November 16, 2025 • 37 mins
We hesitate to tell our stories for a thousand reasons. It’s vulnerable, for starters, and we hate the feeling of giving others power over us.
We decide ahead of time that our story isn’t that interesting, that nobody else would care besides us, and that our situation is 100% unique to our experience.
But what if wisdom is buried inside of your personal story?
What if keeping your story secret is hiding that wisdom, even from you?
Today’s episode explores this topic and encourages you to take a single step to unpack the miracle that is your personal story.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the word you write all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about why and how your story
is the most powerful tool that you have at your
disposal to communicate with other people, and also why and
how we tend to avoid this and tiptoe around it
(00:51):
and push it away and pretend like that's not the case.
This is almost maybe it is a universal human experience,
this concept of knowing somehow intuitively deep down that our
personal stories, what's going on in our life, and the
way that we're processing those things is this powerful mechanism
(01:12):
that we have to connect to others to unlock and
give us everything that we crave, everything that we desire,
everything that we've been waiting for. And yet we don't
want to admit that to ourselves. We don't want to
share those parts of our stories. We don't want to
share our whole hearts or the most vulnerable, raw parts
of our stories with other people. So we hold back
(01:33):
in our personal relationships, we hold back online, we hold
back in our romantic partnerships, we hold back in our friendships,
we hold back with our coworkers, we hold back with
everybody around us. And yet, what if we could unlock
and open the beauty that is your story, the unique
imprint that your life is leaving on planet Earth in
(01:55):
the however many years you get to be here, hopefully
it's many many years, the nique fingerprint, energetic fingerprint that
your life is leaving here, the way that your life
is coming through you, the story that's being written through you.
And yet we push it away, we avoid it. We
want our life to be something different. We feel like,
(02:15):
oh gosh, this isn't the story that I wanted to live.
I wanted to live this other kind of story. And
we're in this constant tug of war and this constant
competition and this constant fight with what is. And yet
if we could just let it come through us, if
we could let our life be what it is, if
we could lean fully into that, we would uncover and
discover the power and the agency and just the absolute
(02:41):
power is the right word for it. It's like personal
power that we have to unlock everything that we have
been craving and waiting for and wanting, and mostly unlocking
that through connection to others. Because your story is this
powerful tool to connect you to other people. And yet
we avoid this like the plague. We hate it so much,
(03:02):
we wish it wasn't true, We don't want to do it.
We tiptoe around it. And I want to share my
personal story of how I've done this and share maybe
a few examples, will see what comes to mind as
I'm talking, but share maybe a few examples of clients
I've worked with over the years, or just friends that
I've had, and the way that they've stepped into their
own personal power by sharing their stories. Because I want
(03:24):
you to really get this in a new way. I
wanted to sink in in a new way, and I
want to empower you to step into telling more of
your story. Maybe it's just to one person, maybe it's
not like to an audience. I think sometimes that is
where we get overwhelmed when we think of sharing our
story to an audience. We kind of shrivel up a
little bit. The example that I often give to authors
(03:47):
that I'm working with when I'm encouraging them to write
the book to one significant other, like one special person,
one reader who you know and love, whose face you
can see, to write it like a love letter to
that person. I give the example of standing on a
stage in front of thousands of people, where the house
lights are off, you can't see a single face in
(04:08):
the audience, the spotlight is on you, and someone says, Okay,
tell me everything, tell me your deepest, darkest secret. The
human instinct did every single one of us is like, oh, oh,
dear God, Like on a stage is the place where
I have to perform. I have to be the perfect
version of myself. I can't tell the nitty gritty bits
and pieces of this story. I can't really be honest
(04:29):
about what's going on with me. Now, if I move
that setting to on your couch with someone who you
know and love and trust, with someone who you feel
safe with, with someone who's very essence and very presence,
makes your entire body relax Suddenly when we change settings,
(04:49):
telling the whole truth doesn't feel so daunting anymore. In fact,
telling the whole truth. Venting can feel quite cathartic. It
can actually be a release of pressure. Imagine a pressure
cooker or an instapot or something. The pressure is building up,
building up, building up, building up, and you release the
valve and it's like shhhhhh, like, oh, that feels so nice.
(05:10):
I had all this anger in my body, I had
all this sadness in my body, I had all this
confusion in my body, and I released the pressure and
let it go. And telling the truth was like this
instant connection between me and this other person. You've had
that experience with someone. Maybe the someone you've had that
experience with has been a very gifted therapist. Because this
is what therapists do is they help us remember what
(05:34):
it feels like to connect. And I think in our
culture we have forgotten what that looks like. We are
so constantly in this performance mode. We're so constantly in
this do do do? We're in our frontal cortex. We
forget to be in our bodies, we forget to be
in our limbic systems. We forget that we're whole people
with so much happening, with not just thoughts, but also
(05:57):
emotions and feelings that don't make any sense then that
feel kind of chaotic and confusing and unpredictable, and we
forget that we're whole people, and so we're just moving
through the world as if we are just human doers.
We're just instead of human beings, we're a human doing
and we're just doing, doing, doing, and we're going through
the motions and we're being productive and we're being efficient,
and we're getting our work done and we're paying our bills.
(06:19):
And you know, it's so easy to get stuck in
that trap that therapists teach us what it feels like
when someone holds the space for you and just listens
and just lets you be in your story, just lets
you be in your process, just lets you be exactly
where you're meant to be. And then not only that,
but a really good therapist is not just going to listen.
A good therapist is going to tune into you, to
(06:41):
mirror back to you what they're seeing, and then to
help you reframe it. They're helping you retell the story
in a way that is more constructive than the old
way that you were telling the story. So you've had
this experience, take yourself back to a moment like that
where you felt like, h Finally I can tell the truth.
Finally I can tell this the way that I've been
(07:02):
experiencing it in my body. I don't have to try
to pretend like I feel differently about this story than
I did. That experience, that deep connection brings satisfaction, It
brings joy, It brings a feeling of support and security that,
by the way, I've been thinking a lot about security.
By the way, financial security can never bring that feeling
(07:23):
of security that relational security brings, where you're like, no
matter what happens, no matter what shit hits the fan,
this person is going to be here for me, Like
this person is not going anywhere. We are in this together.
That kind of security is unmatched by financial security, because
I have experienced both, and I will tell you that
financial security can ebb and flow. But that kind of
(07:47):
relational security is the very foundation upon which we as
human beings take risks. As human beings, we can step
out and try something new, we can be creative, we
can feel safe in our own bodies. All these things.
So therapists are so amazing. They serve such a purpose
for us. And what I want to talk about is
what happens when we find the courage. Maybe through therapy,
(08:10):
we find the courage to begin to be honest about
our own stories in other settings, not just in the
therapist's office, not just with one trusted other, but we
begin to be honest and carry ourselves with that honesty
and with that authenticity through the world to other relationships,
and maybe even you build such a sturdy foundation of
(08:34):
self assurance through that type of connection that maybe you
are even able to share your story on a broader stage.
Maybe you're even able to stand on a stage with
thousands of people watching, or the house lights are off
and the spotlights on you, and you have an opportunity
to share from your heart, from your guts, what is
true for you, and maybe you feel the courage to
(08:56):
do it because you're already standing on this really sturdy foundation.
This topic came to mind for me because I was
having a memory the other evening as I was sitting
in stillness, a memory of the very start of my
career and some advice that my dad gave to me
that I realized in retrospect. I didn't really think about
it at the time, but I realized in retrospect this
(09:18):
advice coming from my dad, who by the way, was
a therapist, changed the entire trajectory of my career. So
this is like the portal, the moment that opened up
every opportunity for me that has come across my path
in the last fifteen years. Because this happened, it would
have been in two thousand and nine or twenty ten.
