661: How to Tell a Story About Yourself, with David Hutchens

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Many of us have heard that we should be vulnerable and, at least occasionally, share a story about ourselves. But how do you tell a story about yourself without making the entire interaction about you? In this episode, David Hutchens returns to show us how to best use a personal story to help the organization move forward. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 661.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:35]:

Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. One of the elements of conversation that’s so critical for leaders is the element of story. Storytelling is the language of leaders. It is the medium that we can utilize in order to be able to connect with the people we have the privilege to influence in our organizations and to be able to have our messages land in a more effective way. Today, I’m so glad to welcome back to the show our resident storytelling expert, David Hutchens, for a different perspective than we’ve looked at story in the past. He’s been on the podcast many times over the years, and we’ve often looked at it from the perspective of “How do we tell stories about the team, about the organization?” But today, we’re gonna look at it from the lens of when we do need to tell a story about ourselves, how do we do that? When do we do that? And most importantly, what does that sound like? I’m so pleased to welcome back David Hutchens.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:46]:

He helps leaders find and tell their stories. He works with leaders around the world to find, craft ,and tell their most urgent stories for the purpose of creating shared meaning, preserving culture, disseminating learning, and speeding change in organizations. David has taught the storytelling leader program at some of the most influential organizations, including NASA, PayPal, L’Oreal Paris, Cisco, Walmart, Google, FedEx, and many other organizations. And he’s written a number of books, including: Circle of the 9 Muses, Story Dash, and The Leadership Story Deck, all of which we featured on the podcast in the past. He’s also the co creator with longtime friend of the show, Susan Gerke, of the Go Team program. David, always a pleasure to have a conversation with you.

David Hutchens [00:02:31]:

Always a pleasure. It’s why I keep coming back. I did a coun, this is number 6. So I I made this I made this joke last time, but I I need to get, like, a special blazer or jacket that says 6 timer club on it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:46]:

Well, it’s it in a way, it’s almost number 7 because in full disclosure to everyone else, we actually recorded this episode yesterday, and we got about 3 quarters of the way through. And I said, hmmmm, not because of David, because of me. I didn’t really think through some of these stories and tell them in the way that I’d want to. And we decided to rerecord this conversation and take a 2nd stab at it. And David, as I was thinking about that and reflecting on it, you and I were talking like, this is just the nature of getting better at storytelling even if you’ve had a lot of experience with it, and I used to teach it at Carnegie. It’s still like, when it’s your story and especially if it’s personal to you, it takes time to kinda think this through, talk it out, get better at it, get coaching, and have a few iterations of it in order to, like, have it ready for prime time. Right?

David Hutchens [00:03:45]:

You know what? I I do this stuff for a living. And if I just step up in front of a group and wing it and kinda hope that the story is gonna come out right, I’m usually disappointed. So the fact that we put pause on yesterday and we’re redoing it today is exactly part of the process that there’s an intentionality to this. There’s thoughtfulness. There’s telling the story and then stepping back and saying, wait a minute. What is my objective here? Why am I telling this story? Am I saying what I really wanna say? Let me go back and do it again. So the fact that we’re rerecording this actually kinda mirrors what the process looks like when I work with teams. So this is right on for me.

David Hutchens [00:04:26]:

‘m excited that we’re rebooting this conversation.

Dave Stachowiak [00:04:30]:

Yeah. Me too. And like you said, I mean, so much a process of doing this. And the process started for me with getting into your story deck of cards. And for those who haven’t heard a past conversation, David has produced this amazing deck of cards, and each one of them has on a different type of story. And I went in and pulled 4 different cards, and the difference from some of our past conversations and this one is that I’ve pulled 4 cards that are stories that are personal, stories about me and, like, how to tell that. And I think before we get into what the 4 are and maybe telling a few of them, what’s the reason a leader I guess the the way it asks us is, you know, we’ve talked in the past about telling stories either on behalf of your team or behalf of your organization. When do you tell a story that’s about you? What’s the indicator that that’s maybe the story to tell?

