August 7, 2025 • 33 mins
Do you ever feel like you don’t have much to offer?
Like your experience is ordinary? Obvious? Nothing special?
If so, you’re not alone.
But you are wrong.
Today, I’m sharing one of the most important messages I can give you…
Your story has value.
It matters.
It can help someone.
The problem is, most people undervalue their experiences because they’re consider their experiences in terms of what it means to them…as opposed to what those experiences can mean to someone else!
They think, Everyone already knows this.
But they don’t.
There’s a huge difference between living a story and sharing it in a way that educates, inspires, and connects.
Join me today and you’ll learn:
✅ Why your personal story is your greatest asset.
✅ How to reshape experiences into meaningful, teachable moments.
✅ The 7-step structure to turn any experience into a story that resonates.
✅ A pivotal story from my own early career.
Let’s do this!
If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:
1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums.
2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel.
3. Grab any of my three books related to interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page.
4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook.
5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here!
--Andy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I want to talk about the power of your personal story while I probably didn't consciously know
this ever since I was a kid and especially as a teenager and even in my Collegiate years as well
as in my young adulthood I always felt it was really important to share yourself with others
and I would just do that naturally I'm guessing a lot of of of you do that and not even overthinking
(00:26):
about what is what exactly am I doing I just know this works I like to share my story with you uh so
that uh so that you might be able to benefit from my experience and on the one hand I want to be
really clear about about about sharing ourselves I actually despise this kind of a weird thing I
(00:50):
actually despise the expression I know exactly how you feel because technically I think that
is an absolute impossibility you cannot Poss know how I'm feeling and what I'm going through even if
even if you went through the exact same thing with all the exact same parameters because all of us we
(01:10):
go through our lives with different upbringings different biases different different belief
templates different support systems and my coping mechanisms might be better than yours or I might
have other people that I can turn to or I might want to go see a therapist who can talk me through
it or whatever it's it's all it's always different you might be able to understand rationally that
(01:35):
that stinks or wow that's bad or you're sick and you got cancer or you just lost your job or you
got divorced or whatever whatever it might be and I always feel like I I don't necessarily I don't
I won't say to you I know exactly how you feel cuz I just I won't I won't ever know that whe and
(01:55):
doesn't matter even if we've gone through similar experiences but the one thing that I do know
is that I want to help you if you need help and I know people's hearts are in the right
place and I don't I I won't beat anybody up for saying I know exactly how you feel because it's
not really there's no ill intent there but I want you to be be mindful of that because the goal and
(02:16):
what I want to talk to you about today and in the lesson that we that we we let out on on Saturday
is really is is sharing you so that others can benefit from your experience who who gets what I'm
saying here right we all we all have gone through struggles you in order to help somebody you not
(02:36):
only need to be able to understand them and and and understand what motivates them but you need
to know their story at least to a certain degree or you at least need to be able to appreciate that
that story exists and that you don't understand the story and and and also can come at it from
that vantage point but you know that there are people that get sick you know there are people
that get divorced you know there are people that lose jobs you know the people that miss
(02:59):
out on promotions you know that there are people that feel underpaid whatever it is and so I want
you to to just to just realize that and the one thing that I I wanted to kind of really kind of
kick off the kind of the little here's how or the how-tos today that I want to cover the tips let's
say is show show a hands here because I want I I I I wantan to I want to I want to see this in
(03:22):
the chat do can I get a show hands of anybody who either if any of these is is okay okay do you do
you feel like you undervalue yourself or do you or or E any of the ores or do you feel like gez
I don't really have a lot to offer like what's so special about me or how about this one well
(03:45):
everybody knows that right everybody knows that and let's go backwards like the the the canyon
that you think exists between what you know and what the person in the next Zoom thing NOS is a is
like it's the micros it's a microscopic it's a DOT it's not the Canon you think it is because and why
(04:11):
do we think this way why do we think that because we don't know what it's like not to know what we
know we don't we don't think there's anything special about us but we we're used to knowing
that and that's what makes it really really hard for us to be teachers to each other is because we
(04:33):
just assume people know what we know the expert curse that's excellent I wouldn't have used
those terms but that's exactly right the curse of knowledge I think I've I've heard things like that
right and Liz uh our perceptions our perception shapes the lens we see through to understand the
(04:54):
world around us I what I I wrote um one of my quotes the other day a couple of weeks back it
was a month or two about disagreements in your life generally have more to do with different
experiences than they do anything else because my view of the world is different than your view
(05:16):
of the world right I'm not disagreeing with you because I don't like you although some of you
might think that when you're disagreeing with somebody so what I what I want to do here in
point one is I want you to look at this so under value and this is where we many of us are and I'm
(05:37):
guilty of it too sometimes I have to stop and say I just need to make it a little more simple
thinking that everybody knows the base stuff so we got to go to the expert level right away but
we tend to undervalue ourselves because we think about everything we've been through in relation to
(05:59):
us you think about you I'm not saying you're selfish I'm saying the reason you undervalue
yourself often times I do it too is because we think about what we know in terms of the value
to us does that make sense gez that's no big deal to me I do that every day so the value isn't as
(06:24):
high as me learning something new or being able to do something new the real trick the real tip
is attaching proper meaning to the experiences that you've been through and then thinking about
the value for them not you so if I want to tell you the story as I emailed all of you that I hope
(06:49):
you read multiple times over yesterday on a Sunday about when my boss called me into his office when
I my last corporate job and gave me two options that I didn't like so I shared with you what was
the impetus dare I say kick in the pants to finally start my own business was a situation
(07:16):
that on its surface on that Friday afternoon on November 19th in 2004 was practically coma
