In early 2007, when I was looking for a way to connect with an audience, to grow my readership on Zen Habits … I admit, I had no idea what I was doing.
Something I did was a small, seemingly unimportant post that turned out to be the best post I’ve ever done on Zen Habits: My Story. It was almost a throwaway post — I wrote it simply to establish who I was, for new readers (that was everybody back then) who might be curious.
The post has been a phenomenal success that I could never have predicted. It has connected readers with me in ways I never dared hope. It’s inspired others in ways that flabbergast me, and inspired many more to read more.
I didn’t do the post without reason. The post did something important in my mind: it not only showed who I was, but where I was coming from and what I’ve done. I wanted to establish that I was a regular guy — not an expert — but that I have a little bit of knowledge about the topics I write about, simply because I’ve been doing this stuff. I can write about getting healthy because I turned my health around. I can write about getting out of debt because I’ve done it.
That worked. But even more than establish a little credibility, it inspired people to do what I’ve done. So they wanted to read about how I did it. And that is the Power of Story.
Think about the last time you read a novel with a cool character — was there anything great about the character that you wanted to emulate? I know that happens with me: because of fictional characters in novels, I’ve started running, given up sugar (for a couple weeks), started writing a novel … and on and on.
What about television or movies? Have you seen someone doing something amazing in a documentary or a feature on TV, and wanted to try it yourself? Of course you have — we’ve all been inspired by the stories of others.
Stories are primal, deep within us. The first stories were stories of cavemen who caught a mastodon (or whatever it was they caught back then). Of course, the other cavemen wanted to catch a similar mastodon, so they paid close attention to the story — maybe they’d learn the secret to how the first guy did it!
And that’s why story works — it inspires us to do what the character in the story has done, it connects us with that character (because in our minds, we are that character as the story is being told), and it holds the promise of revealing the secrets of how the character did what he did.
Story moves people. It moves them to action, to learn more, to be more.
It’s an important element of a great blog — a defining story.
There are countless examples of bloggers who’ve created a great story — intentionally or not — to inspire others, to create excitement, to grow their blogs.
But let’s look at a couple of examples, just to illustrate.
When I first started to look for ways to get out of debt, I found a blog called Get Rich Slowly, by a guy named J.D. Roth. It had already started to gain quite a few readers — today it’s a leader in the personal finance sphere, but back then it was small but growing.
J.D. is a great guy, smart, down-to-earth, and someone I consider a blogging friend. But back then, I knew very little about him other than: 1) his philosophy of getting out of debt and slowly building a strong financial life was a good one and 2) he had an inspiring story of struggling (and eventually succeeding) to get out of debt.
It was J.D.’s story that attracted me to the blog, that had me reading more. And it’s worked with many others as well — today the blog has more than 85,000 subscribers not only because of the valuable advice J.D. dispenses, but also because his story has inspired thousands.
One more quick example: Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, which topped the New York Times Bestseller list.
Tim has created one of the best success stories of any author/blogger of our time because the book contained incredible advice, and had an unbeatable title (seriously — try to top that title). But he connected with readers and inspired them through his story.
Here’s the story in a nutshell: Tim was working way too many hours and was way too stressed running his own business, and finally received a wake-up call when his girlfriend left him. He realized he needed a change, so he outsourced almost all of the business, reduced his work down to just a few hours a week, and started taking mini-vacations all over the world. He was living it up, and it inspired the world.
Let’s talk about how you can use Story to change your blog.
There’s no one way to tell a story, but there are some things you should consider when putting together your own story:
What have you done that’s interesting? Just about every one of us has done something interesting — you just need to think about it. Note that it might not seem interesting to you, because it’s just your everyday life, but others might see it differently. Try talking to someone else about your life if you can’t spot the cool parts yourself.
What are the best parts? What have you accomplished? What have you done that’s exciting? What explains what you know, what experience you have, what credibility you have?
Struggles aren’t something to hide in your story — they’re an important part of it. It helps others to identify with you, to see that you’re a real person. They want to know how you dealt with (and perhaps overcame) those struggles.
Use the forums if you can, or connect with a fellow blogger or a friend. They’ll let you know if there’s something you’re missing, or if they have questions. It’s always good to get an outside eye to look at it.
By short, I mean 1,500 words or less — definitely not more than 2,000 words. Less than 1,000 might be best. Why? People tend to skim on the Internet, like it or not, and while some people will read every word of a 4,000-word story if it’s gripping, many will not. Edit out the long parts and highlight the best parts.
Author: Leo Babauta