Each one of us, whether we’re small business owners or not, has had our fair share of tough times. Perhaps we’ve been through a painful divorce, or seen one of our business ventures fail. These challenging experiences and potentially painful memories can have a negative effect on our future endeavours. But, that doesn’t necessary have to be the case. We can use these experiences to help both ourselves and many other people who have been through, or are going through, similar situations.

With us for this episode of the number one small business podcast is Stacy Curtis, who has found that sharing our stories can make us heal and be able to handle difficult times better in the future. She now works with others to take the nuggets of wisdom buried deep down in memories of challenging times, extract them and present them to a worldwide audience. The things that we learn during the dark days needn’t drag us down for the rest of our lives and if we learn to think about and articulate them, they can be beneficial to us and many others. It’s all about how we view these experiences. And one of the best ways to create enough distance to really see them is to get them down on paper. By taking a step back and giving ourselves a new perspective on difficult times, we can start to extract the lessons that we, and others, can learn.

Only by looking at past troubles or mistakes in the right way can we start to make changes to ourselves and our businesses. Stacy is going to take us through some techniques that have worked for her and some that she espouses on her podcast and her training site.

Issue Challenged in this Small Business Podcast

How do we look inwards, draw on our wisdom and create something memorable?

About Stacy

Stacy Curtis is a writer, podcaster, teacher and entrepreneur. She is the mind behind the successful Write of your Life podcast that encourages people around the world to find their life themes and transform their knowledge and life experiences into wisdom that can be used by others to improve their lives and businesses.

Stacy joins us for this episode of your favourite small business podcast to share her insights into how writing about your life can have tangible benefits, not only for your wellbeing but also for your business.

Actionable Tips

* Discover your life theme. Take the time to go through the exercise. Once you know you can work to enhance it or change it. You have to be brave to do that, but the benefits could change your life.

* Think about which aspects of your story you’d like to change for the future. Most of us want to change something. Discovering your life theme will help you identify which aspects you want to change.

* Start taking notice of what’s happening around you and write a little bit about it each week. You need to start taking notice and making the time to write about it.

Top Quotes

* “Studies have shown that writing about your life and reflecting on your life can boost your immune system.”

* “Human beings have an amazing capacity to pull the wool over their own eyes.”

* “Writing helps you take knowledge and turn it into wisdom.”

* “What makes a good story is the details.”

* “What is the one piece of wisdom that you want people to take away? Find that and then you can add details that are specific to the medium you are using.”

* “Writing about or reflecting on your life can be the most effective fifteen minutes of your day. It gets all the junk out of your head and eventually you’ll get to some of the good stuff, the lessons you have learned. These are the lessons that you can then write about and craft into a compelling story that you can use in your business.”

* “We all go through life feeling that we’re so busy, but while you’re doing that,