So yeah, fifteen or sixteen years of publishing opportunities, writing opportunities,
(09:44):
creative opportunities, standing on a stage type of opportunities, Instagram,
whatever platform I have been able to achieve came grew
out of this moment, this single piece of advice that
my dad gave to me. And this feels like such
a special story for me to remember because if you've
been around here for a while, you know that I
lost my dad last October, so it's been a little
(10:06):
over a year since I lost my dad. My dad
and I had a very special relationship growing up. My
dad was one of my closest friends, a confidant, someone
through all who through all of my twenties was a
person who I met with very regularly. In fact, we
would get coffee together. He would have an open invitation. Basically,
it was usually Friday mornings, we would meet at a
(10:26):
coffee shop and he would buy me coffee and I
could just come and talk about what was going on
in my life and we would just chat about all
kinds of things. My dad was a therapist. He was
an extremely deep thinker. He was an intellect. He was
a very thoughtful person, a person who was described at
his funeral as someone who just created space for people
to be absolutely themselves. And that is one hundred percent
(10:50):
how I experienced my dad for so much of my life.
It's complicated because at a certain point in my life,
my dad and I had a series of disagreements about
issues that were very close to me. And I don't
want to share about this on the podcast because it
just doesn't feel fair for me to tell my side
of the story when my dad's not here to tell
his side of the story. There's so much love and grace,
(11:13):
and that love is the word, like, there's so much
love between my dad and I, and yet the last
handful of years of his life were hard in our relationship,
and there was a distance that grew there because some
of the truths that I was living were hard for
him to swallow, and some of the truths that he
was living were hard for me to swallow, and so
there was a distance that grew in our relationship. But
(11:35):
I only share that just to say our relationship was
so many different things and there's so much love that
covers all of that. And remembering this moment with my dad,
this piece of advice that he shared with me, just
brought me back to how much of a massive, beautiful
influence my dad had on my life, and how much
(11:56):
wisdom he instilled in me, and how much I am
a product of who he was as a person, Like
he poured this into me as his daughter, and I
am a product of this. So the memory that came
back to me is from the early parts of my
career when I was blogging very regularly in order to
get the attention of a publisher at the time in
(12:16):
the early like two thousands, From like let's say two
thousand and six until twenty ten ish or maybe a
little later, I was at first blogging, which wasn't even
called blogging at that point. On Facebook, there was like
Facebook notes, I think it was called, where I would
get on and I would just like write what I
was thinking and share it with my Facebook friends, and
you know, like ten or twenty people would like it
(12:38):
and be like, you're a great writer. Whatever. Then I
moved to doing this on my own platform. I purchased
the url alisonfallin dot com, and I started blogging regularly
on alisonfallon dot com. I was blogging mostly about relationships,
because this is what was really kind of like knocking
at my door at the time, the topic that was
(12:58):
showing up for me again and again and again. And
so I was blogging about relationships. I was single at
the time, I was going on lots of dates. I
was living in downtown Portland, Oregon, and I was really
wanting to be in a partnership. I was wanting to
get married, I was wanting to have a family. I
was part of a church community where this was like
a very elevated part of your life as a woman.
You were really encouraged and maybe slightly pushed into, yeah,
(13:21):
kind of like coupling up, getting married, starting to have
a family. And so this was something that was on
top of mind for me, and yet I would go
on these dates and have these experiences, some of which
was because of the men I was going on dates with,
but obviously much of it also was me realizing like
I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the you know,
(13:42):
the maturity, I didn't have, the wisdom I didn't have.
There was so much like trauma that was happening in
my life that I wasn't totally aware of at the
time that it was creating these frictions between me and
these other people. So I would go on dates, I
would have these experiences, and then I would write about it,
and it turned into a little bit of what was
kind of like an advice column. This is what was
(14:09):
getting the most traction and the most attention. And so
because I was trying to get the attention of a publisher,
because at the time, it was like, hey, if you
can get a bunch of traffic on your website, a
publisher will see that as proof that you could write
a book and sell copies of a book. And so
do that. Go get on your website and blog every
day and get a bunch of comments and get traffic
to your site. And then take that and show a publisher, hey,
(14:32):
look there's people paying attention to what I'm writing. Would
you write me a contract to write a book? I'm
being kind of like tongue in cheek about this, but
that is kind of how it was working at the time.
So I was blogging every day, and when I say
every day, I mean I'm like five days a week.
I was posting an article on my own site, and
I was also guest posting for other people who had
(14:52):
their own sites. So I was guest posting for all
these other bloggers, which is just a ton of con
I was cranking out a ton of content. One day,
I decided to write this article called ten Mistakes. Oh
what was my first title? The first title was something
like ten mistakes people make in Dating or something like that,
and I had to ended up having to split the
(15:13):
article into two parts because five mistakes was enough to
write about to take up one whole article. And then
the next day I posted the next five or that
was the idea. So I wrote this article ten mistakes
people make in dating, Ten biggest mistakes you can make
in dating, that kind of a thing, and wrote this article.
I'm so proud of myself because I was like, Wow,
these are really like, you know, these are really cutting
(15:36):
to the chase. This is going to be such good content.
People are gonna love this. It's going to really speak
to people. Sent it to my dad was like, what
do you think about this as a therapist, Like coming
from your psychologist point of view, what do you make
of this article? Is everything I'm saying here kind of
like true and correct? Am I leading people in the
right direction? And I was expecting my dad to be like, check, check, check,
(16:00):
I'm so proud of you. You're amazing, because you know,
he's my dad and there was a lot of that
in our relationship and we had so many of these
really beautiful conversations together. I had picked up on a
lot of his wisdom, and so I was expecting, you know,
after you write something sometimes you're like, yeah, this is good.
Like I'm expecting people to say this is good. So
I think I sent it to him expecting to get
(16:20):
the response like two thumbs up, run with this, I'm
so proud of you, I'm so glad you're my daughter,
And instead the response that I got from him was
what do you think about flipping this and instead of
posting the ten mistakes people make in dating? Talking about
the ten biggest mistakes you've made in dating? And I
was just like, oh, horrified, Like how could you even
(16:43):
suggest that I could ever talk about the ten biggest
mistakes I've made in dating. But I took his advice
to heart because that was the type of relationship that
we had and it did ring as true to me.
And so I went back to the drawing board and
just tried to write the same article but from this
slightly different vantage point, ten biggest mistakes I've made in dating.
(17:06):
And again the ten mistakes were too much for one article,
so I ended up splitting them into two. I posted
one on the first day and the second article on
the second day. Five mistakes one day, five mistakes the
second day. This article was the article that blew up
Alisonvalan dot com from just a blog where you know,
my friends and acquaintances read it to like way beyond
(17:29):
anybody who I knew. So I mean, I don't even
remember the exact numbers, but at the time it was
just like viral would be the word that I would
have used for it at the time. Now, viral today
is probably different from what viral was back then. But
in twenty ten, for this thing to be read by
so many thousands of people that I had never met before,
it was an experience unlike any other experience that I've
(17:51):
ever had before, and it kind of created a space
for me in the blogging world where people were paying attention,
Like the people who I'd been trying to get the
attention of, We're finally paying attention. People like publishers, people
like agents. This opened the door for me to eventually
write my first book, which is called Packing Light, which,
funny enough, like Packing Light was really a coming of
(18:12):
age story. It was a story about selling all of
my possessions and going on this trip to all fifty states.