inducing I mean there's absolutely nothing special about me being called into the CEO's office office
and not giving good options right I bet a whole bunch of you have been fired before or at least
maybe did are in a job you don't like right except I have to look for what's the value in this
(07:43):
situation that can help you or others and the fact in in that lesson hope you know if you haven't had
a chance to read it it's there's um there's an email in your inbox from yesterday as well as a
video that I did a few years back on the EXA on this subject and I don't want to go through it
cuz it's already out there I'll talk to you about something else from my life today that I that I've
(08:05):
never said before and so so I want you to think about that right think about think about the value
in relation to them so it's it's looking back and attaching meaning so I say often you hear me say
experience is not what's happened to you it's the meaning you attach to what's happened to you so
this is the important part what what did that do to me it it was a pivotal moment in my life that
(08:31):
set me on a direction that created something that now you are all a part of which I here we are now
20 20 years 20 years later and I just can't get over how like I get happier every day with what
I do so so think about that all right so so that's the first thing is we tend to undervalue ourselves
(08:52):
so we got to get over that all right second thing is now when you are thinking about about sharing
yourself it's the the more traumatic the story the Digger the deeper you dug the deeper the hole the
harder it was to overcome usually the drama is very helpful because you had to fight through
(09:18):
it right you you often hear me say well no great story ever started with so I got a scholarship to
Harvard and then everything took off from there right and why why has no story ever started like
that because there's it was it's like a gift there was nothing there was no struggle there
(09:39):
was nothing you had to work through I don't care about that and so and and not to mention
that story is totally unrelatable to all of us who didn't go to Harvard and get scholarships
to go to school I want to talk to the guy or the gal who couldn't get into any college but kept
fighting or decided I couldn't get into college so I just went and started a business and now I'm
(10:01):
a bajillionaire because I believed in myself so I want you to think about do do this with
me here so one of the steps in Sharing yourself is coming up with the story or stories that you
want to share and the power of your personal story is really the power of your personal stories with
(10:22):
an S and not only do you have multiple stories but you have multiple versions of the same story
because the the incident that has caused me to go into recruitment executive recruitment the story
itself is told differently to different people based on their goal their objective and what they
(10:49):
need to understand or how they need to be inspired so you could have the same story that has multiple
versions or or multiple Vantage points really it's not it's not different DET it's not it's it's
highlighting different details and spotlighting different things so so when you think about
your defining moment that's what I called it a pivotal moment a defining moment think about when
(11:15):
you fought hard and had to overcome something you could have been handed something even if you were
not in a pit but were you handed something that need was a a big big goal that works too were you
in a pit with something bad happening to you that works better but think about when you had to fight
(11:36):
and think about how you overcame think about what you learned and what can be shared so the story I
emailed you about yesterday when I said the boss called me into his office there were many lessons
right one of the lessons was no matter how many options you're given there are always more you
(11:57):
need to look for them what was another lesson if none of you know what I'm talking about that's
okay go back and read the read the message but what's another what's another option he didn't
have to lose for me to win right it was a win-win so for those of you that doesn't that don't know
(12:18):
the story my boss gave me like the 10-second version is I worked for a company I was the
vice president of business and product development my boss I made a lot of money my boss called me in
his office I didn't realize this at the time he was selling the company and he wanted to reduce
my compensation because I was everything that I did generated money but I had a salary that was
(12:40):
attached to it and commissions that were attached to it was quite large so what was happening is
that was going to be a big hit on his cash flow projection and he's trying to sell the company
which he actually did five months later I didn't know that he gave me an option A couple of options
and they were to take big pay cuts and I was not about to do that so what I ended up doing was
I left that Friday I went home and I thought about opening up my own recruitment firm even
(13:04):
though I'd never recruited a day in my life I went back to him on Monday and I said you could be my
first client I'll recruit for you there's a lot of problems with the headcount and all that good
stuff and I gave this to you in a story in and packaged it in an email and I also put it on a
video for you so I want you to think about well what are the sharable moments in what you're and
what you're going through all of you that many of you that are job searching right right now what
(13:30):
are you learning you're learning skills you're learning the value of a network you're learning
not to take things for granted you're learning a lot of things that are teachable moments and
you might think well no one's really going to care and awful lot of you are going to go and
you're going to find your job and then you're just going to start working and you're going to forget
(13:51):
you're going to lose that perspective and you're not going to keep up with your network and you're
going to slip back into those bad habits when one of the greatest things you can do is be a giver
to others who are now in the situation you were once in it's just an example some of you might
have been sick and can share the the how you got support how you emotionally got through it those
(14:15):
kinds of things okay so think about your moment please share I'd love I'd love to hear some of
your moments you don't even have to go into the whole story but just has your moment popped into
your head let me let me share a story with you I was thinking about what I wanted to tell you today
(14:36):
and I there are these notes oh damn where I don't know if I I I don't think I I don't think I have
them here so one of the things that I did when I was when I was writing the zebra code was I was
thinking I was brainstorming about stories that should go in the book and I didn't put this one
in the book although I I probably should have but I didn't and it's okay the book is perfect the way
(15:00):
it is um it's not a perfect book it's just perfect the way it is because life is perfect and so I was
about 24 years old at the at at at this time and I was working at Anderson consulting which is now
Accenture and I had been working at this client Amo which is a large Oil Company many of you have
(15:26):
probably filled up your gas tanks or British Petroleum it's all together now maybe maybe it
was Amo then British Petroleum bought it now they' split Brands whatever I'm working at a large oil
company and I had been working there off and on for a couple years I had worked there for four or
