Be the Hero of Your Own Story

Earlier this year I was honoured and excited to be asked to contribute a chapter to a new book called Success Secrets for Business Growth. Aimed at entrepreneurs and leaders of small businesses it contains fifteen chapters each submitted by a different author with a different perspective on growth. You can buy the book here on Amazon.

Mine chapter focuses on finding, honing and then telling a compelling story about your own business. Unlike marketing-centric storytelling approaches that put the customer at the heart of the story, I like to focus on you and your business. Whilst meeting the needs of the customer is clearly vital, when you are communicating about your strengths it is also important to hero those aspect that make you stand out.

Coaching Heroes

It is the same in coaching. What I aim to do in my coaching sessions is to help individual leaders find, or rediscover, their own strengths, the things that make them special and valuable. Too often, as we progress up and through organisations, or move between them, we can lose sight of ourselves, even as others perceive our contributions and merits. It is important to take time to reexamine, and remind ourselves of what we are capable of, motivated by, and focused on achieving.

In coaching, as in message and narrative development, it is useful to have a framework through which to undertake this work. Alongside the core coaching models such as GROW, and bespoke assessments like Thomas International or StrengthsFinder, I also use a basic story telling approach. Identifying the values you want to defend, challenges that must be overcome, and a clear and detailed vision of a golden future you wish to inhabit, all set the key structures for a typical story arc.

Courage, Insight and Magic!

Heroes from mythology to present-day popular culture share several common traits. They usually exhibit personal courage: think Flash Gordon from the 1980’s film with the Queen soundtrack (“Just a man, with a man’s courage.”) They often have some unique insight or understanding: Neo’s knowledge of the true nature of the human world in The Matrix. And they wield a special weapon, power or other item associated with them: Thor’s hammer or Harry Potter’s wand. I use coaching session to help individuals find their own courageous steps, their unique insights and magical weapons and to use them to become the heroes they can be in their own leadership stories.

For more information on my coaching approaches, or to book a session, please get in touch.