Do you feel uncomfortable when someone talks about skin colour, disability, or even a seemingly frivolous thing like absentmindedness, because the comment is up close and personal?
Do you stay away from family or social gathering to avoid a blindside on your unemployment or single status or not being in a high earning job?
Every human being has a sore spot, a painful secret or a challenging past. The fact is, our success depends on how effectively we handle the perceived weakness, the chinks in our armor.
I smiled approvingly when someone said this: “The hidden value in every human being is waiting to be discovered. Success is nothing but discovering that value and developing it.”
As a human being, we all have personal value. After all, we mean something to someone, somewhere? So why should we readily accept the way the world defines who we are? When the world says your skin colour, your community, your disability status is inferior, it’s time we question that idea.
If we want the world to change its definition of us, it’s important we personally change the way we view our own identity. That means, we cast the perceived weaknesses in a positive light.
It’s not a crime to be unemployed or disabled. Right? Being unemployed gives you the freedom to design your life pretty much the way you want.
If you don’t believe this, listen to What Steve Jobs has to say. Now, I’m not in awe of Steve Jobs because of his wealth, the cool gadgets he designed or because he said things like “connecting the dots.” I’m in awe because Steve Jobs used his story to connect with the world.
“I never graduated from college,” Jobs told the group of Stanford graduates in his famous and frequently watched commencement speech in 2005. “This’s the closest I’ve ever been to graduation.”
If being unemployed is embarrassing, think of telling that you’re a not a graduate to a bunch of graduates from the world’s leading university?
Jobs talks excitedly about quitting his college course and how it freed him up to learn calligraphy, which later helped him design the fonts on Mac (the reference to Microsoft copying the fonts is truly funny).
You can look at pretty much anything in a positive light. “Gaining experience after years of work is like buying a comb after you balded,” said another executive, meaningfully rubbing his hairless scalp. “But hey, I can pass on the comb to someone with hair.”
Without a sore spot, , life can’t be challenging. And if you think the so-called weakness is a tragedy, the greater tragedy is spending life without challenges.
So, be proud of your identity, even if people around you call it a limitation. It hardens you up and motivates you to work just to show all those people that you always back yourself to do great things.
The world chooses to see the negatives of your identity, but you, and you alone, know the positives.
Storytellers often say “Change your story; change your life.” But I often tell myself: ‘It’s not changing the story; it’s changing the way you look at it.’
And this’s the key. If you want to convince a potential employer, an investor, a customer or a community whose support you want for a cause, look at yourself positively. Talk about your identity freely; tell them how it helped you gain a unique understanding of even the most common life experience.
This’s where storytelling can help.
As a journalist for 20 years, I hunted for good personal stories and spent a lifetime building the techniques to tell them effectively so that readers get inspired. Anyone telling a story needs the right ideas to inspire their audience. Sign up to my emails on storytelling tips, delivered right to your inbox twice a week.
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