five months I left I went to uh work at McDonald Douglas where I worked on um building the tomahawk
(15:48):
and the Harpoon missile for the first Persian Gulf War that made me sick and um and and I was back at
Amo and I had been there for a little while and one of my jobs was to evaluate the entire world's
worth of gas stations that were Amo everything from a gas station to a stop and shop Car Wash you
(16:14):
name it and I was working with their purchasing department and the manager of the purchasing
department uh was complaining to his bosses that he felt that this Global purchasing Department it
basically purchased everything everything the for the I mean like everything but we were looking at
(16:37):
service stations in particular and the people that there were a lot of people that worked in
this unit and they had asked me my company to come in and evaluate the organizational structure the
processes themselves to determine what the optimal staff was so I'm about 24 years old maybe I was
almost 25 at this point so I I got I had six weeks to evaluate it and I did I interviewed everybody
(17:02):
I mean I did everything I I looked at the systems I looked at them I looked at how many steps there
were between the desk and the xerx Machine I mean I looked at everything so I write this report up
and I'm about to meet with my immediate boss and my one of my client bosses and I remember I had
I had I had sent this you know the document which was the writeup of basically everything I did the
(17:28):
resarch I did the conclusions I drew why I drew them and we were going to need to tell the boss
that Not only was he under overstaffed or not under staffed and he wanted to hire people I'm
like you need to lose people like you're you got dead weight here you're you're blowing hundreds
of thousands of dollars in Staffing costs that you don't need so now obviously he's not going
(17:54):
to like that and that isn't even even the moral of D story but that's the scenario that's the
exposition so to speak that's the setting and so I I I go to sit down with my boss and and my
client and I was feeling pretty good about the conclusions because I knew this was Rock Solid
engineering work like these processes were going to be re-engineered this organization was going to
(18:15):
be restructured and I was going to save them not just the Personnel cost but millions and millions
of dollars in Vendor fees and the everything that they were doing nothing was centralized
they weren't getting the rates they were spending millions of EXs dollars so I remember sitting down
and the first thing my boss and my client they look at each other and then they look at me and
(18:38):
they say to me um Andy okay um just so you're prepared we might be a little aggressive with
you on this St like I'm thinking what the who starts up who starts a conversation like that
right I'm thinking to myself uh now now what do you think I'm thinking uhoh they said you know um
my boss looks at me he says uh you know the the conclusions are solid this is really good research
(19:04):
and work but the writing sucks your writing's terrible now had I known at that time that I was
going to be a four-time publisher best-selling award-winning author I would have probably shot
it back to him but I didn't know that at the time and I just took his words at face value
who's ever gotten feedback like that now would you imagine what's going through my head like
(19:25):
uhoh it's a long document not to mention I have to give a presentation and all that stuff now I
was an electrical engineering student I took an English class in in you know college because I had
needed an elective or or two but you know writing wasn't my strong s point I was developing software
and if you wanted to talk to me and if then cobal statements I probably could have managed pretty
(19:47):
well right you get you get where you get you get what I mean like bang right between the eyes so
so what I what I did was I said well okay well how do I get better like all right that's fine
fine how do I get better what do you want me to do I'll restructure this or whatever my boss says
my boss says I got I got to send you to writing school I said okay well we got some of that for
(20:10):
the in the company right he said right he said I need you to go you got to spend like three
days they got to teach you how to write so I go to this three-day class I'm learning about fog Factor
motor to weight ratios I'm learning about sentence structure this is not the kind of stuff they teach
it in in you know in punctuation and grammar this is like how you write with force and emotion and
(20:31):
streamline in as few words as possible and so on it's three days all day you're practicing you're
practicing you're practicing they're grading your stuff I mean this was like I was like ah and okay
so I'm I'm say 24 25 all right so so off I go I I make the presentation to the to the big guy and I
go to him and that's a little bit of of a side of the story because the point is that no you know
(20:58):
I I took his feedback to heart I didn't my the my reaction wasn't at all oh well if you don't
think I can write I'll show you that's silly because that's emotion you don't need right if
you're motivated by something someone else said in in in in a negative manner meaning you're not
inspired but you're doing it to prove them wrong that's energy you don't need to be spending not
(21:20):
to mention it's external motivation which is going to wne what I looked at was I thought
about I need to get into this writing class right away because in order for me to grow and become a
better consultant I'm going to need to be a better communicator and so my my focal point wasn't on
the feedback as much as it was what's the next step and what's the next step going to do for
(21:46):
me and what ended up happening long story long I guess is about five years later so let's say
this was 1996 5 years later I worked on a project for another arm of Amo an entire company called
Amo Pipeline and I went and investigated other oil companies like Chevron Texico shell um Chev
(22:10):
Chevron these other oil companies mobile uh and and we were evaluating how to re I wanted to we
rebuild all of the systems that Amo pipeline used to manage the entire company so all the pipelines
itself but all the logistics all the movement of the oil all the accounting the inventory
(22:33):
management all the refinery stuff everything was going to be completely blown up and redone so I
went off to to evaluate this and I looked at well how am I going to put this in context for these
these individuals and this needs to be pitched to the president of the company literally the
top guy and the board is going to to look at this and my client was going to present our findings I
(22:55):
wrote a 50-page document and I'm sitting in the in the board meeting well well where my client
is presenting this to to these guys and the the president looks at him and says Thank You Dean um
by the way this document I've been working for 40 years I have never seen a document this great from
(23:17):
an IT department ever as far as the business savvy the ability to draw conclusions the rationale the
pros itself and of course my client said thank you he didn't say anything to me but I was there
to hear it and you can't take that away from me so my point is that anything that comes along in
(23:38):
your life if if it matters to you and you want to focus your energy on it that your ability
to be successful will have a lot more to do with where you place your attention than your actual
ability because my ability at that time was none I had no skills I had no writing skills I mean I
