Sarah ArcherProfessional Speaker, Organisational Consultant & Coach, Lemon Squeeze Limited · International Speaker | Speaking Coach | Top 1% Podcast Host | Helping Organisations Unlock Business Transformation & Growth Through Strategic Storytelling | Helping Experts & Business Authors Nail th

The Struggle Makes the Story Worth Telling

11 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:15

In this segment of her talk, Sarah Archer argues that the struggle—the challenges and journey a speaker experiences—is the essential heart of any compelling story. She warns against the temptation to condense or omit the struggle, noting that doing so shortchanges the audience and diminishes impact. Drawing from her recent experience judging TEDx and storytelling categories for the Speaker Awards, Archer observes a common pattern: presenters often showcase a before‑and‑after snapshot without detailing the transformative journey. She illustrates this with a typical narrative structure where a speaker mentions a bad event, briefly describes its impact, then jumps to an inspiring statement and a triumphant outcome, likening it to serving only the bread of a BLT sandwich. While audiences may admire the outcome, true trust and connection arise when the struggle is fully shared.

Chapters

can shorten the struggle, you can streamline it, but please don't skip it. The struggle is the story, and if you're leaving that out, you'll be shortchanging your audience and reducing your impact. I even saw it a number of times when I was judging the TEDx and storytelling categories in the Speaker Awards this year. People were sharing like the before and their happily ever after, but missing completely or not sharing enough about the journey they went on to achieve that transformation. And you've probably seen similar from other speakers yourself. Something bad happened to me, and then they'll go into detail about the bad thing and the impact that it had, and then they'll make some inspiring comment like, but I refused to let that limit me. And today I've done insert big achievement and life is great now. And that for your audience is like ordering a BLT sandwich and just getting 2 bits of bread. People might admire your before and after, they might be inspired by it, but they really trust the struggle.