Coinciding nicely with the publication of my book on storytelling in the job search, Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit wrote recently about the need to “carefully craft your story before heading out on interviews” — especially if you are changing careers.
It’s not easy to convince employers, Levit notes, that your qualifications can transfer seamlessly from your former career to a new one. After all, given a choice of hiring someone whose experience is consistently in the employer’s sector and another candidate attempting to enter that sector, the employer will probably go with the applicant experienced in the field. “I was typically met with incredulity as to why and how an architect could become a brand marketer,” Levit quotes career-changer Beth Zimmerman as saying. Levit elaborates on how Zimmerman overcame the doubt:
Ms. Zimmerman created an interview narrative that drew on her architectural background and related it to her new field. “I explained how architecture and marketing share many of the same core competencies — process-oriented thinking, intensive discovery of a client’s business and an ability to navigate between big ideas and the smallest details,” she says.
… “I recommend writing down your story. Try to stick to the facts, and rather than sulking or blaming other people, put in positive statements about how you turned a challenge into an opportunity,” says Cy Wakeman, a workplace expert. “Employers like candidates who reflect on and learn from their own experiences, take control of their lives, and show that they’re bulletproof.”
Levit emphasizes that “The more drastic your reinvention, the more persuasive your story must be.”
Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?
A: In our world of 24/7 news feeds, social media, etc., we are trying to drink from a firehose of information, and we’re finding ourselves bowled over yet still thirsty. I believe this is because we perceive there is “no time for story” — we’re served up information in a cut-to-the-chase, just-the-facts-ma’am style and it is simply not meeting our needs. The storytelling movement is about restoring — “re-story-ing” if you will — a more authentic means of learning from each other and drawing meaning from our own experiences.
Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?
A: I have been a member of the Association of Personal Historians since 2002. I have attended our annual conference every year, and served on the board 2004-2008. Why? This group has a remarkable culture of generosity. I’ve learned so much from my colleagues in APH.
To be honest, I don’t remember how I first encountered Sarah White. It may have been through learning about the Association of Personal Historians. In any case, I am fascinated by this growing area of storytelling and pleased to have Sarah as a Q&A subject.
This Q&A with Sarah will run over the next five days.
Bio: Sarah White provides writing services for individuals, families, businesses, and communities from her home base in Madison, WI. Typical projects include books, articles, online content, and life histories. She is currently leading reminiscence writing workshops, and producing group publishing projects and public story performances.
Q&A with Sarah White:
Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?
A: For 12 years I directed my own marketing communication firm. After the sale of that business I built a freelance writing/consulting practice, providing marketing communications and how-to advice for small businesses. I was frequently hired to help other authors find publishers and prepare their books for publication.
As my professional pursuits have drawn me in different directions, I have sought a way to bring my many skills “back under one umbrella”. When I learned about the field of personal history, I discovered my professional skills and my personal interests weaving together. Today I help individuals, families, businesses and communities record their stories for presentation in book form and more. I also lead reminiscence writing workshops and hands-on intergenerational programs exploring personal history.
Most of the time, when I read articles on storytelling applications or techniques, my brain clicks into asking: “Can I apply this information to the job search or career advancement?”
Shawn Callahan recently posted an interesting entry on the Anecdote blog, How to tell a story about yourself without sounding like an ego-maniac, in which he discusses “tell[ing] a story that doesn’t sound like you are just blowing your own trumpet.” Shawn is right that in many networking and business situations, you don’t want to put people off by telling a boastful story.
Shawn offers the story he tells on this video of how he got into business storytelling — in which he first meets his eventual mentor Dave Snowden — as an example that reveals a lot about Shawn while deflecting attention away from himself, thus informing his audience about him in a non-egotistical way.
Shawn is describing what Annette Simmons has coined as the “Who Am I Story” and Steve Denning calls the “Who Are You Story.” In my new book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, I call it the Quintessential You Story because its captures the quintessence of who you are.
Keep in mind that in a situation like a job interview, a story like Shawn’s would reveal many job-related characteristics (he lists them in his blog entry) but might be too modest.
