Why I wrote STORY: the art of standing out
If you’re thinking of walking left…of going your own way and succeeding, then I may be able to help you.
I wrote STORY: the art of standing out to help you get ahead no matter where you want to go. Stories drive outcomes. I realized how important this skill was after looking back on my path: high school, college, graduate school, freelancing to support my dissertation research, getting my doctorate, landing a job at the NYPD psychological services unit, leaving to become a mom four times, maintaining my private practice, starting a non-profit to keep pedestrians safe, getting a bill passed in the CT Legislature to protect student data privacy, to where I am now: a first time author. I’m tired just reading this! The road less traveled…making choices…and ending up here: using my skills as a psychologist, Mom, friend, sister, daughter, aunt, and spouse — all roles important to me in my life, to help you. Why? Because I learned that something so obvious and simple is the key to success.
Being able to tell your story — your hero’s journey — in a clear, concise, compelling, engaging and relevant way will make you stand out. Why? Because most people aren’t doing this. Their personal narrative is a long, disorganized ramble about where they came from and where they want to go, typically told with details that bore the heck out of their audience. Relevance is the key to effective storytelling, along with a strong dose of self-awareness.
Movies and TV have been entertaining us since 1927, and radio before that. Shonda Rhimes, Pixar, Lucasfilm and the secretive company Magic Leap know how to deeply engage us in their stories, so I studied them to help you. I’ve distilled their best practices for you to learn from as you begin your storytelling journey.
Research shows that most people are fairly awful storytellers, as I was when I was 17. So I wrote a book to address this fairly awful storytelling trend. You can certainly just read my book straight through — and I hope most of you do. You may be busy, though, and hoping to find what’s most applicable to you on your journey right now. For you, I’ve created a “recipe” to focus on parts of the book to best suit where you are:
- The college applicant
- The job seeker
- The career climber — including detours into business, medical or law school
Don’t worry… I won’t be offended if you skip around.
When I started working on this book, I wanted to make sure this was not just some book that sat on a shelf. I wanted to make sure people didn’t look at it and say “that’s not for me.” Think of it as a business book for young adults and others trying to achieve their dreams.
STORY is truly aimed at people early in their lives who haven’t had the benefit of training in storytelling. As you know, I didn’t either. After decades of work and experiences, I had to learn it the hard way. I’ve crafted this book to be an ideal fit for three major points in life:
- The high school student applying to college who wants to tell his or her story better to colleges
- The college student beginning his or her job hunt who needs to translate her experiences and credentials into a winning job interview
- The early career professional who is looking to climb and achieve faster, perhaps through graduate school or promotions, and needs to develop a better and tighter narrative.
The book is designed to address how and why this matters specifically for you. The ability to storytell your way into the most competitive colleges, graduates schools and out of the biggest labor shift since the industrial revolution will be paramount to your success. It will drive your outcome. Technology will enhance your ability to do it. The admissions and job selection process has become much more dynamic with the advent of new technologies that allow you to go far beyond the traditional inputs of the written essay, and into the visual world of storytelling to garner red hot opportunities in college admissions, job hunts and career climbs.
I learned that I had the power all along to storytell, but didn’t use it. Just like Dorothy…
You have the power to storytell your way into college, jobs, promotions, entrepreneurship, getting elected, getting your kids to listen to you, making friends and being a good life partner. Just click your heels three times and use STORY as a guide to train yourself in storytelling.
Here’s the link to my introduction: https://drive.google.com/file/d/116WC0fRs-S-O4HNt4mG5PgjKVmSselDl/view?usp=sharing
I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email Kimberlya.norton@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can also join me at my first book talk and signing in New York City at Shakespeare and Co’s new Upper West Side store that just opened this month: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/story-the-art-of-standing-out-book-talk-and-signing-tickets-52800721379. Also, you can find my book, STORY: the art of standing out on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H94D3L1
