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Key Takeaways Sharing the ups and downs of your journey can be a powerful way to garner community and attract loyal followers.
There’s an important distinction between being transparent about the trials of running a business and oversharing. The difference comes down to purpose: Why are you telling this story, and who benefits from hearing it?
There’s a YouTube channel I love that charts a man’s mission to hike around the world. He’s been at it for a couple of years now, and one thing I appreciate, in addition to the amazing landscapes and diverse cultures he encounters, is seeing the difficult side of his journey. This isn’t a regular travelogue where you only see the highlights — picturesque hotels, perfectly poured plaza-side beers, jaunty hiking outfits. Those things happen, but they’re occasional.
More often than not, his followers endure his tribulations along with him. More than once, I’ve felt a deep pang of empathy when the trail gets washed out after heavy rains, or when he wakes up in a frigid tent on the third day with a nasty bout of flu. It can be easy to glamorize something as romantic-seeming as a hike across multiple continents; to edit out the pain and document only the glory. But he doesn’t. His followers get it all. And on those days when things go well — a surprise home-cooked meal, a glorious vista — those of us watching feel like we’ve won, too.
Founders face a similar choice with how we tell our stories. It would be easy enough to paint a picture of everything going well, just one straight line of continuous growth and progress trending up, up, up. The problem is that it’s not real — and more importantly, it’s not interesting. Here’s how to tell your story in a way that will actually resonate with people.
The case for vulnerability
Not long ago, businesses were accustomed to speaking in absolutes, even if their claims were obviously false. Peruse a newspaper from the late 1800s and you’ll find no shortage of advertisements for everything from pills that promised to cure rheumatism, toothaches and cancer to electric belts that guaranteed “complete restoration of health, vigor and manhood.” Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment claimed to be a miracle cure — until it was tested in 1916 and found to contain nothing but mineral oil, beef fat and turpentine.
We’ve grown more skeptical of such promises, yet the impulse to present a flawless image persists. Leaders have long felt they needed to project unwavering confidence and never show doubt. Admitting struggles felt like admitting weakness.
But research increasingly shows the opposite is true. Gen Z in particular “distrusts overt persuasion,” the LA Times reports, instead prizing transparency and penalizing corporate-speak. As a result, brands are focusing on “unvarnished narratives” like employees talking about the process of product development, user-generated testimonials and influencers who share their genuine experiences, good and bad.
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