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323-The Story That Makes Her Trust You · Stuck No More Voices

• 0:00
  Speaker: People don't believe your best advice.
• 0:02
  Speaker: They remember the moment they found themselves in your story, because the moment she sees herself in your journey, trust begins to grow.
• 0:12
  Speaker: Today I will show you how to tell the stories that don't just inform, they invite another woman to believe her story matters, too.
• 0:21
  Speaker: Welcome back to the Stuck No More Voices podcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker: I'm Theresa Croft, a visibility strategist.
• 0:27
  Speaker: I help Christian women leaders discover their voice, their story, and bridge the story from their calling to be more visible.
• 0:36
  Speaker: A little more complicated how I said that, but basically sharing them how their story can help them be more visible.
• 0:42
  Speaker: Hey, if you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, YouTube please subscribe.
• 0:46
  Speaker: That'd be great.
• 0:47
  Speaker: Spotify or Apple, please share this episode.
• 0:51
  Speaker: I'll appreciate that.
• 0:52
  Speaker: So today I wanna show you something that changed the way I communicate forever, and it started with a memory of two years ago.
• 1:00
  Speaker: I was on lots of stages giving my signature talk, right?
• 1:04
  Speaker: Something interesting happened after I I walked off stage.
• 1:06
  Speaker: People would come up to me and they'd say,"You should be a comedian." I mean, it happened more than once, and I thought,"My calling is not comedy." But what I realized just recently, they weren't saying that about being funny.
• 1:20
  Speaker: They were saying something that they could relate to my stories,'cause I told lots of stories with lots of steps and meaning to the stories.
• 1:28
  Speaker: So stories, they don't simply entertain.
• 1:32
  Speaker: Now, I can, I could be funny.
• 1:34
  Speaker: That's fine, but not a comedian.
• 1:36
  Speaker: Okay, we got that straight.
• 1:38
  Speaker: Stories can certainly entertain, but this is what the key is.
• 1:43
  Speaker: They help people feel safer.
• 1:46
  Speaker: They help people remember.
• 1:49
  Speaker: They help people trust, and trust is where every meaningful decision begins.
• 1:56
  Speaker: Here's something fascinating.
• 1:58
  Speaker: When someone hears a list of facts, they evaluate them.
• 2:02
  Speaker: But when someone steps inside a story, they begin experiencing it with you.
• 2:08
  Speaker: The imagination wakes up.
• 2:11
  Speaker: Their emotions engage.
• 2:13
  Speaker: Neurologically, there's things that happen that I'm not a neuroscience to tell you, but there is some activity going on.
• 2:19
  Speaker: And they stop asking,"Is this true?" and begin asking,"What would I do if that were me?" That's why Jesus taught in stories.
• 2:30
  Speaker: He wasn't simply giving information.
• 2:33
  Speaker: He was transforming hearts.
• 2:35
  Speaker: Today I wanna teach you three principles that have changed how I tell stories and, more importantly, how women begin seeing themselves in them.
• 2:45
  Speaker: Your story is one moment, though.
• 2:46
  Speaker: Let me get down to key number one.
• 2:48
  Speaker: Write that down.
• 2:49
  Speaker: Your story is one moment, not your whole life.
• 2:52
  Speaker: Most women think their story begins at the starting point.
• 2:55
  Speaker: I was born in 19...
• 2:56
  Speaker: I used to live in the town of Waterville.
• 2:58
  Speaker: I...
• 2:59
  Speaker: No, no, those are, that's, that's just your, that's just your biography.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Mm.
• 3:03
  Speaker: Stories begin with change.
• 3:06
  Speaker: One moment, one decision, one realization, one prayer, one sentence, one look, one phone call.
• 3:14
  Speaker: One moment when you're no longer the woman who walked into it.
• 3:20
  Speaker: Story expert Matthew Dicks calls this your five-second moment.
• 3:26
  Speaker: It's the moment your life quietly shifted, not necessarily because everything around you changed, but because something inside you did.
• 3:35
  Speaker: So let me share a story that I just shared to my client.
• 3:39
  Speaker: It was a time, she was in the journey.
• 3:41
  Speaker: She's in the journey now of building her system, and I'm helping her And I told her a time where I thought I was gonna be taken out of the count for my journey.
• 3:52
  Speaker: It began right after my father died.
• 3:55
  Speaker: My mom and I visited her sister in northern California, and there was a run called the Pygmy Mountain Run.
• 4:03
  Speaker: Pygmy Mountains.
• 4:04
  Speaker: And I had ran that before, about three or four miles, maybe five, with my brothers and my cousins and my uncle.
