Storytelling: How to Tell Better Stories

First question, tell me one thing you do to have the best year ever.

One thing, it's hard to choose one thing, but if I had to choose one thing, it actually happens on New Year's Eve while other people are out at parties celebrating with friends. My husband and I stay home on New Year's Eve and we have a book that we've had for, I don't know, almost a decade now. And each year we go back and we look at our goals from the year before, what we were working towards both personally and professionally with our family. We evaluate how the year went and then we set our goals and our plans and our intentions for the next year. That's our New Year's Eve tradition and I mean, Times Square couldn't even beat it.

Well, that is absolutely fantastic. I love how intentional that is because when you set a vision of what you want to accomplish, there's both looking forward and looking back to make sure that you get yourself in a position to succeed. So I absolutely love that. And welcome to The Undeniable Leader, a podcast designed to inspire growth and impact so you can create your best year ever. And I'm your host, Rob Cressy. And joining me today is Kindra Hall, bestselling author and chief storytelling officer at Success Magazine. Kindra, great to have you on the show.

Rob, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.

What I'm excited about with jamming with you is I originally wanted to talk to you about storytelling and it was going to be an outward side of things. But then you mentioned to me, Rob, I've got this new book coming out where, among other things, we're going to talk about inward versus outward stories and the stories that we tell ourselves. And that is speaking my language because when I look at what are the biggest game changers in my life and the things that I can share with others that will have the greatest impact on them, certainly to create the best year ever, it is the inward work that we do. The stories and things that we tell ourselves and that we believe that allow us to show up as the best version of ourselves every single day. So I want to start with that and see what does that mean to you?

Well, I mean, I think what you said right there, you know, I said one of the things that I do to have the best year ever is to set goals on New Year's Eve, which is great. And I love that as a tradition. But let's be honest, the best year ever only happens based on the things we do on a daily basis. And even more micro level are the things that happen to us hour by hour or when we face a challenge or when we have that sense of inactivity or procrastination where the goal, we can see it, we've said it, we know what they are, but how do we move ourselves in the direction of that goal? So, yeah, I think that that day to day, that inward conversation that we're having with ourself is so important.

So let's start with some actionable things. So I was like, all right, I buy what you guys are talking about. How do I get started with this? How do I start reframing this story that I tell myself? And what are the actionable things that I can do? And for me, my morning routine is paramount to my success because the way you start your day is going to dictate the way the rest of it is going to be. And I'm very aware that at no time in the history of the world have we ever had more things thrown at us from an attention standpoint. Social media, the news, TV, email, you name it.

So oftentimes the second you wake up, there's an opportunity for you to jump right into the world and be on somebody else's agenda. And it's a very easy thing to do. It can sometimes be a fun thing to do, but it is not intentional and it is not designed for your success. So for me, I think, you know what? That's always going to be there. I'm going to have the opportunity to consume 22 hours worth of Instagram if I want. That can be there.

But instead, it's important to me to say, hey, like a computer, what is the boot sequence that I need to have to program myself to being the best version of myself every day? And the first thing that I do to contribute to my success is I read for 30 minutes first thing in the morning. I'm curious from you, what is the first thing that you do when it comes to telling your story to yourself?

Ooh, that is, that's a great question. One of the first things that I do, and since you're talking about your morning routine, I have my own morning routine. I like to get up early before anyone else. And I'm a journaler. I always have been. My first journal was given to me as a gift when I was in fourth grade. I still have it. The journal entries were kind of funny. When you go back and look at it, but that's actually the point.

I spent some time in the morning not only journaling like affirmations, but writing down some of the positive stories that have happened to me over maybe the course of the day before. Or maybe it was last week and I hadn't caught up on all of them. Or maybe there was a positive story that I remembered that happened a decade ago. And I want to capture that because here's the thing.

When it comes to building the mindset that is required to live your best year ever, it's really important that you understand your brain in many ways is working against you. It is replaying automatically, habitually, and invisibly, subconsciously. You don't even know that this is happening. It is replaying oftentimes negative stories about yourself. The times that you failed. The times that you were embarrassed. The times you felt shameful. Now, that programming is natural from a human standpoint. It's part of our survival mechanism. It's there to keep us safe.

