Hello there from literally I don’t know where. **actually hold up let me check…

Ok I lied.

I am here. In Greenland writing this to you on Thursday morning? Afternoon? Is it Friday? Or Thursday still?? I have no idea.

But according to the screen I am/was 6 hours away from landing in San Francisco on a journey that kicked off at 9AM Lisbon time and had me come to SF by way of Paris where I had sushi at I don’t even know what time and then kicked myself for not leaning in and getting the giant box of macarons that I really wanted.

But let me go back to the subject line of this email.

I get asked some version of this question all the time:

• “How do you weave your stories into your content so seamlessly?”
• “Where do you find the moments to write about?”
• “Do you plan out all of your Instagram stories ahead of time and storyboard them?”
• “Are you constantly filming your days and thinking about storytelling?” (No. Dear God, no.)

When Leisl (My StoryPro marketing head) first asked me “what my process was” I literally said… “I don’t know.”

And that was not the response she wanted. She has been asking me this for a while now…as far back as this zoom session in December.

So I decided to take a bird’s eye view of myself and realized.. I do have a method to this madness… and you will be excited to know that it’s not complicated!

First off, generally speaking I never go hunting for the perfect moment to illustrate a point I want to make (whether that’s in this newsletter, a social post or a presentation.)

I use whatever I’m living through right now.

Because right now is always going to be the most raw, the most real, the most unresolved and yes… the most (sorry to use the A word) AUTHENTIC.

Oh and it’s lazy.

I barely remember what I did a few days ago and now I’m supposed to memory-mine something that happened weeks back that might be the perfect illustration of a lesson I want to share? Just a hell to the no.

So here’s what I’m living through right now.

I’m on a flight to San Francisco. (should we check where I am now.. Ok one sec.. Let’s see how far we’ve gone.)

OK…so I was this many years old when I learned this place I’m about to show you is a REAL PLACE.. You ready for the zoom in??

Ok I need to focus and not go down a deep dive on what in the Lord land am I flying over.

Back to the “right now”.

I have a week of investor meetings ahead of me.

I’m staying with a woman in SF who has no joke become one of my best friends who I’ve never even met.

She’s the reason my Whatsapp storage is always in the danger zone and we are psychotic in our topics and our inability to BE CONCISE. (working on it.)

But anyway, she’s a My StoryPro member and we are in a mutual business group and have never met IRL. but that’s about to change because I am crashing her house in Mill Valley (hey ya!!!)

So this is what is happening right now in my life.

By the time you read this I will have probably Dirty Danced ran into her arms but all this to say…I often don’t know how the story will end when I share them with you.

But I’m choosing to write from that moment anyway.

A moment where the stakes are live, sometimes high and the ending hasn’t happened yet.

This is one of the storytelling methods that I like to use in my business content and it’s the most effective tactic if you’re trying to build a real relationship with your audience.

Most people don’t use this tactic.

They wait (and look I wait too for certain scenarios…more on that in another email…. But mostly I don’t wait.)

When someone tells you a story, most of the time they are telling it from a place where they already know the happy ending.

“We got the funding phew we’re not sad and broke now.”
“This THING was SOOOOO hard but I got through it yay lets talk about it.”
“It was SOO stressful to leave my job to start my business but let me tell you now that I’m on the cover of magazines.”

It’s scary to write from the mess which is why most tell stories from the safe distance of “here’s what I learned.” But your audience wants to be inside the moment with you.

Like how much more interesting and (albeit possibly tragic for me) is it to “come along with me on this SF investor week” when I have no idea how this ends?

Or to tee up this meeting of a woman I’ve been talking to daily for a year and we’re only meeting IRL now?

Those are the details that make this feel like a real person wrote it and not a scheduled post written in a batch Claude skill prompt from a week ago.

So here’s what I want you to try this week.

Don’t go looking for a story “for content.” Look at what’s actually happening in your life right now.

What’s unresolved?
What are you nervous about?
What did you say yes to that you’re not totally sure about?
What are you mulling over in the quiet parts of your day?
What are you navigating right now?

This week? Those are powerful connection moments and make for amazing stories.

Write or speak from there before you know how it ends. (you can do it!!)

What’s a story of yours that would connect with your audience because it has real stakes? Hit reply and tell me!

XO
Patrice

P.S. In two weeks I’m going to show you exactly how I take a moment like this one and turn it into content that works for the business and not just a trauma dump, using the same 4-step method Vee and I are teaching live on October 8th.

Keep an eye out for more info!