In this episode of the This Moved Me podcast, host Sally Koering Zimney reflects on the art of sharing personal origin stories in public speaking. She describes two problematic extremes—telling a story that is still emotionally raw and unprocessed, and over‑telling a story that has lost its emotional impact. She argues that the optimal moment lies in the middle: a story that still feels powerful to the speaker but has been thoughtfully processed into a clear lesson or insight that serves the audience. Sally emphasizes that storytelling is a service to listeners, aiming to heal or educate them, and that authenticity emerges when speakers push into uncomfortable, edge‑of‑self territory after doing the necessary inner work. The episode also includes brief announcements about her upcoming online course “Owning Our Origin Stories” on MoversU (launching October 9), and mentions recent attendance at the Story Conference and the Presentation Summit, inviting listeners to join the waitlist.
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Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. Episode 192: How do we know when we're ready to tell our origin story? Good question. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking. Because a good talk can move the world and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful, that's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh. So waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey movers, it is Sally. Welcome back to another episode of This Moved Me. Here on the show this week, we are continuing our series on the origin story in preparation for the launch of my origin story course over on MoversU, October 9th. So if you're listening to this and it's past that time, because I know sometimes that's how podcasts work, go check out moversu.online, and the U is just the letter U, so M-O-V-E-R-S-U.online, and you'll see all a few, a handful of courses that you can take. But the one I'm super focused on and jazzed about right now is the Owning Our Origin Stories course, because I think it is one of the most essential things that we've got to master and understand and dig into and figure out how to utilize that incredibly powerful tool as a way to connect and move our audiences. So I want to start with a thought because I remember watching this really famous speaker and somebody who I admired and just thought, and still do think, is amazing. But I watched her on stage once tell a story, and my thought was, this story is not ready to be told yet. It just felt like too much. It still had so much power in it, and, and it was like watching her reprocess and re- feel everything. It was so still emotionally raw. And on the other end of the spectrum, I've also seen speakers who are just beyond the stories that they are currently telling. They don't hold any emotional resonance anymore. They've told it too many times that it's lost its power. There's no emotive oomph in them anymore. It's been all used up. Both of those extremes on the spectrum exist, but I want to talk about this place in the middle where, where you're trying to figure out if you're ready to share something that feels still powerful for you, because we want it to still have some power, but we don't want it to not serve our audience. Okay, so when I was— after I saw the speaker speak, I wrote up this little piece after seeing her speak, and it struck me that she was telling her story because she needed to. It was part of her healing, and that is not nothing. But I wouldn't recommend that. I've seen it many times, and there's something really intriguing there for an audience. And in some ways if it helps the speaker sort through their, their, uh, experiences, because I think sometimes even the process of pulling a story together can be an incredibly powerful way to sort through your experiences. But I wouldn't recommend it, and here's why. I think the point of telling our stories is to help and heal your audience in some way, if we're talking about healing. Because if you have something to share, if you have an insight, if you have learned something, if you have lived through something, if you have an aha moment, if you realized something, then it is your job to share that story. Even if it scares you. So it is not that we are only telling the stories that are so far in the past they don't— we don't feel them anymore. No, our job as speakers is to push into what can sometimes be an uncomfortable place that is real, that is on the edge of who we are, because Honestly, I think that is where authenticity exists, where we are pushing ourselves a little bit in that way. But if you have not yet reflected, paused on it, processed it, and found something that you are offering up to the audience from that, then it is not ready to be told. But when you have that realization, that lesson, the insight, the aha, then that story is ready to be told. And those are the stories that we need to hear and that we want to hear, because the point, of course, is not for you to navel-gaze. We speak in service to our audience. And so when you have something to offer, when you have done the work— and that's the thing, you gotta do the work of processing it— then it's ready. That's it for me today, you guys. A short and sweet one today, movers, because I'm at the Presentation Summit today. I cannot wait to share more with you all about these two amazing conferences that I've been at the last two weeks. The Story Conference last week and this week the Presentation Summit, because my hope is I'm gonna be bringing in a lot of amazing folks that I met and seeing, 'cause I've been seeing tons of talks and meeting so many of you and I cannot wait. And if you don't know yet, October 9th it begins, the Owning Our Origin Story online course over on Movers U. So if you've not gotten on the waitlist yet, you need to do that stat. Go do it now. bit.ly/moversu-originstory and the U in Movers U is just the letter U. M-O-V-E-R-S-U-origin story. We're keeping the class small, so you'll want to be on the waitlist and get the notification when the doors open. If you miss out on this one, no worries. I'll be opening doors to this one again later in the year, but now would be an awesome time to join because you can help me shape this. There's going to be more access to me in this round because it's a new class, so I really want your input questions, feedback to help make sure it's awesome. So we will be hopping on the phone at least once during that 4-week period so that I can hear your questions and help coach you through to success so that your origin story is really connecting with your audience. So I'm really jazzed about that, if you can't tell. Bit.ly/moversu-originstory. Would love to see you over there. That's it for me. See you next week, folks. Boop, boop boop, bidoop boop.