But Packing Light got filed in the dating relationship section
of bookstores because so much of what I wrote about
in the book, and so much of what I was
writing about as a blogger was this idea of dating
and relationships, like how do we find each other in
the midst of this mess of friction and tension and
(18:34):
misunderstanding and communication, and how do you find this equilibrium
with someone? And so it was this single piece of
advice from my dad, this one suggestion, like what would
you think about switching this perspective from what other people
should do to your own personal experience, because you know,
my dad was kind of saying, I don't remember the
(18:56):
exact words that he used at the time, but I
do remember the feeling of that conversation. He was kind
of saying, like, nothing you're saying here is wrong, But
I feel like it would be more powerful if you
speak from personal experience. And I'm not saying that this
experience is the end all be all or this advice
is the end all be all. I do think that
there's a place in the world for more didactic nonfiction writing.
(19:19):
There is definitely a place for articles and books and
resources that teach people how to do something. Like think
about a cookbook, for example. It's like, you don't really
want your recipes to be like approximate. I mean, that's
kind of how I cook in the kitchen is just
like throw things into a pot and hope it turns
out okay. But when you pull out a recipe book,
you pull out, you know, a cookbook, you want the
(19:40):
recipes to be like one cup of this, two tablespoons
of this. You want it to be pretty exact, and
you want it to be someone teaching you how to
make the thing that you don't already know how to make.
It's like if I knew how to make totalini soup,
I wouldn't even need the cookbook. I could just make
the soup by myself. So there is definitely a place,
and there's a place for self help content too, where
(20:01):
someone wants to learn how to overcome their codependency, for example.
And I don't always need the author to be cryptic
in telling me how to overcome their codependency. I would
like for them to just tell me, here's the five
step process to overcome your codependency. And yet I want
to urge you and encourage you that if you don't
start from the place of your own personal experience, even
(20:26):
the didactic nonfiction that you could write will lack the
punch that it could possibly have if you were to
start from the place of your own experience. The place
of your own experience is speaking from the heart, from
the guts. It's like, here's how I know this. And
I've worked with so many authors over the years who
(20:47):
have come to me saying I have a nonfiction book
to write. I think it's a content driven book, meaning
more didactic nonfiction. Like you think about the difference between
a story driven book and a content driven book, It's
like the difference between a memoir where someone tells me
what happened to them? And a cookbook where someone tells me,
here's the five steps that you go through in order
to make lasagna. So I'm over exaggerating this on purpose
(21:08):
to make a point. But that's the difference between a
content driven book and a story driven book. And there
are plenty of books that exist in this gray area
in the middle. But if you're thinking about the difference
between a content driven book and a story driven book,
many people will come to me and they'll be like,
I think I have a content driven book. I want
to teach people how to do X, Y or Z.
And the question that I have to get at first
is why why do we want to teach people how
(21:30):
to do X, Y or Z. What does it mean
to you that you teach people how to do X,
Y or z. And if we don't answer that question first,
if we don't understand the personal motivations behind why we
want to teach someone what we want to teach them,
then the content will just lack the credibility. It lacks
the authority that is needed in order for that content
(21:52):
to land with a reader. So if I take myself
back to that time in my life, you know, I
was single and living in the city and going on
these days, and the dates were honestly not going that
well for me. And so if I come out of
the gates telling other people I can, I have every
right to come out of the gates saying here are
the things you should do differently to be better at dating.
(22:13):
But the fact of the matter is part of why
this content is wanting to come through me is because
it's wanting to teach me something first. It's wanting to
show me something first. And this is another deep belief
that I have that I don't hear a lot of
other people in publishing talk about because it doesn't really
have anything to do with publishing. But whatever the topic
is that's coming up for you, that wants to be
(22:35):
written through you, is coming to you, I believe because
it wants to teach you first. Eventually it will teach
one or five or fifty thousand other people, but first
it wants to show you something. And I'm of the
belief that when a topic is knocking at your door,
like the dating topic was knocking at my doorback in
those early two thousands, that topic is knocking at your
(22:58):
door because it's your or unconscious, your psyche, your soul,
your spirit, however you want to say this, going like
there's something here for you. I have something here for you.
And so whatever the topic is that you're wanting to
write about, if we don't begin with our own personal stories,
then we leapfrog over what the content has to teach
(23:19):
us and to show us and just act like this
is about giving to other people. And I'm all forgiving
to other people, but I oftentimes witness authors miss out on,
or aspiring authors even miss out on what a book
idea wants to give them the gift it wants to
give them because they're so concerned about what this book
(23:40):
is going to do for other people. And so one
of the paradigm shifts that I offer all the time
to authors and aspiring authors is to stop thinking about
how you want this book to change the world and
start thinking about how you want this book to change you.
It's very easy to put the focus out there and
it seems altruistic, but when you use this example of
me going like, Okay, i'm dating, I'm single. I really
(24:02):
want to be in a relationship. I want to be
in a healthy, happy relationship, and yet these dating experiences
are going badly for me. When you think about that
scenario and then you think about that person kind of anonymously,
I mean not totally anonymously because my name was attached
to it, but somewhat anonymously behind the computer keys going
let me teach you how to be in a relationship.
(24:23):
Let me tell you what you're doing wrong when you're dating.
There's a bit of an arrogance there that is obvious
to see in that setting. And I want you to
just ask yourself the question as it relates to the
topic that you want to write about. Could the same
be true for you. I'm not saying it's true in
every single setting. I'm not saying it's true every single time.
There are definitely people who have healed their story enough
(24:44):
that they are ready to write a more didactic nonfiction
book where they teach other people how to do the
same thing that they've done. But think about this just
as an example. This is not a real example that
mays based on some real people who I've worked with.
Think about like a business owner, for example, who is
experienced a lot of financial success through their business, so
they could sit down and they could write a didactic
(25:05):
nonfiction book a teaching book on how to build a
six figure business, seven figure business, eight figure business, whatever
they've done, they could absolutely do that, and they could
write that book, and that book would go on to
help other people do the same thing that they've done.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's a moral it's in fact,
maybe like if I were going to skew toward positive
(25:27):
or negative. It's great because it's teaching these other people
how to achieve the same success that they've achieved. So
that book goes out into the world to help others.
But what if that person also was willing to write
about their own story. What if they were willing to
take their own experiences and commit them to paper and
begin to understand not just how they've achieved this success,
(25:50):
but what this has meant to them, what it's taught them,
what their experiences have taught them. And what if this
person was willing to not just tell the story about
how they achieved this success, because this part often gets
skipped over, But what if the person was also willing
to talk about the failures that laid the foundation for
their success. Then not only does this person get to
(26:12):
reap the benefits of better understanding where this success came
from the collaborative effort that it was to achieve this success.
