Sharing Your Story to Help Others (Leadership and Storytelling Skills)

There’s enormous power in sharing your story. It helps you and others at the same time. It supports others and also gives people permission to share their own story. It’s an incredible way to build community and make an impact.

A Life-Changing Mindset Shift

There’s a catch-22 here. Sharing your story is, by definition, about your life experiences. The beauty here is that one of the primary reasons you share is not to make it all about you, but rather to truly and genuinely help others.

It’s about creating an I-focused story and a YOU focused message. The “I” part is all about your experiences, your journey, your ups and downs, your trials and tribulations, what you learned, etc. The YOU part is where you leave the person/people receiving your story with your take home message.

You could just say the “you” part. But the story leading up to the you-focused message makes it that much more impactful.

Hypothetical example:

Be there for your kids.

Or…

Growing up my parents were never there for me. This led me to struggle in school and in life. I hung out with the wrong people and made the wrong decisions because I had no role model. I realized I needed to be a much better parent to my kids than my parents were for me. Be there for you kids.

Which did you find more powerful? Which did you find more memorable? Which spoke to your heart more?

(Again, this is an example I made up…though I’m sure there are plenty of people who have this story, and I know one person who does.)

It’s Selfish NOT to Share It

People who may not grasp or fully understand the power of sharing your story could say that it’s selfish to share your story (I’ve actually gotten that feedback from a couple of people who just didn’t “get it”).

It’s really the other way around. It’s selfish to NOT share your story. There are so many people you can help and benefit by being open about your life experiences.

I don’t say this in a “motivational” way. I’m saying it as a statement of fact and truth.

I’m in a mastermind group that meets monthly. In it, one of the leaders (the guy who created the group, who is a good friend of mine), said something that was a mic drop quote:

You don’t experience what you experience for you. You experience it for others.

My mouth dropped open when I heard this insight and it gave me an even deeper understanding of the power of sharing your story. Going a level deeper here and talking about life purpose, you can think of your life experiences as the vehicles to deeply connect with others and fulfill your purpose for being here on the planet.

What you experienced may not have been easy, to say the least. If your story is anything like mine, there’s probably a lot of struggle, frustration, disappointment, and even hopelessness. With that said, when you summon the courage to be open about all of it and let in the light, you become a beacon of hope to the world.

Storytelling Is Good for Your Business

Telling a good story is one of the keys to creating a memorable business. People tend to buy from people and businesses they trust, and they trust people who are open and transparent about their life experiences.

Storytelling is a skill that will benefit you as a leader, speaker, communicator, businessperson, and overall person.

With a powerful story, both individuals and businesses get to the top. While our society is in many ways broken with all of the animosity, there’s also hope in the sense that people love to see a comeback story.

What’s your story? What are some of the obstacles and challenges you had to overcome to get to where you are today? What are you still struggling with now that you could open up about? I guarantee you there are others out there with the exact same challenges.

Sharing these things will help others to succeed.

Like Everything In Life, There’s a Balance Here

Look – I’m not suggesting for you to make anything and everything about your life experiences. You also need to be strategic about when and where you share, and how you share. While sharing your own experiences, it’s crucial to care about others by showing interest in what they have to offer as well.

There’s a balance here, and there can be exceptions and extremes in any approach. Choose your moments, but don’t be afraid to share.

If someone is sharing for no other reason than to glorify themselves, perhaps there’s some ego there. That’s why I mentioned earlier the importance of sharing to help others (while also genuinely liberating yourself). It’s possible to help others and yourself at the same time in a way that comes across as natural.

Even then, some of the best YouTubers simply document their day to day experiences – so when done in the right way and on the right platform, even documenting your life can be inspiring to others.

As the saying goes from the well-known Hunger Games series, May the odds be ever in your favor. The point here is that when you share something, more often than not, odds are it’s going to add some kind of value to the world.

Don’t worry about sharing everything “perfectly”. Simply being yourself in an authentic way is what the world needs.

You May Get Some Crap, But Don’t Give Up

No matter how much good you’re doing, not everyone is going to like you. That’s life. Some people may give you some crap for putting yourself out there, but do NOT give up.

When I started talking about how close I came to dying by suicide (referring to an incredibly challenging experience and unexpected setback I had when I was seventeen years old in 2007), there were an absurd number of people who put me down. I got emails from people telling me to shut up. I got hate on social media. Family, “friends”, colleagues and more judged the heck out of me.

For years, it seemed like the world was against me sharing my story. But I pushed through regardless because I kept thinking that there were more people out there I could impact and help by sharing my story beyond the critics who immediately surrounded me (I was around some pretty crappy people, partially due to circumstance and partially due to needing to reinvent myself and meet new people).

Eventually, the tide turned. I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but I know that when I got featured on Tiny Buddha, one of the most popular websites in the world, in 2016 and 2017, tens of thousands of people reacted positively to me sharing the deepest, darkest moment of my life. Many said my story helped them through their darkest moments and I get messages from people thanking me all the time.

There are a huge amount of people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, and I realized my story had value.

Even then, I still was holding back. It wasn’t until 2020 that I shared with the world the years of abuse I experienced as a teenager and young adult – on top of all the other setbacks – that led to the clinical depression and near suicide attempt.

By that point, the critics faded away and people started telling me that my story was changing their lives.

Maybe you’re like me and you share your story in pieces as you build up the courage to reveal more and more. Or perhaps you share the whole thing all at once. It’s completely up to you. Just remember that as you step out of the darkness and into the light, you are not only freeing yourself – you’re freeing so many others.

There are so many people in this world living in prisons of fear and shame. I empathize with these prisons because I’ve been in them myself for most of my life. This is part of why I’m so passionate about helping others break free.

In my experience, the people fastest to criticize you for sharing your story are the ones who are most afraid to put themselves out there.

It’s easier to put you down than to be great, so they criticize you to feel better about themselves. Leave people like that to their own devices and keep doing you.

The Majority of People Will Benefit From What You Share

Check out this cool little diagram I created. Fully 85% of people out there can (and will) genuinely benefit from what you do:

Only 15% of people won’t like it (or less, when you find your tribe and audience).

The solution is to Reach Your Mountaintop, as thoroughly discussed in my award-winning book of that exact title “Reach Your Mountaintop”. It touched a lot of lives and I’m honored by some of the feedback I got from others about it.

When you apply the Reach Your Mountaintop process, you open yourself up to a whole new world – a world where the majority of people both want, and need, what you do.

When you Reach Your Mountaintop, the people who criticized you because you were true to yourself no longer will be the main concern.

NEVER let someone else stop you from taking the first step!

Share your story. I’m looking forward to hearing about all the lives you will touch and impact.

Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. He’s also an authentic leadership keynote speaker. Connect with him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter. For three free books (The Power of Authentic Leadership, Reach Your Mountaintop, and Traveling Triumphs) in exchange for being added to his email list, email his Executive Assistant at meg@jeffdspeaks.com. Learn more about his story on his About page and feel free to check out his author page on Amazon.