• 4:10
  Speaker: He was a big enthusiast.
• 4:13
  Speaker: So one day I thought,"I, I wanna run that again by myself." Now, I didn't realize, I didn't take into account the fact that it had rained like crazy two days.
• 4:25
  Speaker: Didn't think about that.
• 4:26
  Speaker: I told my cuz,"Hey, can you take me up to the mountain, and then you meet me at the, at the end of the run by the ocean?" She said,"Sure." She took me up there by myself, no phone.
• 4:36
  Speaker: No iPhone back then.
• 4:38
  Speaker: I look back and I think,"Man, I did some crazy things." This is one of them.
• 4:42
  Speaker: So I began running.
• 4:44
  Speaker: Oh, I had to, to get down to the trail I had to climb over tree limbs and just get on down there.
• 4:49
  Speaker: Then I was on the trail and I was running along, and then I came to the first crossing and there was water in it.
• 4:55
  Speaker: It was dry when I ran it before and I'm like,"Oh, darn, gonna get my feet wet." So I had to get my feet wet to cross.
• 5:01
  Speaker: Kept running again.
• 5:02
  Speaker: I came across another crossing and the water was a little higher, up to my knee.
• 5:06
  Speaker: I'm thinking,"Hmm, this isn't good.
• 5:08
  Speaker: I don't like water.
• 5:09
  Speaker: I don't like being wet." But I had to cross to get to the other side.
• 5:12
  Speaker: And I'm running and the crossings, the water got higher and higher.
• 5:18
  Speaker: I'm only five foot three, by the way.
• 5:20
  Speaker: And I got to the near the last one and I It was so scary.
• 5:24
  Speaker: I barely got to the other side.
• 5:26
  Speaker: I couldn't go back because I'd have to cross all those scary ri- um, crossings.
• 5:31
  Speaker: I knew I had one more.
• 5:33
  Speaker: I didn't know if I could do it.
• 5:35
  Speaker: I remember running, sweating profusely, not from the run, but from s- just pure nerves.
• 5:41
  Speaker: And you know what I did?
• 5:41
  Speaker: I started to begin to pray for my mom.
• 5:45
  Speaker: "Lord, help her.
• 5:46
  Speaker: If she loses her daughter, it may crush her.
• 5:48
  Speaker: Oh, Lord, help her survive if I die, if I die in this run." That's exactly what I felt.
• 5:54
  Speaker: Sure enough, I got to the last one.
• 5:57
  Speaker: The water was rushing above my head to my left, crashing down to where I would had to have crossed through.
• 6:04
  Speaker: And then if I got swept over, I'm over a bridge down to the ocean.
• 6:11
  Speaker: I was sweating bullets that h- I was just like,"Okay, I can't go back.
• 6:16
  Speaker: I can't go past.
• 6:17
  Speaker: I don't want to cross that last one I just barely got over." So I took one foot and then another foot, and the current came up and it swept up my foot and I got it back down.
• 6:27
  Speaker: Took a couple more steps.
• 6:29
  Speaker: The current tried to flip me up on my head, and I pressed it down and I thought,"I'm sure glad I'm overweight." And I went to the next, and all the while I'm crying out all the verses I know.
• 6:40
  Speaker: "The Lord is my rock and my salvation." Oof.
• 6:43
  Speaker: Okay, I almost fell on that one.
• 6:45
  Speaker: I got to the very end, totally praising God as I had a little ways more to run, and I collapsed in front of my cousin and I said,"Do not tell my mom.
• 6:56
  Speaker: Do not tell my mom about this." The journey, as I was sharing with my client, her journey of business is going to have some wet crossings, might have some devastating moments, but if her calling is secure, she can make it through those things that will want to sweep her off her feet.
• 7:17
  Speaker: She can make it in her journey.
• 7:20
  Speaker: After I told the story, all of a sudden she dropped her head and she started writing like a, a diagram, and she said,"I got to tell you, Theresa, while y- you were telling that story, I was thinking of something and I was fully riveted in what you were saying, but after it was over," she goes,"this is what came to my mind." It was a picture of her journey, of specific steps she could take.
• 7:46
  Speaker: That was the moment I wasn't the same woman anymore So again, when someone steps inside a story, they begin experiencing it with you.
• 7:58
  Speaker: Their imagination wakes up, their emotions lock in and engage.
• 8:03
  Speaker: The logic goes out, the emotions are there.
• 8:06
  Speaker: Do you know what I love?
• 8:08
  Speaker: Most women already know their moment They simply don't realize that's the story.
• 8:16
  Speaker: Credentials tell a room you're qualified.
