The Green-Yellow-Red Method: Crafting A Business Story That Connects | Ep 2

Send us a text

Struggling with how much of your personal story to share in your business? You're not alone. This candid episode of The Story Lab tackles the challenging question that many entrepreneurs face: which parts of your founder story should you share, and which should remain private?

I walk you through my three-color framework that transforms the way you approach storytelling in business. You'll discover how to map your complete journey using green highlighting for must-share elements, red for the experiences you want to keep private, and yellow for the crucial "buffer zones" that maintain narrative coherence. These yellow sections might be the most important part of your story, they create bridges between significant moments while protecting your boundaries.

Drawing from my own experience of how a personal attack unexpectedly led to discovering the power of storytelling, I demonstrate why gaps in your narrative can create distrust, and how thoughtfully crafted connections build authentic relationships with your audience. The most powerful revelation? You don't need to be a completely open book to create meaningful connections. Strategic vulnerability... sharing selectively while ensuring your story flows naturally, creates more impact than oversharing ever could.

Whether you're crafting your founder's story, preparing content for social media, or looking to deepen audience connections, this episode provides a practical framework you can implement immediately. Get ready to transform how you approach your business narrative and make your story the one they remember. Ready to turn your mess into something better? Your real story awaits.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your story, the one they remember, the truth that
ignites the reason they stay.
This is your time.
You're brighter than ever,you've got something to say.
Welcome to the Story Lab, guys,and I hope that you are ready
to make your story the one theyremember.
And today we're going to talkabout something that I often

(00:24):
have in my business Peopleasking me how do I share my
story, how do I know what partsto share and what parts to not
share?
And today I'm going to give youa method I use with all my
clients so that they know whatparts to share and what parts to
not share in their business.
So the first thing that I telleverybody to do is write out

(00:44):
your story.
So the first thing that I telleverybody to do is write out
your story, the story that youwant to really share.
When it started and it maystart many years before your
experience and it may start, youknow, a little bit, right
before.
Whatever those aspects are thethings that impacted, let's say,
my business.
I'm going to write out my storywith where it started.

(01:07):
Now, for me, my story of mybusiness started when I was
attacked.
That story I told you guys inthe last episode, so that's
where I'm going to start writingmy story and I'm going to write
everything from there untilwhere I am now and I write it
all out.
I create this big document,maybe, or I write it.

(01:30):
I write out longhand always.
That's why I always have my pen.
I write longhand and once I'mdone with that and it might take
a day, might take a couple ofdays, but once I'm done with
that then I'm going to reviewthat story that I wrote.
I'm going to take a look atthat story and I am going to,

(01:55):
first thing, go through andhighlight in green pen all the
things that I absolutely want toshare.
I'm going to go from thebeginning to the end and for me,
at the beginning is the momentthat I found out that stories
can make a difference, andthat's attached to the attack.
Now we're going to get back tothe attack.
So we're going to talk aboutwhen I learned that stories were

(02:18):
amazing.
I want to talk about how I, myfirst client I was able to
really test this idea thatstories would work in social
media.
That's a story I want to tell.
And I want to tell a storyabout you know my how I learned
the importance of video.
Those are three stories that Iabsolutely want to tell, and

(02:38):
then, after I highlight allthose things and there's
probably more, but I highlightall those things then I'm going
to go and I'm going to find thethings that I absolutely don't
want to share, the things that Iwould rather have all my teeth
pulled from my mouth withoutNovocaine than share those

(03:00):
things.
Those are things in my businessI don't want to share.
So I'm then going to go throughand, in red pen, highlight the
things I don't want to share.
And maybe it's my divorce Idon't want to share.
Maybe it's when I lost mygrandmother I don't want to
share.
And maybe it's a launch that Ishould have known better about.

(03:20):
That I don't want to share.
So those are the three things.
I absolutely no way do I wantto share these things.
So now what I've got is a lot ofin-between.
Now these are the things thatyou either don't mind sharing or
you could do without sharing.
Either way, they're kind of inthe middle and I call these your
buffer.

