Chief Change Officer
#64 The Raw Story Behind the Storyteller: Chris Hare Reveals Secrets of Crafting Stories That Move You — Part Two
Thu, 07 Nov 2024
Part Two. Today’s episode has a unique twist: I’m interviewing a storytelling expert to share his own story. My guest, Chris Hare, is a strategic narrative advisor and coach for companies like Amazon and Microsoft, guiding leaders and executives with his approach, Atomic Storytelling. His method breaks down complex stories into their core, resonant elements. In this three-part series, we’ll journey through Chris’s experiences in three stages. Yesterday, in Part 1, we explored his expertise in helping businesses craft compelling corporate stories and understand the connection between story and narrative. Today, in Part 2, we’ll look at storytelling for personal transformation as Chris shares some of the best and worst stories he’s heard and opens up about his own mental health challenges. Then, in Part 3, he’ll introduce tools we can use to develop our own stories and narratives. And here’s a personal confession—I told him one of his exercises might just make me cry! I’ll also be sharing my own experience with another exercise, highlighting both its challenges and insights. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Rewriting Your Inner Cassette Tape “I find it helpful and more visceral to think about our personal narratives as a cassette tape—a tape that’s playing in our head that we’re constantly writing, rewriting, and adjusting.” Building One Authentic Narrative Across Multiple Worlds “A serial CEO I worked with wanted one narrative that connected his private equity, board roles, and yoga community. The result was an authentic narrative rooted in his true self that could be lensed across different audiences.” Proximity Blinds Us to Our Own Stories "We’re so close to our own narrative and stories that we don’t see the broader picture… if you’re building with Lego, you might not see that there’s a gigantic pile of Lego behind you." Changing the Inputs to Shift the Narrative and Change the Outcome “If you continue to put in the same inputs, things likely won’t change… One of the positive inputs I changed was I got into fly fishing, and that was part of changing those inputs to shift not only the narrative but the outcomes.” The Power of Raw Storytelling "Our stories are not always the really clean, really curated story that makes us look good, but that raw story that has the power to shift the future." Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Chris Hare Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 2 Millions+ Downloads 50+ Countries --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.20 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1% Podcast.Top 5 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>180,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the unique twist in today's episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation.
If you've been listening to my show, you know I bring guests from all corners of the world to share their stories. Through these stories, we dive into hindsight, insights, and foresight for you, the progressive-minded listeners who crave change. Whether you're navigating a career shift
a personal transformation like health challenges or driving change in your organization or community, there's something here for you. Today's episode has a unique twist. I'm interviewing a storytelling expert to share his own story.
My guest, Chris Hare, is a strategic narrative advisor and coach for companies like Amazon and Microsoft, guiding leaders and executives with his approach called Atomic Storytelling. His method breaks down complex stories into their cool, resonant elements. In this three-part series, we'll journey through Chris' experiences in three stages.
Yesterday, in part one, we explored his expertise in helping businesses craft compelling corporate story and understand the connection between story and narrative. Today, in part two, We'll look at storytelling for personal transformation as Chris shares some of the best and worst stories he's ever heard. He will also open up about his own mental health challenge. Then in part three,
He'll introduce tools we can use to develop our own stories and narratives. And here's a personal confession. I told him one of his exercises might just make me cry. I'll also be sharing my own experience with an other exercise. highlighting both its challenges and insights. So let's dive into the second chapter of Chris' story.
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Chapter 2: How can storytelling lead to personal transformation?
So far, we've covered a lot about narrative and storytelling in a business context. But as you mentioned earlier, Narrative can also play a powerful role at an individual level for leaders, for people in career transitions, or even entrepreneurs building a new venture. My next question naturally is, how do we apply narrative and story to individual situations?
Could you walk us through some examples to help illustrate this?
Chapter 3: What is the significance of the 'cassette tape' analogy in storytelling?
I found it, and the young people listening might need to go to Wikipedia and look up what a cassette is. But I find it helpful and more visceral to think about narratives and our personal narratives as a cassette tape, a tape that's playing in our head. We're constantly writing and rewriting that and adjusting that.
