#187 - How To be Your Own Career Storytelling Coach
My 1:1 process shared
This is Adventures in Storytelling your weekly note with resources, insights, and actionable tools for better communication through storytelling. Enjoy.
I’d always been skeptical of life coaching. Isn’t life something we’re supposed to sort of muck through as we learn and grow? I used to wonder how a coach made any sense in the context of the very human scramble of figuring it all out. Wasn’t that cheating and really how helpful could they really be?
Then I burnt out. Badly. And I needed help to get back to myself. A coach was an important part of helping me do that. She gave me tools and exercises to help me adjust my perspective and approach to working and dig deep into why I worked the ways I did. Between my coach and my therapist, I was able to gain important insight that helped me change my approach to work (which we now help others do through Re-Work).
So while I’ve been skeptical (and a part of me remains so) I know firsthand the benefit of one-on-one guidance through the hard stuff. Which is why when I do career storytelling workshops with clients, I offer 1:1 sessions with participants as an add on (I also have a secret option to do a 1:1 with me that I don’t share widely—if you need it reach out and I’ll send the link). Not everyone does the add-on but I have seen the real benefits for folks who do. New perspective on how to share their career, new jobs out of that new perspective, and true clarity about how they want to move forward.
So I thought I’d share with you my approach to help you coach yourself. After our workshop where I give folks tools for storytelling and get them to establish their purpose and values and dive deep into their own context (you have this substack). We meet and we do four things:
Define your goals for the session
Articulate your career goal and identify the audience for your career story (hiring manager, current manager, investor, etc.)
Ground in your purpose & values
Share your story
As we go through these things, I get them to tease out the challenges, the details, and the reasons and motivations behind their journey. Then we work together to refine their story based on their current needs. I try to give participants 2-3 ways into the same story.
It’s a lot of fun. For me and for them. I end most sessions with folks asking for more and me saying no, you’ve got this now. And each session shows me a little more why a coach is a valuable thing. While I don’t consider myself a coach–I have started to love this element of my work.
Try this process for yourself (paid subscribers, there are a ton of resources in the Adventures archive to help you on all the lead up work). And, if you need a bit of help, feel free to reach out to me. I’m not a coach (no certifications of any sort on that), but I love to help folks piece this part of their career together. Clarity is a super power and I’m happy to offer it in the ways I can to folks.
Let me know how it goes as you flesh out your own story. For folks transitioning to new jobs or exploring entrepreneurship, this is an especially valuable exercise. Hope it helps.
A Story Well Told
Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of my favourite public intellectuals. She is a sociology professor and the writer of Thick: And Other Essays. She’s also a top tier social media follow. She’s been doing a series of instagram lives lately to help folks make sense of the moment and contextualize some of her opinion articles in the New York Times. They have become must see TV for me. If you’ve been trying to make sense of the moment and what’s going on in the United States right now, she’s a great person to learn from.
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