Story
Tell Your Story Enough and You Can Change the World
Let’s talk about the story of an amazing man and social entrepreneur named Bill Strickland. We had the opportunity to exchange ideas with him and his team at the Manchester Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh.
Bill’s credited as both a terrific social entrepreneur and a visionary. Even more so, his program to transform the lives of poor youth and the community works. His accolades include four Harvard Case Studies exploring this success (Apple is the only other ‘organization’ to be their subject this many times.) He also received the Goi Peace Award in 2011, Japan’s equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize.
What we really appreciate about Bill is his persistent storytelling. We’ll bet he’s shared his slide show 3,000+ times, and we know for a fact that he’s shared his story in front of every audience that will have him, in hundreds of cities around the world.
We share this with you for two reasons. First, Bill is a great storyteller, and you need to hear his story. (Listen to his TED Talk, “Bill Strickland makes change with a slide show.”)
Second, he works hard, and you can too! Sharing your story 3,000 times is hard work. It requires persistence and conviction to your message. Sometimes you end up speaking to a room of five people, and sometimes Jeff Skoll is in the audience. The way Bill tells it, “and [insert famous/influential name] was in the audience; she came up to me and said, ‘I’d like to help!’”
If you tell your story 3,000 times we promise these things can happen to you too. But, here’s the thing: you don’t need to share your story 3,000 times. It’s just the idea of committing to massive action (as Tony Robbins calls it).
What if you told your story 100 times? You can raise funds and change lives.
What if you told your story 1,000 times? You can change your sector or city.
What if you told your story 3,000 times? You can change the world.
