How to Find the Stories That Should Anchor Your Brand
My best posts are almost always stories.
That does not mean every post should be a story. It means you should know your stories cold, because the stories you repeat become your brand.
I call mine cornerstone stories.
Here are my 3:
1. I was a broke single mom when I came to LinkedIn.
2. I watched my dad go from poverty to millionaire.
3. I was the last person to find out about my 2018 divorce.
There are others. Those are the banner 3. I have told each of them dozens of times, and I will keep telling them, because I learned 10,000 lessons from each one. That is what makes them goldmines. 1 story, 20 posts, 20 different takeaways.
Most people are sitting on stories like this and have never taken inventory. Here is how to find yours.
Step 1. Write down every moment something big changed.
Start in childhood and work forward. Do not filter for "professional." The move, the diagnosis, the layoff, the coach who benched you, the business you closed. You are making a list, not writing a post, so let it run long and messy.
Step 2. Mark the ones that still make you feel something.
Read the list back. Some entries will be facts. Some will put a knot in your stomach or make you laugh out loud. Keep those. The stories that bore you will bore everyone who reads them.
Step 3. Ask what you believed before, and what you believed after.
This is the test that separates a cornerstone story from an anecdote. If your belief did not change, you have a nice thing that happened to you. A cornerstone story has a before and an after, and your reader gets to travel between them with you.
Step 4. Cut to your best 3 to 5 and list the takeaways under each.
Under my broke-single-mom story I have takeaways about pricing, about asking for help, about fear, about consistency, and about what desperation teaches you. Every time I tell the story, I aim it at a different one. Same story. New post.
Then tell them on repeat. At least once a week.
People forget your frameworks. They remember your stories, and they remember you.
I don't want to be another newsletter in your inbox. I want to be an actionletter. In every edition, I'll include a "Go-and-Do" below to help you take an action step TODAY that improves your LinkedIn™ performance, your business, or even your life.
THE GO-AND-DO
Set a timer for 10 minutes and write down every moment in your life where something big changed. Do not edit while the timer runs. When it goes off, circle the 3 that still make you feel something. That is your cornerstone list, and you can write from it for a year.
One More Thing - The LinkedIn™ Spark Community
If today's edition resonated, you'd love the room I built for people who want to take this seriously.
The LinkedIn™ Spark Community is for people who want three things most LinkedIn advice doesn't deliver together: education, accountability, and real networking.
Inside, we focus on:
· LinkedIn strategy that actually moves the needle
· How to become a sharper writer (because writing is the work)
· Content systems, not content luck
· Guest speakers, "hot seat" sessions, and presentations from members themselves
You also get one 1:1 call with me per quarter. This is not a group where you post once and disappear. It's a community where people show up, sharpen each other, and build the kind of presence that compounds.