Tell small but mighty stories
Aug 11, 2024
Find Your Superpower newsletter 069
Read time: 5 minutes
Topics covered: Bootcamp pre-launch, storytelling, trust building
These days, there is a school of thought among content creators that we should come up with incredibly polarizing hooks to attract eyeballs to our posts.
Create an artificial “enemy” in our post, validate one perspective with over-simplified, triggering content, and rouse our readers into a feeding frenzy.
Anything to get a reaction. Anything to stop the scroll.
But at what cost?
I was naive once too
When I was new to the social media game, I followed content creators who, on hindsight, turned out to be poor examples to follow.
As a result, I believed it was normal to feel high levels of distress, negativity, frustration, inadequacy, negative spirals, envy, anger, distrust and plain disbelief when scrolling through my feed. These emotions represent low vibrational states.
After working with 130+ people in my bootcamps and hundreds of people in my corporate trainings, I have come to realize that many others also question whether this is an acceptable social media experience.
Except that it isn’t normal.
It is not normal at all to feel this way.
When we scroll through our LinkedIn feed, we should feel nourished, entertained, curious, educated, humored, comforted and inspired. These emotions represent high vibrational states.
My recommendation to you is to Marie Kondo your LinkedIn feed: Unfollow shock jocks. Set clear boundaries by blocking trolls. Make it a point to consume nourishing content and to reject junk food.
I promise you it will not only improve your happiness and productivity in the morning, it will also protect your mental health and shrink your therapy bill.
Where do I start?
On your part, you can contribute to solving this problem by choosing to tell better stories on LinkedIn. Start small.
If you start with one small story, just one, and write it well, I am convinced that your 1,000 true fans and members of your tribe will resonate with it.
I’ve tried telling big and bombastic stories that never went anywhere. They were too grandiose and disconnected with the reality of most people.
But there were times that I told small stories:
- Seeing snow for the first time at 18
- My mom’s work ethic from nearly 40 years in sales
- Crocheting with my daughter as a bonding activity
These small stories were well-received and appreciated by everyone. They helped me to build up a psychologically safe relationship with my readers and allowed me to reveal my softer side.
I believe that the tiniest stories are also the most powerful.
Everyone has a small but mighty story.
What’s yours?
LAST CALL: 1 DAY TO LAUNCH
Register now at the lowest bootcamp price offer
This is an invitation to subscribers of my Find Your Superpower newsletter to sign up in the pre-launch phase for Cohort 4 of our six-week Find Your Superpower LinkedIn bootcamp (October 5 to November 16).
Learning how to tell stories is a big part of our bootcamp experience. In our six writing gyms, we help our bootcampers unlock unimaginable targets and achieve long-term habit formation from creating professionally relevant content week after week with instructor feedback.
Until midnight today (GMT +8), the bootcamp price is the lowest it will ever be. Please register early to take advantage of our lowest-price offer!
BONUS: If you sign up now, you will still make it for our Aug 16 masterclass (12 noon, GMT+8) with LinkedIn Top Voice Chris Do.
Thanks for reading issue 069 of my weekly Find Your Superpower newsletter.
For those of you who are new to my newsletter, Find Your Superpower is subscribed to by 38,000+ people, and discusses the following three goals: (1) Making a career transition, (2) Professional branding on LinkedIn, and (3) Reinventing ourselves for the future of work.