Become a masterful storyteller and build a deep connection with yourself and your audience

This took me 5 min and 19 sec to read

I promised an update on the an outline of the StoryGrowth cohort mastermind launching this fall (also a general framework that would support you regardless if you join the cohort), but it’s feeling rushed so I’m going to take a bit more time.

Instead, let me share with you a very clear pattern I am recognizing this year with my clients, the legacy builders.

To be super clear, I say legacy builders because this simply doesn’t apply to you if you’re not interested in helping people with the deeper inner work, which to me, is the biggest challenge that stops people from doing what they need to do to get what they want.

Lets go.

Every business exists to solve a problem.

The best businesses have a unique zone of genius (ZoG) to help solve that problem.

Lots of businesses can solve the same problem and owning your ZoG can help you differentiate yourself.

For example, lots of companies can solve the problem of scaling a business from 10k/mo to 100k/mo.

There are many ways to solve that problem (ZoGs): ads, automations, email marketing, organic social, ads, hiring, etc.

Most companies stop there.

But the heart-lead entrepreneurs who want to leave a legacy must go deeper.

At the end of the day, your zone of genius is simply a vehicle for you to leave your legacy.

Let’s take me for example.

The problem I solve: Content has low engagement

My specific zone of genius: Storytelling

Put in a statement: I help legacy builders create content that reflects the depth of their work and build a beloved brand.

This isn’t really about content though.

Content is simply the vehicle I’ve found myself teaching because I’ve solved that problem for myself.

The real Guiding Principle behind my work is to help people boldly own and pursue their truest desires.

Why?

Because it’s always been my biggest struggle.

I knew I wanted I wanted to be a personal trainer in 2008 as a freshman in college but because of society and parents and all that, I told myself, “that’s not a real career path.”

On I went to be a civil engineer in NYC only to quit in 2018 and move to Colorado to become a full time personal trainer.

A decade!!!!!! To pursue the life I always knew I wanted!!!!!

All because I didn’t trust myself.

But I finally did it.

And I’ve been working on doing it quicker and more boldly ever since.

And along the journey, one of the ways I’ve done that is learning how to do it effectively with my content.

So now I help my clients articulate the depth of their work online by learning to trust themselves.

But guess what?

I struggle to trust myself ALL 👏 THE 👏 TIME 👏

It doesn’t look like it to you, from over there, but it’s challenging.

That’s the whole reason for the Voldemort Project. It’s fucking scary. This isn’t easy for me. I try to make sure I express that in my videos too.

Also, don’t miss the fact that it took me almost two years to start the Voldemort Project.

I tell my clients all the time, “the thing you are stuck on is the thing you can share on social media. By sharing, you will take your power back and move through it faster.”

Yet here I was… deep down knowing I need to share about my business growth… and I buried. It was too scary. I didn’t trust that I could openly talk about my financial goals and that I could hit the goals OR, worse, if I publicly failed to reach the goal that it wouldn’t mean the end of me and my business altogether.

This lack of trusting myself, my guiding principle, the thing I help with, is also my biggest block.

Your Guiding Principle is yours too (I share another client example at the end).

That’s why we can feel like imposters.

However, once you bring awareness to your Guiding Principle, you can begin to move through the imposter syndrome more quickly. Your Guiding Principle becomes a source of gold.

I also get to see the areas in which I have trusted myself, know that I have grown and I can help others, and I look forward to opportunities where I can continue to step into a new level of trusting myself.

I get to stop pretending to be the guy who’s figured it all out and is a perfect guru.

I’m not just talking about content or my business either.

I struggle to trust myself most with the people I love.

It’s difficult for me to speak my truth because I don’t want to hurt them (it’s easier to hurt your feelings than my moms 😜)

I’m in Connecticut staying with my parents right now and my mom and I got into a conflict the other night because she felt I don’t communicate with her the way I preach online.

When she told me this my blood started to boil and I can’t remember the last time I felt that.

But she’s right.

I want her to see the world the way I see it so I stop leading with genuine curiosity.

My questions hold a tinge of judgement and frustration.

It’s all because I don’t tell her the truth.

That I behave this way because I don’t feel heard.

