How To Inspire People From Their First Contact With You By Using Stories
Image by David Rock on Pixabay
July 16, 2021
Those who work in personal development and spiritual formation have the privilege of walking with people as they make serious life transformations.
Start your relationship with prospective clients by using powerful stories in your marketing material. Touch into their heart’s desires from the first time they read your blog posts or emails or website.
With stories, you can start addressing the yearning that has brought them to you at whatever their entry point is in your promotional material.
Consider Jordan Chiles’ odyssey to being an Olympic gymnast.
One of this summer’s American Olympians is gymnast, Jordan Chiles.
Jordan went to her first gymnastics class as a 7-year old girl. She looked around the class in Vancouver, Washington school. Most of the other beginners were younger than her. “I won’t let that stop me,” she thought to herself. She worked harder.
A few months later, she watched the 2008 Olympics with her family. Awed by the gymnasts, she declared, “that’s what I am going to do!”
Jordan was determined. She lived under strict physical training. Her diet was that of a premier athlete, not the kind of food her school friends were enjoying. She suffered torn muscles, bruises, injuries, and exhaustion. She was going to make the Olympic team!
Her discipline and commitment paid off. She skipped levels six and eight. At the age of 11, she was an elite athlete.
Several hours a day, most days of the week, she showed up at the school for training. Dimitri Taskov, a former Bulgarian Olympic gymnast who helped his team place 5th in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, demanded much of the young athlete.
Seven years later, as much as she wanted to compete in the 2016 Olympics, she was 4 months shy of the 16-year-old minimum age. She attended those Olympic trials in San Jose, CA anyway. When the roster was announced, she broke down in tears. “When will it be my turn?” she lamented through her sobs.
Yet, she continued training. Jordan debuted in the senior division the next year. She finished second! But, another disappointment. She wasn’t selected to be on the U.S. team that competed at the world championships.
Was that the final straw? How many more disappointments could she endure while dedicating her life to be a world-class gymnast?
Jordan started losing interest in the sport. It wasn’t fun anymore. The sacrifices were no longer worth it.
Her mindset really showed in Boston. Even though she’d finished second the year before at the U.S. Championships, in 2018, she finished 11th.
That was it. Jordan was done with gymnastics. She was finishing up high school and had to decide what to do with herself. What would she do if she couldn’t achieve her goal to be an Olympian? She had committed to compete for UCLA, but that was a compromise goal.
She cried and then cried some more. Her devastation was deep.
Coach Taskov saw her struggle. He had lived a similar struggle as a young man. He knew what he had to do. He cut ties with her. It was time for Jordan to find a higher level of training.
The young gymnast was shocked! She hadn’t seen that coming. She’d been training with Coach Taskov for 11 years–her whole gymnastics career. How could he just cut her loose?
It seemed so dark.
And final.
Where could she go?
Jordan’s light in that darkness came in the person of Simone Biles. Simone invited Jordan to move from Washington state to Spring, Texas, and train in her gym with her coaches.
That spring Jordan graduated from high school. Days later, she and her mother moved to Spring. She trained at the Biles’ family gym, World Champions Centre. The coaches, Laurent and Cecile Landi, welcomed her and helped her rediscover her love for the sport.
This year, at the age of 20, Jordan competed for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. With a whole new mindset and the elite training she had in Texas, she finally got her spot on the team!
Jordan Chiles’ success is not just in gymnastics. She dug deep and made a courageous decision when she was at her lowest point. Rather than running away from her disappointment or blaming others, she went through the dark time and found new life.
Most of us have life-changing stories to tell
Any of us who have a few decades under our belts have likely faced deep disappointment, pain, or sadness. It seems insurmountable at the time, but deep inside each of us is the capacity to forge our way through it.
My experience of recovering from a bizarre hit-and-run accident enabled me to face my limitations and find new strengths. Later, my adventures with breast cancer led me to even deeper humility and hope. Both experiences were terrible and amazing! I sure don’t need to live either one of them again but am gratefully changed because of them.
In later years, I studied Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey®. It is the classic story structure that has been passed on through the millennia. My hit-and-run experience fit the structure perfectly. So did surviving cancer.
One of the stages is to face our “death.” “Death” is a metaphor for that part of us that we lose on the journey. Parts of our ego. Our values. Our illusions.
Teaching this story structure to incarcerated writers in a maximum-security prison for several years reinforced the power of this kind of story. The men “get it.” Many of them can recognize the stages in their own lives.
Connect with prospective clients from the very first contact by using powerful stories
Disney movies succeed because they inspire children (and adults) to live into their inner hero. The stories give them courage. They teach that difficulties happen along the way–and there is a way through them.
The great Disney movies (and the classic stories that have survived for thousands of years) have a point where the hero wonders if she will survive. They are appropriately terrified and don’t want to face the threat. Ultimately, they need to or they’ll collapse into weakness and bitterness. Then they’re stuck living with a victim mentality.
Use your marketing to inspire people to face their fears
When people are looking for your expertise, there is likely something they know needs to change. They’ve likely tried to deal with it themselves or maybe by talking with family or friends. Yet, the inner discomfort continues nagging at them. They finally admit they need expert help.
Use some of your marketing to inspire their inner “hero” to step up and call them to a great adventure with you.
How do you do that?
- What are your personal heroic stories? Share parts of those as appropriate. People respond to others they think they could relate to.
- Collect stories from the news, from children’s stories, from your sacred Scriptures, from the classics, from any Disney movie. There is value in sorting them by their themes. Ideas might include
- Sports
- Modern events in the news
- Classic literature
- Rags to riches
- Movies–both well-known and lesser-known
- Stories from the great faith traditions.
- Start sharing those stories in your blogs and emails and on your website. Any of your marketing material can use stories.
Your contribution to the world is to help people grow into their heroic lives. Let your first contact with them start inspiring them for their adventure.
If you’re interested in exploring the use of stories in your marketing, contact Carmala at carmala@carmalaaderman.com. She has clients in the personal development and spiritual formation world and also writes persuasive marketing copy for other professionals in these fields.