Where is our gold when it comes to telling strong stories that connect us to our audience? How do we learn to tell stories that touch our spirits and make our hearts come alive?  Compelling stories often come from a truthful place that lives and breathes inside the emotional well of the storyteller.  Your emotional well is your gold when it comes to bringing your truth to the page and learning how to fictionalize it.  This is not about coming from an autobiographical place.  It is about coming from an authentic place, connecting with your life experience and bringing your voice into your characters.  History has shown us that rewards come to those gifted writers who know how to delve into themselves and bring their truth to the page.

An excellent example of this is the Oscar-nominated film The King’s Speech and its writer, David Seidler.  As a child, Seidler used to stutter.  When I watched this film, I felt more emotionally connected to the plight of this character than any other recent film’s protagonist.  I was totally mesmerized by this character’s journey.  When King George VI (played brilliantly by Colin Firth) approached the microphone, I felt his fear.  I could feel it in my throat.  I rooted for him.  I wanted him to arrive at the ‘light bulb’ moment by doing the work with Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush).  I related with his sheer terror.  Having personally experienced the challenges of public speaking and learning how to move past the fear as millions of us do, I wanted to see Prince Albert (on the road to becoming King George VI) succeed at his speech.  I was on the edge of my seat because I could relate to and connect with his experience.  The fear of failure, another life experience that drives most of us, was conveyed flawlessly in this film.

Discovering that David Seidler personally experienced stuttering in his childhood helped me understand why he was able to hit a pitch-perfect portrayal of this character.  He drew from his own personal well of experience and emotion and brought it to the page.  This allowed the audience real insight into the vulnerability of the film’s central character.

This concept is something I explore heavily in my new book Story Line:  Finding Gold In Your Life Story. The book is about learning how to add fiction to your truth.  It is also about learning that the stories we experience in our own life have tremendous value.  They happen for a reason.  And only by doing the challenging emotional work, do we gain the tools to move past the pain and then pass our stories onto others.

In Elizabeth Edwards’ memoir Resilience, I found that she dug deep into her emotional well and came from such a raw and real place.  She writes, “Each time I fell into a chasm – my son’s death or a tumor in my breast or an unwelcome woman in my life – I had to accept that the planet had taken a few turns and I could not turn back.  My life was and would always be different, and it would be less than I hoped it would be…. I learned that I was starting a new story.  I write these words as if that is the beginning and the end of what I did but it is only a slice of the middle, a place that is hard to reach and in reaching it, only a stepping-off place for finding or creating a new life with our new reality.”  Think about the words “…an unwelcome woman in my life” and “it would be less than I hoped it would be.”  These are powerful admissions and they prompt an emotional experience that millions can connect with.

Resilience reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.  The King’s Speech is an Oscar nominated film.  Both stories come from a place of truth and conviction.  Both writers draw from their emotional wells and bring their truths to the page, giving their audiences a chance to really see them in their stories.  I encourage you to draw from your emotional well in your writing.  You never know what can happen.

Do you ever wonder what drives you to do what you do? What are the intentions behind your actions? Why is success so important to you? What rewards do you expect to earn? These questions led me to read the book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” written by Daniel H. Pink. Daniel writes, “If we want to strengthen our organizations, get beyond our decade of underachievement, and address the inchoate sense that something’s gone wrong in our businesses, our lives, and our world, we need to move from Type X to Type I. Type I behavior is fueled more by intrinsic desires than extrinsic ones. It concerns itself less with the external rewards to which an activity leads and more with the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself.”

I was fascinated by this book because it really spoke to me on a deeper level. I was in the fast paced world of being a corporate climber. I got to the rung of the ladder that I set as my goal. I made it to Vice President. After my climb came to an abrupt stop and my job ended, I started my own company. Suddenly, I was no longer driven by the salary, title, bonus, expenses and the benefits, I was driven by the work. I was driven by building something from scratch, doing the work that I love and seeing the rewards in the clients I help guide. It was a definite transition and one that I had to embrace daily. I discovered that my pride now came from a different place. I had to learn to let go of things that I began to see were connected with my ego. Instead, I had to connect with my spirit and the idea of simplicity. I was doing what I loved and I was succeeding in a whole new way.

Then, recently, I had an opportunity come my way that could have led to a very big job. This job was the dream job that I had previously always seen as my life’s direction. If I was successful at it, like I knew that I could be, it could be huge. However, if I were to accept this job, I would have to close my company, the new adventure I had only just embarked upon a few years ago. I’ve put my heart and soul into this company for three years and I’m anxious to see it continue to grow. It’s showed me the value of intrinsic rewards. I knew my decision had to be about more than just the external security and external rewards this other position could offer me. I had to really look inside myself and decipher what would offer me the most internal security. Even still, the decision was very difficult. Both were amazing opportunities. Ultimately, what I discovered was that, at this moment, I find my greatest internal security in staying with my company and watching it grow. Right now, it’s Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc. that makes me feel most intrinsically complete.

Daniel goes on to write, “For Type I’s, the main motivations the freedom, challenge, and purpose of the undertaking itself; any other gains are welcome, but mainly as a bonus.” I had found that I was moving into what Daniel describes as the “Type I.” I was inspired when I read, “Type I’s almost always outperform Type X’s in the long run. Intrinsically motivated people usually achieve more than the reward-seeking counterparts. The most successful people, the evidence shows, often aren’t directly pursuing conventional notions of success. They’re working hard and persisting through difficulties because their internal desire to control their lives, learn about the world, and accomplish something that endures.”

Since I know that millions are going through the type of change that I am going through, I figured that these words could inspire and empower you like they did for me. I find that by identifying what drives you internally and what you connect your rewards to, you can make the choices that will lead you to find success both personally and professionally in a whole new way.