However, when you have that on replay, it's really easy, unless you take intentional control of it, to remember to tell yourself the good stories, the great things that you did. Now, it doesn't have to be that you won first prize or made a million dollars. They can be the really small successes. But by being very intentional about recording and remembering in detail your triumphs, your good stories that help fuel more good stories and actions that lead to great stories, you need to write them down. You need to be reinforcing them, capturing them, going back or rereading them. So that's something that I do in the morning.

I absolutely love that. And for me, the theme that I hear through all of this is one word, consistency and the power of consistency. Because what you tell yourself can work both ways. If you're in that negative loop, you're going to be building negative momentum. But if you're in the positive loop, you're going to be building positive momentum. So just picture how far away those two different perspectives get from each other day after day after day.

And it allows you to say, hey, what are the things that I'm going to focus on? I'm someone who does both journaling and gratitude and meditation. And for me, my morning routine is an hour and a half plus because of the various things that I do to cultivate my being. And one of the biggest ones for me, or at least a game changer within the last year, was the importance of feeling into the things that I am saying and declaring to myself.

For the longest time, I had affirmations, a series of an I am statements that I would say to myself. But then through one of the coaches that I had, if anyone's interested, is the podcast I did with John Patrick Morgan. He really taught me about the difference between an affirmation and a declaration. I am this. And I know a lot of people early on when you're learning about this internal work. And this actually happened on a workshop I did last week. They said, Rob, what if I don't believe my affirmation? Because it's something that you could put out there. I want to make a million dollars or I'm the most successful person in the world. Something like that. And people don't necessarily believe it.

And what I always say is, you want to be declaring something. I am this. And the second you decide you are something, you are that. And certainly when it comes to storytelling, I teach this all the time for people who want to be prolific creators. You want to be a prolific creator. Great. You are a prolific creator. Start feeling into that being.

And then what changed for me is when I would say something like, I am abundantly generous. I would close my eyes and I would picture a time in which I was generous. Maybe I'm getting water for my wife when she asks. Or maybe I'm giving an extra tip to someone. But now I'm using evidence from the world in which I saw that. And now I can feel into my generosity. And then I do that for a series of, I don't know, 25 different statements to where now I'm experiencing what it's like to be generous.

And when you do that, you're on such a different plane because you start from what if I don't believe this? Now you're feeling and experiencing that. And as you walk around life, now you're looking to collect evidence of opportunities where I am generous or I am in flow. I'm curious your thoughts on feeling into your internal belief.

Well, you know, it's so well said because stories are the pathway for feeling. This is why so many experts, including myself, encourage salespeople to sell through stories, not through features and benefits. Because if you're telling stories, the person you're telling them to, their brain actually responds by releasing oxytocin, which is the hormone that allows for emotion and empathy. Now, of course, this works on ourselves as well.

So, yeah, there are many people who are like, well, I have this affirmation that I can make lots of money, but I don't believe it. Well, just as you said there and what I recommend to do through my process is, all right, go back and think of a time. Find one of those moments in your life where you were able to produce income. You were able to make money. Those moments of evidence, those stories.

So, for example, even as I'm thinking about this, if that was one of the affirmations that was falling short for me, but I knew that it was important that I spent each day feeling this way about myself, one of the stories that came to mind for me was when I was in high school and I was in the marching band. And yes, I was very popular. And we were supposed to go on a marching band trip to Houston, Texas. Well, my family didn't have the money to pay for my marching band trip to Houston, Texas.

So I participated in the fundraiser, which was selling candy bars. And the candy bars were so good. There were three different flavors. There was just plain chocolate, chocolate with almond and chocolate with caramel. The chocolate with caramel, you would break it open and the caramel would ooze out. And I remember I would bring that box of chocolate everywhere I went, especially to the classes that happened right after lunchtime, the classes that were right at the end of the day when people, even teenagers, need that sugary pick-me-up.

I paid for my entire trip to Houston selling candy bars at 16 years old. Like if I can make that much money, which, you know, by comparison, isn't a ton of money as a kid, think what I can do now. Just retelling that story to myself right now makes me want to go out and make some money. But it changes that relationship. Again, as you mentioned, that feeling I have about that statement, because now I can feel it. And because it happened to me, I can believe it.

