Stories Mean Business - Nick Warren

In his book, The Bed of Procrustes, Nassim Taleb writes:

"Decline starts with the replacement of dreams with memories and ends with the replacement of memories with other memories."

Three days ago, I came across a photo taken in 1992. It's me, with my girlfriend at the time, snuggled together on the edge of Timanfaya National Park in Lanzarote. It's a few weeks before I'm due to sail across the Atlantic, which will ultimately doom the relationship – but there's a wonderful sense of love, joy and optimism in that photo.

The memory triggered an obvious question – would that 21 year-old recognise the person he's become – thirty years later?

Another passage from Taleb's short book – which I bought and read yesterday – gave me pause:

"... talk to no ordinary man over forty. A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty."

We laugh about men who have a mid-life crisis – who buy a Porsche or leave their wives to find validation (and eventually desolation) elsewhere, but I had my own crisis of sorts. I wasn't interested in cars or other women (I struck gold first time) ... but I did feel that I was dying a little inside. The truth of Taleb's exaggeration, felt perfectly real to me.

Part of what I did – then for myself, now for others – was about reconnecting with the heroic aspect of life.

That's what happens when we tell our story.

As we tell it to others, we are telling it to ourself.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/755:-Dreams-or-Memories

Yesterday, I talked about the power of telling stories within stories.

Today, I want to relate that to our world – to business.

Why bother? What's the value?

It's a good question, but I want to turn it around and ask you one.

How do you show up in the world, right now?

Here's how a lot of people do it.

"I'm Nick, and I do X."

If you jump onto LinkedIn and do some searches you'll see this all over the place.

We show up as offers, not people.

And that's a problem because a) everyone's doing it, and b) it doesn't really work. These profiles are easy to bounce off. If the person glancing at you doesn't need your particular thing at that moment, they're gone.

Which, ironically, is why so many people use that format in the first place ... fear that if we don't PROMOTE OURSELVES right then and there, we'll lose the chance forever.

But that's bullshit.

That's short-term thinking.

And even if it was true, do you want to live that way?

Despite the gurus teaching us about funnels and short-term tactics, we have no way of knowing how we might connect with other human beings. My About page showcases an origin story, but it also includes stuff about sailing, Mensa, building renovation and travel.

Offers are short-term and (often) two-dimensional. We need to be deeper than that. I demand that you are deeper than that.

This is life.

You are more than your offer.

You are more than one story.

As the poet said, "I contain multitiudes."

And so do you.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/754:-You-Are-Not-Your-Offer

I've talked about the power of callbacks before, but today we're talking about another way of layering meaning into your mythology ... telling tales within tales.

You can find this in The Bible, Harry Potter or ... our subject today ... The Canterbury Tales.

What is the power of stories within stories?

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/753:-I-Beg-Your-Pardon

In Superman 2 (1980), Kal-El, does something that is both brilliant and terrible.

And it shows why we need to bring our real selves to our work, day in and day out.

Episode home:

A quick note to say that the Tell Your Story course is live ... and I'm really proud of it.

It embodies 3 principles I’ve built my businesses on: Storytelling, Simplicity, and Momentum.

And I know that some people are really going to hate it.

There are no pretty worksheets, no video lessons, and no walled gardens to make us all feel cliquey-special.

This isn’t about that.

This is about the hard, honest work of crafting our origin story.

7 days. 8 emails. 11,000 words. 5-6 hours work.

That’s the distance between you and your story.

Episode home:

In my origin story, I talk about the realisation that I'd built my first business by telling stories.

You might think it a little weird that it took so long – given what I do now – but the truth is that ’our story’ didn't feel that remarkable at the time. We were a web design agency that built websites.

You may also remember the metaphor I've mentioned before ... that a great brand is like a bell. Wherever you hit it, it rings the same note.

The thing I'd missed back then, was that the story we were telling wasn't about the product (web designers were everywhere) ... but the service ... over months, years and eventually decades. That's what made us remarkable.

And the service wasn't a tactic. It was who we were. So it didn't matter where or when someone came into contact with us.

They got the real deal.

This is episode 750 of the podcast.

Whenever you joined us along the way, you've gotten the real me. I'm proud of that ... and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/750:-Where-Did-We-Meet?

Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to a book called The Extended Mind, by Annie Murphy Paul. The subtitle was "The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain".

I haven't read the book, but I will. I have a long history of manipulating the spaces about me to support whatever the work is – and I bet you do too.

As this is the World's Slackest Podcast, I also talk about the process of creating the audio, and shout out to a couple of friends – Steve and James – who've helped make it better.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/749-Thinking-Outside-The-Body

30 years ago, The Freshers’ Fair felt like a seething cauldron of possibility. It was my first week at university and all the clubs, cliques and societies were vying for my attention.

But the other thing I remember – my clearest memory actually – is the huge stalls selling posters. Hundreds of cheaply printed, mass produced images of bands, movies and memes.

But of course, they weren't really selling posters ... they were selling identity, signalling and status.

And we – 18 years old – were the perfect audience.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/747:-Identity-and-the-Freshers-Fair

Short-term thinkers focus on tasks. Smart people focus on asset building.

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/747:-Building-Your-Assets

Here's a couple of reviews I just read on Amazon:

Izzy wizzy, let's get bored really quickly.

rubbish stuff

As you may have guessed, these were for Harry Potter and the Philisophers Stone. Right now, on Amazon.co.uk, that book has 36,000+ reviews with an average of 4.8 Stars.

The lesson? You can't make something that everyone likes. As Seth Godin says, in Small Is The New Big:

"When I get a bad review, my feelings are hurt. After all , it would be nice if a critic said that a title of mine was a breakthrough, an inspirational, thoughtful book that explains how everything, from politics to wine, is marketed through stories . The lesson here is this: If I had written a boring book, there'd be no criticism. No conversations. The products and services that get talked about are the ones that are worth talking about."

Episode home:

https://StoriesMeanBusiness.com/podcast/https://746:-The-Bad-Review