had written papers but that's to get a grade in college and I probably wrote some stuff you know
(24:03):
for my for my company like requirements documents but that really wasn't going to win any prizes you
get what I'm saying so I want you to imagine look at the look at the look at the effect look at how
long ago that was and how far I've come as as the guy you know but if there's anything about
you and your life that you that you want to do I would encourage you no matter what the feedback
(24:28):
is or whether you somebody doesn't think you're good enough I'm telling you you are good enough
and it's just a matter of if that's going to be pivotal to your success writing was going
to be pivotal to my success no matter what I did I didn't know I was going to write books
was 24 years old I didn't know anything right I was just trying to I was just trying to get I
(24:49):
was just trying to get through the assignment so anyway now let's take my story today I heard him
say fog Factor fog Factor you don't know what that is I want you to think about your motor to weight
ratio is do you have a verb to noun configuration so a lot of people use a lot of a lot of extra
(25:12):
words but does somebody understand what's actually happening in the sentence that's a verb noun combo
and the higher the verb ratio to the noun ratio is your motor's faster they're going to read it
faster it's going to register faster it's going to have more emotion you're not going to you're not
going to bog them down and so the fog factor is a metric that looks at the number of words it takes
(25:33):
you to basically make the point do that make sense I know these things I've never forgotten them and
I just Channel them into everything I do my email copywriting is different than my blog copywriting
is different than my book copywriting or my workbook copywriting they're all different so
(25:53):
everything has a purpose I get I'll do a session on it I'll do a session on it all right but let's
talk about these things now I don't want to go through this too too quickly or sorry too too
too too too much but I gave you um off of gusta fry tags uh dramatic writing techniques basically
the plots for anything dramatic where you have the exposition the rising action the climax the
(26:18):
falling action and then either the catastrophe or the denom and if you don't know what I'm talking
about I covered this in the in the lesson but what I did from the backbone of of that dramatic
storytelling formula is I created my own version for you so that when you're creating a story that
you're sharing with someone some of you I know are on the on the interviewing side and you you follow
(26:42):
my interviewing techniques and you you you hear me talk about the car technique where you got context
and then you got a formula and then you got the specifics and then you got the result well this
is when you're sharing stories of any kind there's these seven steps there's a setting I was working
on an assignment for Amo I was reorganizing the global purchasing department their processes and
(27:04):
their headcount their organizational structure I went to turn in my paper and my boss and my client
said Andy your writing stinks that's the incident then the buildup okay you need to go to writing
school then the peak I went to writing school I made it my mission in life to become a good
(27:30):
communicator in the written form what ended up happening I recreated the package I wrote a bunch
of other good stuff I became a brilliant writer I wrote a document that was pitched to the president
of Amo pipeline among other documents I sold a whole billions and zillions of dollars to that
client what's the lesson right kind of do you see you see these things this is all this is all in
(27:56):
your workbook it's all it's all in your workbook and for those of you that need to keep notes it's
also let's see where is it it's also on page 197 in zebra Cod so all this stuff is in there but
this is the formula this is the formula that you can use and then I want to cap this off with a
(28:23):
couple with a with a couple of other items here just really really just one biggie is when you
think about sharing anything with with anybody so I have to do what I'm about to show you I do this
every single week I do this every single Thursday I do this every single month with those of you
(28:44):
that are in the leadership program I do this today with you in this book club but in order to make
your story valuable you need to go through these five things number one is about you you what's the
goal of the story my goal is to teach you this way is to teach you a lesson some of you your
(29:07):
goal might be I want to have a story brand I want a better Market my company some of you might be
no I I need to relate to the client so that they buy our goods and services some of you might be
no I need to tell my friend a story to cheer her up okay so you've got you've got your your goal
(29:29):
will your story Bond you to them so I got a scholarship to Harvard is not bondworth you're
just going to be annoying to most people right you follow that so how is what I'm going to tell them
going to help me Bond well when I wrote you that email the one I sent yesterday about getting right
(29:52):
given a couple options which was an essential firing what is this that not going to bond me
to a lot of people who've been through that is that not going to bond me to a job Searcher right
you follow you're tracking tracking and then but I also need to know what motivates you because in
order to bond with you the best bonding is done through your motivation not mine if when I show
(30:17):
up every Thursday yes it's nice that you know I have stuff to buy because I have a business to run
but my motivation is to teach you my motivation is to spread the good word my motivation is to
help people who need Career Development and job searching help my motivation is also to
build trust with you my other motivation is to Market my services as well sometimes I'm all out
(30:44):
selling right you get the idea but but I need to know what motivates you so when I do any of
those things I need to understand what's going to motivate you and then is it actually in a story
so you got to wrap it together why well number one stories are more entertaining number two stories
(31:04):
are more memorable that's easy easier for you to remember it and then the last I want to cap it
off with this last piece that's I think I messed up there a little bit can The Listener imagine
or can they see their potential transformation can you can you move their attention from the
(31:30):
present and get them to imagine a better future can you get them to imagine it's going to be
okay can you get them to imagine I can do that I can do that that's what makes the story win
and if if you don't go well let's say four for four you're not going to win you're not going
(31:52):
to win that story you got to you got to touch all you got to touch through two through five
the goal is really for you that's because it makes the story valuable for you as well the
value in my story could be I helped you that could be the value that all I care about sometimes most
times okay uh this is a great question this is a great question is it Devon uh Woodard without
(32:21):
knowing the audience how do you quickly assess if there's a bond or their motivation you're going to
have to speculate now I would dare I would say 100% of the time if you're going to go to the
if you're going to go to the expense of sharing a story like this you're going to have some inkling
as to why you're sharing it right is that is that not a safe assumption if you're going to tell a
(32:47):