That it wasn't just as simple as X, Y and
Z or this five step process that they followed, but
it actually involved like heartbreak, failure, loss, you know, there's
so much more to it that you're able to unpack
(26:34):
when you put the story on paper. So if they
were able to see that and really really take it
in and really receive, then the story becomes this massive
gift to them and a massive gift to every single
person who reads it, and they're able to see their
success from a higher perspective. So it's more than just
(26:56):
follow these five steps. It's just this simple and you'll
achieve this success, but it's also like receive the failures,
receive the losses. You know, here's how I navigated my
way through that. It becomes even a greater gift to
everyone who is available to receive it. So when you
(27:22):
can hear a book, idea, an article, idea, a topic
idea that's knocking at your door, and when you can
ask yourself, like, what's my personal experience with this? Why
am I wanting to write about it? Why is this
knocking at my door? And you can begin to write
the stories from that really honest place, the kind of
things you would talk about if you were sitting across
the table from your best friend in your living room,
(27:45):
dining room, kitchen table, with a cup of coffee, with
a cup of tea. You're in your element, You're in
your pgs, you're relaxed, you're leaned back, and you're ready
to tell the whole truth, straight from the guts. If
you could tell the story in that way, what would
you talk about? What's the truth that you would tell
that you wouldn't tell if you were on Instagram or
if you were on TikTok, or if you were standing
on a stage in front of thousands of people, that
(28:06):
you didn't know that truth, that negative truth that is
deep inside of you. I guarantee you, I promise you,
is more powerful than just the ten step piece of
advice that you could give to someone. Not that the
advice is bad or wrong. It's not that any of
my advice that I was offering was necessarily wrong or
that it would have been harmful to anyone. It's just
(28:27):
not as powerful as telling the truth from your own perspective,
telling the story from your own perspective, even the content
driven books that I have read. This's one of the
reasons why I think Brene Brown has been as successful
as she's been. Aside from just being brilliant and being
a great writer, is Brene Brown is someone who has
written content driven books, but written them from her own guts, like,
(28:49):
written them from the place of her own story. And
when you read her books, she is walking you through
a sort of ten step process, five step process, seven
step process, whatever it is, but she's doing so in
a way that is extremely embodied. It's a way that's
extremely connected to her own personal experience. She's sharing deeply
(29:09):
from her own stories, from her own experience. And I
believe that as we move forward, especially as AI takes
over so much of the writing that we see out there,
I believe deeply that people who are willing to share
from their own guts, from their own heart, from their
own experience, from their own stories, share vulnerably, share, bravely, share, courageously, share, honestly,
(29:30):
share truthfully, Just share authentically from who you are as
a person, from your own essence, from your blueprint, your
energetic blueprint that's trying to come through you and leave
its impact on the world as the more willing that
you are to do that, the greater influence that you
are going to have, the more opportunities that are going
(29:52):
to open for you. And I believe we're at this
tipping point right now where it doesn't feel like that,
where it feels like, oh gosh, the this person who's
using AI to write their book is just going to
fly right past me and they're going to, you know,
achieve more than I could ever achieve because they're choosing
to use chat SHEBT to write their book and I'm
choosing to write mine on my own, and so I
(30:14):
can never compete with that. I can't compete with a computer.
So the computer is going to beat me. There's a
feeling like, well, that they're going to run right past me.
But I'm telling you, I believe with every fiber of
my being that if you can choose to stay true
to who you are. And I'm not saying that chat
Gibt is evil or that you can't use it or
don't use AI at all. I'm just saying we also
have to remain connected to the way our personal stories
(30:39):
influence and impact the content that we put out there
into the world. So whatever it is that you want
to write, the question that I have for you is
what story is this coming from? What place is this
coming from in your life? I have a story right
now that I know I want to tell, and it's
so raw and it's so vulnerable, and I've told parts
of it here and I've taken brave steps to tell
(31:01):
parts of it on Instagram. I know there's something there,
and I'm building, slowly building the muscles of courage to
be able to share from that place. So I'm no
stranger to how challenging it can be to share from
the rawness of your own personal experience. I am intimately
acquainted with how it feels to do that, and so
(31:23):
I don't take this lightly, and I don't pretend like
it's just you know, no problem, just be brave and
share it. I do know that that's a big deal
to do that, and yet I'm inviting you into it
because I also know from experience. I also know from
writing and Destructible, which is my memoir about leaving a
toxic relationship and overcoming narcissistic abuse, from writing Packing Light,
(31:45):
which is a memoir, I know that I know that
I know that the reward from writing from your personal
story is so massive, it's so overwhelming, it's so unbelievably valuable,
Like it's the the most valuable gift that you can
give to yourself is to tell your story. And I
know the kind of impact it can have on other people.
(32:07):
I've written other books that have sold better than Indestructible,
but the letters that I get from people who have
read Indestructible are like, You've changed my life. You know,
this book changed my life. This book changed the trajectory
of my life. And the level of satisfaction that I
feel from that. I'm not dismissing the other satisfactions of
(32:27):
say big sales numbers or New York Times bestseller or
you know, getting some positive feedback online or whatever. But
I'm telling you that the depth of satisfaction from sharing
my story and connecting deeply to others is unlike anything
else that I have experienced in my career, and it's
absolutely overwhelmingly worth it. I would do it every single time.
(32:51):
So I just want to invite you all close with this.
What's the story that you need to share that you're
being invited to share, that is knocking at your door,
that you feel terrified to share, And where's one place
or one person who you feel like you could really
open your heart to. You could open your belly, your
(33:13):
guts too, and you could spill this story there. Maybe
it's just in private on your computer, or a diary,
a journal you know that you have that's private just
to you. Maybe it's in therapy. Maybe you could write
the story to your therapist to tell them the truth.
Maybe it's a sibling who you feel like, oh, they
(33:34):
would only they would get this because you know, we
lived in that house together, we experienced this. Or maybe
it's a spouse, someone who you feel safe with, who
makes you feel like you can just be totally you
and you don't have to put on any fronts. Whoever
it is, find some way or something that you can
just begin in tiny, tiny ways to share the truth
of your story, because your story is more powerful than
(33:56):
any advice that you could give anybody. I'm not saying
that advice doesn't matter or that it's not important, but
advice that doesn't grow from personal experience is empty and
useless advice. I will stand by that for all the
days of my life. Advice that grows from personal story
has a depth to it. You can feel the depth
to it because you're like, this person has been places,
(34:17):
they've seen things. I'm taking this advice from them because
this advice, this wisdom is embodied. And start to pay
attention as you notice people. There's so many people out
there by the way, and especially with the rise of AI,
I'll see this more and more people who are dishing
out advice that you can feel, in its essence is
not embodied. It may be quote unquote good advice, but
(34:37):
it's not embodied advice. And you can feel the difference
of that advice and just begin to notice that. And
I would encourage you to only take advice from people
who are offering embodied advice. That's just I think that's
just you know, wisdom through the ages. Take advice from
people who you can tell like they've been around the block,
they've seen some shit, they know what's going on. They're
(34:58):
not just saying words like they have lived this advice.
And ask yourself where that advice is coming from for you?
What is the advice first of all, and where's that
coming from? And tell that story, Write that story, be
brave with the story, put the story out there, and
watch how it connects you to other people. I am
sending you all the courage. I'm sending you just a
(35:19):
huge wave of creativity and love and space holding as
you learn how to be honest, first with yourself, and
then honest with one one specific other, and then honest
with a community of people beyond that. This is no
small thing, and yet it is the way that we
will see ripple effects of love and change in the world.
(35:40):
So I'm sending you all the love, all the grace,
all the compassion, and all the courage to do exactly that.
I'll see you back next week, next year. I'll see
you back next week on the Write Your Story.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Podcast, Sianta, I want oh a new tool kit for Christmas?
And I want a drill, A drill like a real drill. Yeah,
real drill.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Santa Charlie wanted to he wanted to participate in the
podcast today. Here's Nolla. She wants to participate too. Can
you say Hi? And Welcome to the Write Your Story Podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Hi, and welcome to the Write Your Story Podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
See this is my mom.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
This is my mom, Ali Fallon, Ali Fallen. I want
a horse to ride. I love Christmas. How are you
doing today? How are you doing today.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
I want a puppy that comes with a cute little
puppy that comes with a collar, and I want to
so I want it so cute that that and I
wanted to have a leash, and they wanted to be
real and I and they also they also would like it.
