Listen to our daily blog-casts on Amazon. Enable our "What's Your Story" daily flash briefing and listen using your Alexa device! 

Yesterday on the briefing, I took you through an exercise to help you work on your origin story — one of the 3 foundational pieces of storytelling you need to share with your audience. Your origin story is a piece of historical context that you can trace back to the beginning of your own story

Next, I want to introduce you to the 2nd foundational tool, which is your Transformation story.

With each of these foundational stories, you want to consider the message you are spreading to your audience with your work. Whatever it is you do, however you have an impact on others -- that’s what you want to keep in mind as you evaluate your stories.

Your Transformational story is that moment or series of events in your life & business when you experienced a big shift — a complete change in your perspective.

It’s sort of like...

Listen to our daily blog-casts on Amazon. Enable our "What's Your Story" daily flash briefing and listen using your Alexa device! 

If you’ve just stumbled upon this Flash Briefing, or my blog, you might not really know who I am or why I talk so much about Storytelling.

So let's dig into something called an Origin Story.... 

It's part of the 3 foundational pieces of storytelling I teach because every business owner and personal of influence needs to have these in their arsenal. 

I’m here to help make storytelling easy for you — so you can get busy using it in your business and in your marketing to attract your ideal audience and grow your impact.

Here's a peek at my own origin story, then we'll talk about what this looks like for you....

For over 25 years, I’ve been working in the world of storytelling….as a journalist, writer, video producer, and speaker.

Way back when I was a kid even, I was fascinated by stories. I would stay...

Let’s talk about why your story matters and how Social Media has changed the game.

We have this thing now called old marketing and new marketing. Old marketing were the adverts and articles you’d find in magazines, newspapers, and billboards.

The new marketing is based more than ever in your ability to tell a good story…. and to do it in a social atmosphere, and reach so many more people as a result.

To some people, this feels very overwhelming, and I hear you!! Many of my clients lament to me they just want to give up because it feels so hard to put themselves out there… and many of them are so worried they won’t get it right!

Instead of looking at social media as rulebook you have to follow…. something that’s on your daily to-do list and a box you have to check off…. what if you viewed it as an opportunity to just have creative freedom to say, do, be whatever and whoever you want.

When I talk to women about weaving their...

Your Story is a Pie Chart

I have a concept for you today that may help you think of your own story in a more manageable way — at least when it comes to sharing it on social media, or maybe when your are giving a talk or presentation.

Let’s face it, you don’t always get the chance to tell your full story, so you gotta find ways to share pieces of your story in compelling ways — to get your audience to want to know more.

I want you to think of your whole story as a Circle, and the circle is cut into pieces like a pie.

If you were to dissect your story into segments, what they be?

The pie segments represents a moment in time …. an experience, a lesson, a pivot point in your story.

By segmenting your story out into pie pieces, you can take a little time to flesh each piece out into a few more details….

These are micro stories that are ideal for adding into presentations or using as content on your social media or blog.

Using micros stories...

Last week on the blog & Alexa Flash Briefing, I shared the story of Neighbor's Table after having heard about their organization through my Pastor. He shared their mission in one of his sermons as he preached on the Commandment of "Love Thy Neighbor".

I was so taken with Sarah's story, I left church that day and googled her and her 'love mission'.

I quickly shot off an impromptu email, gushing about how much I admired her story, and requesting an interview. 

I knew I would be in the Dallas area the following weekend, would it be possible to stop by and chat with her.... at the table?

As luck would have it, Sarah was available and said YES to my interview request. 

I stopped by her house in downtown Dallas, and after a quick welcome and introduction, we stepped into her backyard to sit down for this Facebook Live interview. 

What unfolded was nothing short of magical and inspiring.

Sarah shared how her entire business is founded on the power of Storytelling, and to this...

Every week inside the LIGHTbeamers Community (our private FB group),
I post a picture that is aimed to prompt the members to tell a piece of their own story. The idea is to let the image spark ideas and creativity, mining a story the picture seems to tell.

This week, the picture was of a lion… a close up of just her face. Her eyes staring straight at the audience, looking deep into the eyes of her beholder.

I asked the Community to share what they felt like the Lion was saying to them when the looked at the photo.

One of the women in the Community shared these words —

"And just like the Lion, she didn’t concern herself with the opinion of others. She was created to be bold and fierce and so she settled into her own skin and let that truth sink into her bones. So she stood tall with her face to the wind and claimed her place in this world. She had been given a voice that would not be quieted in the face of fear."

This practice of using imagery and...

This coming weekend, I’m headed to Dallas, TX to speak at The Kindness Summit — a gorgeous event organized by Louisa Garrett of the #MakeKindLoud movement.

Our task as speakers is to talk about How to Make a Kind Imprint in the World.

As I sat in the park yesterday, putting the final touches on my talk, I thought more about how Kindness shows up in Storytelling.

For me, Kindness has shown up each time I’ve sat down with someone to interview them, or to help them with their story. And the Kindness has come through listening.

I’ve talked about how important listening is before, but let me say it again here: When you take the time to listen to people…. to ask them questions about their life, their business, their passions, their family… and then sit and listen intently, kindness is showing up with you.

People just want to be heard.
They want to know their story matters.
They want to feel acknowledged and validated.  I know I do…...

Listen to our daily blog-casts on Amazon. Enable our "What's Your Story" daily flash briefing and listen using your Alexa device! 

If I handed you a glass full of dirty water, would you drink it??

My guess is most of you — actually, I hope all of you — would say, “No way, April” …
For the record, I wouldn’t either.

Hold this thought for a minute of dirty water, because it’s a really great visual for the storytelling concept I want to share with you.

I talk to women on a daily basis — women I’m interviewing, women inside my Community, my private clients… and as we talk about their story, at some point or another we have to address the dirty water — which represents the negative thoughts they are filling their mind.

Thoughts like — "my story isn’t good enough."

"No one will care, they don’t want to listen to me share my story."

"My story is boring/not important/not...

Listen to our daily blog-casts on Amazon. Enable our "What's Your Story" daily flash briefing and listen using your Alexa device! 

One of my goals with LIGHTbeamers, is to bring you great stories from time to time, as I discover other women in the world who are up to some pretty amazing things.

This weekend, I learned about Sarah Harmeyer of Dallas Texas. Sarah is what she likes to call “a people gatherer.”

She says her favorite thing in the world is to gather around a table and celebrate with others. So, Sarah asked her Dad to build her a farm table that would seat 20 people, and because there wasn’t room for this inside her house, she set the table up outside in her backyard.

She decided to invite her neighbors over for a potluck dinner, to fill her table and create an opportunity to get to know the people living all around her. 

She created a post on the community social media app, NextDoor, and invited anyone in the neighborhood who wanted to...

For more than 20 years now, I’ve been interviewing people as part of my work as a video producer, writer, and journalist. I always consider it a great privilege and honor when people accept my invitation for the interview, and proceed to answer the questions I ask…

Ultimately, this leads to them sharing their story with me — and there’s always this magical moment that happens at some point inside the interview… it’s like a chime that goes off in my head…. a little bell rings to signal that moment when we’ve hit our target. I’ve uncovered a golden piece of their story.

This happened yesterday when I was interviewing my guest on the Bright Light’s Storytelling Series—  a weekly Facebook Live interview I do on Thursdays.

I was interviewing Lucy Brummett, a writer and blogger who went from being riddled with insecurity and self-doubt…. to stepping out as a writer & bloggers to be seen and heard....