How Your Story Sets You Free

By Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen

“Human beings understand the world best through stories. . . . And in this book Heather and Julian are ace story-enablers. A must-read!” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter and Radio Free Vermont
 
Everyone has a story to tell. Sharing that story can change you, your community, or even the world. But how do you start?
 
Discover the tools to unlock your truth and share it with the world: Storytelling coaches Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen reveal how to embrace the power of personal storytelling in a series of easy steps. You'll learn how to share your experiences and invaluable knowledge with the people who need it most, whether it be in a blog post, a motivational speech, or just a conversation with a loved one. How Your Story Sets You Free is the path to finding the spark that ignites the fire and reminds you just how much your story matters.
 
• Features over 100 pages of practical and motivating advice, with quotes from renowned storytellers including Maya Angelou and Marshall Ganz.
 
• Includes specific step-by-step instructions to help you find the words to tell your story in the most powerful and impactful way.
 
“Working with Heather and Julian changed everything by getting me over the hurdle that stood between what was true about my life and what I was willing to share with the world. I’m so grateful they’ve distilled their wisdom and vision into this book.” —Caledonia Curry, artist who goes by Swoon
 
“Heather and Julian are masterful in navigating you through the funny, rocky, delicate, and sometimes scary terrain of sharing yourself boldly, humbly, and unapologetically.” —Rha Goddess, founder CEO of Move The Crowd, author of The Calling

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781452181707

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

If you are a human, you love stories. Why? We’re hardwired to love stories because they help us understand our world and are essential to our evolution. We use stories to organize and communicate our surroundings and our past, present, and future. All humans have stories. They represent our unique experiences, lessons learned, and wisdom gained. So the question is: What’s your story? And if you shared that story, how might it help you, your family, your community, your colleagues, and the world around you?

Storytelling changes lives. It opens new and surprising doors. How do we know? We’ve seen it transform the lives of thousands of people all over the world. In 2011, we founded the Million Person Project—a storytelling company for change makers—because we believe that stories are key to cultivating leadership, building relationships, and creating a sense of community. We’ve prepared Ugandan farmers to speak at the United Nations, we’ve coached social entrepreneurs for their first TED talks, and we’ve helped first-time writers craft powerful magazine and newspaper articles. We’ve also helped people have difficult conversations with their friends and families. We are Heather and Julian, and our life’s work is to support people like you as you find and tell your story to change your world. We love stories, and we love helping people find their voices, so we are thrilled that you’ve picked up this book!

Many of our most passionate clients—people who are improving lives and challenging conventional wisdom—started out thinking they didn’t really have a story to tell. These people are standing up against injustice, fighting for the health of our earth, risking their lives to save others. But when they stood in front of an audience, they were no more than another droning voice in a stuffy room full of people just wanting the talk to be over.

Oh snap, we said. These are some of the most committed people we know, and they’re not connecting with their audiences or making people care about their work. That’s because they’re forgetting to open up and tell the listeners what drives them and why anyone should care about their work.

We helped those world changers connect with audiences and move them to action. You may not consider yourself a world changer (yet!), but if you’re reading this book, you probably suspect your story holds some wisdom for the world, too. Perhaps you want to share your personal history with your children, or communicate about your work or an issue you care about in a more compelling way, or maybe you want to break the stigma around a particular issue. Great! You can do all of that by cultivating your personal narrative to share with the world. But first you have to dig into your history, reflect on your experiences, and identify your stories.

First-time storytellers usually can find a hundred reasons not to tell their stories. The two most common excuses are these:

I don’t really have a story. It’s not interesting enough to anyone.

My story is much too painful [or sad or scary]. No one wants to hear it.

The truth is this: No matter where your story falls on that spectrum, it has the power to create understanding, connection, love, and transformation.

And if you want to build deeper personal or professional relationships and be a more effective change maker, you have to show up honestly and vulnerably in your life—for your colleagues, your kids, and everyone else in your world. Your story can influence and inspire someone—perhaps many people—and it can expand your understanding of your own experiences and values. There is wisdom in your story, and it’s easier than you might think to identify it and share it. Trust us.

This book will help you understand your story (or the many stories that make up your life), what it means to you, why you might want to tell it, who should hear it, and, of course, how to share it. Once upon a time, you picked up this book . . . and the rest is history!

Let’s get real for a minute before you go any further with this book. It takes courage to tell your story. To tell the truth even when your voice shakes. To shatter stigma and stand for all of who you truly are—the good, the bad, and everything in between.

Our culture is defined by some sick storytellers. People who tell us that we should be quiet about the pain we’ve seen, that we should even be quiet about the amazing things we’ve done. Our culture tells us that our job is to be acceptable. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t be too much, and if you are too little, oh well, better than too much.