story like I told with you know Mike and Ben the the the two guys right I I know there's going to
be value in that and I can speculate based on the audience like I know every Thursday the kind of
people who show up are either looking for a job wantan looking for a new career they're looking
for development to accelerate their career they're looking for something and what I teach so that I
(33:11):
that I do know so you're usually able to do that pretty well if your if your friend needs you to
right they Bend in your ear and you're going to share a story you know it's a pickme up of some
kind so that's a great question all right so I hope you enjoyed this portion of uh of this
I want to talk about the power of your personal story while I probably didn't consciously know
this ever since I was a kid and especially as a teenager and even in my Collegiate years as well
as in my young adulthood I always felt it was really important to share yourself with others
and I would just do that naturally I'm guessing a lot of of of you do that and not even overthinking
(00:26):
about what is what exactly am I doing I just know this works I like to share my story with you uh so
that uh so that you might be able to benefit from my experience and on the one hand I want to be
really clear about about about sharing ourselves I actually despise this kind of a weird thing I
(00:50):
actually despise the expression I know exactly how you feel because technically I think that
is an absolute impossibility you cannot Poss know how I'm feeling and what I'm going through even if
even if you went through the exact same thing with all the exact same parameters because all of us we
(01:10):
go through our lives with different upbringings different biases different different belief
templates different support systems and my coping mechanisms might be better than yours or I might
have other people that I can turn to or I might want to go see a therapist who can talk me through
it or whatever it's it's all it's always different you might be able to understand rationally that
(01:35):
that stinks or wow that's bad or you're sick and you got cancer or you just lost your job or you
got divorced or whatever whatever it might be and I always feel like I I don't necessarily I don't
I won't say to you I know exactly how you feel cuz I just I won't I won't ever know that whe and
(01:55):
doesn't matter even if we've gone through similar experiences but the one thing that I do know
is that I want to help you if you need help and I know people's hearts are in the right
place and I don't I I won't beat anybody up for saying I know exactly how you feel because it's
not really there's no ill intent there but I want you to be be mindful of that because the goal and
(02:16):
what I want to talk to you about today and in the lesson that we that we we let out on on Saturday
is really is is sharing you so that others can benefit from your experience who who gets what I'm
saying here right we all we all have gone through struggles you in order to help somebody you not
(02:36):
only need to be able to understand them and and and understand what motivates them but you need
to know their story at least to a certain degree or you at least need to be able to appreciate that
that story exists and that you don't understand the story and and and also can come at it from
that vantage point but you know that there are people that get sick you know there are people
that get divorced you know there are people that lose jobs you know the people that miss
(02:59):
out on promotions you know that there are people that feel underpaid whatever it is and so I want
you to to just to just realize that and the one thing that I I wanted to kind of really kind of
kick off the kind of the little here's how or the how-tos today that I want to cover the tips let's
say is show show a hands here because I want I I I I wantan to I want to I want to see this in
(03:22):
the chat do can I get a show hands of anybody who either if any of these is is okay okay do you do
you feel like you undervalue yourself or do you or or E any of the ores or do you feel like gez
I don't really have a lot to offer like what's so special about me or how about this one well
(03:45):
everybody knows that right everybody knows that and let's go backwards like the the the canyon
that you think exists between what you know and what the person in the next Zoom thing NOS is a is
like it's the micros it's a microscopic it's a DOT it's not the Canon you think it is because and why
(04:11):
do we think this way why do we think that because we don't know what it's like not to know what we
know we don't we don't think there's anything special about us but we we're used to knowing
that and that's what makes it really really hard for us to be teachers to each other is because we
(04:33):
just assume people know what we know the expert curse that's excellent I wouldn't have used
those terms but that's exactly right the curse of knowledge I think I've I've heard things like that
right and Liz uh our perceptions our perception shapes the lens we see through to understand the
(04:54):
world around us I what I I wrote um one of my quotes the other day a couple of weeks back it
was a month or two about disagreements in your life generally have more to do with different
experiences than they do anything else because my view of the world is different than your view
(05:16):
of the world right I'm not disagreeing with you because I don't like you although some of you
might think that when you're disagreeing with somebody so what I what I want to do here in
point one is I want you to look at this so under value and this is where we many of us are and I'm
(05:37):
guilty of it too sometimes I have to stop and say I just need to make it a little more simple
thinking that everybody knows the base stuff so we got to go to the expert level right away but
we tend to undervalue ourselves because we think about everything we've been through in relation to
(05:59):
us you think about you I'm not saying you're selfish I'm saying the reason you undervalue
yourself often times I do it too is because we think about what we know in terms of the value
to us does that make sense gez that's no big deal to me I do that every day so the value isn't as
(06:24):
high as me learning something new or being able to do something new the real trick the real tip
is attaching proper meaning to the experiences that you've been through and then thinking about
the value for them not you so if I want to tell you the story as I emailed all of you that I hope
(06:49):
you read multiple times over yesterday on a Sunday about when my boss called me into his office when
I my last corporate job and gave me two options that I didn't like so I shared with you what was
the impetus dare I say kick in the pants to finally start my own business was a situation
(07:16):
that on its surface on that Friday afternoon on November 19th in 2004 was practically coma
inducing I mean there's absolutely nothing special about me being called into the CEO's office office
and not giving good options right I bet a whole bunch of you have been fired before or at least
maybe did are in a job you don't like right except I have to look for what's the value in this
(07:43):
situation that can help you or others and the fact in in that lesson hope you know if you haven't had
a chance to read it it's there's um there's an email in your inbox from yesterday as well as a
video that I did a few years back on the EXA on this subject and I don't want to go through it
cuz it's already out there I'll talk to you about something else from my life today that I that I've
(08:05):
