Are You Brave Enough to Tell Your Story?
December 2019
We recently discussed how important it is to articulate your value when it comes to accelerating your advancement. Articulating your value is not bragging. It’s simply telling your story … the facts about the value you have delivered to date along with your vision for the future. Explain how you have demonstrated that you can be trusted to make your vision for the future reality.
But, have you ever considered taking your fact-sharing and visioning skills to the next level by writing an enlightening article or maybe even a book about your own leadership lessons-learned … as a way to inspire others to accelerate their own advancement?
The thought of writing a book about my own leadership philosophies and lessons-learned frankly never crossed my mind until I founded Business Women Rising (the original name of this company). But the need for me to do so became obvious once we launched our Leadership Vistas educational peer mentoring programs. A book explaining my leadership values, beliefs, style, and how I got were I am seemed an ideal way to quickly get each of our members, from supervisors to CEOs, on the same leadership development page.
Structuring such a book took time to marinate in my mind. How could I convey my most salient messages to ensure I would inspire my readers and instill in them the confidence that they, too, could become remarkable leaders and role models?
While I had written hundreds, if not thousands, of sales proposals, business plans and comprehensive legal documents over the course of my career, the thought of pouring my heart out in a personal (albeit professional) “tell-all” seemed a daunting task. I wasn’t procrastinating but it took a while for me to determine how best to tackle this very real stretch assignment.
Ultimately, I resorted to a tactic I found effective in getting a few prior maybe someday projects kick-started: I told virtually everyone I knew what I was planning to do. Once aware of my plan, my friends, family, and clients (especially) rarely missed an opportunity to ask me how it was going. They held me accountable and I did not want to disappoint them.
Creating the outline for the book was the easy part. I simply used the master agenda of topics I had developed for our Monte Vista program for mid-level managers. The most difficult part for me was to find a way to tell my stories so they would resonate with today’s aspiring leaders and be relatable for generations to come (think Samuel Pepys’ Diary, one of my all-time favorite reads). How could I share my most deeply held beliefs so they would be understandable and meaningful years from now, when the grandchildren of my grandchildren are mature enough to care about such things?
Perhaps one of the most fulfilling aspects of my writing journey was the research I conducted in preparation for the actual writing. I wanted to determine whether there were any consistently best-in-class corporations with CEOs (like Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40; Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines; and other beloved leaders) who exemplified the same heartfelt leadership philosophies I believed in and who lived those values every single day, as I have strived to do.
Interviewing these rare and unique heartfelt leaders was an incredibly enjoyable adventure for me, not to mention I gained tremendous satisfaction in confirming I was not a complete odd-ball for living out my heartfelt leadership values. I found my interviewees’ authentic styles and candid stories, some never shared in public before, so compelling that I concluded their stories had to be in the book, too. Their unbridled willingness to be so completely open about the good, the bad, and the ugly, instilled in me all the confidence I needed to be just as candid in my own narratives.
It turned out that weaving my own stories with their stories resulted in a tome too extensive for just one volume, given my target audience. So that one book ultimately became two. The first, The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture, is available for purchase starting December 10, 2019. It can immediately be found as a downloadable ebook on Amazon (ISBN: 978-1-7340761-1-0) and in paperback (ISBN: 978-1-7340761-0-3) at www.DebBoelkes.com/books and from book retailers across the US and beyond. The audio version (ISBN: 987-1-7340761-2-7) will be available on Amazon in early 2020.
Book #2, Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring, will be available in those same formats in Spring 2020. While not technically a series, they certainly go hand-in-hand. Together they will provide tremendous insights into an array of leadership opportunities and challenges found in business, the military, not-for-profits, and beyond.
Believe me, if I can do this, you can do it. Once you have read my book(s), perhaps you, too, will have the inclination and confidence share your own story with the world. Surely you have an amazing story or two that the next generation will find inspiring. Think about it. Writing about your own lessons-learned could become your legacy … your unique way to make this world a better place.
The question is: are you brave enough to tell your story?
As I share in chapter 8 of The WOW Factor Workplace, it takes courage. But then, true leadership always takes courage. Are you up to it?
Please feel free to share your thoughts and questions with me. I promise I’ll be as open as I can be in responding.
Now go ahead … be brave ... tell your story … and inspire the world.