Not a storytelling expert? No probs.

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Hey friend!

For a long time, I thought I had a storytelling problem.

Turns out, I had an expectation problem.

Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself I needed to sound like an expert before I earned the reps.
That if I didn’t have the clean lesson, the perfect takeaway, the polished insight…
I shouldn’t say anything at all.

Which is ridiculous, when you slow down and think about it.
Nobody wakes up and becomes a storytelling expert overnight.
You earn that title by telling messy stories first.

And that’s exactly where storytelling started to feel hard for me.

Not the “I don’t know what to post” kind of hard.
The deeper kind.
The kind where you open a blank doc…
feel something real…
then immediately start editing yourself out of it.

I remember sitting at my desk one night.
Kids asleep.
House quiet.
Brain loud.

I had ideas.
Plenty of them.

But every time I tried to write, I froze.

This isn’t useful.
This is too raw.
Who am I to say this?

So I did what most people do.
I hid behind tips.
Frameworks.
Safe, educational content with no fingerprints on it.

And slowly, something weird happened.

My content got clearer.
But my voice disappeared.

That was the burnout.
Not from doing too much.
From saying too little of what actually mattered.

What changed everything wasn’t confidence.
It was structure.

I stopped asking, “Is this good enough?”
And started asking, “Where am I in the story right now?”

That question gave me a simple system.
One I still use.

Here it is.

Step one.
Name the moment.
What actually happened.
Not the lesson. The scene.

Step two.
Name the friction.
What feels uncomfortable.
What you’re unsure about.
What you almost didn’t share.

Step three.
Name the direction.
What this moment is teaching you.
What you’re testing next.
What you’d tell someone one step behind you.

That’s it.

No polish.
No performance.
Just movement.

Here’s the deeper truth.
Storytelling feels hard when you think you need the answer.
It feels lighter when you realize you only need honesty plus direction.

You don’t need to be an expert.
You need to be present.

Weekly prompt:
Write about the moment you realized you were copying what “works” instead of saying what was true for you.

Start with:
“I noticed I stopped trusting myself when…”

Reply with your version.

See ya tomorrow,
Stephen

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