never said before and so so I want you to think about that right think about think about the value
in relation to them so it's it's looking back and attaching meaning so I say often you hear me say
experience is not what's happened to you it's the meaning you attach to what's happened to you so
this is the important part what what did that do to me it it was a pivotal moment in my life that
(08:31):
set me on a direction that created something that now you are all a part of which I here we are now
20 20 years 20 years later and I just can't get over how like I get happier every day with what
I do so so think about that all right so so that's the first thing is we tend to undervalue ourselves
(08:52):
so we got to get over that all right second thing is now when you are thinking about about sharing
yourself it's the the more traumatic the story the Digger the deeper you dug the deeper the hole the
harder it was to overcome usually the drama is very helpful because you had to fight through
(09:18):
it right you you often hear me say well no great story ever started with so I got a scholarship to
Harvard and then everything took off from there right and why why has no story ever started like
that because there's it was it's like a gift there was nothing there was no struggle there
(09:39):
was nothing you had to work through I don't care about that and so and and not to mention
that story is totally unrelatable to all of us who didn't go to Harvard and get scholarships
to go to school I want to talk to the guy or the gal who couldn't get into any college but kept
fighting or decided I couldn't get into college so I just went and started a business and now I'm
(10:01):
a bajillionaire because I believed in myself so I want you to think about do do this with
me here so one of the steps in Sharing yourself is coming up with the story or stories that you
want to share and the power of your personal story is really the power of your personal stories with
(10:22):
an S and not only do you have multiple stories but you have multiple versions of the same story
because the the incident that has caused me to go into recruitment executive recruitment the story
itself is told differently to different people based on their goal their objective and what they
(10:49):
need to understand or how they need to be inspired so you could have the same story that has multiple
versions or or multiple Vantage points really it's not it's not different DET it's not it's it's
highlighting different details and spotlighting different things so so when you think about
your defining moment that's what I called it a pivotal moment a defining moment think about when
(11:15):
you fought hard and had to overcome something you could have been handed something even if you were
not in a pit but were you handed something that need was a a big big goal that works too were you
in a pit with something bad happening to you that works better but think about when you had to fight
(11:36):
and think about how you overcame think about what you learned and what can be shared so the story I
emailed you about yesterday when I said the boss called me into his office there were many lessons
right one of the lessons was no matter how many options you're given there are always more you
(11:57):
need to look for them what was another lesson if none of you know what I'm talking about that's
okay go back and read the read the message but what's another what's another option he didn't
have to lose for me to win right it was a win-win so for those of you that doesn't that don't know
(12:18):
the story my boss gave me like the 10-second version is I worked for a company I was the
vice president of business and product development my boss I made a lot of money my boss called me in
his office I didn't realize this at the time he was selling the company and he wanted to reduce
my compensation because I was everything that I did generated money but I had a salary that was
(12:40):
attached to it and commissions that were attached to it was quite large so what was happening is
that was going to be a big hit on his cash flow projection and he's trying to sell the company
which he actually did five months later I didn't know that he gave me an option A couple of options
and they were to take big pay cuts and I was not about to do that so what I ended up doing was
I left that Friday I went home and I thought about opening up my own recruitment firm even
(13:04):
though I'd never recruited a day in my life I went back to him on Monday and I said you could be my
first client I'll recruit for you there's a lot of problems with the headcount and all that good
stuff and I gave this to you in a story in and packaged it in an email and I also put it on a
video for you so I want you to think about well what are the sharable moments in what you're and
what you're going through all of you that many of you that are job searching right right now what
(13:30):
are you learning you're learning skills you're learning the value of a network you're learning
not to take things for granted you're learning a lot of things that are teachable moments and
you might think well no one's really going to care and awful lot of you are going to go and
you're going to find your job and then you're just going to start working and you're going to forget
(13:51):
you're going to lose that perspective and you're not going to keep up with your network and you're
going to slip back into those bad habits when one of the greatest things you can do is be a giver
to others who are now in the situation you were once in it's just an example some of you might
have been sick and can share the the how you got support how you emotionally got through it those
(14:15):
kinds of things okay so think about your moment please share I'd love I'd love to hear some of
your moments you don't even have to go into the whole story but just has your moment popped into
your head let me let me share a story with you I was thinking about what I wanted to tell you today
(14:36):
and I there are these notes oh damn where I don't know if I I I don't think I I don't think I have
them here so one of the things that I did when I was when I was writing the zebra code was I was
thinking I was brainstorming about stories that should go in the book and I didn't put this one
in the book although I I probably should have but I didn't and it's okay the book is perfect the way
(15:00):
it is um it's not a perfect book it's just perfect the way it is because life is perfect and so I was
about 24 years old at the at at at this time and I was working at Anderson consulting which is now
Accenture and I had been working at this client Amo which is a large Oil Company many of you have
(15:26):
probably filled up your gas tanks or British Petroleum it's all together now maybe maybe it
was Amo then British Petroleum bought it now they' split Brands whatever I'm working at a large oil
company and I had been working there off and on for a couple years I had worked there for four or
five months I left I went to uh work at McDonald Douglas where I worked on um building the tomahawk
(15:48):
and the Harpoon missile for the first Persian Gulf War that made me sick and um and and I was back at
Amo and I had been there for a little while and one of my jobs was to evaluate the entire world's
worth of gas stations that were Amo everything from a gas station to a stop and shop Car Wash you
(16:14):
name it and I was working with their purchasing department and the manager of the purchasing
department uh was complaining to his bosses that he felt that this Global purchasing Department it
basically purchased everything everything the for the I mean like everything but we were looking at
(16:37):
