How Stories Happen: The author of my favorite book on storytelling, Jessica Abel

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New to the show? On How Stories Happen, business communicators take us inside the crafting of their ideas into powerful stories they use to grow their audience and their cause. It's a show about what it really takes to become a more effective storyteller, so you can differentiate and resonate everywhere you show up.

There are 2 books I recommend most often to others who say they want to be a stronger storyteller: one is from a world-famous legend, and the other is from our guest today. It's Jessica Abel, author of Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio. This exceptional book just celebrated its ten-year anniversary.

This book takes you inside the storytelling processes of the makers of This American Life, Serial, Radiolab, The Moth, Planet Money, and Snap Judgment, and the two voices taking you through the book (in cartoon narrator forms) are Jessica and ... Ira Glass!

Today, Jessica operates under the brand the Autonomous Creative, where she offers coaching and education to creative entrepreneurs who need stronger business fundamentals (but delivered in a way appealing to creative minds).

In this episode, we talk about:

Rejecting the great lie creatives are told their whole lives, which only hurt your entrepreneurial endeavors
The tension between creating art, creating a revenue engine, and the relationship between them
What Jessica really endured (and how it broke her) to create my all-time favorite book about storytelling.

Learn more about Jessica on her website or LinkedIn, and be sure to get your copy of Out on the Wire.

MY MESSAGE TO YOU:

Don't market more. Matter more. (<-- what we want, i.e. our new focus)
Think resonance over reach. (<-- what we need, i.e. my premise)
Don't be the best. Be their favorite. (<-- what we hope, i.e. the best case outcome)

That's called "laddering down your message," and it's something I help clients do as part of my 1:1 advisory process. I help experts differentiate and resonate by first developing your premise (the big idea you own and core concept informing your platform), then turning your premise into a whole platform of impact: the stories, speeches, and signature projects and pieces you can use to turn your expertise into messaging that moves the market, everywhere you show up.

Compete on the impact of your thinking, not the volume of your marketing. You’ve done lots of things. Now it’s time to [be] a thing. It's time to stop chasing attention and become the one others seek.

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ABOUT ME, JAY ACUNZO: