The World Is Changing…

Okay…

That’s me again, up a mast before the Atlantic crossing in 1992.

I look happy, but really I was bricking it.

I’d never sailed anywhere before.

But over the next year, I would sail 3,000 miles, fall in love, swim in water almost 6km deep, hit a reef at night, and end up shipwrecked in the Caribbean.

Anyway…

Before we finish this sequence up, I want to pull a few of these threads together.

Early on, I said that without a story, we’re kind of invisible. My guess is that you feel the truth of that.

But we also talked about the tidal wave of content in the world and the trap of attention. More noise. More stress. More of everything … except results.

None of that is going away.

Of course not, it’s going to get worse.

But if you are ready, I suggest another path.

Look up.

Step back and raise your head.

The shitshow (again, I apologise) is generally happening right in front of us – a foot from our face. The hype, the headaches … it’s all right there. Short-term. Urgent. Demanding. Exhausting.

But if we raise our eyes to the horizon – when we take a moment to breathe and look ahead – the noise subsides.

What will your business look like in a year?

What about the year after that?

That’s how Luke was thinking – and let’s be clear – he wasn’t just leveraging his story. He was compounding it with another asset, one that social media seems to have drained from our lives and our brains.

Time.

It’s hard to be strategic when the internet is screaming in your face, but that’s your path out of the trap.

Here’s a final example of what we’re talking about.

In 2019, I decided to build a new business around storytelling and started the world’s slackest podcast. I did an episode every day.

In the short-term world of the attention economy, it was a waste of time. No listeners. No feedback. No going viral.

Then – after six long months – it delivered my biggest client of 2020. Then another. Then another.

By October 2021, I’d done 755 episodes, and I was interviewing Seth Godin – a rockstar in my world!

Again … can you see the progression?

That’s a strategy at work … a consistent story compounded over time.

I’m not saying it was easy, but honestly, when does ‘easy’ ever deliver?

I mean … does it ever?

In the early days of my agency, we used to talk to clients about ‘cutting through the noise’, but now that feels quaint.

You can’t cut through.

The only thing you can do is take a breath, look up, and rise above.

And that starts with your story.

Of course, there are tools and techniques that will help us – but story goes way deeper than that. It’s not some shiny object or short-term tactic. It’s the deep, rich soil that reaches back into our evolutionary past. It’s art and science and marketing and philosophy, and a whole lot more.

At the top of this sequence, I told a true tale about the value of saying what I really think.

Yes … by accident.

So here’s what I really think about Stories Mean Business – this journey isn’t for everyone.

But if you are searching, or building … or maybe if you are just tired of that constant throbbing headache, join us and explore a different path.

We’ll begin with a 9-day journey into the story world, then deepen our insight every couple of weeks.

This is the Story.Business newsletter.

But only if you are ready?

We’re going to start by rewiring the way you see the world.

 Please Subscribe Me

Nick

P.S. For obvious reasons, I never gamble with trust. Unsubscribe at anytime.