A parable is a fabricated story that lets you wrap your own story in a cloak of something people more fully understand. It provides clarity, and a “kind of like" bridge between what people know intrinsically, and what you do. Want to learn how to you use it?

The pain of your past should be a key asset for your brand story. The key is to not only share that pain, but share the reflection of that pain. That’s your job as an entrepreneur, a marketer, and a leader. Here are 3 tips on how to do that to increase connection and impact.

We all try to one-up each other, especially when we’re swapping stories. It’s natural, it’s how we get attention, and how we find meaning in the trips, bruises, mess ups and mini victories—people’s reaction gives those experiences validation and significance. 

But how do you know what will matter and what won’t matter to people when architecting, and sharing, your origin story?

This is a lesson in persuasion and impact. We want to persuade people to like us, to be accepted and revered for something that has meaning—a key step in establishing an impactful brand. We are hardwired to recognize ideas that reinforce what we already believe, and reject what we don’t. So you have to close the gap between the vision of your brand and the visual they see themselves in.

As a brand, you have to control the story your customer is telling themselves and reroute it towards your epiphany. If they arrive at the same ah-ha moment, you’ve captured their attention, made an intimate connection, and opened the door to sharing your plan, your solution, your product as the bridge between where they are, and the possibility of what could be.

A lack of confidence comes from a lack of certainty. And a lack of certainty comes from a lack of clarity in how you want to serve your audience or your customers. If you know how you want to serve, then you can reverse engineer the stories that can bolster that mission.

Ask yourself these 11 questions to help you discover what matters in your story, what parts of your story highlight your company values, and which ones to trash. You can use these in your branding, messaging, and marketing materials to get people to connect with you, your emotion, and your experience, then get on board to be your advocate—for life.

We spend 1/3 of our lives working, and now, more than ever, people see being connected to the mission and values of a company as a necessity, not a nicety. In that, leaders need to know how to galvanize people, and provoke a sense of belonging and motivation in each team member.

How do you do that? With magnetic, evocative and symbolic storytelling.

There are stories you just can’t unhear, unsee, or stop thinking about. There’s a reason for that. Stories carry weight because they persuade you to learn something new. If the story is powerful enough, the details are etched into our memory, and are stamped with the teaching, making it unforgettable. Find out the more here.

Our brains are designed to receive stories as a fundamental key to survival. They teach us how to build, grow, thrive, and avoid disaster. They transport us, and warn us. They scare us and make us laugh with abandon. They make us feel. And they inspire us to take action. Learn how to tell stories for your business.

The company I worked for failed. Learn how to avoid these 3 catastrophic mistakes brands make when creating—or not creating—their brand story.

Writing consistent blog posts can be intimidating, and time consuming. Here are my 3 secrets for churning out high-converting copy quickly that your audience will devour.

This might come as a surprise, but people visit About pages because they are intrinsically interested in themselves and they want to find out how you can help them, not the opposite. Here are the 3 keys to creating a powerful, and transformational About Us page to make your customers, guests, and fans the hero of your story.