service stations in particular and the people that there were a lot of people that worked in
this unit and they had asked me my company to come in and evaluate the organizational structure the
processes themselves to determine what the optimal staff was so I'm about 24 years old maybe I was
almost 25 at this point so I I got I had six weeks to evaluate it and I did I interviewed everybody
(17:02):
I mean I did everything I I looked at the systems I looked at them I looked at how many steps there
were between the desk and the xerx Machine I mean I looked at everything so I write this report up
and I'm about to meet with my immediate boss and my one of my client bosses and I remember I had
I had I had sent this you know the document which was the writeup of basically everything I did the
(17:28):
resarch I did the conclusions I drew why I drew them and we were going to need to tell the boss
that Not only was he under overstaffed or not under staffed and he wanted to hire people I'm
like you need to lose people like you're you got dead weight here you're you're blowing hundreds
of thousands of dollars in Staffing costs that you don't need so now obviously he's not going
(17:54):
to like that and that isn't even even the moral of D story but that's the scenario that's the
exposition so to speak that's the setting and so I I I go to sit down with my boss and and my
client and I was feeling pretty good about the conclusions because I knew this was Rock Solid
engineering work like these processes were going to be re-engineered this organization was going to
(18:15):
be restructured and I was going to save them not just the Personnel cost but millions and millions
of dollars in Vendor fees and the everything that they were doing nothing was centralized
they weren't getting the rates they were spending millions of EXs dollars so I remember sitting down
and the first thing my boss and my client they look at each other and then they look at me and
(18:38):
they say to me um Andy okay um just so you're prepared we might be a little aggressive with
you on this St like I'm thinking what the who starts up who starts a conversation like that
right I'm thinking to myself uh now now what do you think I'm thinking uhoh they said you know um
my boss looks at me he says uh you know the the conclusions are solid this is really good research
(19:04):
and work but the writing sucks your writing's terrible now had I known at that time that I was
going to be a four-time publisher best-selling award-winning author I would have probably shot
it back to him but I didn't know that at the time and I just took his words at face value
who's ever gotten feedback like that now would you imagine what's going through my head like
(19:25):
uhoh it's a long document not to mention I have to give a presentation and all that stuff now I
was an electrical engineering student I took an English class in in you know college because I had
needed an elective or or two but you know writing wasn't my strong s point I was developing software
and if you wanted to talk to me and if then cobal statements I probably could have managed pretty
(19:47):
well right you get you get where you get you get what I mean like bang right between the eyes so
so what I what I did was I said well okay well how do I get better like all right that's fine
fine how do I get better what do you want me to do I'll restructure this or whatever my boss says
my boss says I got I got to send you to writing school I said okay well we got some of that for
(20:10):
the in the company right he said right he said I need you to go you got to spend like three
days they got to teach you how to write so I go to this three-day class I'm learning about fog Factor
motor to weight ratios I'm learning about sentence structure this is not the kind of stuff they teach
it in in you know in punctuation and grammar this is like how you write with force and emotion and
(20:31):
streamline in as few words as possible and so on it's three days all day you're practicing you're
practicing you're practicing they're grading your stuff I mean this was like I was like ah and okay
so I'm I'm say 24 25 all right so so off I go I I make the presentation to the to the big guy and I
go to him and that's a little bit of of a side of the story because the point is that no you know
(20:58):
I I took his feedback to heart I didn't my the my reaction wasn't at all oh well if you don't
think I can write I'll show you that's silly because that's emotion you don't need right if
you're motivated by something someone else said in in in in a negative manner meaning you're not
inspired but you're doing it to prove them wrong that's energy you don't need to be spending not
(21:20):
to mention it's external motivation which is going to wne what I looked at was I thought
about I need to get into this writing class right away because in order for me to grow and become a
better consultant I'm going to need to be a better communicator and so my my focal point wasn't on
the feedback as much as it was what's the next step and what's the next step going to do for
(21:46):
me and what ended up happening long story long I guess is about five years later so let's say
this was 1996 5 years later I worked on a project for another arm of Amo an entire company called
Amo Pipeline and I went and investigated other oil companies like Chevron Texico shell um Chev
(22:10):
Chevron these other oil companies mobile uh and and we were evaluating how to re I wanted to we
rebuild all of the systems that Amo pipeline used to manage the entire company so all the pipelines
itself but all the logistics all the movement of the oil all the accounting the inventory
(22:33):
management all the refinery stuff everything was going to be completely blown up and redone so I
went off to to evaluate this and I looked at well how am I going to put this in context for these
these individuals and this needs to be pitched to the president of the company literally the
top guy and the board is going to to look at this and my client was going to present our findings I
(22:55):
wrote a 50-page document and I'm sitting in the in the board meeting well well where my client
is presenting this to to these guys and the the president looks at him and says Thank You Dean um
by the way this document I've been working for 40 years I have never seen a document this great from
(23:17):
an IT department ever as far as the business savvy the ability to draw conclusions the rationale the
pros itself and of course my client said thank you he didn't say anything to me but I was there
to hear it and you can't take that away from me so my point is that anything that comes along in
(23:38):
your life if if it matters to you and you want to focus your energy on it that your ability
to be successful will have a lot more to do with where you place your attention than your actual
ability because my ability at that time was none I had no skills I had no writing skills I mean I
had written papers but that's to get a grade in college and I probably wrote some stuff you know
(24:03):
for my for my company like requirements documents but that really wasn't going to win any prizes you
get what I'm saying so I want you to imagine look at the look at the look at the effect look at how
long ago that was and how far I've come as as the guy you know but if there's anything about
you and your life that you that you want to do I would encourage you no matter what the feedback
(24:28):
is or whether you somebody doesn't think you're good enough I'm telling you you are good enough
and it's just a matter of if that's going to be pivotal to your success writing was going
to be pivotal to my success no matter what I did I didn't know I was going to write books