But there is a new wave rushing in. It is a brave, honest, loving group of storytellers

Reviews for How Your Story Sets You Free

[ellienyc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How Your Story Sets You Free by Heather BoxThis short book (I read it in under an hour) makes a case for how personal stories can change the world. They help us relate to each other, break us out of isolation, and release others from their isolation.Words, writes Box, can change minds; stories, on the other hand, can change hearts. We may or may not remember a lecture, information, directives for living but we will often remember a story for the rest of our life.Box writes (quoting Brene Brown) telling your story requires the courage to be vulnerable. But the payoff is that you become more authentic, more free, and that others can see themselves, their secrets, often their shame in your stories and realize that they are not alone.When you connect with your stories and share them you can move others to action. Box writes that requires you to know your values and how your content connects with them. Preparation is essential: you don’t just “wing it”—whether in speech or writing, you go over what you want to say, you clarify it, you understand it, you know it.Box offers an exercise to help you understand what your story is: 45 minutes in which you reflect upon your life and draw its story. (Obviously there is more to it than that but you’ll have to read the book to see what it is!) I have done this before but I will most likely do it again following her instructions and see what is revealed.Although the book is very short, it presents a convincing case for understanding and sharing your story in order to move people to action. I’m not sure it will change lives but I am convinced that telling your story can.

[pennyshima · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is for you if you're looking for help to shape and share your unique story. Box and Mocine-McQueen have distilled their Million Person Project into a slender helpful volume. It's upbeat, but not drowning in sweetness. How Your Story Sets You Free combines stories, quotes, and guided prompts. Learn why personal stories matter, their impact on others, and how to tell yours.

[katlynng.bennett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely. It's a welcome read for all writers, whether you're struggling to find your place or don't know where to begin. A must have for all story tellers. A quick read that is sweet and moving. Lucky enough to recieve a copy from the publisher thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers!

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How Your Story Sets You Free by Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen was not the book I was expecting it to be. Turns out that is a good thing. I expected more of a writer's guidebook, and this misconception was all on me and what I was anticipating when I read the blurb. It certainly can serve as a bit of a writer's guidebook but it is more about communication, regardless the form, and the role storytelling plays within that area.I hesitate to use the phrase "self-help" because I find the vast majority of books that promote themselves as such to be more about publisher/writer-help in making a dollar of people wanting a better life. I have personally gained more in my life from other nonfiction and fiction than from the hundreds of "self-help" books I've read over the years. That said, this book will help you in many ways, both internally and in the world. So whether one labels it self-help or not, it does actually accomplish that objective.We don't, on the whole, realize the impact our stories can have on others. As a result, we keep things to ourselves. Sometimes doing so inhibits us beyond just a feeling of not being important enough to "have a story." Yet if we think back we realize that everything that has had an impact on us was likely in story form. From the sciences to how best to handle life. A story makes information more memorable and thus retained better. A story will also help to lower barriers between people so that we can begin to understand that we are far more alike than we are different. So...Tell your story. Whether you want to make change in the world, in your community, among your friends, or within yourself just tell your story. Of course, just telling it doesn't always work. Maybe we're still unsure whether it is important or useful to anyone else. Maybe we just haven't stopped to think about how to engage people actively so we drone on in a monotone, or write in a basic "this then this" style. That is where this little book can make such a huge impact. Why tell your story? How to tell your story. Enlisting help and support (which is vitally important for someone such as myself who prefers to stay on the periphery of most groups). The ideas, examples, and suggestions here will help you to decide to tell your story and prepare you to do so effectively. Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[kronomlo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though a small and quick read, the book is very well written and to the point: tell your story, no matter how uninteresting or useless you might think it. The authors stress the point that humans are storytellers, always have been, and that to navigate your life and the world at large you need stories to guide you, and, in turn, to tell your story to help others out there find their way in life and in the world. You have no idea how important telling your story might be, it could help one person, multiple people, or possibly even millions, you never know. Just tell it, even to just one person. A really neat book.

[debnance_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen present a simple guidebook to finding, crafting, and sharing your story. In a hundred pages, Box and Mocine-McQueen offer succinct tips for storytelling, including the why, the how-to, the shaping, and the presentation.

[mitchellray · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This volume is deceiving. It is small in size and short in length. Yet, it packs a powerful message. The authors tell how to discover and share the stories within you in ways that can change the world. The writing is concise. There are no descriptions of theory to wade through. The authors provide clear directions and examples of how to discover your stories, prepare them for sharing, and tell them in an impactful way. This book is a call to action. It does not matter if you simply want to share your life stories with your family or you want to shout them out to the world. You have something to say that others need to hear. This book will help you find your voice so that those stories can be told.