What's Your Story?

Have you ever read a story or watched a film on someone born with a silver spoon?

Have you ever read a story written on a star-struck protagonist?

That’s because people love rooting for the underdog.

That’s inspirational! Yet, most of us struggle with our never-bending efforts to project a picture-perfect life to others. The “fake it until you make it” mindset pushes us to hide our fears and bury our failures.

We wouldn’t admit that our lives are far from perfect.

Why do you think we do that?

The urge to fit in – that’s what makes us narrate a story that is not ours.

Narrating a typical ‘rags-to-riches’ story sounds great on a silver screen, yes! But, accepting the same reality of our lives and projecting it to others requires courage.

If only we can master that and stay true to ourselves, we can not only trailblaze a path for others; we can also learn a great lesson from our topsy-turvy journey.

Yes! Our actual story can impact our career trajectory. How?

Let’s find out –

#1: Telling Your Story Makes You Courageous

Opening your heart to others and exhibiting your true self requires courage.

In the make-believe world, it becomes challenging to say and be who you are. This is because we all suffer from self-doubt and fear rejection.

Yes! It is scarier to admit your failures in public. It gets scarier to admit your weaknesses and feels scariest to voice out your hardships and mistakes. But, giving yourself to moments of vulnerabilities can be gratifying too!

All the more gratifying when you see others responding to your true story positively and look up to you for motivation.

Let’s cite an inspiring example here –

WhatsApp has become an indispensable application in our lives today. It gained so much traction in such a short period that Facebook had to purchase it at a whopping price of $19 billion.

But, do you know the actual story behind WhatsApp?

The founder, Jan Koum, has quite a ‘rags-to-riches’ story to share. Yes! He was born in a small village near Kyiv in Ukraine and later emigrated to California. He had tasted the life of poverty.

But, that didn’t become a handicap in his career growth. Instead, he turned his face for the better, and today his brainchild is one of the most popular applications in the world, with recorded downloads of 600 million in 2020.

Was his story not inspirational enough?

#2: Telling Your Story Inspires Others

The earlier example was quite an inspiration, isn’t it?

If Jan Koum’s story can inspire you, why can’t your story inspire others? All you need to do is lay bare your heart and get yourself heard.

Since time immemorial, stories of underdogs have inspired us a great deal. Take, for example, David and Goliath or Jack and the Beanstalk. Or if you are a soccer lover, the struggles of Pele, and so on.

Every time you falter at something or face consecutive failures, people will always try to boost your confidence by giving you such examples, right?

So, if you do have a similar story where you faced tremendous adversities and failed multiple times, yet you bounced back every time, share. You will be surprised how many people will start rooting for you and your success.

Who knows, but your story might inspire some authors to pen down a biography in their words?

Well! The bottom line of this point is that if you learned how to overcome challenges and bounce back after each failure, you should share that secret to success to others who need them as inspiration.

Be the motivator for others’ success too! That will be a feeling of accomplishment.

That’s what stalwarts like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jk Rowling, and others did! They narrated their ‘rags-to-riches’ or ‘failure-to-winner’ stories to others. As a result, their failures and accomplishments have become a Holy Grail for inspiring young entrepreneurs and others.

So, keep inspiring!

#3: Telling Your Story Teaches You Important Lessons

Telling your true story can do a lot more than inspire others.

It teaches you important life lessons. It teaches you to get up on your feet and move forward after every failure. And, these failures give you insightful knowledge about why that path is not right for you or which path could lead you to your goal.

Yes! Your own story can be your inspiration. You don’t need to go looking for the same in others. Find it within yourself.

For example, focus on the time when you failed your examination. How did it make you feel? What was the reaction of your peers? How did your parents react to the news? And, finally, how did you bounce back as a winner?

Introspecting these questions will help you to understand your inner strengths. But, of course, you already had it in you – the courage, the determination, and the ‘never-to-give-up’ mindset.

Moving forward, when you face challenges or fail to accomplish something, you can reflect to that time mentioned above. Then, you will find enough courage to fight back and come out as a winner again.

Also, you can analyze your mistakes and understand where you went wrong and why? Our stories, or rather our past, can teach us important lessons of life. We all have that in us. The difference is we forget once we leave that period behind.

Learning lessons from your past mistakes can also help others to learn how to reflect on their mistakes and derive life-changing lessons from those experiences.

#4: Telling Your Story Makes You Humble

We often say that people who have reached the zenith of their success are so humble and grounded.

Why do we say or feel like that? Because they are humble, or rather they have practised gratitude and humility while striving for success. And, these two traits helped them achieve a lot both in terms of their career and lives.

But, textbooks can never teach you the art of humility and gratification. Your life can.

Life is a great teacher!

It’s true because the moment you reflect on the past and realize where you have come from and how hard you have worked to achieve what you have at present, you will feel extremely grateful.

You will develop a greater perspective in life, and your gratefulness will reflect in the form of humility. Of course, it is also true that the more you achieve, the more you want. But, remembering your past will keep you grounded and humble.

And, that’s going to reflect in every decision you make for your business, career, or other aspects of your life.

Never lose that!

#5: Telling Your Story Makes Others Believe in You

When you are humble yet immensely successful, people will feel drawn towards you. But, if you develop the trait of arrogance, the same people will start despising you.

Your story will not cut a mark in their minds.

Besides practising humility and gratification, start narrating your real story. That will make your audience believe in you, believe in the story, believe in your efforts, believe in your ideology, and eventually believe in your product.

They will start relating to your story and your vision. Your employees will start sharing your goals and work hard to help you to achieve that. Your true story will create a catalytic effect and work as a motivating factor to push your team to cover the extra mile to achieve the impossible.

Just like you did in your life!

What’s your story?

Even though your story might not be as remarkable as some of the greatest entrepreneurs and inventors of all time, you do have your share of failures, challenges, and successes to flaunt. Don’t withhold them; start narrating, but not boasting.

There’s a thin line between boasting and mere narration.

Your words of success should not sound like a boast. Here, your humility will come in handy. It will make your story sound believable and not something straight out-of-a-tele-episode.

Practice this art of story-telling, and you will see the difference. So, keep narrating!

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