I also would like to be it to be all
soft and alan to him and thithers, so I can
(37:17):
haircut it every time I want to.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I would like a rainbow puppy. And for Christmas, and
I a bumblebee just like this, So I have.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
A kiddy cat for Christmas.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Okay, I would like.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
A kitty and a baby and a baby chicken and
I and I want the baby chicken to stay for
a baby forever. And do you like my and do
you like my nails?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Oh you're painted nails. Yeah, they're very beautiful.
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the word you write all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about why and how your story
is the most powerful tool that you have at your
disposal to communicate with other people, and also why and
how we tend to avoid this and tiptoe around it
(00:51):
and push it away and pretend like that's not the case.
This is almost maybe it is a universal human experience,
this concept of knowing somehow intuitively deep down that our
personal stories, what's going on in our life, and the
way that we're processing those things is this powerful mechanism
(01:12):
that we have to connect to others to unlock and
give us everything that we crave, everything that we desire,
everything that we've been waiting for. And yet we don't
want to admit that to ourselves. We don't want to
share those parts of our stories. We don't want to
share our whole hearts or the most vulnerable, raw parts
of our stories with other people. So we hold back
(01:33):
in our personal relationships, we hold back online, we hold
back in our romantic partnerships, we hold back in our friendships,
we hold back with our coworkers, we hold back with
everybody around us. And yet, what if we could unlock
and open the beauty that is your story, the unique
imprint that your life is leaving on planet Earth in
(01:55):
the however many years you get to be here, hopefully
it's many many years, the nique fingerprint, energetic fingerprint that
your life is leaving here, the way that your life
is coming through you, the story that's being written through you.
And yet we push it away, we avoid it. We
want our life to be something different. We feel like,
(02:15):
oh gosh, this isn't the story that I wanted to live.
I wanted to live this other kind of story. And
we're in this constant tug of war and this constant
competition and this constant fight with what is. And yet
if we could just let it come through us, if
we could let our life be what it is, if
we could lean fully into that, we would uncover and
discover the power and the agency and just the absolute
(02:41):
power is the right word for it. It's like personal
power that we have to unlock everything that we have
been craving and waiting for and wanting, and mostly unlocking
that through connection to others. Because your story is this
powerful tool to connect you to other people. And yet
we avoid this like the plague. We hate it so much,
(03:02):
we wish it wasn't true, We don't want to do it.
We tiptoe around it. And I want to share my
personal story of how I've done this and share maybe
a few examples, will see what comes to mind as
I'm talking, but share maybe a few examples of clients
I've worked with over the years, or just friends that
I've had, and the way that they've stepped into their
own personal power by sharing their stories. Because I want
(03:24):
you to really get this in a new way. I
wanted to sink in in a new way, and I
want to empower you to step into telling more of
your story. Maybe it's just to one person, maybe it's
not like to an audience. I think sometimes that is
where we get overwhelmed when we think of sharing our
story to an audience. We kind of shrivel up a
little bit. The example that I often give to authors
(03:47):
that I'm working with when I'm encouraging them to write
the book to one significant other, like one special person,
one reader who you know and love, whose face you
can see, to write it like a love letter to
that person. I give the example of standing on a
stage in front of thousands of people, where the house
lights are off, you can't see a single face in
(04:08):
the audience, the spotlight is on you, and someone says, Okay,
tell me everything, tell me your deepest, darkest secret. The
human instinct did every single one of us is like, oh, oh,
dear God, Like on a stage is the place where
I have to perform. I have to be the perfect
version of myself. I can't tell the nitty gritty bits
and pieces of this story. I can't really be honest
(04:29):
about what's going on with me. Now, if I move
that setting to on your couch with someone who you
know and love and trust, with someone who you feel
safe with, with someone who's very essence and very presence,
makes your entire body relax Suddenly when we change settings,
(04:49):
telling the whole truth doesn't feel so daunting anymore. In fact,
telling the whole truth. Venting can feel quite cathartic. It
can actually be a release of pressure. Imagine a pressure
cooker or an instapot or something. The pressure is building up,
building up, building up, building up, and you release the
valve and it's like shhhhhh, like, oh, that feels so nice.
(05:10):
I had all this anger in my body, I had
all this sadness in my body, I had all this
confusion in my body, and I released the pressure and
let it go. And telling the truth was like this
instant connection between me and this other person. You've had
that experience with someone. Maybe the someone you've had that
experience with has been a very gifted therapist. Because this
is what therapists do is they help us remember what
(05:34):
it feels like to connect. And I think in our
culture we have forgotten what that looks like. We are
so constantly in this performance mode. We're so constantly in
this do do do? We're in our frontal cortex. We
forget to be in our bodies, we forget to be
in our limbic systems. We forget that we're whole people
with so much happening, with not just thoughts, but also
(05:57):
emotions and feelings that don't make any sense then that
feel kind of chaotic and confusing and unpredictable, and we
forget that we're whole people, and so we're just moving
through the world as if we are just human doers.
We're just instead of human beings, we're a human doing
and we're just doing, doing, doing, and we're going through
the motions and we're being productive and we're being efficient,
and we're getting our work done and we're paying our bills.
(06:19):
And you know, it's so easy to get stuck in
that trap that therapists teach us what it feels like
when someone holds the space for you and just listens
and just lets you be in your story, just lets
you be in your process, just lets you be exactly
where you're meant to be. And then not only that,
but a really good therapist is not just going to listen.
A good therapist is going to tune into you, to
(06:41):
mirror back to you what they're seeing, and then to
help you reframe it. They're helping you retell the story
in a way that is more constructive than the old
way that you were telling the story. So you've had
this experience, take yourself back to a moment like that
where you felt like, h Finally I can tell the truth.
Finally I can tell this the way that I've been
(07:02):
experiencing it in my body. I don't have to try
to pretend like I feel differently about this story than
I did. That experience, that deep connection brings satisfaction, It
brings joy, It brings a feeling of support and security that,
by the way, I've been thinking a lot about security.
By the way, financial security can never bring that feeling
(07:23):
of security that relational security brings, where you're like, no
matter what happens, no matter what shit hits the fan,
this person is going to be here for me, Like
this person is not going anywhere. We are in this together.
That kind of security is unmatched by financial security, because
I have experienced both, and I will tell you that
financial security can ebb and flow. But that kind of
(07:47):
relational security is the very foundation upon which we as
human beings take risks. As human beings, we can step
out and try something new, we can be creative, we
can feel safe in our own bodies. All these things.
So therapists are so amazing. They serve such a purpose
for us. And what I want to talk about is
what happens when we find the courage. Maybe through therapy,
(08:10):
we find the courage to begin to be honest about
our own stories in other settings, not just in the
therapist's office, not just with one trusted other, but we
begin to be honest and carry ourselves with that honesty
and with that authenticity through the world to other relationships,
and maybe even you build such a sturdy foundation of
(08:34):
self assurance through that type of connection that maybe you
are even able to share your story on a broader stage.
Maybe you're even able to stand on a stage with
thousands of people watching, or the house lights are off
and the spotlights on you, and you have an opportunity
to share from your heart, from your guts, what is
true for you, and maybe you feel the courage to
(08:56):
do it because you're already standing on this really sturdy foundation.
This topic came to mind for me because I was
having a memory the other evening as I was sitting
in stillness, a memory of the very start of my
career and some advice that my dad gave to me
that I realized in retrospect. I didn't really think about
it at the time, but I realized in retrospect this
(09:18):
advice coming from my dad, who by the way, was
a therapist, changed the entire trajectory of my career. So
this is like the portal, the moment that opened up
every opportunity for me that has come across my path
in the last fifteen years. Because this happened, it would
have been in two thousand and nine or twenty ten.