David Hutchens [00:05:26]:

So this comes up a lot. And you’re right. As leaders, most of our stories are we stories numerically. We’re telling more we stories than me stories. There is a time to tell the me stories. An obvious time to do that is if you’re interviewing. Right? That’s a no brainer. I mean, a lot of interviewers are using a a technique called behavioral interviewing where they ask questions that demand story based answers.

David Hutchens [00:05:53]:

You know, tell me about a time that you failed and recovered. Tell me about a great team experience. Right? So those are stories with you in them. Interviewing is a a time you wanna do it. If you are a solopreneur like me, I mean, I’m trying to build my brand. I I need people to buy my books and hire me. So I’m telling stories about the value that I bring forward. How do I do that? One of the questions I get a lot is, how do I do it so I don’t sound like I’m bragging? Or how do I how do I do it so I don’t sound like I’m a jerk? Right, who talks about myself? Or if you’re just trying to amplify by your voice, think of brand in internally.

David Hutchens [00:06:28]:

Who am I inside this organization? How do I extend my influence? There are some stories that you could tell about yourself. There are times we wanna invite other people to tell stories about themselves. You know, the stories that the ones you drew from the story deck, I use these same stories in high potential programs. Yeah. If you’re if you’ve been tapped on the shoulder, you’re going places in this organization. Invite those high potentials to tell stories of what they care about and what they believe. This is great for onboarding if you have new employees. I’ve done this in culture programs and belonging programs.

David Hutchens [00:07:03]:

Show us who you are. So there’s a lot of applications for telling these stories about yourself.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:09]:

Yeah. And, you know, as you were saying that, I was looking at the 1st card I pulled, which is a leader with conviction. It’s card number 1 in the story deck. And the phrase says, there’s a reason I’m here. When I pulled this card a few days ago and started thinking about it, I, right away, thought of a story that came up for me. What I didn’t think about initially, and when you and I talked previously, yesterday, going through the 1st attempt is, so what? Like, why am I telling the story? And I think that that’s the piece sometimes going back to the recent conversation we had with Jacob Morgan talking about vulnerability in leadership is, yes, be vulnerable and then have a message of, like, what is the reason I just said that, and what was the reason I was vulnerable and connecting that back. And that’s the piece that I sort of had figured out a little bit, but, like, talking this through a few times has now gotten me to a place where I’m like, okay. I think I have that message too, which is really key for those.

David Hutchens [00:08:08]:

So what do you think? Do do you wanna dive in and and start with, a why I’m here story? And then I can provide some coaching, and we can kinda dissect your story and talk about it a little bit.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:17]:

Yeah. I’d love that. So here’s the story I thought of immediately when I picked up this card. When I started working, long time listeners know that I worked for Dale Carnegie for 15 years. And when I started in the Carnegie business, my job was to go out and to find new customers, and take care of existing customers. And my territory was, like, all over the Greater Los Angeles area, which is probably the worst possible driving territory in the world. And so I would be I had a little Toyota Corolla. I would be in my car for 3 to 4 hours a day, and I very quickly came to the realization, like, I cannot be listening to commercial radio while I’m doing this.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:03]:

Like, I need something that’s gonna, like, stimulate my brain because I’m I have all these hours in the car. And I thought that it would be great to, like, maybe do audiobooks, but, I can’t remember if my car didn’t have a cassette. This was back in cassette players, and it was hard to get. It didn’t make sense to do CDs. So anyway, I took my car into, you know, one of those places, David, where people bring their cars and they do aftermarket audio, like, they put in the huge speakers and the subwoofers. So, like, the make the cars, like, really sound great. I roll in with my little Toyota Corolla, and I’m like, can you drill a hole in my dashboard so I can plug in my iPod nano and fit it in the, like, little glove compartment, so I could download audiobooks on Itunes at the time and listen. And they sort of looked at me strange.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:55]:

