A couple of posted items talk about the value of telling your own story.

a goodman's wonderful newsletter, Free Range Thinking, tells of Dr. David Olds, founder of the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends nurses into the home of low-income first-time mothers. As ambassador of the program, Dr. Olds was often called on to speak about it but reluctant to tell his own story of why he founded the organization (he had seen the effects in a daycare center on children for whom many problems could have been averted with early intervention).

Once Dr. Olds learned to tell his own story, he said, "Telling my story allowed my own sense of purpose and emotion to get communicated in the context of the presentation. As a result, I was a much more persuasive speaker."

Similarly, Karen Hegmann, as quoted by Neil Davey, talks about George Cohon of McDonald's and how he "used his history of how he got to where he was to help his employees connect with the company, to give them that sense of history." Bringing the personal into a company history resonates because of employees' ability to identify with the class archetypes of "the hero/leader, the obstacle that the hero has to face, and the antagonist that is trying to take over the organisation."