So yeah, fifteen or sixteen years of publishing opportunities, writing opportunities,
(09:44):
creative opportunities, standing on a stage type of opportunities, Instagram,
whatever platform I have been able to achieve came grew
out of this moment, this single piece of advice that
my dad gave to me. And this feels like such
a special story for me to remember because if you've
been around here for a while, you know that I
lost my dad last October, so it's been a little
(10:06):
over a year since I lost my dad. My dad
and I had a very special relationship growing up. My
dad was one of my closest friends, a confidant, someone
through all who through all of my twenties was a
person who I met with very regularly. In fact, we
would get coffee together. He would have an open invitation. Basically,
it was usually Friday mornings, we would meet at a
(10:26):
coffee shop and he would buy me coffee and I
could just come and talk about what was going on
in my life and we would just chat about all
kinds of things. My dad was a therapist. He was
an extremely deep thinker. He was an intellect. He was
a very thoughtful person, a person who was described at
his funeral as someone who just created space for people
to be absolutely themselves. And that is one hundred percent
(10:50):
how I experienced my dad for so much of my life.
It's complicated because at a certain point in my life,
my dad and I had a series of disagreements about
issues that were very close to me. And I don't
want to share about this on the podcast because it
just doesn't feel fair for me to tell my side
of the story when my dad's not here to tell
his side of the story. There's so much love and grace,
(11:13):
and that love is the word, like, there's so much
love between my dad and I, and yet the last
handful of years of his life were hard in our relationship,
and there was a distance that grew there because some
of the truths that I was living were hard for
him to swallow, and some of the truths that he
was living were hard for me to swallow, and so
there was a distance that grew in our relationship. But
(11:35):
I only share that just to say our relationship was
so many different things and there's so much love that
covers all of that. And remembering this moment with my dad,
this piece of advice that he shared with me, just
brought me back to how much of a massive, beautiful
influence my dad had on my life, and how much
(11:56):
wisdom he instilled in me, and how much I am
a product of who he was as a person, Like
he poured this into me as his daughter, and I
am a product of this. So the memory that came
back to me is from the early parts of my
career when I was blogging very regularly in order to
get the attention of a publisher at the time in
(12:16):
the early like two thousands, From like let's say two
thousand and six until twenty ten ish or maybe a
little later, I was at first blogging, which wasn't even
called blogging at that point. On Facebook, there was like
Facebook notes, I think it was called, where I would
get on and I would just like write what I
was thinking and share it with my Facebook friends, and
you know, like ten or twenty people would like it
(12:38):
and be like, you're a great writer. Whatever. Then I
moved to doing this on my own platform. I purchased
the url alisonfallin dot com, and I started blogging regularly
on alisonfallon dot com. I was blogging mostly about relationships,
because this is what was really kind of like knocking
at my door at the time, the topic that was
(12:58):
showing up for me again and again and again. And
so I was blogging about relationships. I was single at
the time, I was going on lots of dates. I
was living in downtown Portland, Oregon, and I was really
wanting to be in a partnership. I was wanting to
get married, I was wanting to have a family. I
was part of a church community where this was like
a very elevated part of your life as a woman.
You were really encouraged and maybe slightly pushed into, yeah,
(13:21):
kind of like coupling up, getting married, starting to have
a family. And so this was something that was on
top of mind for me, and yet I would go
on these dates and have these experiences, some of which
was because of the men I was going on dates with,
but obviously much of it also was me realizing like
I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the you know,
(13:42):
the maturity, I didn't have, the wisdom I didn't have.
There was so much like trauma that was happening in
my life that I wasn't totally aware of at the
time that it was creating these frictions between me and
these other people. So I would go on dates, I
would have these experiences, and then I would write about it,
and it turned into a little bit of what was
kind of like an advice column. This is what was
(14:09):
getting the most traction and the most attention. And so
because I was trying to get the attention of a publisher,
because at the time, it was like, hey, if you
can get a bunch of traffic on your website, a
publisher will see that as proof that you could write
a book and sell copies of a book. And so
do that. Go get on your website and blog every
day and get a bunch of comments and get traffic
to your site. And then take that and show a publisher, hey,
(14:32):
look there's people paying attention to what I'm writing. Would
you write me a contract to write a book? I'm
being kind of like tongue in cheek about this, but
that is kind of how it was working at the time.
So I was blogging every day, and when I say
every day, I mean I'm like five days a week.
I was posting an article on my own site, and
I was also guest posting for other people who had
(14:52):
their own sites. So I was guest posting for all
these other bloggers, which is just a ton of con
I was cranking out a ton of content. One day,
I decided to write this article called ten Mistakes. Oh
what was my first title? The first title was something
like ten mistakes people make in Dating or something like that,
and I had to ended up having to split the
(15:13):
article into two parts because five mistakes was enough to
write about to take up one whole article. And then
the next day I posted the next five or that
was the idea. So I wrote this article ten mistakes
people make in dating, Ten biggest mistakes you can make
in dating, that kind of a thing, and wrote this article.
I'm so proud of myself because I was like, Wow,
these are really like, you know, these are really cutting
(15:36):
to the chase. This is going to be such good content.
People are gonna love this. It's going to really speak
to people. Sent it to my dad was like, what
do you think about this as a therapist, Like coming
from your psychologist point of view, what do you make
of this article? Is everything I'm saying here kind of
like true and correct? Am I leading people in the
right direction? And I was expecting my dad to be like, check, check, check,
(16:00):
I'm so proud of you. You're amazing, because you know,
he's my dad and there was a lot of that
in our relationship and we had so many of these
really beautiful conversations together. I had picked up on a
lot of his wisdom, and so I was expecting, you know,
after you write something sometimes you're like, yeah, this is good.
Like I'm expecting people to say this is good. So
I think I sent it to him expecting to get
(16:20):
the response like two thumbs up, run with this, I'm
so proud of you, I'm so glad you're my daughter,
And instead the response that I got from him was
what do you think about flipping this and instead of
posting the ten mistakes people make in dating? Talking about
the ten biggest mistakes you've made in dating? And I
was just like, oh, horrified, Like how could you even
(16:43):
suggest that I could ever talk about the ten biggest
mistakes I've made in dating. But I took his advice
to heart because that was the type of relationship that
we had and it did ring as true to me.
And so I went back to the drawing board and
just tried to write the same article but from this
slightly different vantage point, ten biggest mistakes I've made in dating.
(17:06):
And again the ten mistakes were too much for one article,
so I ended up splitting them into two. I posted
one on the first day and the second article on
the second day. Five mistakes one day, five mistakes the
second day. This article was the article that blew up
Alisonvalan dot com from just a blog where you know,
my friends and acquaintances read it to like way beyond
(17:29):
anybody who I knew. So I mean, I don't even
remember the exact numbers, but at the time it was
just like viral would be the word that I would
have used for it at the time. Now, viral today
is probably different from what viral was back then. But
in twenty ten, for this thing to be read by
so many thousands of people that I had never met before,
it was an experience unlike any other experience that I've
(17:51):
ever had before, and it kind of created a space
for me in the blogging world where people were paying attention,
Like the people who I'd been trying to get the
attention of, We're finally paying attention. People like publishers, people
like agents. This opened the door for me to eventually
write my first book, which is called Packing Light, which,
funny enough, like Packing Light was really a coming of
(18:12):
age story. It was a story about selling all of
my possessions and going on this trip to all fifty states.
