Storyliving

Pursue a bold and fun life. Tell more magnetic stories. Awaken change in the world.

Hey, before we begin, if you’re a podcast person, you may love to listen to this newsletter on your favorite platform. Click here to check out episode 7.​

English was always my worst subject growing up.

I absolutely hated it.

But in high school I had to take two creative writing classes. In one of those classes we did a creative writing story challenge and we did it March Madness bracket style.

You would submit your story anonymously and go head to head with another story. The class would read them and vote for the best one.

If you won, you would move on to the next round in the bracket.

I made it to the finals. The championship match up.

Unfortunately word got out. The guy I was up against was the popular guy and everybody found that whose story was whose.

So most people voted for the popular guy and I lost.

But then the teacher came up to me and he said, “Matt, your story was way better. It’s the best story in the class by far. You’re getting an A.”

In 2016 I rode my bike across America.

Even though I was riding an average of 65 miles a day in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity, utterly exhausted, I still wrote a blog after every single day.

When I look back at that blog, I wrote some amazing stories.

In 2019 when I quit engineering and moved to Colorado to be a personal trainer I began my content creation journey.

This was a bit before they invented reels so it was just a photo and a caption. And when you read those captions they are all mostly just beautiful stories

In 2020 I started my online business became a branding coach. Branding is a host of a lot of different topics. So I taught a lot of different things.

By September of 2024 I was like, “I want to be known for something. The way James Clear is known for habits, Brene Brown is known for vulnerability and Ryan Holiday is known for stoicism. What is my thing?”

As I presented myself with that question, all of a sudden during that time I started getting a lot of reflections from people that I’m a great storyteller. And while part of branding was storytelling, it wasn’t a big thing I was leaning into.

Then later that week I go into a group therapy and the therapist is like, “you are a masterful storyteller. There’s a huge gap in the market for the way people talk about storytelling and you should really be the storytelling guy.”

and I’m like, whoa. this is really interesting.

Then I start to reflect back on all the webinars I’ve hosted over the last four years.

Everything from creating consistent content, branding, mission statements, launching and sales.

But every time I hosted a storytelling training I would get about quadruple the amount of sign ups.

and I was like whoa, this is really interesting.

Then I went deeper into my past. I started to uncover all the stories I just laid out for you here.

It’s true in high school I got A’s in those creative writing classes.

When I rode my bike across America the blog is beautifully written.

When I started my journey of becoming a content creator, I was just naturally telling stories.

Not only that, but those are some of my favorite memories.

I love writing that story in high school. I love riding my bike across America. I loved pursuing my passion as a personal trainer.

and I was like whoa, this is really interesting.

You see, the thing that you will get known for for changing the world is the thing that has already come easy to you in your life.

It’s your natural gift.

But we do such a good job of dismissing it being our thing because we’ve been taught that everything has to be hard and has to be a struggle to be worthy.

In reality your gift to the world is the thing that naturally comes easy to you. The fun part of the process is now learning how to offer that gift to the rest of the world, which will take some work. But it will be fun work because you naturally love this thing. You’ll be excited about diving into it. Journaling about your process. Reading books about it. Listening to podcasts about it. Then journaling about how everything you just learned is related.

If you have no clue what this is for you, step 1 is to begin telling more stories.

As you have seen today, your stories hold the bread crumbs of the thing that has come easy to you.

The more you tell stories the more your brain will automatically start connecting dots.

In fact, I told the story about the high school story bracket 2 years ago in this reel, but the takeaway from that video is different.

I posted that on April 16th, 2024 and I made all these connections about storytelling in September of 2024.

Just because you tell a story once doesn’t mean you’re done telling it. As you evolve so do the meaning of your stories.

There are three ways to help you uncover your natural gift to the world. I just modeled the first way which is to tell more stories.

The more you tell your stories the more obvious and clear you’ll be able to identify the gift that’s right under your nose.

The second thing is it could be what you loved as a kid but wasn’t nurtured. Sometimes it’s a two-fer like how I was great at math my whole childhood but not great at english. Then I did well in these creative writing classes, but it wasn’t a subject in school that anyone nurture me to pursue, so I didn’t lean in to that gift.

The third thing is that it is what people already reflect in you or come to you for. People can usually see us better than we can see ourselves.

This third option pairs well with number 1 because the more you tell stories the more you allow your full self to be witnessed by others. The more people can fully see you, the better than can reflect back your natural gifts.

If you want to go deeper into these steps, check out episode 7 of the Art of Storyliving podcast.​

If you want to learn how to uncover and tell better stories so you can become known for your natural gifts, join the Storyliving Bootcamp waitlist. It’s a 4-week live program and I am starting the next round in May. Spots are limited. I’ll send out first access to the waitlist. To get on the waitlist with one click, tap here.​

Thanks for being here.

With love,

Matt