The Speak Up: [Greatest Hits] Committed to the core 🔥

A version of this newsletter was first written in 2022 and then re-published in September 2023 on a previous platform before making it to Substack and now Ghost. Enjoy!

In this newsletter:

• Revisiting a story about commitment
• Some quotes to inspire you at the start of September

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Friends,

“The questions ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘Where did we come from?’ are very good ones, and we all find ourselves asking them on the day we begin to grow up… Once we know where we come from, we might find that our attention turns to questions like, ‘Where are we going? What shall we do?’” - Philip Pullman, Daemon Voices

“Oh see this term here… I used to call it what it says on the card, but I am torn now and I am leaning towards calling it this other thing. Here’s my reasoning… I’ll let you know if I fully change my mind…”

That piece of dialogue is something I found myself saying often. Whether it was during an interview for a podcast, in a workshop that introduced myself and Tell Me A Story to new audiences, or when working one-on-one with my Crafting Your Narrative: Solo Retreat clients.

The “term here” that I am referencing is Origin Story — the first element in TMAS' Five Key Elements of Personal Narrative.

Are you familiar with an Origin Story?

Do you have your own definition of what this means — in popular culture, in history, for yourself?

Please pause for a moment and think about what this definition is for you.

Once you pause (and maybe even write your definition down), sit with it a few moments longer and ask yourself, “How do I feel about this term, Origin Story?”

Here are some feeling examples:

Bored. Overwhelmed. Long-winded. Obnoxious. Pressured. Dizzy. Pigeon-holed. Speechless.

Over the past several years, I’ve watched many across industries and in the public eye roll their eyes at this term. And I’ve listened to them share their qualms:

“An Origin Story is so long… I have to go through all of my schooling and then my various jobs and then somehow make sense of what is happening in my life now. I don’t even know where to begin. Plus, I'm not at the end yet!”

“I’m not like other podcast hosts. I just skip the Origin Story. They are never good.”

“I was born on a cold winter’s day… really? Do I have to start there?”

“Aren’t Origin Stories just a thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Why do I need one of my own? My work isn’t about me anyways.”

And with every hesitation, I would come back with a response:

“But wait! There is another way! It's not that kind of Origin Story... It's this instead!”

And most of the time I was able to help people change their point of view and get on board with crafting a new Origin Story of their own.

A different kind.

Here’s how I define (and how Tell Me A Story approaches) Origin Story:

An Origin Story answers two questions: ‘How did you get to where you are now?’ and ‘How did you get your superpowers?’

If you look at this definition straight on, it’s HUGE. It’s overwhelming. It still feels like a full life story. And this HUGE-ness is part of the reason that my initial work with clients takes place over the course of two months. It takes that amount of time to find, craft, commit to, and share this kind of story.

In this two-month time span, we break it down and relieve the pressure of a traditional Origin Story. We look at where you are now. We dig into superpowers in a concrete way -- things that make you you. And we build the story from there.

But there’s something else… something harder to intellectualize about this narrative crafting process. Once your Origin Story story is found, worked on, and told, there’s a deeper layer of meaning.

There’s self-actualization.

There’s freedom from the worry of judgment and freedom from the desire for external validation.

There’s an alignment of who I am, what I do, and what I stand for.

You get to know yourself to the core.

At this moment in time.

For a purpose.

And there are many other stories that spin out from that central place.

You understand why they are connected because everything is linked at the core.

It’s a Core Story.

“Oh see this term here… I used to call it Origin Story, but I am torn now and I am leaning towards calling it Core Story. Here’s my reasoning… I’ll let you know if I fully change my mind…”

Flip-flop no more.

I have committed to the use of the term Core Story and its multilayered definition.

I have committed to its power, its uniqueness, and how it differentiates my area of expertise from others.

I always joke that all of my work stories are meta. Stories about storytelling, story crafting, and story sharing. And this might be the most meta of them all.

And I chose to share it today because I know there is something that you stand for, something that you know to be true, something that makes you who you are, that might need a new definition.

Or it might just need that commitment of self, to trust that you can claim what you know, what you believe in, and what you’ve created.

And then you can craft this new narrative and take up space sharing it (and you) with others.

“And the truth of your experience can only come through in your own voice. If it is wrapped in someone else’s voice, we readers will feel suspicious, as if you are dressed up in someone else’s clothes. You cannot write out of someone else’s big dark place; you can only write out of your own. Sometimes wearing someone else’s style is very comforting, warm and pretty and bright, and it can loosen you up, tune you into the joys of language and rhythm and concern. But what you say will be an abstraction because it will not have sprung from direct experience: when you try to capture the truth of your experience in some other person’s voice or on that person’s terms, you are removing yourself one step further from what you have seen and what you know.” — Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird

Committing to the core,

Hillary