The Paradox of Storytelling (Or, How to Ensure Your Stories Connect)
My daughter is obsessed with this Disney+ show, Elena of Avalor, and if you're a parent, just reading that name caused the theme song to start playing in your head and a muscle to start twitching in your face.
Anyhoo, I had never heard of this character (apparently, introduced in 2016), so once Aria began watching the show, I began to read about her on the Disney site. The page read:
“1. Elena's story is universal.”
Oh, great! Love that Disney made a relatable character for my daughter. What, pray tell, makes Elena's story so universal?
"Elena is a young princess who was trapped for 41 years by an evil sorceress--inside a magical amulet"
Wait, what? "Universal," you said?
"...while her grandparents and sister were protected within a magical painting."
Yanno: family stuff.
"Now that she's free, Elena must now learn to rule as crown princess."
THAT is universal? THAT is relatable?
She lives in a giant castle on the top of a mountain with waterfalls running along the side. That's her house.
She flies on a magical tiger with wings. That's her pet. (I mean, I like my dog just fine but c'mon...)
What, pray(ing even harder now that you please) tell, makes Elena's story so universal?
Of course, you're probably a step ahead of me. Silly Jay. The story isn't universal because of all that magical stuff. The story is universal because of its lesson.
And you're right! The article continues:
"The lesson Elena is learning is universal--despite her royal status and a backstory that's anything but universal!--creator and executive producer Craig Gerber says.
"How do you learn to be a good leader while learning to be a good sister and a good granddaughter and a good friend?"
I don't know, but wait a second: I'M trying to be a good leader in my work and also be a good dad and a good husband and a good friend.
Move over, Aria. I gotta watch Elena with you.
What makes a story connect with others?
Storytellers in the arts and the media seem to remember something we try so hard to ignore in the business world.
A story is relatable because of its emotional stakes, not its topics or its action.
We think that because we teach a certain type of person through our work, necessarily we can only tell stories about that type of person. But this limits our power and our ability to connect emotionally. It limits our ability to resonate -- and when we resonate deeper, we spark action easier. From resonance comes results. So our desire to see results in our work causes us to adopt a behavior which actively works against our own desire.
But just think:
Ted Lasso is about football/soccer. But it's not really about those things (nor do I care about that sport). It's about human kindness and how to remain kind to others as you deal with your own struggles and evolve as a person.
Stephen King's Carrie isn't really about Carrie. It's about the feelings of loneliness and isolation that any of us can understand.
Spider-Man is one of the most beloved characters of all-time. Can YOU thwip through the streets with your spider powers? No? Then why would a story like this resonate? Clearly, the only type of story that connects is a story about people who look identical to you, right? Wrong! "With great power comes great responsibility."
A story connects based on its emotional stakes, not its topics or actions. You can tell a story about anything you like -- including the stuff you're confident YOU like but don't know if others like it too -- and you can still connect.
But you have to arrive at the emotional stakes for that to happen.
This is where we get tripped up.
The Paradox Causing Our Problems
Often, when a personal story of ours doesn't connect with others, we blame the topic or action of the story. "Well, I guess my audience of marketers doesn't care about my love of Italian cuisine, since that story didn't connect. Guess I better talk more directly about marketing next time."
We try to use whatever WE love as a source of metaphor. (From cooking Italian food, I learned X, which applies to your work as marketers...) But after we try and see no replies, we blame the topics or action. When really, it's our failure to arrive at and develop more fully the emotional stakes.
It's a paradox.
To connect deeper externally, we have to move deeper internally.
Maybe you've heard the phrase, "In the specific, we find the universal." Okay, yes, I agree -- tell a very specific story about something routine or something from your life, even if it's topically irrelevant to your work's topics and audience. BUT... then you have to arrive at the universal part. The lessons. The meaning. The emotional stakes.
We don't fail to connect with others because we turned inward to tell our stories. We fail to connect because we didn't go inward enough.
That's the paradox. It looks like this:
Let's start on the far-left.
When we want to connect externally, it's tempting to simply -- and very generically -- address "the audience."
"Every marketer today knows the important of storytelling. Today, we cover 6 tips for becoming a better storyteller..."
So we sit there, on the left side of the chart above, feeling very relatable. "Oh," they think, "I'm a marketer. I want to tell stories. I relate to this."
The problem is, by staying general (the bottom line of the graph, all the way left), we've created a commodity. We've shared a perspective or a story that could come from anyone -- and indeed, it often addresses "anyone." You're writing to "one" or writing to "marketers" (or HR pros, or musicians, trapeze artists, or whomever you serve). You stayed general. You addressed "them" in some monolithic sense.
That's very relatable.
It's also superficial and forgettable.
But now, let's move to the right. Here's the image again so you don't need to scroll up:
As we move right, telling a story that comes from our own personal perspectives or lives, we first decide on the topic of the story. ("I teach marketers, but I want to open this article by talking about Italian food. Or skydiving. Or Elena of freaking Avalor.") That topic is also rather superficial and forgettable -- except it's far less relatable than addressing the audience head-on.
So the curve slopes downward. You stop feeling relatable as you get more personal.
Then, having introduced the topic (which is seemingly NOT relatable to others, or at least not hyper-relevant to your niche), you start telling the story. In other words, you move from introducing a topic to sharing the action.
This makes you feel even LESS relatable. I don't care about Italian food. Or skydiving. Or Elena of freaking Avalor. Why would I care to go even deeper into a story about that stuff and spend more time with that idea?
Answer: you wouldn't. Not unless something else is present too. That's when you reach the moment when turning inward starts to pay off. You start to feel more and more relatable -- but unlike the first kind of superficial and forgettable relatability, YOU feel deeply resonant and memorable.
Because you've turned inward even further. You've gone beyond the topic of your story. You've gone beyond the action. You make clear the lesson, the meaning, the emotional stakes.
And THAT is why others care about your story involving Italian food. Or skydiving. Or Elena of freaking Avalor. Even though you teach marketing, or HR, or music, or the trapeze.
Let me show you what this looks like.
My Friend's Mistake
The other day, a friend of mine presented me with three different options to open her next essay. She told me she wanted to impart career advice to fellow marketers. The first two options both sounded eerily similar -- some version of the following:
"As marketers today, when we want to build our careers, it's important to recognize the role of creativity..."
I don't need to continue one word further, and you already know exactly the kind of content this becomes. Generic, forgettable, commodity stuff.
But then there was the third version -- OH, that third version! It had such potential.
She opened by describing a character that, as a young child, she used to like to draw. It had a silly name (let's call the character Bunny McMuffinsocks). It had some magical powers. It appeared in several cartoons and books and paintings she did.
She then (rather abruptly) pivoted from describing her young self drawing that character to her adult self about five years ago, setting out to find her dream job in marketing. She said she no longer felt like a creator.
"THAT'S YOUR OPENING!" I said.
"Eh, I don't know. It doesn't feel very relatable. I guess I thought for others to see themselves in what I write and know this is for them, I can't open by talking about myself. I have to say something about their work and their lives."
"You're thinking too literally," I answered. "And worse, you're falling victim to the paradox of storytelling."
She had turned inward, then hesitated. She was correct: at that moment in time, the story didn't resonate all that much. But the problem isn't that she turned inward. The problem was the hesitation.
"Go further inward," I told her. "How were you feeling back then, drawing Bunny McMuffinsocks?" (A totally normal thing for me to say during work hours...)
I pushed her step by step to go beyond the topics and the action to arrive at the meaning. I helped her describe the emotions, and what emerged was something incredible. It's not mine to share, as it's not public yet, but I can describe my personal experience with the piece.
She spun a story about her childhood and painted a more vivid picture of this confident, curious little girl, slathering paint all over the page with reckless abandon, declaring that THIS -- this misshapen, haphazard mess of a painting with barely any visible outline to it -- was a character. It was Bunny McMuffinsocks, born to the world, ready to hop and flop and shuffle those socks around (I can only assume to the local bakery to get some muffins).
Then she talked about the first book the character appeared in. It felt meaningful to her back then -- and I could tell it was meaningful even now, looking back. Then she took me on a journey from that little kid writing books about this character to the young woman that girl became -- a chef, working in kitchens both professionally and at home, dicing and slicing and saucing and tasting and dazzling the senses in ways I imagine before shlepping over to my stove to throw together yet another hasty meal for my family in what feels like the 17 seconds I get to cook these days.
Then, my friend brought me with her as she entered a new chapter of her career as a marketer, ready to set the industry ablaze like a branded bananas foster. It's there, through the words of her story, she placed a hand on my shoulder as together we watched her 25-year-old self run into barrier after barrier. She grew disillusioned. Uncreative and uninspired. Distraught with the state of marketing today.
She'd lost sight of that spark from the kitchen. She'd lost the feel of slapping paint to the page and declaring it was a character. She'd lost the confidence, the excitement, the sense of identity that she was, indeed, a creator. As a result, she just started to feel ... lost.
That's where she left me: with all those feelings, followed by a paragraph break.
A tiny strip of white space where I could fit my whole world.
I smiled.
I shook my head.
"Yeah. Not relatable at ALL."
* * *
Your personal stories aren't about you. They're about the meaning that connect you and others.
When you tell a story that isn't superficially and topically relevant to others, you open the door to something more powerful. You can connect on a deeper level. You can resonate in such a way that sparks action.
But to do that means you need to stop hesitating, stop holding back from taking us even further inward. In the specific, we find the universal -- not specific actions, but the emotional stakes driving those actions. If you don't arrive there, the story might not connect.
The problem isn't that you're turning inward to tell a story. The problem is you're not going inward far enough.
To connect deeper externally, go deeper internally.