They said, okay. Sure. And so I ended up driving around, listening to audiobooks, trying to, like, use my time well. And I discovered that there was this thing called podcasts. And I would sync in my iPad to the computer before I do my drives, and I would download some podcasts. And I thought, wow. This is incredible technology. You can connect something and sync it and listen on the road whenever you want.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:27]:

But I ran into a problem really quickly, and the problem was I couldn’t find the show that I wanted to listen to because I was really looking for a leadership show because that was the nature of the work I was doing. It was my interest area. And I could find shows that were really great and consistently done, but had horrible audio quality. People used to record podcasts on conference call lines, and the audio quality was terrible. Or I’d find a show that, like, was great audio quality, but then they didn’t publish very often. Like, it’d be every 6 or 7 weeks they’d publish an episode. And then, you know, I’d find ones that were good on both, but then the the conversation wasn’t that great. And I could not find a podcast that was consistently aired, had good audio quality, and was useful to me.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:14]:

Every conversation had something that was useful. And so that was the inspiration for starting Coaching for Leaders as a little side project. And, today, those 3 things are the things I started with, and they’re actually still at the heart of what I do. It is, 1st and foremost, is every conversation useful and practical to someone listening in some way? Secondly, is the audio quality great? And 3rd is it’s done consistently, like every Monday. And to this day, I still really zero in on those 3 things. And so the lesson that I learned and the point of the story is when you start something new, start with 2 to 3 fundamental things you can do well. And if you do, you’ll be a lot more likely to have enough success to eventually get to the more advanced stuff.

David Hutchens [00:12:13]:

Wow. That was wonderful. What a great story. I heard so much in that, so I have a few thoughts. 1st, it’s a great story. That’s a great story that says a lot about who you are and why you’re here. And it was inspired by card number 1 in the deck, the leader with conviction, why I’m here. There’s a subcategory of the why I’m here story, which is the origin story, which is kinda what you just told.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:41]:

Yeah.

David Hutchens [00:12:41]:

The thing that was true at the beginning. Something was true at the beginning when I started doing this work and it’s still true today. And that’s really powerful. These origin stories are great to tell. The other reason it’s a great story to tell is it it lets your audience know you got here early. This whole podcast thing that everybody’s jumping into, you’re a veteran.

David Hutchens [00:13:06]:

You’ve been doing this for for a while. In fact, one of my points of feedback to you is I think you should say something about that. There’s a part in the story. I don’t remember exactly what you said. You said something about here I am these years later. I kinda want to hear how many years later. What year was this?

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:24]:

Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. Much more specific. Yeah. So what year was this? 2006, 2007, somewhere around there. Yeah.

David Hutchens [00:13:34]:

Okay. So another skill in this the the story capability is the ability to expand and contract a story. Any story that you tell, there’s a 3 hour version of that story.

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:48]:

Yeah. Right.

David Hutchens [00:13:49]:

I don’t recommend it. I don’t think it can take 3 hours, but but there is a way to tell it that where it takes 3 hours. There’s also a way to tell it in just a few sentences. I think there’s a way to tell a story in 2 sentences. That’s getting pretty extreme, but it can be done because you and I are just talking to each other. It was conversational. It was relaxed. It was a great story.

David Hutchens [00:14:12]:

If you were standing on a stage, then we we might wanna look at how would we contract that Story. How how would we tell it faster? I think in a leadership context, if we’re trying to exercise influence, I think most effective leadership stories are about 2 minutes long, 3 minutes, 90 seconds, some somewhere in that space. 5 minutes for a lot of applications starts feeling a little bit long. If you go 7 minutes, you better know what you’re doing. Mhmm. Right? So I think that was great for a conversation. If you were standing on a stage, I’d say, how could we tighten that up? And the way I would do that is -here’s one of my little secret tricks is there’s there’s a point in the story that I’m looking for. And when I hear it, I know what the story is about.