But Packing Light got filed in the dating relationship section
of bookstores because so much of what I wrote about
in the book, and so much of what I was
writing about as a blogger was this idea of dating
and relationships, like how do we find each other in
the midst of this mess of friction and tension and
(18:34):
misunderstanding and communication, and how do you find this equilibrium
with someone? And so it was this single piece of
advice from my dad, this one suggestion, like what would
you think about switching this perspective from what other people
should do to your own personal experience, because you know,
my dad was kind of saying, I don't remember the
(18:56):
exact words that he used at the time, but I
do remember the feeling of that conversation. He was kind
of saying, like, nothing you're saying here is wrong, But
I feel like it would be more powerful if you
speak from personal experience. And I'm not saying that this
experience is the end all be all or this advice
is the end all be all. I do think that
there's a place in the world for more didactic nonfiction writing.
(19:19):
There is definitely a place for articles and books and
resources that teach people how to do something. Like think
about a cookbook, for example. It's like, you don't really
want your recipes to be like approximate. I mean, that's
kind of how I cook in the kitchen is just
like throw things into a pot and hope it turns
out okay. But when you pull out a recipe book,
you pull out, you know, a cookbook, you want the
(19:40):
recipes to be like one cup of this, two tablespoons
of this. You want it to be pretty exact, and
you want it to be someone teaching you how to
make the thing that you don't already know how to make.
It's like if I knew how to make totalini soup,
I wouldn't even need the cookbook. I could just make
the soup by myself. So there is definitely a place,
and there's a place for self help content too, where
(20:01):
someone wants to learn how to overcome their codependency, for example.
And I don't always need the author to be cryptic
in telling me how to overcome their codependency. I would
like for them to just tell me, here's the five
step process to overcome your codependency. And yet I want
to urge you and encourage you that if you don't
start from the place of your own personal experience, even
(20:26):
the didactic nonfiction that you could write will lack the
punch that it could possibly have if you were to
start from the place of your own experience. The place
of your own experience is speaking from the heart, from
the guts. It's like, here's how I know this. And
I've worked with so many authors over the years who
(20:47):
have come to me saying I have a nonfiction book
to write. I think it's a content driven book, meaning
more didactic nonfiction. Like you think about the difference between
a story driven book and a content driven book, It's
like the difference between a memoir where someone tells me
what happened to them? And a cookbook where someone tells me,
here's the five steps that you go through in order
to make lasagna. So I'm over exaggerating this on purpose
(21:08):
to make a point. But that's the difference between a
content driven book and a story driven book. And there
are plenty of books that exist in this gray area
in the middle. But if you're thinking about the difference
between a content driven book and a story driven book,
many people will come to me and they'll be like,
I think I have a content driven book. I want
to teach people how to do X, Y or Z.
And the question that I have to get at first
is why why do we want to teach people how
(21:30):
to do X, Y or Z. What does it mean
to you that you teach people how to do X,
Y or z. And if we don't answer that question first,
if we don't understand the personal motivations behind why we
want to teach someone what we want to teach them,
then the content will just lack the credibility. It lacks
the authority that is needed in order for that content
(21:52):
to land with a reader. So if I take myself
back to that time in my life, you know, I
was single and living in the city and going on
these days, and the dates were honestly not going that
well for me. And so if I come out of
the gates telling other people I can, I have every
right to come out of the gates saying here are
the things you should do differently to be better at dating.
(22:13):
But the fact of the matter is part of why
this content is wanting to come through me is because
it's wanting to teach me something first. It's wanting to
show me something first. And this is another deep belief
that I have that I don't hear a lot of
other people in publishing talk about because it doesn't really
have anything to do with publishing. But whatever the topic
is that's coming up for you, that wants to be
(22:35):
written through you, is coming to you, I believe because
it wants to teach you first. Eventually it will teach
one or five or fifty thousand other people, but first
it wants to show you something. And I'm of the
belief that when a topic is knocking at your door,
like the dating topic was knocking at my doorback in
those early two thousands, that topic is knocking at your
(22:58):
door because it's your or unconscious, your psyche, your soul,
your spirit, however you want to say this, going like
there's something here for you. I have something here for you.
And so whatever the topic is that you're wanting to
write about, if we don't begin with our own personal stories,
then we leapfrog over what the content has to teach
(23:19):
us and to show us and just act like this
is about giving to other people. And I'm all forgiving
to other people, but I oftentimes witness authors miss out on,
or aspiring authors even miss out on what a book
idea wants to give them the gift it wants to
give them because they're so concerned about what this book
(23:40):
is going to do for other people. And so one
of the paradigm shifts that I offer all the time
to authors and aspiring authors is to stop thinking about
how you want this book to change the world and
start thinking about how you want this book to change you.
It's very easy to put the focus out there and
it seems altruistic, but when you use this example of
me going like, Okay, i'm dating, I'm single. I really
(24:02):
want to be in a relationship. I want to be
in a healthy, happy relationship, and yet these dating experiences
are going badly for me. When you think about that
scenario and then you think about that person kind of anonymously,
I mean not totally anonymously because my name was attached
to it, but somewhat anonymously behind the computer keys going
let me teach you how to be in a relationship.
(24:23):
Let me tell you what you're doing wrong when you're dating.
There's a bit of an arrogance there that is obvious
to see in that setting. And I want you to
just ask yourself the question as it relates to the
topic that you want to write about. Could the same
be true for you. I'm not saying it's true in
every single setting. I'm not saying it's true every single time.
There are definitely people who have healed their story enough
(24:44):
that they are ready to write a more didactic nonfiction
book where they teach other people how to do the
same thing that they've done. But think about this just
as an example. This is not a real example that
mays based on some real people who I've worked with.
Think about like a business owner, for example, who is
experienced a lot of financial success through their business, so
they could sit down and they could write a didactic
(25:05):
nonfiction book a teaching book on how to build a
six figure business, seven figure business, eight figure business, whatever
they've done, they could absolutely do that, and they could
write that book, and that book would go on to
help other people do the same thing that they've done.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's a moral it's in fact,
maybe like if I were going to skew toward positive
(25:27):
or negative. It's great because it's teaching these other people
how to achieve the same success that they've achieved. So
that book goes out into the world to help others.
But what if that person also was willing to write
about their own story. What if they were willing to
take their own experiences and commit them to paper and
begin to understand not just how they've achieved this success,
(25:50):
but what this has meant to them, what it's taught them,
what their experiences have taught them. And what if this
person was willing to not just tell the story about
how they achieved this success, because this part often gets
skipped over, But what if the person was also willing
to talk about the failures that laid the foundation for
their success. Then not only does this person get to
(26:12):
reap the benefits of better understanding where this success came
from the collaborative effort that it was to achieve this success.