(03:41):
These are the things thatyou're going to highlight in
yellow.
So you're going to go throughand say, okay, these are the
parts I'm good with sharing.
Maybe good without sharing,doesn't matter to me.
I could go either way.
Now, once you've gotten allthree things highlighted, this
is where you might have to makesome tough decisions, because

(04:03):
you need to see and make surethat it makes sense what you're
sharing.
You need to make sure thatpeople aren't going to have a
little bit of distrust becauseof something you put into your
story, something that you maybeshared, but without any real

(04:24):
reason why.
So these are the yellowsections.
You never want a red section tocome right up against a green
section, because when thathappens, then there's confusion
as to how you got from one placeto the next place.
Now this can be like whathappened with me and my attack.

(04:48):
My attack is what directlybrought me to where I am in my
business, because that's where Ilearned about the power of
stories.
But I couldn't just say I wasattacked and I learned about
stories and that's when I builtmy business, because people are
going to be like wait, thatdoesn't make sense.

(05:09):
So I need the in-between stuff,the things that I highlighted
in yellow, In order forsomething that I'm going to be
sharing.
That's red, because I have toshare this.
It's a bad thing and mostpeople wouldn't want to share it
, but I have to find a way toshare it because it directly
impacts my business.

(05:30):
So I'm looking for the yellowthings that I can share that
will explain the situation,because then there's no, there's
no dramatic moment when Ilearned about the power of
stories.
There's no moment where itmakes sense that I dove into
stories in my business.
So that's why it's reallyimportant for me to find that
yellow space.

(05:50):
So I'm going to share a littlebit about the attack and then
I'm going to share the time inbetween the attack and starting
my business, what I did, becausethat's the yellow stuff that
makes it make sense.
And then I'm going to talkabout how I started my business
and then that moment where Ilearned that the stories I

(06:13):
learned would change the worldup at the beginning, when I was
attacked.
I'm going to apply that storyto the thing that I want to
share about my first client andhow storytelling worked for him
in his business, his business.

(06:35):
So you see, what happens is I'mable to, with the yellow space,
explain where I started mybusiness, and that allows me to
maybe leave out my divorce,which happened right before I
started my own business Cause Idon't want to talk about my
divorce.
So the yellow space is actuallyprobably the most important
aspects of your story, becauseit's going to create connections
without, you know, throwing outthe things that you don't want

(06:56):
to share.
Because I don't believe that youneed to share everything.
I don't believe that you haveto be a full open book.
Do you have to share thingsthat make you human?
Yes, but that doesn't mean youhave to share all the things.
You share Some of them.
You don't share others, butyou're going to have a flow that

(07:19):
makes sense and builds trust.
When you don't have that flow,when you go from a red to a
green right away, without thatbuffer, it doesn't make sense
for people.
So I have my clients write thisall out, I have them highlight
all the things and then we takea look at it and I will take
their story.
So you could have anybody dothis for you, take your story

(07:43):
and read it back to you and askyou to be a little separate
yourself from the story.
What would you think if youwere hearing this?
So I do that with my clientsand then I have them do read
their story to me and I givethem feedback as to how I would
feel.
And we do it again because inthat time we're trying to figure

(08:06):
out what the yellow yellowareas are, so that we have those
connections, so that things aremaking sense, so that the thing
she tells me doesn't make sense.
When I'm sharing the story, shehears them firsthand and she
goes Ooh, that's not right,that's going to make me sound

(08:26):
like, or somebody is going tothink that I did this.
So we get all of that out, wefigure out what yellow parts we
want and then we build the mainstory this is really your
founder's story and we build outthat story.
We write it out, we highlightthe things that we want to be
sharing on social media.
We go through all of that.

(08:46):
But that's how we tell whatparts of the story we want to
share.
That's how we really show up ina way that makes it make sense.
So when you're writing yourstory, make sure that it flows,
make sure there's not gaps thatare really like wait, whoa, how

(09:06):
did you go from here to here?
And make sure that the thingsthat actually impacted what
you're doing are explained.
You don't have to explaineverything, but the things that
impacted what you're actuallydoing, make sure there's a
connection in there and makesure something is explained in
there so that it makes sense andit builds trust, because that's
what we're doing with our storywe're building trust.

(09:28):
So hopefully that makes senseto you and you're ready to make
your story the one they rememberand I will see you next time on
the story lab.
Take care, turn your mess intosomething that's better.
Stand up, speak out, say itloud, make your story the one

(09:52):
they remember, the truth thatignites the reason they stay.
This is your time, the brighterthan ever.
You've got something to say.