How to Create Super-Stories: One Story, Endless Power, Infinite ROI
They like to scoff: "What are you gonna do with an English degree?"
Until the summer of 2008, my answer was simple.
"Become a sports journalist."
Little did I know...
* * *
When you're an English major, you hear a phrase floating around the ether: Your degree "teaches you how to think."
"Just say that," my elders implied, "if someone ever scoffs at your choice of major."
I heard that many times, but I never really considered it. What does that even mean?
Thanks to a random memory resurfacing from my first job out of college, I think I'm finally ready to share my answer -- and despite my previous go-to response, it has nothing to do with a job title.
But for a time, I was definitely headed towards that title. I did everything I could to eventually become a sportswriter:
I wrote for my college paper, then became an editor.
I wrote my own sports blog, long before blogging was a widely known thing. (I'm old. Send ibuprofen.)
I interned at a local paper, then a state paper (the Hartford Courant, where I managed to get two of my stories published in print. Both are still archived online.)
I interned at ESPN in their PR and communications department (where, hearing I had my own, management asked me about "this whole blogging thing.")
I even won a scholarship named after the late Jim Murray, a Baseball Hall of Fame journalist and one of the founding writers of Sports Illustrated. This remains one of the coolest things I've ever experienced. I got to fly my family to Palm Springs to accept the award with six other students. There, I met a fellow recipient, Tim Bontemps, who went on to become an NBA reporter for ESPN. During dinner, I sat next to former Dodgers first baseman Steve Garvey. (Partway through my acceptance speech, he leaned over to my mom and asked if I'd done much public speaking before. He noticed something about me that I didn't fully embrace until much later.)
So yes, it felt pretty great to pursue that career path, not only because I liked it, but because I liked how quickly I could respond to the liberal arts skeptics.
"What are you gonna do with an English degree?"
Simple.
"Become a sports journalist."
Little did I know...
* * *
When I graduated, print papers were struggling. It was 2008, and the economy was terrible. At that time, most media companies hadn't really moved online yet, so most of their business came from print distribution, which is a line I can write about my life.
(Please send TUMS.)
Although I had my youth (and the ability to eat and drink anything and feel fine afterwards), I had no job prospects when I graduated. After a couple months living at home, I halfheartedly sent an application through an online form to work at Google as a "digital media strategist." It was an ad sales job.
And they hired me. (The fools: I had an English degree!)
I'll save my thoughts about my career switch for another time. Today, I want to share with you the memory from that job which finally gave meaning to the whole "you learned to think" refrain. But to share this idea with you, I want to try something weird but hopefully wonderful.
I want to develop this memory into a story ... in front of you.
In other words, I want to take you inside my process of developing this memory into something useful for my work without having done it before this writing. I won't go back and edit the telling. I'll just take off, try to keep it in the air, then try to land the plane in satisfactory style. We'll go from memory to story and from story to allegory, which is why any story of mine would be memorable to you: because it contains a hidden insight you can actually use.
To take you inside the process, I'll share a bit of story, then step outside it to analyze it with you, then dive back in, and so on.
But here's the catch.
Whenever I decide to step outside the story, we have to pretend the story ended right there. In that moment, using what I wrote, we have to find a useful lesson from that version. I can't say, "Well, if you heard the next part, you'd know X." Nope. If we break from the flow, we pretend the story really does end there, and we have to extract some kind of meaning.
We'll do this several times until we have a few variations of the same story, any one of which can stand alone, and each of which has one or more unique insights pulled from that version. This means I can use the same story, in different places, for different audiences, for different lessons or goals, and resonate just the same.
I call stories like that "super-stories."
One story. Endless power. Infinite return.
Ready? Let's do this...
(Below, the story is written in italics, with my analysis in bold.)
* * *
I started working at Google in the Boston office in 2008. My job was to work with brands already using Google AdWords to improve their paid search, banner ad, and YouTube pre-roll campaigns. My title was "digital media strategist," but really, I was an account manager in charge of teaching the product to my clients and growing their accounts to grow Google's revenue.
Back then, Google didn't have a dedicated team for customer support, so they used incoming cohorts of new account managers to staff phones and chat. That would be our training before working with dedicated clients. But before we could start training for our eventual jobs, we first needed training for our training. In other words, we needed to learn how to be customer support reps in a way that felt "Googley." (That was the actual, regrettable word I watched actual, experienced executives utter a million times, somehow with straight faces, throughout my three-year tenure at the company.)
For instance, what's a Googley way to send a customer support email? The answer is CATT.
CATT stands for Clarify, Answer, Then Teach.
First, Clarify what they're asking. "I understand you're trying to increase your keyword bids across an entire search campaign."
Next, provide an Answer. "Do this and this, then click Save."
Then, Teach. "By the way, you can get a list of helpful tips for how best to optimize your keyword bids for better performance at this URL..."
CATT: Clarify, Answer, Then Teach.
Okay, let's step out, so we have to assume the story ends there. To make it memorable to others means making it more useful to them, so we can start by asking: Why are we sharing this story? What's it's purpose?
More specifically, I like to ask two questions after ending any story to ensure it resonates:
What is the story about? (The topic)
What does the story reveal? (The insight)
I can then move the audience from the details of the story to its meaning, in order to inspire reflection and/or action. That's how we turn any story from "good" to effective: we impart meaning. That's why it resonates, and resonance is what sparks action.
I like to remember this movement from good to effective storytelling with a simple phrase:
"That's the thing about..."
This is then followed by the topic, then the insight the story reveals about that topic. So the flow might look like this:
[Story] + "That's the thing about..." [Topic] + [Insight].
I don't always use the actual phrase, but it's an easy way to remember that moment -- whether I hand you the lesson or just give you space to synthesize your own.
Given my initial CATT story above, I might end by saying this:
That's the thing about solving customer problems: Even the smartest answers sound pretty dumb if you didn't understand their question. Remember to CLARIFY first.
That's not bad, but maybe I want to speak to the same crowd (people who care about customer support) but impart a different lesson. Without changing the story, I can change the insight I extract. Here, just to illustrate, I won't use the actual phrase "that's the thing about" verbatim, but you can sense it's there.
What Google showed me is that you can turn every reactive email into a proactive moment. Every interaction is a chance to TEACH. This not only empowers customers, it empowers your support reps to become trusted strategists and leaders, growing your revenue in the process.
That's not one but two different insights extracted from the same short story, two different ways to use the same story effectively.
But maybe I don't want to teach those things at all, or maybe I was invited to guest on a podcast that isn't about customer support. I can't just spit out the same story/topic/insight combination, since [waves hand, Jedi-style] these are not the insights you're looking for.
Imagine I'm speaking to my usual audience of creators and marketers instead. I might need to add some additional context to arrive at a new insight, so maybe I continue the story in the following way. Let's pick up where we left off, before those two customer support-related insights from earlier:
CATT: Clarify, Answer, Then Teach.
I learned that lesson from Google in September 2008. Do you know how many months have passed since September 2008?
173.
One-hundred-and-seventy three months later, I still remember that damn acronym. CATT. Clarify, Answer, Then Teach. And it's still informing my work today, even though I'm not doing anything resembling customer support.
Okay, so let's consider this our new ending, creating a new version of the story. Again, I'm asking:
What is the story about? (The topic)
What does the story reveal? (The insight)
Well, what did I add to the story in this version? I added the whole "one-hundred-and-seventy three" bit, agitating that feeling, increasing the drama. I built it up a bit by repeating myself. Why? Why was that detail so important?
Because to my audience of creators -- professional communicators who want their words to be memorable over months and months too -- I want to arrive at this insight:
That's the thing about memorable ideas. Sometimes, the best way to be more memorable isn't to make our ideas grand or groundbreaking. Sometimes, the best way to be more memorable is to make our ideas more visual. If we give others a single piece of the whole concept -- a graphical framework, a flow chart, a matrix, or yes, an acronym like CATT -- they'll remember everything else more easily. Rather than make our ideas seem bigger, what if we made them seem simpler? What if we used a visual?
Buuuut maybe that isn't actually what I want to teach, so therefore, it's not the story I need to tell. Let's keep going and continue to customize it for a different purpose. Because maybe I don't want to talk about what you DO (communicate). Maybe I want to talk about what you ARE (a creator). I want the story to feel more emotionally significant to you. I want it to resonate deeper.
Let's turn the story into its ultimate "I feel seen" version. Again, we pick up with the last line, before my previous insights:
One-hundred-and-seventy three months later, I still remember that damn acronym. CATT. Clarify, Answer, Then Teach.
Now, some people might remember the acronym because it's so dang simple, even useful. But I remember it for a different reason.
Read it again. Does anything feel slightly ... off?
CATT. Clarify, Answer, Then Teach.
CATT.
Um. Why not ... CAT?
Clarify, Answer, Teach.
Google was SO CLOSE to the actual word! Worse, it's not even like they needed to rethink the entire saying to get there. They just needed to drop "Then." That's the one word serving no actual purpose. You were THISCLOSE.
I remember our trainer writing this on the whiteboard. “Clarify, answer, then teach," she told us. "You can remember it with a simple acronym!"
CAT, I thought. It's CAT. The acronym is CAT.
She turned to the board, up-speaking each word as she wrote:
"Clarifyyyyy..." she said, writing the C.
CAT. You're writing CAT.
"Answerrrrr..." as she wrote a big A.
Just say it. We're already there.
"Thennnnn... TEACH!"
Listen, Marcy, I have a brain, and if that wasn't enough, that brain just got a very expensive piece of paper from my college declaring it proficient in the English language, so both I and every other person in this room already know how to spell--wait.
No!
No, no, no, no.
Come on.
Seriously?
No.
