How to know when you're not good enough

I’m helping Olivia, my 5-year old, get ready for school, when she says, 

“I don’t want you to be a grandpa.”

“You don’t want me to be old, or you don’t want me to be a grandpa?”

“A grandpa.”

“Well, that’s up to you and your sister. I can only be a grandpa if one of you has babies.”

“I don’t want to have babies. I don’t think Alice wants to have babies too.”

“That’s not something you need to decide now, monster.”

“But it’s ok to be like aunt Lara, right?”

“Like aunt Lara?”

“She doesn’t have babies and she’s ok, right”

“Ah, of course. Yeah, she’s ok.”

Once she’s ready to go, I ask, 

“But why don’t you want me to be a grandpa?”

“Because I don’t want you to get old and die.”

Before I can respond, Alice comes over and says, 

“People can die when they’re not old enough to be grandpas if they get sick or have an accident.”

Then she hugs me tight and says, 

“But we’ve been lucky so far.”

I turn to Olivia, expecting she’ll be scared or upset, but she’s smiling. 

As she grabs her backpack, I stay on the sofa a little longer, blown away by how my little girls are handling such a difficult subject without tears or tantrums. 

It makes me think that maybe I’m not screwing up too badly as a dad. 

It’s a moment to savour…

Because I know it won’t last 😅

Sometimes… 

Kids can understand that something is possible, but they probably won’t believe it until they see it. In my daughters’ school there’s a boy who has two moms, so my girls know that’s a thing. They get the concept of two dads, but since they don’t know anyone in that situation it feels less real to them. 

I obviously have kids, so if I just say it’s ok for them not to have them, they won’t feel sure. By becoming a parent, I lost all my credibility there (that’s not the only thing I lost 😂). 

But their aunt Lara is the perfect example of someone who has no kids and is happy. 

…You’re just not good enough

Your audience needs someone to relate to. They need to see their problems reflected on a real person so they know you understand their struggles and what’s possible for them. Sometimes that can be you (in the past), sometimes it can be someone you helped. But often it just can’t be you at all. 

Your origin story is great, but you might be so far away from where they are now that they just won’t relate to you. It will feel forced, or worse–unachievable. That’s why it’s important to also tell your clients’ success stories.

There’s no perfect way to know when you’ll be enough, or when you’ll need someone else’s story. As a rule of thumb, the closer your own circumstances were to what they struggle with now, the likelier it is that your story will do. If they’re alike but not really the same, then maybe not. 

For example, if you were terrified of speaking in public and now you help people give keynotes, that’s ok. If you sucked at playing the Atari and now you’re an AI expert, using that story to help anyone who’s tech-challenged is probably a stretch. 

It’s a bit like parenting: there’s no perfect formula to get it right.

Try it, get feedback, see what works, change as needed. 

There’s no need for tears or tantrums. 

You don’t need to be perfect–nobody is.

Even if, in a few rare moments, we feel that we are 🤘

-Francisco 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

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