• 8:19
  Speaker: A moment tells a room you're real, you're vulnerable, and women trust real.
• 8:27
  Speaker: Key number two, if you listen to my episodes, you know I'm big on this.
• 8:30
  Speaker: You speak from your scars, not your wounds.
• 8:34
  Speaker: And it may be one of the most important thing I tell you today because not every story is ready to be shared.
• 8:41
  Speaker: There is a difference between a wound and a scar.
• 8:45
  Speaker: A wound still needs healing.
• 8:47
  Speaker: A scar has become wisdom.
• 8:50
  Speaker: When someone hears a wound, there's usually a lot of messes, and they instinctively begin taking care of the speaker.
• 8:58
  Speaker: When they hear a scar, they can- they begin believing healing is possible.
• 9:04
  Speaker: Think about that.
• 9:05
  Speaker: The same event told too early can really overwhelm people.
• 9:10
  Speaker: Told after God had walked you through it, it becomes a place of hope.
• 9:16
  Speaker: For example, I have lots of stories from my marriage.
• 9:19
  Speaker: I had to go through some serious neuroscience counseling before I could allow them to be, speak scar- be scars and not wounds.
• 9:27
  Speaker: I'll tell you a story I've never told before.
• 9:29
  Speaker: I'm really into speaking.
• 9:32
  Speaker: Wanted to be on stage.
• 9:33
  Speaker: Like I told you at the top of the story, I was on stage.
• 9:36
  Speaker: But at this time, I was just, just wanting to be on stage.
• 9:39
  Speaker: I knew I had a story.
• 9:40
  Speaker: I knew it was part of my calling.
• 9:42
  Speaker: And there was an event that I really wanted to go to and some, s- some, like, schooling on speaking from this great guy.
• 9:49
  Speaker: And I remember I didn't wanna do it in deceit, so I wrote a little book report on it.
• 9:55
  Speaker: I mean, I filled pages, what it was like, what it would qualify, what I was gonna learn.
• 10:00
  Speaker: Put it in a little pamphlet with a pink cover, of course.
• 10:03
  Speaker: And I was just waiting for the day.
• 10:05
  Speaker: I'm really kind of excited to share with my husband.
• 10:07
  Speaker: Surely he'll see all the benefits and he'll want me to go and be a part of this.
• 10:12
  Speaker: So the day came.
• 10:13
  Speaker: He came in from outside.
• 10:14
  Speaker: I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm s- I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting for his yes, right?
• 10:19
  Speaker: And I hand him the booklet.
• 10:22
  Speaker: He didn't look at it.
• 10:23
  Speaker: He threw it on the couch and said,"They just want your money." I was crushed.
• 10:29
  Speaker: I was hurt.
• 10:31
  Speaker: But the, the victory in that story, that calling didn't go away.
• 10:36
  Speaker: Unfortunately, I had to wait till he passed before I could go through the neurocycle counseling and then go through the, the teaching and speak on stages.
• 10:46
  Speaker: I have this one slide in the Calling Activation Study where I kind of tell some of that story, but the slide is full of all these places where I was allowed to speak, telling my story People thinking I'm funny, but really realizing I was telling a story that pointed towards God.
• 11:03
  Speaker: That only God could be faithful to put my heart's desire, putting in a book report, right?
• 11:09
  Speaker: And then finally getting to act out on that and getting to speak on stages a story of hope.
• 11:17
  Speaker: You don't wanna know how I opened it up.
• 11:19
  Speaker: Might, might taint your thought of me.
• 11:23
  Speaker: Okay.
• 11:24
  Speaker: So listen, that was God's faithfulness.
• 11:27
  Speaker: And when you tell stories, you gotta make sure He's the hero, not you.
• 11:31
  Speaker: You know?
• 11:32
  Speaker: And that was another moment I wasn't the same woman anymore.
• 11:38
  Speaker: So whatever you choose, remember, don't make yourself the hero.
• 11:44
  Speaker: Make God's faithfulness the hero,'cause ultimately that is what gets you through your story.
• 11:49
  Speaker: One of the reasons I believe women connect so deeply through stories is because stories quietly answer a question most women never ask out loud.
• 11:58
  Speaker: "Am I the only one?" your scar whispers.
• 12:01
  Speaker: "No.
• 12:02
  Speaker: I stood where you're standing.
• 12:04
  Speaker: Keep walking." Key number three, point your story towards her Here's the mistake almost every speaker makes.
• 12:13
  Speaker: They sta- tell stories to prove something, to prove they're successful, qualified, experienced, interesting, funny.