(Side note: "Wait. No! No, no, no, no. Come on. Seriously? No" is my exact reaction to most things in the business world.)
"CAT!," the trainer proudly declared (only she wasn't saying "cat").
She pointed to the abomination on the board. (Dibs on Abomination on the Board for my next album name.)
"Clarify, Answer, Then Teach. C-A-T-T. CATT!"
I sat there stunned. I looked around the room, hoping to make eye contact with someone else, ANYONE ELSE, who saw this too. But they were all furiously taking notes, using what I can only assume was 100% too many Ts.
Whew, okay. Let's stop the story there for a moment. Again, we need ask: What's this version about, and what does it reveal?
Maybe I'm speaking to an audience of brand leaders:
That's the thing about strong corporate cultures. For as much good as they can do, they can also prevent people from speaking up when they should. Employees just accept things as they unfold at work because they shrug and think, "That's the way we do things around here." Sometimes, that can be pretty funny. (Just drop the "Then." It's cleaner.) But other times, this has more serious consequences. Organizations rewarding silence, complacency, and compliance? Historically, not awesome. A culture is only "strong" if it brings out the best of us -- which includes encouraging people to spot ways to improve and speak up.
That's for the in-house leaders. But let's say tomorrow, I'm writing or speaking to a group of creatives. I might share the same story but arrive at this insight instead:
That's when I realized something about being creative: we notice what others don't. Our jobs depend on us being sensitive to the world around us. That's inspiration. That's the idea factory. We think critically and creatively, about everything. There's no switching it off. So we live in the details -- details others might overlook. That can frustrate us to no end when we realize they don't see what we see. Sometimes, that can be kinda funny. (Just drop the "Then." It's cleaner.) Other times, we struggle to get buy-in for our ideas, or we see the accepted norms of a niche and we get so annoyed, we think about giving up. I'm urging you to persist. To keep trying. To speak up. Maybe they need to hear your idea in a different way to get it. Try framing it according to their goals, not yours. Or maybe others do see what you see but don't feel empowered to speak up. That's what makes you a leader.
I like that one. I might use it elsewhere. It feels the most "me," though the rest are hopefully useful too.
Of course, there's another use-case to this story: "Tell me about yourself, Jay. How'd you get here? Give us your backstory."
Oof. I hate those questions. What do you say? You can share a boring checklist of jobs, I suppose. You could share one story, but then suck up too much time to share the rest. (This is why, as a host, I'm adamant about sharing a guest's basic bio myself, so we can get deeper together.)
Me, I like to take these questions (which, yes, I get a lot) and turn a story about me into a story about my mission. This helps me teach, but it also helps you place me in your mind.
Well, I started at Google in sales, but really I'm a creator. Always have been. English major, former sports journalist. And so early on, I saw this tension between what most assume is good for business and what most assume is good creatively. But I don't think there's an actual tension there. So I've tried to explore that during stops at HubSpot, a VC, and a small startup. I've tried to explore that as an author, speaker, and podcaster. But it really started in my first job ever, working at Google, with a bit of an odd moment. It was 2008, and during my first month of training, we were learning about how to write good emails to our advertiser customers...
* * *
One story. Endless power. Infinite return.
Maybe you have a liberal arts degree. Maybe you have the skills typically associated with one. Regardless, I hope you see your skillset as powerful. What you bring to the workplace, others undervalue, overlook, or simply don't possess. That matters. As storytellers, we know how to earn trust in less time, with fewer words, than all the jargon and the junk spoken and shared by most others in the business world.
You are capable of communicating in ways that inspire reflection and action in others. You're downright unstoppable. Don't let anyone minimize your abilities just because you didn't major in The Exact Thing You Do For Work Now, just because you don't have the skills that resemble Someone Else's Shortlist of Acceptable Business Roles, just because you don't spend all your time reading Morning F*cking Brew or watching Gary F*cking Vee or obsessing over ChatGP-F*cking-T.
(Sorry, been watching Ted Lasso. Slipped into Roy Kent mode there. But for f*ck's sake, don't diminish what YOU bring to this work in your own way.)
Your ability to resonate is today's premium skill. It's easy to get in front of others. It's hard to ensure they care.
But that's. what. you. do.
"What will you do with that skillset?" they asked me. I couldn't wait to tell them.
"Become a sports journalist."
But if I'm being honest, even though I genuinely wanted that job, I was only confident in telling them about it because I knew they'd accept me. I was only confident telling them about what amounted to my work-related dream because this particular dream actually matched their narrow-minded view of what was acceptable to do my degree. Don't worry, I'll do something you anticipate.
Really, I want to do something they don't.
And I think I can, because I know how to do something more powerful than anything in the working world, which is tell stories that earn trust and develop influence -- and so do you.
So let them scoff. I have a new response. You can have it too. It's yours now, and it's as fun to use as it is true to say.
"What are you gonna do with an English degree?"
Simple.
Whatever the f*ck I want.