David Hutchens [00:15:03]:

And there usually and we talked about this a little while ago before we start recording, right, the challenge and the choice. Every story has a challenge and a choice, and every good story does. And once I hear those 2 things, I say, okay. That’s the heart of the story. If we just at least get those 2 things in there, Then a lot of the stuff around it, we could probably start editing. Challenge. You had a sales job that put you in the car 3 to 4 hours a day and your brain was turning into mush, and there was this new concept at the time called podcasting. Choice. I said to myself, there’s something in this technology that would be really helpful to me and I bet it would be helpful to a lot of people.

David Hutchens [00:15:49]:

And now here I am 17 years later bringing the same principles that started- right? So there there’s the challenge and the choice.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:57]:

Yeah.

David Hutchens [00:15:58]:

That’s the heart of your story. Right? There’s there’s this need that you felt and so you did something about it And now you’ve got your whole vocation, your career revolves around that moment that you discovered sitting on the highway in in South Los Angeles. Yeah. So now that we know that, if you were telling a 1 minute version, what’s some of the stuff that we could cut out?

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:25]:

Oh, the the thing I’d cut out, that sounded a little long to me as I was saying it, which I think is like a really good indicator that it’s probably almost certainly sounding long to someone else is, like, the details about getting the iPod in the car and going to that place. I mean, maybe interesting, like you said, for the 3 hour version of the story, but not essential for the message for 2 minutes up on stage.

David Hutchens [00:16:49]:

Beautiful. So so now we’re seeing how strategic clarity works. Right? Now that we have this awareness of, oh, so that’s what the story is about. Now we’ve got this clarity. Maybe we don’t need the iPod in the glove compartment, and I agree.

David Hutchens [00:17:02]:

It was a cool detail. But if we’re going for efficiency, that might be one of the things that we cut out.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:08]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was listening thinking like, okay. I didn’t like, even as I was saying it, I’m like, okay. I’m getting a little long on this point. I don’t necessarily and you I could never have said that, and the message is the same, and the story is, I think just as good without it.

David Hutchens [00:17:23]:

Yeah. Where you want to land is today, there are 3 principles in how I do this podcasting work, and I discovered them at the very beginning when I first started doing this work. So we wanna hear those 3 principles, and then when you call them out at the end, beautiful.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:39]:

Love it. This is so, like I mean, I think this just speaks to the importance of saying these out loud out and practicing it. I mean, as many years as I taught some of these skills at Carnegie and, as much as I’ve coached other people on doing this, there’s something about, like, when it’s your own story, you telling it like so many things in life, David. Like, it’s always easy when it’s someone else to, like, offer the objective perspective, but it’s yours. Just saying it out loud, getting feedback from someone, trying different iterations of it, tightening up like you said, like, 2 minutes. Great. So so helpful.

David Hutchens [00:18:17]:

And it’s it’s vulnerable stuff. You’re you’re sharing a piece of who you are and a piece of your life.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:22]:

And Yeah.

David Hutchens [00:18:22]:

I’m the coach who’s who’s saying, hey. We can cut out some of those details. I always feel weird about that. But if we are going for influence An impact, then then we we wanna have that conversation. And I hope what’s happening right now is that your audience is thinking about the the leader with conviction, the why I’m here story because all of you have this story. You have lots of stories about this. Tell me about a moment that brought you into this work, a moment where you noticed a need, where you felt something was missing and you said, I need to do something about this. That’s a great story about leadership and discovery and learning, and I don’t know about the rest of your listeners, when I was listening me to you tell that story, it never occurred to me that that was self aggrandizing or that you were talking about yourself too much.

