Are you signed up for the free storytelling training on December 9th? There’s no better time to learn how to tell beautiful stories in 90 seconds or less than during the holidays! Emotions and nostalgia are ripe for the picking. Click here to sign up!
If your account isn’t growing and people aren’t engaging, then you are not resonating. Per Google AI’s definition. Things that Resonate:
🍬 Evoke emotions
🍬 Create connection
🍬 Reflect our identity
This is the essence of any great story.
Think about any great movie (story). Here’s what happens:
(1) We learn the details of a character’s life
(2) We understand the characters emotional state
(3) The character goes from disempowered to empowered
When a story does these three things well it will evoke emotions, create connection and reflect the audiences identity so they can feel seen, heard and understood.
When the audience resonates, they will fall in love with you and your work.
OR, the audience doesn’t resonate and they don’t recommend the movie. That’s okay. The best movies aren’t written to please everyone. And you aren’t here to please everyone either.
In today’s email I am going to breakdown Elf (’tis the season!) so you can learn how to tell tons of engaging stories less that build a cohesive brand and attract your raving fans (and repel the others.)
1. The One Core Theme
Of course, every movie is already written. We are simply watching the story get told. The storyteller knows the outcome and gets to craft the meaning of it.
It is vitally important the storyteller powerfully owns the truth of their experience.
When you do this the audience, who has been burying their truth, gets to see themselves articulated in the story in broad daylight and sees that they no longer have to hide and that they can face their fears.
If you don’t tell the truth and continue to keep what’s in the shadows in the dark: you’ll know it, the audience will feel it and the story will fall flat.
You will never take back your power over that old narrative and neither will your audience.
When the storyteller is truthful about their experience, they will find that one core theme emerges. It’s the same core theme that has rippled through their life for as long as they remember.
This new perspective is not only healing for the storyteller, it’s healing for the audience as well.
Every movie has a core theme.
And inside the movie are short stories with loses (disempowerment) and victories (empowerment) that build the momentum toward the completion of that core theme.
You have a core theme too.
It’s weaved inside your ‘big story’ that got you to where you are today.
I bet it’s fit for a movie.
I also bet it’s pretty overwhelming trying to tell this story in your content.
But it’s also not the only story you get to tell.
Inside your big story are hundreds of those mini stories.
The mini stories are where true connection with your audiences sprouts from.
As you tell the mini-stories on social media, post after post your followers begin to see [themselves in] the whole story.
Most creator’s content doesn’t work for one, if not both, of the following reasons:
- They don’t know their one core theme, therefore they don’t understand the brand they’re building. With a lack of strategy, it makes it hard to be consistent and make content a priority.
- They are still posting bland informational or education content that doesn’t resonate, which per the definition, doesn’t evoke emotion, create connection, or reflect your audiences identities. Your audience doesn’t feel seen, heard and understood and so your content fades into the sea of other lifeless content.
If you’d like support in uncovering your one core them so you can unleash infinite stories that will engage your audience and build your brand, come to the free live storytelling workshop on December 9th at 12pm PST. To sign up, click below
Buddy the Elf’s one core theme is that he doesn’t belong.
Never has.
He is a human, not an elf.
And now he is on the quest to find belonging by traveling to New York City to find real father.
2. Disempowered to Empowered
The point of your social media is to uplift, inspire and education your followers who are struggling with a part of their life that you have conquered.
That’s not to say we don’t still struggle, but we are at a “higher level” of struggle than them.
Just because at the end of the movie Buddy has a wife, a baby, and a great relationship with his father, doesn’t mean he may not struggle with belonging as he gets older. He will likely find himself unable to bond with his kid or write a new children’s book that doesn’t land with his audience.
BUT TODAY, he has overcome so much and now has tools and wisdom to impart on the people who are a few chapters behind him.
So, we know Buddy the Elf’s core theme is not belonging.
This is also his big story.
It’s one of disempowerment to empowerment.
Not belonging to belonging.
You can see how this theme shows up in all the mini-stories throughout the movie.
[I am going to use “D” to represent “Disempowered” and “E” to represent “Empowered”]
🍬 His step-brother doesn’t like him (D) then he beats the bullies a snowball fight and gains his trust (E)
🍬 He doesn’t know how to ask a girl out (D) then he takes Jovie on a date hunting down Christmas trees and gets his first kiss (E)
🍬 He has to work in a scary mailroom (D) then he ends up break dancing on the table (E)
Of course all these side quests are building to the central theme of rejection from his dad (D) to being accepted and loved by his dad (E)
3. Details
You likely leave out juicy details because you think it’s too specific and people won’t get it. You risk deeper connection for fear of alienation a segment of your crowd who may not “get it.” In reality, being to broad is the exact thing that leave people not feeling seen.
