You should never trust me with your secrets

“Frankie, I can’t find that sales document you told me to use. Can you give me a hand, boss?”

“Have I given you my external hard drive with all the files?”, I ask Dave.

“Yeah, a while back. I copied everything over but still can’t see it.”

“Alright, let me give it a go.”

I pull up a chair, sit in front of his computer and start going through the copied folders. 

That’s when I see it. 

A folder named “Patricia,” looking faded, with blurry edges, but clearly visible. 

Oh crap. 

This is 2009. I just moved to Barcelona to live with my girlfriend, we were dating long-distance for a few years after we got together. 

We only saw each other every month or two, so there were lots of phone calls. 

Lots of messages. 

Lots of emails. 

And, sometimes, she’d send me… pictures. 

Very… nice pictures. 

Which I saved in a folder in my hard drive. A hidden folder. 

Which apparently is not as hidden as I thought 😬

“Ahm… this folder here with my girlfriend’s name on it… you wouldn’t happen to have looked into it, right?”

Dave stares at the screen and I can see he’s trying not to smile, but he doesn’t quite manage it. Eventually he looks at me with a grin on his face and and says, 

“Yeah, me and the guys were wondering when you’d figure out that folder was just there. Took longer than we thought.”

I spend the next hour making sure all copies of the folder are gone from my team’s computers. 

I delete it from my hard drive. 

And I decide it’s probably best if Patricia never hears about this 😅

What’s the story? 

A couple of years ago I was booked to give a keynote to a Dutch company that works with managed file transfers. In the discovery call, the client explained to me that, in essence, their job was to make sure companies can move data around in a safe manner. 

It’s not something I ever had any experience with, so I was having some difficulty figuring out what story to open the talk with.

Then I asked myself, “I haven’t used their service or anything like it, but have I ever lost important data? Have I ever felt the pain of not moving my files safely?”

Eventually the story above came back to me, I had completely forgotten about it - I clearly did a much better job hiding it deep in my memory than I did hiding the actual folder 😂

Don't overthink it

Often the simplest way to find a story that connects you to your audience is to ask yourself: 

• Has that problem happened to me? 

• Have a I felt the pain they feel (or their clients feel if they don’t hire them)? 

It doesn’t need to be a perfect match. It just needs to show you understand them. 

That’s enough of a foundation to build on. 

And if that story also makes them laugh, or shows them you’re a (very) fallible human being they can relate to, then you’re on to a winner 🤘

-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 ;-)

Thanks for reading! Reply any time.