I often caution job-seekers to be sure they give themselves sufficient credit in their job-search stories. For example, many stories a job-seeker might tell in an interview deal with team projects and follow a formula like this: The team was faced with [this situation]; the team took [this action]; and [this result] ensued.
Great, but what was the job candidate’s role in the team’s success? The hiring manager will want to know. When describing a team project, make your role clear, and give yourself credit for your contribution to the team’s accomplishment.
The Quintessential You Story that is probably my favorite is, in my opinion, not egotistical, but also does not deflect attention to others. You can read it starting here.
In this story about a young women who befriends an Alzheimer’s patient and fills a special role for him, we learn that the teller, Kellie, is compassionate, curious, eager to learn, and that she cares enough about patients to go far beyond the requirements of her job to give them comfort.
Bottom line, Shawn’s advice about non-egotistical stories is spot on for many situations. In job-hunting, though, a little ego is not only appropriate but expected. And it’s possible to tell a non-egotistical story in which you are still the star.
Oops… didn’t mean to have Twitter-related entries two days in a row. Guess that’s just that way it works out sometimes. Don’t want everyone to think I’ve gone Twitter-mad, though I have become much more of a user than I was a few months ago.
Which reminds me that I’ve split my Twitter accounts into a personal one kat_hansen, KatCareerGal for career-management-related tweets and AStoriedCareer for storytelling tweets. If you’re more interested in storytelling than in what I had for breakfast, follow me at AStoriedCareer.
The past couple of weeks have not seen as strong trends in storytelling tweets as were out there the first couple of times I reported on what the Twitterverse is saying about storytelling. (As Twitterer @zamchick tweeted: “Storytelling in the time of twitter…’Twonce upon a twine…'”) But here are several items that received multiple mentions:
Two story tools enjoyed some buzz. StoryTron, the complex software platform that I’ve blogged about before came out of beta testing and went public. The other buzzed-about tool is StoryTop, which has a very bare-bones Web site and no “About” page; the site’s main page says that StoryTop enables users to “create multi-page stories, drag and drop clip art to illustrate your story, add text in dialog boxes, create storytelling clubs with your friends, and share your stories with others.” Other sites review it as a tool for creating cartoon or comic-book-like stories. One gets the impression the tool is for children and teachers, but StoryTop itself is unclear about the audience it targets.
“We are all part of a storytelling culture in America,” Henderson notes in the first installment. Looking at storytelling from a journalist’s perspective, he observes that you do not need to be a journalist to tell your story, and if you put it out that, journalists just might pick it up. In part two, he asserts storytelling’s ability to energize organizational communications, such as shareholder/financial communications, internal communications, Web sites, blogs, social media, media relations and external relations, government and regulator relations, and new business development, among many other areas.
This nugget from part three summarizes Henderson’s response to the question, “What Does a Great Story Look Like?
“Storytelling is about life. It is about sharing the human experience, something that is a common thread that tends to touch and connect with something inside each of us … that makes us laugh, or perhaps cry, or maybe just contemplate. We listen to a great story, and we often will retell it to a family member, friend or colleague.”
Memoir Spool, which sounds very much like New York’s The Moth, was much talked about in the past week because, though the San Francisco entity is described as “a monthly storytelling series held once a month,” it has apparently been on hiatus for awhile and returned on April Fool’s Day. While the group’s own site doesn’t offer much information, this piece in the SF Appeal online newspaper provides a mini-FAQ.
Much tweeted about was the news that (cable network) AMC is about to offer branded storytelling — “themed movie nights, some potential new TV series and a new marketing message: ‘Story matters here.'” These tweets annoyed me, however, because they linked to a Wall Street Journal article that one had to pay for a subscription to completely read. Seriously, WSJ?
I’ve speculated in this space before about whether Twitter is an appropriate medium with which to tell stories.
Turns out that folks are deploying Twitter storytelling in several ways:
The Twitter of Oz … answers the question “What if the main characters in the Wizard of Oz were on Twitter?” Here, Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch, the Wizard and Glinda the Good Witch tweet their experiences in real time, 140 characters at a time.
Twitterers have also retold other familiar stories in 140-character bursts. Last fall, some 600 participants retold War of the Worlds with 1,500 tweets. As Xiaochang Li reported, these tweets captured “what they envisioned to be happening around them as various events within the original narrative unfolded, so that as the tripods touched down, people were encouraged to generate local narratives and fill in gaps in the story” (more here). She also noted that “Public Domain” tweeted Moby Dick, in this case a literal rendering of the classic.
Adrift calls itself “serialized micro-fiction,” and presents “the story of a father trying to find his daughter.”
Josh Lewis reports on an apparently now complete collaborative novel, 140novel, composed of Twitter tweets, as well as twitterfiction in which each tweet is (or was — no tweets in more than a year) a self-contained work of fiction.
Mr. Harder offers an attempt to collaboratively tweet a story (I get the impression that Adrift involves only one author.) Those who wish to collaborate on the story are instructed to “just reply at @storytweeting via Twitter, and their part of the story is added!” At the time I put together this post, the story had 27 writers and 32 entries.
“Ben” is behind a collaborative story writing project using Twitter, The Story So Far. You just tweet @storysofar to suggest the next line, and you can vote on whose line you like best by tweeting @storysofarvote and mentioning the user you want to win. At the end of the day the votes are tallied and the winning line is retweeted.
Storytelling can help people heal from trauma and more. I’ve come across a convergence of examples recently:
This article about narrative therapy is on a site about suicide prevention, though the article doesn’t seem to specifically address that issue. “The protagonist becomes the author and re-writes the story constructively,” writes Pedro Gondim. “… If a story is full of problems and negative events, the counsellor will attempt to identify the exceptional positive outcomes. When exploring unique positive outcomes in the story, the counsellor will assist the client in redeveloping the narrative with a focus on those unique outcomes.”
Real Warriors is “a program in which servicemembers can talk about and listen to the stories of those who sought help for psychological injuries or traumatic brain injuries.” In an article in Stars and Stripes, reporter Jeff Schogol quotes Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, director of the Defense Department Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, noted that “we’re all in this together — and to be able to tell the story of real warriors facing real battles both on as well as off the battlefield, with wounds both visible and invisible.” Center spokesman David Egner said the campaign” will include videotaping and distributing servicemembers stories about getting treatment as a way to motivate other wounded warriors to do the same.” Sutton recognized the program’s value when servicemembers told him the most important thing they got from the experience of sharing their stories: “…just to know that I wasn’t the only one.” Servicemembers can e-mail to express interest in telling their stories as part of the campaign.
When it comes to storytelling, I guess it’s making myself vulnerable. I don’t have my story thought out before I start telling it. Every time I tell it, something new comes out — I need to hear myself say it to know what I’m going to say. This kind of vulnerability is fine before strangers and those I know only in programme, because they have similar experiences and can relate, therefore I am safe.
Kathryn Jennex writes about how a person with whom you share your story can take on an unexpectedly significant role. Jennex worked on a documentary about a teenage drug addict, who was subsequently arrested for robbery. Jennex writes: “Her community let her down. When the ‘fruit’ hit the fan, she called me, her filmmaker, her storyteller, not the people I might list on her bio.”
Consultant Cheri Baker writes about using the story-based discipline, Appreciative Inquiry, with a team that had just learned one of its leaders was diagnosed with a dire illness. Despite the pall that hung over the training session, sharing stories brightened the group’s mood; smiles and laughter erupted. Writes Baker: “Stories are not just examples. They can give us hope, courage, and the will to move on. Why else has storytelling been such an integral part of human civilization since the beginning? Our stories have power.”
The day is finally here. My book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, is released today.
Here’s a description from the publisher:
With layoffs on the rise and the job market flooded with competition, individuals can no longer rely on traditional methods to yield career success. Now, more than ever, they must turn to strategies their competitors have not yet discovered.
Such groundbreaking strategies are packed into Katharine Hansen’s release, Tell Me About Yourself. This innovative guidebook unveils how to use the incredible power of storytelling for career advancement.
Echoing the most commonly asked job-interview question, Tell Me About Yourself shows readers how to answer that question — and all others — in a way that conveys a true sense of who they are and what value they offer the employer.
This book also introduces storytelling as the key to excelling in other job search activities, such as writing resumes and cover letters, networking, creating portfolios, and developing a personal brand. Readers learn how to execute these crucial steps impressively and successfully. Hansen also teaches readers how to use storytelling on the job to capitalize on opportunities to advance throughout their career.
The book’s mission: To guide job-seekers in a powerful use of storytelling — telling stories to advance your career, whether by moving up in your current organization or landing a job in a new organization.
One of the most fascinating and provocative pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time was the text of a speech given by Leland Maschmeyer at a graphic-design conference at Princeton University. Maschmeyer was the only non-graphic designer to present at the conference.
Instead, he’s the director of strategy at a design firm. But he describes his job this way:
My take on it is that I’m a storyteller. My job is to find and tell the stories that I think my companies and my designers can become a part of and contribute to. This is a crucial function given that the stories we tell can change our orientation to the world, reframe our responsibilities and open opportunities we didn’t know existed.
Maschmeyer than proceeds to tell a series of stories aimed at changing his audience’s orientation to the world. I know he changed mine.
He begins with a historical perspective — 1860s London, an era in which breakthroughs such as laying the Transatlantic Cable were “a symbol of how man not only could, but WAS overcoming his physical limitations and the natural obstacles presented to him. This is probably why the copy [on the picture at right] reads ‘The Eighth Wonder of the World,'” Maschmeyer notes. He continues: “Oh yeah, and look at the heavily traffic ocean in between the countries. Each represents increases in commerce and national growth. All thanks to technology. The pursuits of industry, efficiency, productivity and scalability were the things that uplifted all of humanity. These were the most important pursuits of the day.”
By way of contrast, Maschmeyer then skips ahead to post-WWII America, when we began to sort ourselves into” ideological ghettoes,” becoming a nation of “self-focused collectives,” of which he gives numerous examples: plummeting memberships in social/charitable/service organizations, as well as in labor unions, and youth groups like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts; the ballooning number of parents who are homeschooling their children, “shield[ing] their kids from community values, from community interaction and shelter them in an environment where the kids learn only what the parents approve of and show them;” dating services that cater to like-minded singles (e.g., conservatives); news broadcasts that are no longer objective overviews, but instead agenda-setting slants from a political perspective (e.g., Fox News for conservatives, MSNBC for liberals); giant shopping-mall-like churches with “campuses” that are communities unto themselves; and entire towns that share an ideology, such as (Ron) Paulville in Texas, which its Web site says comprises: “gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty.”
Says Maschmeyer:
In our hyper-connected world where access to people and information have never before — in the history of mankind — been so easy, we are choosing to communicate with only the people and consume only the information that reinforces our worldview, sense of self and ideas. We are not communicating with the parts of the world that are at odds us.
The result, he says is “empathy deficit disorder.”
“… We cocoon ourselves in the information and people we want to see and read because they make us feel good about ourselves,” Maschmeyer says. “… But … without a commitment to amplifying empathy in the world, we won’t be able to achieve the compromises necessary to the collaboration necessary to overcome the environmental and social issues that plaguing our world. If we continue to live without empathy, we will continue to key our opponents’ cars and see other peoples’ problems as not our problems. Empathy is critical to our communication future.”
Now, Maschmeyer kind of loses me with his suggestion for transcending our ideological ghettoism, “relational art,” although Maschmeyer’s championing of 19th-century poet Matthew Arnold shows how art can broaden our horizons. Quoting from Arnold:
Art [can be] the great help out of our present difficulties: art turns a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits which we now follow mechanically imagining that there is a virtue in following in them.
So, yes, art can surely play a role in getting us to see beyond our “self-focused collectives.” It’s just that Relational Art, to me, doesn’t feel like nearly enough.
Still, Maschmeyer evoked change in me through his stories. I am certainly guilty of seeking out like-minded folks. In social-media venues, particularly Facebook, I am friends with some former students whose political views could not be more opposed to mine. When they express these views, I am often tempted to unfriend them. But after I read Maschmeyer’s speech, I realized I will be a better, more well-rounded person if I open myself up to other views.
This trend toward ideological ghettoism is dangerous but not much discussed. As global citizens, we need to be aware. Reading Maschmeyer’s speech — and stories — is an excellent start.
An interesting kind of storyteller I’ve come across is the small-business person who creates video montages to help folks and families celebrate weddings, births, graduations, and the lives of loved ones. Cathie Dodd, whose partners include her sister Juli and a family friend, Julie Wilkerson, operates Tears of Joy Video.
Bio: You can find some biographical material about how Cathie and
Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?
A: My sister and I (who do this business together) have always loved storytelling, since we were little. Our mother didn’t read us stories; she told us stories from her own experiences, and her family. Family photos were also important to the family, and she was scrapbooking before it became known as that. All her albums told stories. As my sister and I got older, we both became interested in photography and film. Pictures had to tell a story, and even in our spare time we found making movies with our friends seemed a great way to spend a weekend. Then we started doing weddings, my sister doing pictures and I doing the videos. For a while I also did photography. But it wasn’t till after my mom died and my dad asked us to do his biography that we really saw the power of storytelling with pictures and film. We made our own memories come alive, and the part of my mom came alive with them. We realized that with this film we had saved a part of our family history forever. From that film came many requests from friends to create one for them. We get the same type of pleasure creating the stories for our clients as we did when creating it for ourselves. Every one of our clients say the first time they watch a video we created, that they are hit with a wave of emotion. Thus came our business name, Tears of Joy Video. I have heard from our clients that these stories become like a glue to pull their families together. It constantly reinforces in me the power stories have in our lives.
Q: The Tears of Joy Video Web site notes that “Creating a video montage project can be quite overwhelming.” What you find are some of the most overwhelming and difficult parts, and how do you overcome them in working with your customers?
A: When we create their personal stories on video, they are overwhelmed about which pictures to use and how to organize them. We talk to them about what they want to convey, what type of things to include and how to break the pictures up in categories. Then if they can’t come up with it, we suggest titles for each section and songs they might use for the pictures they provide. We also give suggestions on interviews they might want to include on video, or film clips they could use. We help them shape the project into as story by asking questions and trying to find the type of story they picture in their minds. Most of our clients say the videos are much better than they could ever have imagined.
Q: Do you have a favorite video that your company has produced? What makes it your favorite?
A: Each time I do a new project, it always becomes my new favorite. But I do have a couple of them that are special to me. I created a birth story for a friend, and she allowed me to use it online for our marketing and for a midwives site that was recommending our services. You can watch it here. The video really tells a story, but I think it is also interesting because it was the first water birth I ever saw.
My second favorite is one we created for fun with my nieces. My 10-year-old niece wrote the story and directed it, and my other nieces acted in it. I loved this, one, because it is so cute, and two, because it helps us train my nieces in the importance of storytelling-as well as how to use video to get those stories told. Take a look at their video:
Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?
A: I think stories have always been there; it’s just now people feel more disconnected than any time in history. With divorces, many are searching for family roots. Also I have heard it said that people are more in a cocoon state. With crime and terrorism many people feel safer to stay home. But they reach out to strangers through email and social networks. A good way to connect with people on social networks is with stories
Read the rest of this Q&A in the Extended Entry.
Stories draw families together, help them remember their past, their good memories, their sense of family, even if it isn’t “perfect,” the stories make it theirs. Stories also make perfect strangers draw closer to you, give that person on the other side of the keyboard a personality, and more depth. It helps them relate with you, and feel they know you.
Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?
A: I would again say the most important one was my mom. She could tell a story and have the whole room drawn into every word. I have felt like I lived her life over and over again as I asked her to tell her stories. I never tired of hearing them. I cannot tell them like she could, but if I close my eyes and picture the story; I can hear every word she used to tell and exactly how she told it. Storytelling is an art, and she definitely knew the art of how to relate a story.