Consider this.
You are not a six foot orphan who thinks they are an elf in the north poll surrounded by real elves who are three feet tall.
You are not ashamed at your work because you are 915 etch-a-sketches behind your quota.
That is a very specific situation with very specific details.
But look how effortlessly you can find yourself in this story.
You know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong.
You know what it’s like to feel shame.
Likewise…
🍬 You may not have had a step-brother who doesn’t like you and very likely did not win them over by beating the bullies in a snowball fight
🍬 Your first date was probably not the girl you work with at Gimbel’s and you definitely did not take to taste test shitty diner coffee and go hunting for the best Christmas trees in NYC.
🍬 You definitely haven’t been sent to work in your dads mailroom and got accidentally drunk and broke dance on the table
…but the details and what allow you to find yourself in the emotions of each story.
Once we see ourselves in the details, we have greater access to our emotions.
4. Emotions
You may have heard this before, “In every story there’s what you say happened, there’s what they say happened, then there’s what actually happened.”
This is because we can never fully recollect the truth what actually happened during any event.
However, we rarely question how we felt during that event.
That’s because THAT is that story you’re telling.
You tell the story that fits how you felt.
Nobody can tell you how you felt isn’t the truth.
That’s your truth and likely the only truth that matters.
Two 40-year-olds can watch someone win a gold medal and it could make one person sad thinking, “Wow a gold medal at 23 years old. And I’m 40, what have I done with my life?”
And another could feel motivated and think, “Wow… ya know… I’m not dead yet! Time to get to work!!”
In reflection of watching the athlete win the gold medal the first person may then tell you they saw sadness in the gold medalist eyes and the second person may think you’re crazy and tell you, “No way! They were hungry to win more!”
This is what we do as humans.
We insert our feelings into everything we do so that we can make sense of our place in the world.
We unconsciously ask ourselves, “Does this event [story] align with my views and how I see myself and the world?”
If it’s yes, you will now feel a positive emotional connection to the storyteller because you feel seen and validated.
That is what it means to resonate.
Remember?
What’s required of you is to be boldly honest about how you feel.
Because how you feel, is how we feel. We just haven’t been brave enough to tell anyone yet. So we feel alone.
I urge you to be bold enough to own your feelings, not just about the hard times, but about the things you love too.
That’s why we love Buddy the Elf after all!
He gives us the permission to scream at the top of our lungs for seeing Santa, to smile just because you love smiling, to spin around revolving doors, or chug a bottle of coke at the dinner table because you sugar.
Summary
Yes, Instagram is a highlight reel.
I don’t go on social media to see how miserable everyone else’s life is.
I want to see possibilities, learn and be inspired.
I know you read this newsletter because you are the same.
But that doesn’t mean we skip the hard parts of life. The struggles are what people deeply resonate with.
As the lead story writer for Pixar, Emma Coates says, “We admire a character for trying more than for their success.”
It’s easy for us to empathize with Buddy when he’s down.
And that’s what makes the come up so fucking sweet.
We all want a chance to feel seen and when you share the specific things (details) that make you feel a specific way (emotions) as you traverse your journey from disempowered to empowered you give everyone else a chance to feel less alone in this world.
You have endless moments of your life that go from disempowered to empowered.
It could have been just this morning where you felt like burning down your business, but did a meditation, gratitude and breathwork and BAM YOU’RE BACK, BABY!!!
That’s not boring.
That’s fucking real.
The key to creating great short form content that builds a brand people rally behind is to not overwhelm with too many details or try to make too many points in one post.
On Monday, December 9th at 12pm PST I am hosting a free live where you will uncover your one core theme and place that theme into a 5-part framework so you can tell your story in less than 90 seconds.
Once you have the framework, you will be able to tell any story in 90-seconds so you can increase your engagement and grow your following.
Click the button below to add it to your calendar!
Can’t wait to see you there (and yes the replay will be available)
Matt
PS. After this training I’ll be launching my 6-week live group program for the new year and there are only 20 spots available. If you want to be the first to hear about it (just in case it sells out fast), join the waitlist. All you have to do is click here.
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