Here’s Why I Started Storyteller’s Lounge with NapoRepublic: Soundtracking Your Unique Journey

Finding an authentic way to engage with community is what drove me to start storyteller’s lounge.

I’m interested in different things and sometimes that’s not such a great thing.

Why?

Because it seems there’s not enough time to do it all.

With limited amount of time, these interests have to be prioritized.

But how do you do that? When all options seem viable and equally interesting.

Not to forget about managing the competing dilemma between pure interest and interest that compound ‘interest’ (aka not forgetting to focus on the stuff that pays the bills)

Managing this balance between exploring multiple interests and survival can be exhausting.

But over the last 9 years, my own journey has been one of transformation. I have come to find that the journey unfolded through the exploration. I went from engineer to music producer to entrepreneur to writer to author.

What has helped me through this has been documentation.

Documenting my story — in different ways.

Started out with journaling, then sharing my experience through music, blog posts, and now books and NFTs.

The more I document and tell my story, the more I realize how unique it is. Whenever I share my stories and someone connects with it, the more I realize that we are also connected.

Life is a path of discovery to bring forth your whole self.

Storytelling is the soundtrack to that journey.

Now that I am convinced that I have a unique story to tell, I believe there are 8 billion unique stories to be told.

I want to share the tools and tips with a community of independent storytellers and writers to unleash our inner storyteller and tell stories that people listen to.

Storytelling

Most of us want to share our stories.
We want to be heard.
We want our existence to be validated.

However only a few of us deliberately practice habits to communicate and tell stories that people pay attention to.

Why is it important to tell your story?

Simply put, I think you are in the best position to tell your story than anyone else.

And if you don’t take control of your narrative, someone else will tell your story for you.

Someone else telling your story — they will inherently miss things out. Mix things up. Depending on how you change with time, some people are quick to box you in and tell only a limited portion of your story.

I know this exact feeling personally.

My journey has taken me through “different seasons” in life as an engineer, writer, entrepreneur — these seasons transitioned into one another.

Sometimes these seasons are intertwined like a woven basket.

To me, I am all these things at once, at any given moment. It’s an identity that has been molded together over time and is still malleable enough to take new form.

To most people, I am one thing at a time.

Being more than “one thing” at once can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially in a world driven by titles and status.

Over years of sharing my interests, I’ve heard:

• “Oh, so you’re a musician?”
• “Oh, I see! you’re an author now? You must just love writing books aaaallllll day”
• “I don’t get it, I thought you were just an engineer. Where did the whole music thing come from?”
• “Wow, so you’re still running your business? I thought you were focusing on music and writing”

​Can’t I be all of them combined?

Perhaps it has been my communication style?

The reason I document and share

I do enjoy sharing my music and writings with people but the feeling of putting things I’m passionate about to the world (or mainstream social media, where the full-self is lost in context) sometimes leaves me thinking:

“Is it really worth it?”
“Should I keep sharing all these different sides?”
“Perhaps, I should just talk about that “one thing” to certain people”

The reason I document through music and writing is very personal. I do it to contextualize the world around me. It helps me understand myself better.

When I take it a step further to share what I document with people, my hope is that someone connects with my experience.

Over the last year, I get the most joy sharing my work on my newsletter with people I have developed a relationship with

OR sending a link with my music to friends via WhatsApp messages or email. Those interactions are a lot more fulfilling. It makes me more comfortable developing an authentic voice.

Ultimately, I document and share in order to discover my authentic self and find my ‘tribe.’

This can be a lot more tedious in our very-connected world, where everyone can create and share anything on their phones with the world.

Technology has mad it easy to create, document, and share, but that comes with the information overload.

It’s difficult to cut through the noise to get your message out and find your tribe.

So the question becomes “how do I communicate properly to build my own tribe?”

A tribe of like minded individuals on their own journey cheering one another along as we collectively bring forth our full selves.

Finding an authentic way to engage with community is what drove me to start storyteller’s lounge.

Storyteller’s Lounge

Over the last 3 years, I have been talking to friends and colleagues who have shared SIMILAR challenges and goals.

They want to live a more balanced and well-rounded life but there isn’t enough time to focus on their other interests and when they do, will it be worth it.

Although they are in what society might consider as “non-creative”, “non-artistic”, or “corporate” careers, they also want to find channels to express the different sides of their selves…

…to lead more meaningful lives. Through conversations, I’ve heard things like:

• “I’m just too busy to focus on that. Gotta pay the bills, you know”
• “I’m interested in a lot of different things, it’s hard to narrow it down”
• “There’s a lot of self-doubt. Is what I’m writing going to make sense? How will this be perceived? This is dumb, would this matter to anyone? Maybe I need someone to cheer me on.”
• “I just don’t have the consistency and discipline to get my work out there”

​Do you find yourself having similar thoughts?

Well, you’re not alone.

I’ve had and continue to have them too.

However, over the last 7 years, I’ve found my own rhythm to work on my business, release my music, write, and NOW write two best-selling books.

I’ve learned that it’s the journey that matters. Not necessarily the outcome.

I’ve also learned that there’s a lot of value going down this path with a community of like-minded people.

People that want to:

• “delete the boundaries”
• explore their interests and show up as their full-selves, confidently.
• make bold strides moving across fields
• be in a space that vulnerability is allowed
• level up their communication and storytelling skills — with other multi-hyphenated professionals on the same path — because they know the power of telling their stories, and the impact it can have on their communities.

​That’s WHY I launched Storyteller’s Lounge with NapoRepublic

Storyteller’s Lounge with NapoRepublic is a community that brings together multifaceted professionals and entrepreneurs interested in storytelling to cultivate healthy habits, practices and creative rhythms so that we can improve our writing skills, gain creative confidence, and live a balanced and more fulfilled life.

Because professionals with multiple interests need a safe and nurturing place to share, learn, grow, and give/get feedback on their writings and creative expressions — without getting BOXED IN.

A community for you to keep showing up as your full self.

⭐️Unleash your storytelling genius and wirte stories the world pays attention to in the Storyteller’s Lounge with NapoRepublic.⭐️