Building Resilience In Leadership Through Storytelling

When I started sharing my speaking journey publicly, everything changed. The traditional business advice says "fake it till you make it." But after working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I've learned something counterintuitive: your biggest breakthrough comes from being transparently vulnerable about your struggles. I was on a call with a successful founder last week. When I asked if he'd spoken at conferences, he froze. "I can't even handle team meetings without sweating." When I shared my own speaking disaster story, forgetting my entire opening at a 500-person conference, something beautiful happened. He realized everyone wanted him to succeed, not fail. Here's what I learned about building in public through transparent speaking: 1. Vulnerability Broadcasting  Share your panic attacks, forgotten openings, and sweaty moments openly. Building your confidence journey in public permits others to be human. Your struggles become someone else's breakthrough story. Speaking fears are universal, your transparency breaks the shame cycle. Others see that success isn't about perfection, it's about persistence. 2. Story Stack Development  Document your 5 go-to stories for any situation and share them. Building your narrative library in public creates accountability for authenticity. Your stories become templates for other entrepreneurs to adapt. Transparency about your frameworks helps others structure their own experiences. 3. Confidence Protocol Sharing  Show your exact pre-speech routine and why it works. Building your confidence systems in public creates replicable frameworks. Your meditation, breathing, and preparation become roadmaps for others. 4. Authority Multiplier Transparency Document how one speech creates 50+ opportunities. Building your authority systems in public shows the compound effect. Your podcast invitations and connection requests become proof of concept. Transparency about speaking ROI motivates others to overcome their fears. 5. Failure Reframe Strategy Share how disasters become your best teaching moments. Building your resilience story in public transforms setbacks into comebacks. Your 15 seconds of silence become someone else's courage catalyst. Transparency about recovery shows that perfection isn't the goal. Others learn that audiences want value, not flawless delivery. This isn't just about becoming a better speaker, it's about creating beautiful, systemized, and impactful ways to share your expertise with the world. When you build your speaking journey in public, you're not just overcoming fears. You're showing other entrepreneurs that their voice matters and their message deserves to be heard. __ Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Matt Gray for more. Curious how this could look inside your business? DM me ‘System’ and I’ll walk you through how we help clients make it happen. This is for high-commitment founders only.

Early in my career, when I shared the story of a workshop that completely bombed (an email announcing layoffs arrived in everyone's inbox during day 1 lunch of a two-day program -- and I had no idea how to handle this), three women immediately reached out to share their own "disaster" stories. We realized we'd all been carrying shame about normal learning experiences while watching men turn similar setbacks into compelling leadership narratives about risk-taking and resilience. The conversation that we had was more valuable than any success story I could have shared. As women, we are stuck in a double-bind: we are less likely to share our successes AND we are less likely to share our failures. Today, I'm talking about the latter. Sharing failure stories normalizes setbacks as part of growth rather than evidence of inadequacy. When we women are vulnerable about their struggles and what they learned, it creates permission for others to reframe their own experiences. This collective storytelling helps distinguish between individual challenges and systemic issues that affect many women similarly. Men more readily share and learn from failures, often turning them into evidence of their willingness to take risks and push boundaries. Women, knowing our failures are judged more harshly, tend to hide them or frame them as personal shortcomings. This creates isolation around experiences that are actually quite common and entirely normal parts of professional development. Open discussion about setbacks establishes the expectation that failing is not only normal but necessary for success. It builds connection and community among women who might otherwise feel alone in their struggles. When we reframe failures as data and learning experiences rather than shameful secrets, we reduce their power to limit our future risk-taking and ambition. Here are a few tips for sharing and learning from failure stories: • Practice talking about setbacks as learning experiences rather than personal inadequacies • Share what you learned and how you've applied those lessons, not just what went wrong • Seek out other women's failure stories to normalize your own experiences • Look for patterns in women's challenges that suggest systemic rather than individual issues (and then stop seeing systemic challenges as personal failures!) • Create safe spaces for honest conversation about struggles and setbacks • Celebrate recovery and growth as much as initial success • Use failure stories to build connection and mentorship relationships with other women We are not the sum of our failures, but some of our failures make us more relatable, realistic, and ready for our successes. So let's not keep them to ourselves. #WomensERG #DEIB #failure

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆—𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 It’s easy to lead when the numbers are up, the energy is high, and everyone’s riding the wave of success. But real leadership? It reveals itself when things take a turn. Leaders have a choice in those moments when uncertainty creeps in and morale dips. Some retreat behind closed doors. Others try to command their way through it. The most impactful leaders do something radically different. They walk into the room, look their team in the eye, and ask: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂? This isn’t about relinquishing responsibility. It’s about stepping deeper into it. It’s about acknowledging the emotional undercurrents that can’t be found on spreadsheets and reconnecting your team to the story that brought them there in the first place. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀. 🔵 They rally around a purpose. 🔵 Around meaning. 🔵 Around a mission they feel part of. And stories—authentic, transparent, human stories—are the vehicle that brings that mission back to life. ➡️ A leader who says, “I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt uncertainty before. Here’s what got me through it…” opens a door to trust. ➡️ A leader who asks, “What do you need from me to do your best work right now?” lays the groundwork for transformation. ➡️ A leader who reminds the team of why they started and what they’ve already overcome reawakens belief. In my work helping leaders craft personal and brand stories, I’ve seen the shift firsthand: ☑️ Engagement rises. ☑️ Creativity returns. ☑️ Commitment deepens. Not because of strategy alone, but because a story was shared, and the leader chose to serve before they led. In a downturn, don’t just manage the moment. Lead with humility. Speak with a story. And always ask: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂? #ServantLeadership #Storytelling #EmployeeEngagement #BrandNarrative #ExecutiveCoaching #TransformationalLeadership