I don’t have that same talent in speech, but put me behind my computer and I can make my clients stories come alive with pictures, titles, music, and video. While I am working on a video, it’s as if I put myself in my clients’ life. In the end I feel that I have come to know them as I do my own family. I have created their story. When they come back and say to me it is perfect, I know I have captured exactly what they wanted to say.
Q: How important is it to you and your work to function within the framework of a particular definition of “story?” (i.e., What is a story?) What definition do you espouse?
A: A story is an experience that happened to you or to someone else, or is an experience that is made up in your mind. It can be used to create a mood of laughter, or reflection. I can also be used as a parallel to a point you want to bring home, or a moral lesson you want to teach. Personal stories are what we focus on because personal stories create a connection between you and the person the story is told to. We try to create that with our videos and with the stories we share on our site.
Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)?
A: We are on LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Metacafe — actually many video-viewing sites. Also Merchantcircle, fabulous40.com, and many different Ning groups. Some we are on every day; others we use every once in a while. Many of the people who come to our sites were first introduced to us through social-media sites.
Q: To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?
A: All these sites allow you to blog, and what are blogs, but stories about you. Some of them actually have regular columnist that contribute stories about themselves or a subject, and then allow people to interact with that story by adding their comments. The same is true of the video-viewing sites and YouTube actually has a new feature that allows you to watch a video and comment back with your own video. So now you can video back and forth your stories.
Q: If you could identify a person or organization who desperately needs to tell a better story, who or what would it be?
A: I think small businesses need to share their stories on their websites with video. Here is a story to show what I mean. A few weeks ago I was at a corner farmers market at a local school, and one of the stands had a teacher that had his own business selling food products he brought over from Italy. Each product we asked him about he brought out a photo album of his trip there, and showed pictures of where the product came from and proceeded to tell us how it was made. I became so involved with his story; I wanted the product because of the stories, and not because of the product. I asked him if he was online. He said he had a website but wasn’t doing well. I told him that was probably because he it didn’t draw the people in the way his personal stories did. I told him if he created these stories on video, and uploaded them to his website, he would see his sales triple. He was a storyteller, but he had no idea how to use those stories to create a profit for his small business. I think more businesses need to plug themselves into the personal stories of their products or services and create those stories online to personalize their websites. We can help you do that.
Q: Are there any current uses of storytelling that repel you or that you feel are inappropriate?
A: I don’t like dirty jokes and I don’t like stories that are basically bragging. These are just self-serving stories, that have no benefit.
Q: What future trends or directions to do foresee for story/storytelling/narrative?
A: I can see more and more online video stories and interactive stories online. I also see more people creating their family histories on video.
Q: What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work?
A: For our site I am looking to team up with a few storytelling coaches who would be interested in holding storytelling classes [from] our website.
Q: What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?
A: I would like to have an online radio show where people can call up and share different personal stories about their lives.
Q: What’s your favorite story about a transformation that came about through a story or storytelling act?
A: I am going to share a story told by one of my clients who we created a memorial video for her father’s funeral. This one is on our site.
I heard from one of our customers this morning and she told me about a showing of one of our videos. Her story gave me chills. I had created a video for her father’s memorial. They decided to play it at her brother’s house afterwards. They played it in his family room and kept it playing over and over again for hours.
During all that time, her mother sat a watched the video over and over again. For a number of years her mother has had Alzheimer’s and hasn’t even recognized her own children. But her daughter told me as she watched this, her face started to light up. She used music that was all her fathers’ favorites and her mother started moving to the music.
After a while she started recognizing her husband and her children on the screen. By the end of the evening she was telling people, this is my daughter. She was recognizing all her kids. Her daughter said it was amazing how she reacted to the video.
She called me to talk to me about creating her mother’s story now. She wants to do this while her mother can still respond to it.
Even now this story is getting me emotional. To know that something I created allowed these kids to have connection with their mother again. That is priceless!
Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?
A: Stories about personal experiences and lessons you learned or triumphs you had from the experience work best. Don’t share a story while you’re still living the experience. Wait it out till you can share the conclusion. Nobody wants to hear the struggle without a solution.