• 12:22
  Speaker: Instead, tell stories that help another woman feel understood.
• 12:28
  Speaker: When you finish telling a story, ask yourself one question.
• 12:32
  Speaker: Does she leave impressed or does she leave seen?
• 12:37
  Speaker: There's a huge difference.
• 12:38
  Speaker: If she walks away thinking,"Wow, Teresa has a amazing story," you've missed it.
• 12:43
  Speaker: But if she walks away thinking,"I've never looked at my own life that way before," now your story has become a bridge.
• 12:52
  Speaker: That's what happened when the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus helped them reinterpret their story.
• 12:59
  Speaker: Not about the cross.
• 13:00
  Speaker: Nothing about the cross had changed.
• 13:02
  Speaker: Their understanding had.
• 13:04
  Speaker: That's what stories do.
• 13:06
  Speaker: They help people reinterpret their lives, and I believe that's what God has called you to do, too.
• 13:13
  Speaker: Can I tell you something that I think the Holy Spirit has been showing me?
• 13:18
  Speaker: Your calling isn't hidden in one dramatic moment.
• 13:21
  Speaker: It's woven through ordinary moments.
• 13:24
  Speaker: When you look back through the eyes of faith, you begin seeing what once looked disconnected chapters were actually one story God was writing all along.
• 13:36
  Speaker: Your story isn't simply what happened.
• 13:38
  Speaker: It's what you discovered, the faithfulness of God in your life, and that discovery becomes the place another woman begins believing He'll be faithful to her, too.
• 13:51
  Speaker: That's why stories change people.
• 13:54
  Speaker: Not because your life is extraordinary, because God's faithfulness is.
• 13:58
  Speaker: So I got an assignment for you, and it's assignment that I give in my Calling Activation Study.
• 14:04
  Speaker: It's a beginning blocks of how to find the story.
• 14:08
  Speaker: So tonight, I want you to open your photos in your photo album or your phone, and I want you to go back and select one picture that makes your heart pause.
• 14:20
  Speaker: And maybe it's a dramatic moment.
• 14:21
  Speaker: Maybe it's a very painful moment.
• 14:24
  Speaker: And you ask, uh, yourself three questions.
• 14:27
  Speaker: What happened?
• 14:28
  Speaker: What changed in me?
• 14:30
  Speaker: Where was God faithful?
• 14:32
  Speaker: And write those answers down.
• 14:34
  Speaker: I share how a picture of my daughter helping her...
• 14:37
  Speaker: It looked like she was helping her daddy wash Harley-Davidson, and it brought back a wave of emotions and stories.
• 14:43
  Speaker: I'll- I did, I shared one of them in the Calling Activation Study.
• 14:47
  Speaker: But I want you to ask those questions.
• 14:51
  Speaker: What happened?
• 14:53
  Speaker: What changed in me?
• 14:56
  Speaker: Where was God faithful?
• 15:00
  Speaker: And if you really wanna see this in action among other story help, m- m- story mapping, please join me for the Calling Activation Study.
• 15:11
  Speaker: It's coming up August 20th of this date.
• 15:13
  Speaker: The show notes in the link is in the show notes.
• 15:17
  Speaker: And I would love you to join us as we discover the, the story God's been writing all along, the one that truly does connect your mes- your calling to a message to your ideal audience who needs that, your ideal client who needs you.
• 15:32
  Speaker: Once again, the link is waiting in the show notes.
• 15:35
  Speaker: So listen, you were never called to manufacture a message.
• 15:39
  Speaker: You were called to recognize the one God has been writing all along.
• 15:43
  Speaker: Your story is not the thing that broke you.
• 15:46
  Speaker: It's the place where you discovered God's faithfulness, and the bridge another woman will walk across because you chose to tell it.
• 15:58
  Speaker: Before I let you go, I wanna tell you where we're headed next, because this conversation about storytelling from your calling to your visibility to gain the trust of your clients, that's a mouthful, isn't it?
• 16:08
  Speaker: It's just beginning.
• 16:10
  Speaker: In the next few episodes, I'm going to show you where your stories are actually hiding, how to recognize the moments God has been writing all along, and how to turn those moments into messages that build trust, create the connection, and help the right women finally find you.
• 16:28
  Speaker: Trust me, you already have the stories.
• 16:32
  Speaker: You just haven't learned how to see them yet.
• 16:34
  Speaker: So make sure you're subscribed, because we're gonna uncover them together in the next few episodes.
• 16:40
  Speaker: So until next time, I'm Theresa Croft.
• 16:43
  Speaker: I'll see you in the next episode of the Stuck No More Voices Podcast.