed the keys to connecting with and moving others through story (whether speaking or writing).
My challenge would be (and continues to be) to stay there, in that place of trust and surrender—out of the briar patch of wanting to control and create by way of my analytical mind.
How Entrepreneurs Connect Best with Ideal Clients
As entrepreneurs and creators, we are continually charged with the task of connecting with our ideal clients and moving them to action. Regardless of whether we are marketing a product or service, firing up our audience to take action for the greater good, and/or are training or coaching clients to become the best versions of themselves, absolutely everything rides on how well we connect through story.
To do this, you have to learn to get out of your head and into your truth.
Our stories and images hold Magic. From the energetic stance of sharing within our campfire communities, we can teach and reach and effect change.
Going to no script and trusting the power of our stories teaches us that surrender connects beyond words and reaches the heart in indelible and powerful ways.