That it wasn't just as simple as X, Y and
Z or this five step process that they followed, but
it actually involved like heartbreak, failure, loss, you know, there's
so much more to it that you're able to unpack
(26:34):
when you put the story on paper. So if they
were able to see that and really really take it
in and really receive, then the story becomes this massive
gift to them and a massive gift to every single
person who reads it, and they're able to see their
success from a higher perspective. So it's more than just
(26:56):
follow these five steps. It's just this simple and you'll
achieve this success, but it's also like receive the failures,
receive the losses. You know, here's how I navigated my
way through that. It becomes even a greater gift to
everyone who is available to receive it. So when you
(27:22):
can hear a book, idea, an article, idea, a topic
idea that's knocking at your door, and when you can
ask yourself, like, what's my personal experience with this? Why
am I wanting to write about it? Why is this
knocking at my door? And you can begin to write
the stories from that really honest place, the kind of
things you would talk about if you were sitting across
the table from your best friend in your living room,
(27:45):
dining room, kitchen table, with a cup of coffee, with
a cup of tea. You're in your element, You're in
your pgs, you're relaxed, you're leaned back, and you're ready
to tell the whole truth, straight from the guts. If
you could tell the story in that way, what would
you talk about? What's the truth that you would tell
that you wouldn't tell if you were on Instagram or
if you were on TikTok, or if you were standing
on a stage in front of thousands of people, that
(28:06):
you didn't know that truth, that negative truth that is
deep inside of you. I guarantee you, I promise you,
is more powerful than just the ten step piece of
advice that you could give to someone. Not that the
advice is bad or wrong. It's not that any of
my advice that I was offering was necessarily wrong or
that it would have been harmful to anyone. It's just
(28:27):
not as powerful as telling the truth from your own perspective,
telling the story from your own perspective, even the content
driven books that I have read. This's one of the
reasons why I think Brene Brown has been as successful
as she's been. Aside from just being brilliant and being
a great writer, is Brene Brown is someone who has
written content driven books, but written them from her own guts, like,
(28:49):
written them from the place of her own story. And
when you read her books, she is walking you through
a sort of ten step process, five step process, seven
step process, whatever it is, but she's doing so in
a way that is extremely embodied. It's a way that's
extremely connected to her own personal experience. She's sharing deeply
(29:09):
from her own stories, from her own experience. And I
believe that as we move forward, especially as AI takes
over so much of the writing that we see out there,
I believe deeply that people who are willing to share
from their own guts, from their own heart, from their
own experience, from their own stories, share vulnerably, share, bravely, share, courageously, share, honestly,
(29:30):
share truthfully, Just share authentically from who you are as
a person, from your own essence, from your blueprint, your
energetic blueprint that's trying to come through you and leave
its impact on the world as the more willing that
you are to do that, the greater influence that you
are going to have, the more opportunities that are going
(29:52):
to open for you. And I believe we're at this
tipping point right now where it doesn't feel like that,
where it feels like, oh gosh, the this person who's
using AI to write their book is just going to
fly right past me and they're going to, you know,
achieve more than I could ever achieve because they're choosing
to use chat SHEBT to write their book and I'm
choosing to write mine on my own, and so I
(30:14):
can never compete with that. I can't compete with a computer.
So the computer is going to beat me. There's a
feeling like, well, that they're going to run right past me.
But I'm telling you, I believe with every fiber of
my being that if you can choose to stay true
to who you are. And I'm not saying that chat
Gibt is evil or that you can't use it or
don't use AI at all. I'm just saying we also
have to remain connected to the way our personal stories
(30:39):
influence and impact the content that we put out there
into the world. So whatever it is that you want
to write, the question that I have for you is
what story is this coming from? What place is this
coming from in your life? I have a story right
now that I know I want to tell, and it's
so raw and it's so vulnerable, and I've told parts
of it here and I've taken brave steps to tell
(31:01):
parts of it on Instagram. I know there's something there,
and I'm building, slowly building the muscles of courage to
be able to share from that place. So I'm no
stranger to how challenging it can be to share from
the rawness of your own personal experience. I am intimately
acquainted with how it feels to do that, and so
(31:23):
I don't take this lightly, and I don't pretend like
it's just you know, no problem, just be brave and
share it. I do know that that's a big deal
to do that, and yet I'm inviting you into it
because I also know from experience. I also know from
writing and Destructible, which is my memoir about leaving a
toxic relationship and overcoming narcissistic abuse, from writing Packing Light,
(31:45):
which is a memoir, I know that I know that
I know that the reward from writing from your personal
story is so massive, it's so overwhelming, it's so unbelievably valuable,
Like it's the the most valuable gift that you can
give to yourself is to tell your story. And I
know the kind of impact it can have on other people.
(32:07):
I've written other books that have sold better than Indestructible,
but the letters that I get from people who have
read Indestructible are like, You've changed my life. You know,
this book changed my life. This book changed the trajectory
of my life. And the level of satisfaction that I
feel from that. I'm not dismissing the other satisfactions of
(32:27):
say big sales numbers or New York Times bestseller or
you know, getting some positive feedback online or whatever. But
I'm telling you that the depth of satisfaction from sharing
my story and connecting deeply to others is unlike anything
else that I have experienced in my career, and it's
absolutely overwhelmingly worth it. I would do it every single time.
(32:51):
So I just want to invite you all close with this.
What's the story that you need to share that you're
being invited to share, that is knocking at your door,
that you feel terrified to share, And where's one place
or one person who you feel like you could really
open your heart to. You could open your belly, your
(33:13):
guts too, and you could spill this story there. Maybe
it's just in private on your computer, or a diary,
a journal you know that you have that's private just
to you. Maybe it's in therapy. Maybe you could write
the story to your therapist to tell them the truth.
Maybe it's a sibling who you feel like, oh, they
(33:34):
would only they would get this because you know, we
lived in that house together, we experienced this. Or maybe
it's a spouse, someone who you feel safe with, who
makes you feel like you can just be totally you
and you don't have to put on any fronts. Whoever
it is, find some way or something that you can
just begin in tiny, tiny ways to share the truth
of your story, because your story is more powerful than
(33:56):
any advice that you could give anybody. I'm not saying
that advice doesn't matter or that it's not important, but
advice that doesn't grow from personal experience is empty and
useless advice. I will stand by that for all the
days of my life. Advice that grows from personal story
has a depth to it. You can feel the depth
to it because you're like, this person has been places,
(34:17):
they've seen things. I'm taking this advice from them because
this advice, this wisdom is embodied. And start to pay
attention as you notice people. There's so many people out
there by the way, and especially with the rise of AI,
I'll see this more and more people who are dishing
out advice that you can feel, in its essence is
not embodied. It may be quote unquote good advice, but
(34:37):
it's not embodied advice. And you can feel the difference
of that advice and just begin to notice that. And
I would encourage you to only take advice from people
who are offering embodied advice. That's just I think that's
just you know, wisdom through the ages. Take advice from
people who you can tell like they've been around the block,
they've seen some shit, they know what's going on. They're
(34:58):
not just saying words like they have lived this advice.
And ask yourself where that advice is coming from for you?
What is the advice first of all, and where's that
coming from? And tell that story, Write that story, be
brave with the story, put the story out there, and
watch how it connects you to other people. I am
sending you all the courage. I'm sending you just a
(35:19):
huge wave of creativity and love and space holding as
you learn how to be honest, first with yourself, and
then honest with one one specific other, and then honest
with a community of people beyond that. This is no
small thing, and yet it is the way that we
will see ripple effects of love and change in the world.
(35:40):
So I'm sending you all the love, all the grace,
all the compassion, and all the courage to do exactly that.
I'll see you back next week, next year. I'll see
you back next week on the Write Your Story.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Podcast, Sianta, I want oh a new tool kit for Christmas?
And I want a drill, A drill like a real drill. Yeah,
real drill.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Santa Charlie wanted to he wanted to participate in the
podcast today. Here's Nolla. She wants to participate too. Can
you say Hi? And Welcome to the Write Your Story Podcast.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Hi, and welcome to the Write Your Story Podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
See this is my mom.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
This is my mom, Ali Fallon, Ali Fallen. I want
a horse to ride. I love Christmas. How are you
doing today? How are you doing today.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
I want a puppy that comes with a cute little
puppy that comes with a collar, and I want to
so I want it so cute that that and I
wanted to have a leash, and they wanted to be
real and I and they also they also would like it.
I also would like to be it to be all
soft and alan to him and thithers, so I can
(37:17):
haircut it every time I want to.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I would like a rainbow puppy. And for Christmas, and
I a bumblebee just like this, So I have.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
A kiddy cat for Christmas.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Okay, I would like.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
A kitty and a baby and a baby chicken and
I and I want the baby chicken to stay for
a baby forever. And do you like my and do
you like my nails?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Oh you're painted nails. Yeah, they're very beautiful.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.