314: How to Organize Your Stories

Hey movers, it's Sally Z with Be Moved. Let's go create some talks that will move this world. We're going to talk with amazing speakers, share tips, tricks, resources, and we are going to be moved so that our audience can be moved. This moved me. What is moving Living You. So last week we talked about making sure that we are utilizing and making space in our lives to see and appreciate the everyday stories. When we do that, we're gonna really naturally come to this place where we're like, how do we keep track of them? Right? Because I don't know about you, but I'll have an amazing moment. I'll be like, ah, Oh my gosh, that's a moment. And it like comes into my brain and I'm like, ah, that was so great. This moved me. I have a, this moved me moment, which is AKA a story. And I hold onto it. And then, oh my gosh, you guys, hold please. That was literally the first time I've connected those two. Story equals a this move me moment. I just had an aha moment. Okay. When we have these aha moments, when we have a "this moved me" moment, when we witness something or see something and we're like, ha, you know, having a narrative in our heads about that moment, that is a story that you wanna capture and take with you. But I don't know about you, but busy brain, busy Sally, busy life, and I lose it. I lose it and I can't remember it. Has anybody ever had that experience where You have a brilliant idea and you lose it to the ether. Elizabeth Gilbert talks in Big Magic about this. Please tell me you've read this book. It is— I love this book so, so much. It's so beautiful. I want everybody to read it. If you haven't read it, where is it? Get close. Mm. It's so good. And in it, she talks about creativity as this fleeting thing. And it's like the universe offering you an idea. If you don't take it, if you don't grab it, it will go and find somebody else to live in and to, you know, make itself known in. Now, I hear that and I'm just like, ah, I have all the ideas. How do I hang on to them? How do I do something with all of these stories? Well, you need a system. You need a system so that when the big magic comes to you, You don't lose it and then miss the opportunity. So here's what I'm gonna be talking about with you today is what the Story System really looks like. And I, I've talked about this in other places, so there's some of this that might be review for those of you who have been with me for a while, but we've got a lot of new people here and this is really, really important. We do this not just so that we don't lose the inspiration when it comes to us, but so that ultimately when we are in the creation, the creation, when we are in the creative process, when we are working on a new talk or we're doing some writing and we need a story, we have them. Okay? Because of course we have them, but they're hard to pull out at the exact right moment. And find the best story for this moment. So I'm gonna talk to you about what I do and what I encourage my speakers to do so that you can fully leverage the power of stories. Number 1, you need a collect and capture process. So you need a place where you are capturing your story. So we, here's the deal. It can be all kinds of different things. I use my notes, uh, on my computer as just a, like, this is where it goes. This is where it goes. This is where it goes. You need essentially a story inbox. Okay. So it can be anything. It could be your voice, your voice memo on your phone. It could be a Google Doc. I think that's a great idea. It needs to be something that syncs up amongst all of your things so that when you have that moment, you're like, oh, what do I do with this? How do I not forget it? How do I keep it with me? What do I do? So you need an inbox. So think about this as your capturing, right? You've got to. Captured in the moment, and you need one inbox, one solitary inbox. Okay? Because once you have that inbox, it's sort of like Getting Things Done. You guys any GTD people out there? If you are a GTD person, it's a productivity process and pathway. My husband's a huge GTD guy. Yep. Okay. Hello. I see you GTD people. When you have your process, you know, the most important thing about the GTD process is that there is one inbox and everything goes in that inbox. Okay. Because otherwise, believe me, and, uh, I could be better about this, but when you don't, when you have multiple places, like some voice memos, some on the notes, some in the Google Docs, some written on scratches of paper. Some thrown in that basket over there. Just speaking from personal experience. When that happens, you will lose them, right? And waste precious time in the creative process looking for things instead of creating really with ease. And we want you to, when you're in the zone, be able to just go be in the zone. Okay. So you have one inbox. That's what you focus on. You capture those stories with one single inbox. So if you are with me here, especially if you're a GTD person, I want you to name your inbox. And I'm specifically talking about for your stories. What is your story inbox? Define it, decide, and then be disciplined about it. Stick to it. Okay. So Define Your Story inbox. That's how you're going to capture stuff. Okay. Once you have done that, then we get to the magic sauce of this process. And that is to organize your stories. Now this, we can do this really simply. Okay. This is, this does not have to be like a, oh my gosh, it's like organizing the craft closet. This is going to be terrible. This is made so much easier when you have one inbox and you have captured, you've collected and you've captured all of your stories. Okay. So once you've done that, then we shift into how we organize them. And the reason we organize them is so that when you are applying, let's say you're applying your signature talk to a new audience. Okay. Typically, let me get specific here. Okay. So I love talking to all of you as entrepreneurs. Right? Entrepreneurs and changemakers, these are people who typically have your own small business. These are your ideas, right? There's a different level of vulnerability in the experience of bringing your voice out front when it is yours, right? Versus, and I do a lot of speaking for corporate audiences. When I shift into corporate audience mode, my stories have to change a little bit because they are going through, it's a different process. The vulnerability is a little bit different. You're, you're trying to, they themselves are trying to find a connection to the message rather than like, you better have a connection to your message if you are the entrepreneur, right? So when I shift into corporate speaking, I swap out some of my stories. It's much easier for me to do that when I have my stories organized. And I organized them by pillar. Do you all remember? Do you remember our pillar content? Do you remember our pillar content? Let's see if I can find, I have an image of it somewhere. Somewhere. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Let's try this. Okay, so let's look at this for a moment. Those pillar things. Yes, exactly. Okay. So up on the— forget the day 2. When we are looking at our content pillars, what we're looking at are essentially the subtopic areas that you talk about with your, in your topic. So for me, what this looks like. Is I talk a lot about how speaking is leadership. Public speaking is my overall— way up here on the right— public speaking is my overall topic. My particular approach and the thing that is my take on public speaking is that our goal isn't to do this perfectly. Our goal is to connect and be our full human selves. My subtopic areas, which is my pillar content, are story, authenticity, and the myth of perfection. It kind of has changed a little bit actually since this, but it's basically those ideas. Okay. So when I am thinking about my own stories and how I want to bring stories into, into my talks, I want to organize my stories around these three pillars, around story, around authenticity, around the myth of perfection. Now, mer mer mer. So I wanna get back to my face. I'm not super organized today. Here we go. Perfect. There we go. Okay, so when you have your pillars defined, that's how we are gonna organize our stories around those pillars. Does that make sense? Now, If you want some further training on how to develop your pillars, how to kind of define all of those pieces, these are really important building blocks for us that help us organize our stories. If you, if that would be helpful for you, what I wanna encourage you to do is to check out our, my Jumpstart Kit. So it's bmoove.com/jumpstart. If you haven't done this yet, it's a really, really powerful approach. And this PDF has some exercises in it that will help you define those elements. It will help you define what is your take on the topic? What do you want to be known for? What are my pillars? Because once you have your pillars, what you're going to do So you're going to take your stories and you are going to think about the ways in which that story might apply to your pillars. So let's take a look for a moment at, uh, Ma Ma Ma. I've got so many things to— Brr. Here we go. Ready? Story log. Are y'all seeing this? Yes, you are. I know that you are. Okay, let's look at this story log for a second. Here's an example story log. Okay, you've got, you're going to list your stories over here. And then after you've defined some of your pillars, so let's say I have a scuba diving story. Okay. It's a great story on— if Pillar 1 is stories, it's a great story for stories. It's, it's a great story for authenticity. And then being imperfect, not as much about that. Okay. So what I would do if I were you is spend a little more time really making that kind of articulating this out a little bit more. You could write a little bit more about your scuba diving story. You could write a little bit more about how it applies. To pillar 1 and how exactly you would articulate the connection to pillar 1. But when you do that, so let's say now I'm going in and I'm like, oh my gosh, I want something around, I really wanna, I'm gonna do a Facebook Live around the idea of stories. And I can look in there and say, oh gosh, here are all these stories that I could tell around story. It's a little meta. But I think you know what I mean. Now you could also, if you wanted, get really fancy and color code your stories and pillars by audience. So I could say, ooh, the ones in yellow here are the ones for my corporate audience and the blue guys are for my entrepreneur audience. And when they're both, I make them this. I don't know. I'm making, I'm making the colors up right now, you guys. To make colors, whatever you want. But that way you are living in the realm of, you're living in the realm of ease and organization, and you can easily take the format of your signature talk or even just your basic core message. You can say, how, what are the stories that I have? How can I apply them? How can I use them? Okay. Because this is really, really important, my friends. It is, I think, an underutilized thing because what we want to imagine is that, what we want to imagine is that our storytelling just comes naturally. And the truth is you've got to do a little investigating to collect and capture those stories. And it's worth putting in the work to organize them because that organization really eases the way for you in terms of how you implement and bring these stories to life. Okay. So if you want to get a jumpstart on finding your stories, identifying your pillars, this right here, rrrr, will do it. If you go to bemoove.com/jumpstart. Now, some of you, you've already done that work. You have your pillars and you have, you really now you've got to do the work of taking your stories and putting them into the pillars. What pillars do they connect with? What audiences might you use them with? And if you are looking for a tool for that, I will share this very basic Google Doc for you. Although you saw, you guys could make this. Just let me know if you want a copy of it. The idea here is, is very simple. You've got one inbox. You're going to collect and capture your stories with one inbox. That's where every idea goes. Every story, like when it comes to you, when you witness something, when you have a reaction to something and you take a moment to say, why was that so powerful for me? That's a moment. That's a story. Write it down. And now your job, once you have done that, once you've got like, oh, I've got that moment, I've got all these stories, how do they work into your pillars? So define your pillars and then apply your stories to your pillars. When I coach people, I'm helping them develop their signature talks and stories are the engine to those signature talks. Talks. They are the heart and core of it. Signature talk, it isn't a signature talk without the stories, and it's not going to be an effective talk without stories. Doesn't mean we also aren't making points, we are, but. All right, my friends. Mwah! See you next week.