I love that. And there's a storytelling nugget that I want to highlight of what you just said around that candy bar. And you can feel it in the word you said was oozing out. And what I love about this, and this is a creator tip, specificity. All of us listening or watching right now can picture that candy bar. And it's just dripping open right there. And that's what allows us as the people consuming the story to be able to put ourselves in your shoes and get it more. So the more that you can be specific about things when you're telling stories, the better it's going to be. Both outwardly and inwardly.

If you can be specific in the stories you're telling yourself, they'll stick with you longer as well.

Well, 100%. And certainly as it relates to your vision. So when you're thinking about the story you're going to tell yourself, for me, I've got a three-step process that I use and I teach. Vision, being and action. What is it that you want to create? Where are you going? Who do you need to be to be the person that creates that vision? And then number three, what is the action you need to take to be the person that creates the vision that you want to accomplish right there? And the more specific you can be on your vision, the better. Not just I want to be rich. It's I want, and you get extremely specific about what it is.

An example for me is one of the things that I write down around my vision is I have a cabin in the mountains where I take my family to learn how to ski. And I sit there every single day and I close my eyes and I picture like a log cabin like you would see in Colorado or something. And I envision the fireplace or teaching a kid how to do the pizza pie, the pizza wedge down the little bunny hill. And I make it as real as possible. And the more specific you can get for your dreams and your vision, the better you're going to be able to feel it and then make that happen.

Yeah, you know, I think back to some of the visions that I've had and, you know, the twists and turns that those stories have taken. We moved about three years ago now to New York City. It was kind of a whim. We had on a visit to New York, we had stumbled upon this incredible apartment. We just we were like, hey, let's see if we can tour it. We had no intention of ever renting an apartment in New York City. It was just out of the question. We went up, we toured around. There was this amazing rooftop to it. We left and I said to my husband, let's figure out how to make this happen. We need to make this happen.

And so through a series of things, we were able to, you know, put a put a what is it? A deposit down on the apartment with the rooftop. It was so exciting. And then it got rented out from under us, which was heartbreaking and reinforced this vision that we were really casual about. But it became very specific. We ended up getting a different apartment on a whim again, moving our whole family to New York City, living there. And then in 2019, the rooftop became a vision again. So we started looking at apartments with outdoor spaces. We found this perfect one. It was amazing. We were so excited. It was the roof that we had envisioned all along.

And then on the day that they accepted our application was the first day that we started getting event cancellations or delays because of the pandemic. So I'm a keynote speaker. It was March, late February 2020. And everyone was like, what are we going to do? We don't know. So we watched hundreds of thousands of dollars of income vanish overnight. And we couldn't sign the lease on that apartment. And I thought that vision was dead.

But the thing is, we had been telling ourselves that story for so long that it almost feels like it became, it worked its way into the fibers of the universe. Because several months later, things had changed. Rents were dropping in the city. And we were able to find an even better apartment with a roof that, as a matter of fact, looks over the original roof that we lost for that very first apartment we wanted to get.

And so you can be very specific about what your vision is. And you definitely should be. But don't think that that means the vision is going to occur exactly as you imagine. And that's one of the most important pieces of self-storytelling. And the stories that you tell yourself is recognizing that when those twists and turns come, because they will, to not think this is the end of the story, but instead to choose to see it as a middle. This is the middle of my story. For me, oh, the rooftop fell through. I can't wait to see what's going to happen instead. What rooftop will come to me instead? Choosing to see things as the middle and not ending the story until you're happy with it.

I love that. And what stands out to me about what you said is telling ourselves that story for so long. And I challenge you, the listener who's watching right now, what is the story you've been telling yourself? Is it a positive one? Is it a negative one? Is it the same one you've had for a while? Is there newness to it? Because this is why it's so important is we live in our minds so much. So if we know we're going to constantly be thinking about something, well, wouldn't it make sense for us to design everything that we want and to be telling ourselves that story?

