Find and Tell Your Story

Jimmy WebbIn addition to the iconic rendition by actor Richard Harris, Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park” has been recorded by some of the industry’s most celebrated artists, including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, The Four Tops and, most recently, Carrie Underwood. As any good story goes, it challenges us to want to know more. Whether it’s a lament over his lost relationship with a woman who later got married in that Los Angeles park on a rainy day or his bet with Richard Harris that he could write him a #1 song the prize of which would be a Rolls-Royce, the real impact is the emotion that wells up in us from listening to MacArthur Park and how it connects with our own feelings. Some of the greatest hit records can stand on their own as stories that move us: The Temptations’ “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone,” The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” The Kinks Ray Davies’ “Come Dancing” and so many more.

Papa was a Rolling Stone

 Stories have the power to inspire, to motivate, to touch deeply, to challenge and to lift us to an entirely different level of being. Stories make us come alive. We need to find and tell our own personal story in order to reach out to others and connect in authentic ways. Think about a song that has had a powerful emotional impact on you. The feelings that it brought about in you were genuine. They tapped into the authentic YOU where all personal greatness begins.

To reinvent our careers and to find out what we truly want to do in life, we need to find our inner story and share it with others. In business, we need stories to position ideas in order to make the greatest impact on our audience. Our personal stories, our lyrics, our brush strokes, our PowerPoint slides need to convey our story so that others are moved from where they are now to where we want to take them.

What part of you does this touch:

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