David Hutchens [00:19:13]:

I was engaged. I was seeing who you are, what brings you into this work, and it’s really compelling. So listeners, I hope you’re reflecting on what would your version of the why I’m here, a leader with conviction story sound like.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:29]:

Yeah. It’s just so great. And the the piece that’s really helpful for me is sorta like what you just said. And I think I said this early on. These stories particularly, the 4 I pulled that are Stories that are about me or about you, if you’re pulling the story is, it’s not we’re not telling it to talk about ourselves. Yes, You are telling a story about yourself, but there’s a point behind it. And for me, that makes the and I think that’s where the mindset from a coaching standpoint of telling someone, getting feedback on it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:57]:

It’s not like they’re criticizing you per se. It’s they’re helping you to craft a message that’s ultimately gonna be useful to others. This is a- yes, it’s a story about you, but you’re telling it for the benefit of moving others forward of helping an organization, helping a team. And for me, that’s really helpful to be in that mindset when I think about getting feedback and coaching and making it better because then it’s like, the person who’s supporting me on this is not criticizing me. They’re helping me to actually refine my message to help it land in the world better. And if I think about it through that bigger nobler motive, Then it’s like, okay, now I’m just, like, working on a project to do something that’s helpful to the world.

Dave Stachowiak [00:20:39]:

Right?

David Hutchens [00:20:40]:

Right. And and And by cutting out the the detail about the iPod Nano and the glove compartment, we’re we’re not we’re not restricting your voice. We are amplifying your Voice. By by saying less that is strategically intentional, we actually hear you more.

Dave Stachowiak [00:20:59]:

Yeah. Nice. I love it. I love it. Okay. Should we look at one of the other ones?

David Hutchens [00:21:05]:

I can go all day. Let’s do another story. But what’s the next one from the deck?

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:09]:

Okay. So I also pulled and by the way, we’ll we’ll share how to how folks can get these, here at the end for the deck. I pulled card 11, which is eureka moments of inspiration, and the subtext is how we found the answer. And so, David, you could set up when do you pull this? Like, what’s kind of the message of this card? And then I can I can share the story that came to mind for me?

David Hutchens [00:21:37]:

This is one of my favorite stories that leaders and teams are missing all the time, the Eureka story, the discovery story. And and the idea here is I work with a lot of innovation teams and a lot of technology teams and product teams, and they all get really invested in the thing, you know, the the act or the the new feature or the new offering or the new value proposition, and that’s what they talk about, and they should. They work really hard on that. And and what this story would suggest is that you step back and kinda peel back the curtain and let us see what it looks like when you are thinking, when you’re solving problems, when exercising creativity, don’t just show us the thing you brought forward, show us the process of creating that made this thing possible. Because the idea is that markets aren’t Just buying your innovation. What they’re really buying is your team, your team’s ability to solve really tough problems. So bring that part into the message. So that’s the idea of the Eureka discovery story.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:44]:

Yeah. Okay. And I did, like the other one, when I pulled this, I thought of something right away. And I’m thinking about this now, and I actually was thinking about telling a few parts the story, but I’m thinking about your coaching from the 1st story, which is 2 minutes. Right? Keeping the essential thing. So I’ve already, like, in my mind, edited out a few of the other pieces I was going to share in the story, and I’m gonna try to, like, see if I can zero in on that 2 minute mark, what’s the real essential point of this and the message behind it?

David Hutchens [00:23:17]:

Excellent. So the your storytelling muscle is already getting stronger. Excellent.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:21]:

Yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, let’s see how I do. So this when I pulled this card, I thought about being in grad school, And I got my doctoral degree in organizational leadership. And the best part of that program was when we’d be sitting around in a room. And in fact, I remember really clearly one day sitting in a room with all the other, like, these really amazing talented students who are all practitioners in their field, and we were talking about a very specific theory from the class. And someone mentioned, here’s what I’m dealing with in my organization right now.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:00]:

And we had, like, a 10 minute conversation about how this thing we were learning really applied to this person’s work specifically today. And I thought, wow. This is so interesting to, like, get into the details of what they’re facing and how this material would apply, and I was so curious, like, what would happen. And then the professor said, we have to move on because we need to get to the next assignment or the next topic. And that happened a few times, and I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if we could have a learning experience where rather than having all the theory and the book and the papers and the group projects and all those things that the learning experience could be centered around those real practical problem solving conversations. And that was the inspiration for the Academy, and it is what the academy is today in our community It’s zeroing in on getting really smart, talented people together who all have a heart for learning and helping support each other with solving problems and looking at them objectively. And that was the piece for me that was missing in a lot of the higher ed programs that I was in. And so my message is notice what’s not working and how you can make it better, solving problems in whatever venue you’re in opens the door for you to expand your circle of influence.

David Hutchens [00:25:35]:

Applause everybody. Once again, really great story. That one felt tightened up to me. So I I’m already hearing the fruits of our previous conversation. I heard very clearly where you were going with that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:25:51]:

Yeah. And you heard a earlier version of the story, and I had a lot more detail about other things which also were part of the story, But actually, we’re ancillary. And when you were giving me coaching on the first story, I was already in my mind editing out all those other things to make it fit into the 2 minutes.

David Hutchens [00:26:11]:

Right. So, again, I’m listening for the Challenge and the Choice. Maybe your your audience was as well. And and to me, the challenge, there’s a great line in your story. It’s when the Professor said it’s time to move on.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:26]:

Yeah.

David Hutchens [00:26:26]:

And you were frustrated by that. That was the heart of the story. The professor says it’s time to move on. You were frustrated by that. Here’s one of the pro tips that I give to leaders all the time is make sure we drop emotion words into the story. I can’t remember if you actually said frustrated or if you just kind of created the sense you were frustrated, but I did pick that up. I tell leaders, say the word. I hear a lot of leaders tell stories where they strip out all of the emotion language, all of the emotion data, and we need that. There’s actually science that shows that the reason we have emotions is it’s how we understand what things mean.

David Hutchens [00:27:08]:

We don’t know what it means until we know what it feels like. The professor said it’s time to move on. Oh, were you excited that he was so efficient? No. You were frustrated. You wanted to go deeper. We need that information. So this is one of my pro tips for all of your listeners. Drop in these emotion words.

David Hutchens [00:27:26]:

My boss was surprised. The client was cautiously optimistic. I was mad. Right? We don’t know what it means until we know what it feels like. We need this emotion content. So that was a a really powerful part of your story. I sensed You’re wanting something different.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:44]:

Yeah. And to your point, I don’t think I mean, we we’ll go back and listen, but I don’t think I said the word frustration.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:50]:

I mean, it you could pick it up in the context, but what great coaching to and I’ve also heard that, David, like, I’ll hear someone tell a story, and in their minds, they’ve really gotten into, like, the emotion and how and it’s not clear to the rest of us listening. Okay. What came out of that moment for you and just like saying the word out loud. And I’m sort of guessing too, like, even if you say the word, I was frustrated, in a really monotone way. Just saying the word actually makes it really clear even if you’re not able to convey the emotion as much with your voice or your body language, that just saying it is actually better than anything because it conveys that there is emotion in the story.

David Hutchens [00:28:35]:

Absolutely. Again, I I don’t know if you said the word frustrated or not, but I picked it up from the context. So you don’t have to say the word, but I think it’s really helpful thing to do.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:44]:

cardsYeah. That’s super helpful. Super helpful. David, you being so gracious with your time, two times over, to help me to refine these stories a bit. I will say that I have the, speaking of stories, I have the story deck always close to me. I keep in my closet here off our studio a about half, couple dozen books and most everything I do digital these days. But one of the physical things that I always have near me is the story deck cards. And the reason I do is because this comes up in the context of conversations with our members all the time. And fairly regularly, a couple times a month, I go into my closet and I pulled down the story deck, sometimes in conversation with members, and we end up Pulling out some of these cards, using them as starting points for story, it’s such an incredible I mean, the design on the cards is the font.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:43]:

I mean, it’s all, like, brilliant in addition to the content of it. And so we have an invitation for folks is to utilize this as a starting point, and I have lost count even in the last few months how many times I’ve heard someone say, I wanna do a better job at telling stories in my organization. I know I need to. I know it’s an important skill for a leader to have. I don’t need to be on stage and to do all the fancy things I’d see like an actor do, but I just need to practically do a little better job with this. And I think this is such a great starting point for that. And so you’ve actually been so generous to provide a coupon code that I think is gonna be active for the next month or so when this airs for folks who would like to pick up the story deck. And you have another resource for folks too, so I’ll hand it over to you to share a bit about, like, how folks could grab each one.

David Hutchens [00:30:32]:

So so just to be clear, for those of your listeners who don’t know the story deck, it’s what it sounds like. It’s a deck of cards with dozens of ideas of story types that you could be telling. And and it’s stories that you can connect to innovation work or to sales work or to culture and belonging. And as Dave has illustrated today, there’s also individual stories in the deck that you can be telling about yourself. So the leadership story deck is available on my website. It’s also available on the American site of amazon.com. And there’s a 20% discount on the story deck for the next 30 days after this podcast launches. Use the checkout code, and this is the same on Amazon and also on my website, CFL24.

David Hutchens [00:31:22]:

CFL as in coaching for leaders, 24. That’ll give you 20% off of the story deck. There’s another resource that’s completely free. It’s called the story canvas. So we use the story deck to identify the narrative assets that we wanna bring forward. So that’s the strategic selection piece. After we identify the stories with the deck, how do we tell the story with impact? The the story canvas is a visual framework. It’s a large document in PDF.

David Hutchens [00:31:51]:

You can have it for free where you can then build your story with sticky notes by following the framework on the canvas. And when leaders do that, I’ve used it with leaders all around the world, when they build their story on the canvas and then tell it, they find that the story lands with a lot more impact. So the story canvas is yours for free. To receive that, simply send me an email, david@davidhutchens.com. David Hutchens. Hutchins is spelled with an e. not an i. We’ll have the links in the show notes so that you can go check that out. Send me an email directly, and I’ll send you the story canvas and also some other free storytelling goodies as well.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:33]:

David, you’ve always been so generous with your resources and your time. And I think almost every time you’ve come on the podcast, you’ve made the invitation for folks to reach out to you on email. And I know you get flooded with emails after our episodes airs.

David Hutchens [00:32:47]:

It’s crazy what happens.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:48]:

Yeah. But I you also are so gracious to- I’ve Know many of our members who’ve had long conversations with you about just the work you’re doing and using the story canvas, and, I’m so grateful to you for your generosity and taking the time to help us all get better at this. And like I mentioned earlier, it’s a skill that we all wanna get better at or at least most of us. It’s not something we were taught in school. You make it easy for us. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom and your work. Super appreciate it.

David Hutchens [00:33:17]:

What a pleasure. And if you wanted to go for a round 3 on this, I would do this. Thank you, Dave.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:24]:

We’ve got more cards. So we’ll inevitably have another episode here at some point. So, yeah. Let’s just plan on it. I can’t wait.

David Hutchens [00:33:31]:

Definitely.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:38]:

If this conversation was helpful to you, a few related episodes I’d recommend. One recommendation is find the storytelling topic area inside of the free membership, you’ll find all the past episodes with David Hutchens, so many of them a great complement to this conversation. And in addition to that, several other guests that complement this message as well. One of them was episode 268, Ignite Change Through Storytelling with Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez were my guests on that episode. We talked about their work at the firm Duarte, which is probably the top firm representing leaders and organizations and helping them to give an incredibly powerful presentations and to do it well, and they’ve been doing that for so many years. In episode 268, we talked about some of the tactics and frameworks that they help leaders to utilize around storytelling and change. It’s a constant thing that so many leaders are facing, episode 268 on how to approach that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:35]:

Also recommended episode 635, how to start better with peers. Michael Bungay Stanier was my guest on that episode. And in addition to talking about how to start better with peers or really any relationship, one of the things Michael and I talked about in that conversation is the practice that some leaders utilize of having a leadership manual. Here’s how to work with me. And speaking of making things not about yourself, one of the practices that’s always landed a little weird with me is when someone sends me one of those or I’ve seen a a leader utilize them and they have a document that just sort of send out to people and expect that they read it. And Michael and I talked about what’s maybe a better way to approach that. Yes. To utilize that starting point with some of those ideas, but to actually sit down and to have a two way conversation about building a great relationship.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:23]:

Key with peers, but really key in so many leadership relationships. Tons there that relate directly to this conversation as well. Episode 635 for that. And then finally, I’d recommend episode 648, What Vulnerable Leadership Sounds Like. Jacob Morgan was my guest on that conversation. And we talked about how vulnerability is a great idea in concept, but It’s actually not sufficient by itself and not even wise to do just vulnerability for vulnerability sake. Vulnerability needs to also have a leadership component to it. You hear that echoed in David’s message all the time, not only in this episode, but all the past episodes.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:03]:

Yes. Tell a story, but there needs to be a point to the story. What’s the leadership message behind this? Why am I telling the story about myself or about the organization or about a team member? What’s the leadership component to that? In episode 648, Jacob and I talked about that extensively as well, making sure that there is a point behind that story. All of those episodes you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website. And if you haven’t already, I’m inviting you to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com. The free membership is gonna give you access to the entire library searchable by topic for all the interviews I’ve aired since 2011. As I mentioned, one of those key topic areas is storytelling. We’ve had dozens of conversations like this over the years, many with David, but many with other guests too on the topic of storytelling, but there’s dozens of other topic areas in there as well.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:53]:

And that way, you can track down the thing that is most helpful to you right now. One of the other key benefits inside of the free membership is full and free access to my library. I database everything I find on the Internet that I think would be valuable to you in some way. Everything. Podcast episodes, articles, resources, YouTube videos, I share those in the weekly leadership guides that go out each week, but I also database them. And I’ve been doing that for years. Free access to all of that when you set up your free membership at coaching for leaders.com. It’s a great way to track down credibility pieces, resources that’d be helpful to you in your work and not just leadership, by the way.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:34]:

I have database so many topics in there. When you set up your free membership, just go over to Dave’s library. You will see, searchable by hashtag all the resources you can find inside of whatever topic you’re looking for. So Again, coaching for leaders.com to set up your free membership. And if you’ve had your free membership for a bit and you’d like more, Coaching for Leaders Plus may be the next step for you. One of my favorite things that we do every single month is we get together a group of our academy and pro members for a live conversation on video with 1 of the past guests who’ve been on the podcast. Most recently, we talked with Eric Pleiner who joined, me a while back on the show talking about how to make decisions when other stakeholders are involved. But the great thing is each month when we do that on video, we get our members together, and they’re the ones asking the questions.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:26]:

And we get really tactical and specific to practical situations. Well, how do I utilize this in my organization right now? Or here’s what I’m running into with my team. Talk about how to take which you’ve heard on the podcast and really put it into action. Each month, we call that the expert chat. All of them have been recorded for the last 3 years. We have new ones coming out each month, And those recordings, full access to them is part of Coaching for Leaders Plus. It’s just one of the key benefits. So if you’d like to find out more, Go over to coaching for leaders dot plus.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:56]:

All the details are there. Coaching for leaders is edited by Andrew Kroger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next Monday, I’m glad to welcome Joan Garry to the show. She’s gonna be with us to discuss with me how an executive aligns with a board. Join me for that conversation with Joan, and I’ll see you back with her on Monday.