was 24 years old I didn't know anything right I was just trying to I was just trying to get I
(24:49):
was just trying to get through the assignment so anyway now let's take my story today I heard him
say fog Factor fog Factor you don't know what that is I want you to think about your motor to weight
ratio is do you have a verb to noun configuration so a lot of people use a lot of a lot of extra
(25:12):
words but does somebody understand what's actually happening in the sentence that's a verb noun combo
and the higher the verb ratio to the noun ratio is your motor's faster they're going to read it
faster it's going to register faster it's going to have more emotion you're not going to you're not
going to bog them down and so the fog factor is a metric that looks at the number of words it takes
(25:33):
you to basically make the point do that make sense I know these things I've never forgotten them and
I just Channel them into everything I do my email copywriting is different than my blog copywriting
is different than my book copywriting or my workbook copywriting they're all different so
(25:53):
everything has a purpose I get I'll do a session on it I'll do a session on it all right but let's
talk about these things now I don't want to go through this too too quickly or sorry too too
too too too much but I gave you um off of gusta fry tags uh dramatic writing techniques basically
the plots for anything dramatic where you have the exposition the rising action the climax the
(26:18):
falling action and then either the catastrophe or the denom and if you don't know what I'm talking
about I covered this in the in the lesson but what I did from the backbone of of that dramatic
storytelling formula is I created my own version for you so that when you're creating a story that
you're sharing with someone some of you I know are on the on the interviewing side and you you follow
(26:42):
my interviewing techniques and you you you hear me talk about the car technique where you got context
and then you got a formula and then you got the specifics and then you got the result well this
is when you're sharing stories of any kind there's these seven steps there's a setting I was working
on an assignment for Amo I was reorganizing the global purchasing department their processes and
(27:04):
their headcount their organizational structure I went to turn in my paper and my boss and my client
said Andy your writing stinks that's the incident then the buildup okay you need to go to writing
school then the peak I went to writing school I made it my mission in life to become a good
(27:30):
communicator in the written form what ended up happening I recreated the package I wrote a bunch
of other good stuff I became a brilliant writer I wrote a document that was pitched to the president
of Amo pipeline among other documents I sold a whole billions and zillions of dollars to that
client what's the lesson right kind of do you see you see these things this is all this is all in
(27:56):
your workbook it's all it's all in your workbook and for those of you that need to keep notes it's
also let's see where is it it's also on page 197 in zebra Cod so all this stuff is in there but
this is the formula this is the formula that you can use and then I want to cap this off with a
(28:23):
couple with a with a couple of other items here just really really just one biggie is when you
think about sharing anything with with anybody so I have to do what I'm about to show you I do this
every single week I do this every single Thursday I do this every single month with those of you
(28:44):
that are in the leadership program I do this today with you in this book club but in order to make
your story valuable you need to go through these five things number one is about you you what's the
goal of the story my goal is to teach you this way is to teach you a lesson some of you your
(29:07):
goal might be I want to have a story brand I want a better Market my company some of you might be
no I I need to relate to the client so that they buy our goods and services some of you might be
no I need to tell my friend a story to cheer her up okay so you've got you've got your your goal
(29:29):
will your story Bond you to them so I got a scholarship to Harvard is not bondworth you're
just going to be annoying to most people right you follow that so how is what I'm going to tell them
going to help me Bond well when I wrote you that email the one I sent yesterday about getting right
(29:52):
given a couple options which was an essential firing what is this that not going to bond me
to a lot of people who've been through that is that not going to bond me to a job Searcher right
you follow you're tracking tracking and then but I also need to know what motivates you because in
order to bond with you the best bonding is done through your motivation not mine if when I show
(30:17):
up every Thursday yes it's nice that you know I have stuff to buy because I have a business to run
but my motivation is to teach you my motivation is to spread the good word my motivation is to
help people who need Career Development and job searching help my motivation is also to
build trust with you my other motivation is to Market my services as well sometimes I'm all out
(30:44):
selling right you get the idea but but I need to know what motivates you so when I do any of
those things I need to understand what's going to motivate you and then is it actually in a story
so you got to wrap it together why well number one stories are more entertaining number two stories
(31:04):
are more memorable that's easy easier for you to remember it and then the last I want to cap it
off with this last piece that's I think I messed up there a little bit can The Listener imagine
or can they see their potential transformation can you can you move their attention from the
(31:30):
present and get them to imagine a better future can you get them to imagine it's going to be
okay can you get them to imagine I can do that I can do that that's what makes the story win
and if if you don't go well let's say four for four you're not going to win you're not going
(31:52):
to win that story you got to you got to touch all you got to touch through two through five
the goal is really for you that's because it makes the story valuable for you as well the
value in my story could be I helped you that could be the value that all I care about sometimes most
times okay uh this is a great question this is a great question is it Devon uh Woodard without
(32:21):
knowing the audience how do you quickly assess if there's a bond or their motivation you're going to
have to speculate now I would dare I would say 100% of the time if you're going to go to the
if you're going to go to the expense of sharing a story like this you're going to have some inkling
as to why you're sharing it right is that is that not a safe assumption if you're going to tell a
(32:47):
story like I told with you know Mike and Ben the the the two guys right I I know there's going to
be value in that and I can speculate based on the audience like I know every Thursday the kind of
people who show up are either looking for a job wantan looking for a new career they're looking
for development to accelerate their career they're looking for something and what I teach so that I
(33:11):
that I do know so you're usually able to do that pretty well if your if your friend needs you to
right they Bend in your ear and you're going to share a story you know it's a pickme up of some
kind so that's a great question all right so I hope you enjoyed this portion of uh of this
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