So I told her this.

Then I told her what I’d like from her:

• More pausing so I have space to elaborate.
• Ask me more questions to understand what I’m saying instead of going off on another one of her ideas

Later that night we continued to share about our own personal growth journeys and she told me, “you know dad and I are doing the best we can.”

I said, “Isn’t that the tough part about life?”

And she went right into another thought of hers.

I felt tightness in my chest. This is where I shut down with her. And now it became a chance to speak up for once and tell her how she’s making me feel.

I cut her off and said, “this is a great example of what we spoke about earlier. I’m sitting here creating this story that you don’t care to understand what I have to say and so I begin to shut down.”

I reminded her I want space to elaborate or she can simply ask me a question like, “what do you mean by that?”

Then she did it. Right away. She paused and said, “okay” and shut up.

Funny thing is, I hated it!!!

I could feel my stomach twisting.

The silence felt judgmental.

So I told her that too.

And she acknowledged it and didn’t say a word.

More silence. Fuck! I hate it!! hahahaha

I took a deep breath and felt the tightness in my chest dissipate and then was able to share what I meant by “doing our best is the tough part of life,” and we had a great conversation about that.

This was not the first time we’ve talked about communicating better and it won’t be the last. I’ll have to remind her many times and she’ll have to remind me when I am making her feel judged.

This is the beautiful part of our work as legacy builders.

1. Your Guiding Principle doesn’t go away and is likely strongest in the others of your life (content is likely one of those for you).
2. By creating awareness and owning your Guiding Principle you will be calling in opportunities to do more of that work in all areas of life.
3. Doing the work in one area of life accelerates the expansion in all areas of life.
4. The other areas of life you are challenged in will be the things your clients struggle with too and now you get to support them there (nothing in life is separate).
5. The other areas of life you are challenged with get to be potent stories and metaphors you use to connect more deeply with your audience (I just did that with this email).

A client example

I work with one coach who helps women get their period back. Very clear and desirable problem to solve. However, her Guiding Principle is Control.

Control what you eat, how much you exercise, which in turn allows you to control how your body looks which means people will perceive you as a fit healthy person, probably even compliment you on how fit you are, which allows you to feel worthy and loved.

If you gain weight by following the prescription of more food and more rest to get your period back, you will gain weight, have no worth and will not be loved.

So she (and her clients) cling to this control over their food and exercise and all this disregulation leads to a missed period.

My client has stopped clinging to control over exercise and food which is why she teaches it, but when she came to me, she was white knuckling her whole business. Especially content.

The same way her clients try to control the way their body looks, she was doing the same with her content. Gripping to control in hopes that she’d make $250,000 so she could have more freedom in her life.

This was her chance to embody her Guiding Principle.

She already has so many useful tools to release control because she already did it with her relationship to food and exercise. Now she gets to implement these tools toward her relationship with content.

She’ll have to do it again in her new relationship, raising her kids, as the business grows, and all other areas of life.

Your Guiding Principle

I hope this perspective helps you in life and in your content creation.

This work is for you first.

To move through life with joy and love.

As you do, you get to utilize content as a source for full embodiment. It is part of the work. Not separate. Not a means to end. Not: one day I’ll be fully seen in my greatness, have all the clients and money and then I’ll have arrived.

Nope.

A constant upward spiral as you do the work.

Yay.

Lol.

The followers you attract, the engagement you get, the income is all a reflection of who you be.

The work for you is to loving get curious about your guiding principle.

Create a hypothesis.

“Hmm, I think it’s this.”

Then make content about it.

Trust yourself to not have it all right first.

Publicly get it wrong.

Watch your followers admire you being brave enough to go first.

Best of all, watch yourself build unfuckwithable confidence.

Not because you need the validation of 100,000 obsessed followers, but because you became the brave person you admire who doesn’t need the safety of external validation to boldly speak their truth from where they are today.

With love,

Matt

PS - The only person who can take bold action is you, however, we accelerate our growth together. Just like working out next to someone makes you move a little harder. If you like what I shared today and want to join a mastermind of other’s who think like this and have a desire to leave a legacy, click here and I’ll add you to the waitlist of the fall cohort.

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