This is the future I'm creating, or this is what's happening in the present, or this is what happened in the past. And we fuel that with stories. So I'll give you a few different practical examples. So one, I have this one CEO that I work with. He's a serial CEO and board member. And Chicago MBA, go Chicago, I know you're a fan. Chicago MBA, McKinsey consultant.
Chapter 4: How can we create an authentic narrative across different contexts?
When he came to me, he said, it was, how do I, I have one narrative that I use with private equity, another that I use with venture capital. another that I use with board roles when I'm interviewing. And then I've got my hippie yoga community and my nonprofit work. And what I want is one narrative.
So yes, on the business side, how do I attract more board opportunities without me having to pursue them? How do they come to me? So that was the outcome that he wanted. And I've
become wise enough to know that I guarantee a process and I guarantee deliverables, but I won't guarantee an outcome because I've seen over and over that these narrative shifts that neither one of us could predict often almost always happen, right?
So with him, when we were done, his narrative, he now has one narrative and an authentic narrative at the core of who he is that came out of his yoga practice, but it can now be used and lensed across each of those different audiences. So now it's an authentic narrative that he can use when he's with his yoga community.
But when he's talking to Goldman Sachs about a business they just acquired, he has that narrative lens. And then he has stories from his experience to support that narrative lens. There's a CEO that I just recently finished working with. And I thought this was going to be my first ever failure. And so this is somebody who has a remarkable story. It's like it could be a movie easily.
They were miserable in their role and they were sick of telling the story and said, Chris, I want a new story. I want you to help me create a new story. And I want to exit my company. And it was fascinating. So in terms of my process, we do future visioning, but not just talking and thinking about it, feeling it. So I put them in that space in the future where they feel that.
And then they're also feeling the choices that they've made across their career, good and bad. Because my goal is not to burnish their reputation or that's not my initial goal is to pull out all of the realities of what happened and how that impacts them, how that makes them feel for better or worse.
And then we do storytelling across their lifespan, going all the way back to when they were a little kid. And I look for patterns and energy there. So I'd done those two steps with this client and it wasn't succeeding. And I thought, okay, this is going to be my first ever failure. And then we did the third part of my framework, which I call Atomic 360.
And there, interviewed people who knew this CEO for, in some cases, decades. So this executive team, his employees, his friends who had known him and seen him for a long time, other CEOs, board members, etc. And... I still can't believe what happened.
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Chapter 5: What are common barriers to building self-awareness in storytelling?
But that story, absolutely the worst story I've ever heard or told myself.
For you to be where you are now, living the life you want, and helping others do the same, you must have transformed your own narrative. from a difficult place to a much better one. Before we ask the next question, I'd love to hear if you're open to sharing how you managed to break free from a narrative that was holding you back. How did you go about breaking it down?
and then recomposing it into something much more empowering?
As a creative person, when I went to Amazon, one of my clients, who was the director at the time, became the VP there. He would always talk about inputs and outputs. And it used to drive me nuts because as a creative person, I'm like, no, I just want to envision this future and do creative things. But it really is that. It's inputs and outputs.
but the challenge that I had was the inputs and how I synthesized them. In my case, one, you do have to hit I shouldn't say hit rock bottom. I think that's part of it in some cases. But you need something that Fletcher at The Ohio State University, narrative scientist, and what he talks about as a plot twist.
So something needs to happen to create a shift to shock you out of your way of thinking at times, give you a vision of a new possible future. So for me, a part of my narrative was also very much
blaming other people now to be fair had a terrible manager I had a lot that had happened across the course of my life but I had taken all of that and said I would claim that I took responsibility for my life but I would blame others for the things that happened to me I had to get to a place and in 2020, my marriage almost ended. My wife and I are now back together.
But to get through that, I had to completely rewrite my narrative and go from blaming others to taking responsibility and shifting so that to view a different future. My wife and I, for quite a long season, would actually say, we found it helpful to actually voice, and I would encourage listeners to do this as well, voice what the narrative is.
So in our case, it was, here's the narrative of what I'm believing about you in this moment, or I'm believing about this situation. I know it's not true based on this new future that we're creating, but this is what I'm feeling and believing at this moment. It really is, how do you create new inputs?
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