What I love about this entire practice is there is no bigger cheerleader for me than me. Because being an entrepreneur, I learned this, what, 10 plus years ago when I left my corporate job and made $0 overnight. And I quickly realized, holy smokes, everything is on me. Like literally every single decision in my life is on me. And the beautiful thing is that is when I became self-aware. That is when I adopted a growth mindset. And from that, I've told myself a different story.

And it's a gift I want to give to others is we all have the ability to craft the story that we want in our life. It doesn't mean it's going to be happening immediately. But there's a lot of stories in between there. There's a lot of different things that make up who we are. So focus on the things that amplify you to being the best version of yourself and write it down. Because a key to consistency for me is my ability every single morning to open up Evernote, go into my boot sequence folder, and see all of the different documents that I can read that create me into who I am.

Mm-hmm. And I think that you said it there. This is the, though consistency is extremely important, the other extremely important pillar to this practice of self-storytelling is choice. And you mentioned it just now. You get to choose the stories that you are reinforcing. And you said that for you, you are your best cheerleader. But for many people, the thing that is working against them is they are also their own worst critic. And at any given moment, you get to choose which side of that coin you're playing on.

So for example, even just yesterday, I'm going through the final edits of my book. It comes out in January. So the final edits are due today. But I will probably hand them in on Friday. And I was just really crabby all day. Today, I've been really crabby because it's hard to read your words and know that these are the final words, that you're putting the final touches on the words that hopefully millions of people will read. There is a lot of self-storytelling that's happening. Add to it that the book is about self-storytelling. And there was a lot of doubt. There was a lot of, is this good? Is this terrible? Is my publisher going to regret that they bought this book in the first place?

And I could feel myself being weighted down by this. And it was impacting how I see myself. And then I decided to choose a better story. Now, I can't change the fact that editing a book is a hard thing to do. And so I decided to lean into that fact. And I told myself, this is the story I chose, is that I am putting the final edits on a book. And only a real author would care this much about each and every word on the page. So this painful experience is actually a celebration of the fact that I am this thing that I've always wanted to be, an author. And yeah, this is part of the job. But at its core, what a beautiful thing it is.

So it didn't necessarily erase the doubt or the agony, but it certainly gave me a stronger, more positive foundation from which I can launch myself forward once the editing is done.

Oh, I love that. One of my declarations that I read and say every single day, I am that I care the most. And that doesn't mean that we don't feel the negative side of things. You talked about the weight. And one of the things that's really helped me from a reframing side of things is there can be a weight to your energy and to your feelings. So we can feel a feather and your emotions are light and blissful or something can be super heavy and you can almost feel it in your chest and your body.

Well, when you understand that dynamic, then at any point you can say, all right, well, I'm going to commit to today having a light day. I don't care what happens in my day, no matter what else comes this way. I'm going to make it a point to be like a feather, almost to take a page from Bruce Lee. But it feels like the majority of the world is super heavy. And the weight to the things and the more that we can be loving to ourselves.

Another thing that I'm really big into is I say to myself around self-love, I love myself. I am that I love myself unconditionally. And this is something that why am I my biggest champion? Because I designed myself to be my biggest champion. Because I know how often I feel the emotions that you're talking about right now. Because it comes with performance and growth and newness in doing things you've never done before.

So I want to make sure everyone knows that we feel just as much heaviness and expectations and potentially not enoughness as everyone else. We just have a process or a way of thinking to reframe it so it serves us. I love how you talked about I care so much and that's why I'm feeling this. Whereas some people will just live in the negative without seeing the positive.

Yep, yep. And just see it as a... Because I think the worst thing we can do in those situations is it becomes a cycle of beating yourself up. And that's a cycle we have to stop, right? That's that inner critic aspect of it. Like, fine, experience the heaviness of it. But I love that quote that says, grief is love with nowhere to go. It's the ultimate reframing of grief. And so when you're in a moment of grief or a season of grief, which many of us have been before, it doesn't make the grief go away. But as a reminder that it's actually love, there's power in that reframing.

And that's something actually I've been experiencing this week around the reframing of tough times and grief. And you know what I thought to myself? I'm a big believer in karma. So when something negative happens in your life, and especially if it's a big, heavy negative, something that could have grief attached to it, what I said is, you know what? I can't control that. But what I do know is that when something negative happens, that means something good is right around the corner.

So it doesn't mean that I'm minimizing the negative thing that happened. I'm just choosing to focus on the fact that, you know what? Karma says when I do something good for others, good eventually comes back. So therefore, if something negative is happening in my life, I use that as an opportunity to reframe it and say, all right, well, one, I'm going to go out and do some good for some other people, because apparently I need to be doing more on the karma side of things to get things going in the right direction. And when you give to others, that's when you can experience yourself. So I always like to focus on the good things that will come, not focusing on the negative situation right now, as hard as that can be.

And if you are struggling with that, telling yourself that good things will come, good things will come. Sometimes it's easier said than done. Then revert back to your storytelling strategy. Remind yourself of times where you went through something difficult or something happened that wasn't good. And whether it was a few days or a few weeks or years later when something better came of it, have a few of those stories on hand so that you can retell them to yourself. And in doing so, reaffirm that that statement about karma really is true.

And Kindra, I want to get us out on this. I believe and live everything that we're talking about here, but I think that there are some people who could just say that this might just not be for me, or I don't know where to start, or there's already going to be a self-limiting belief that makes us different from them. And I promise you, I am no different than you because I went a year and a half without a job living out of college. I was broke living off my credit card. I know what it's like to have zero dollars, to go through a ton of pain, to lose jobs, to everything there.

And what can you say to the people who don't know how to start or who are even hearing this and thinking that we're special or different? Even your goals things that you talked about at the very beginning for how you create the best year ever, that is such a beautiful thing because it's so logical and it makes sense. Of course, this is something that you would want to do. But at the same time, it can almost not be relatable because it's such an exceptional thing that you do to contribute to your success. So what can you say to those people? Because I genuinely want to help them to understand that this is for them, that this is a perspective or an opportunity. It doesn't mean that what we're saying is absolute. It's just our way of creating our lives and the stories that we're telling ourselves.

I think where those doubts or that this isn't for me or that you're something special, really at the core of that is when you're listening to this and you're listening to this conversation, there's an assumption or even an active creation of making it bigger than it is. The reality is the stories we tell ourselves happen in really small moments. This is a very simple thing that happens in a very small moment. And where it can seem unaccessible or out of touch is when you think it's something bigger than it is.

So for example, over the course of the pandemic and I was making some choices that maybe weren't super healthy for me in a physical, in terms of physical health. And I really wanted to start making some changes there. But it's really hard. It's really hard to go from sitting on the couch to running through Central Park when really all you want to do is sit on the couch. And so I would be sitting on the couch knowing that I should go work out, but not really wanting to. And in that moment, there's a moment right there, right? Where that decision between inaction or action happens.

I would tell myself the story of the night that I went to a wedding and I wore this beautiful blue dress and I'd been eating well and I'd been exercising and I felt really good about myself. And I was getting compliments all night about how I looked that I was glowing at this wedding. That was several years ago. And so as I was sitting on that couch debating whether or not I should get up and go for a run, I would quickly tell myself that story of that night. The shoes I was wearing, the dress I was wearing, how I felt. And let me tell you, it got me off the couch.

Now maybe I didn't run five miles, but I at least went for a walk. And sometimes that walk turned into a jog, which turned into a couple laps around the reservoir. The point here is this is a very small and truthfully very simple thing to do. When you catch yourself in a limiting belief, when you catch yourself facing a gap of where you are and where you want to go, that is a moment where you can tell yourself a very small story to move you forward.

And I live that on a daily basis, just like you on the fitness side of things. You know what I do? I think about the previous time in which I didn't want to go to the gym and I put my shoes on and I went to the gym. There's a great book around this concept called One Small Step. It's around Kaizen, this theory from Japanese where it's literally just do one thing. You focus on the micro because I feel like so many people focus on this macro. I've got to do all of this stuff. I have to run a marathon. Nah, what is one thing you can do to get off the couch? Put your shoes on and boom. Now, the next time that you come to that situation, you're like, well, I did overcome this last time. I can overcome it this time.

A conversation between Rob Cressy and Kindra Hall. Transcript cleaned up for reading.