Stories are good. But if you want to be remembered, you can't be just a story. You've got to become a song.
Stories are linear. They have beginnings and middles. They end. And once you reach that ending, the story's done. The character has won. The movie ends. Your audience moves on.
To become truly compelling and revered, you can't be left behind like a Hollywood ending. You need repeatability. You need to be more like a hit song.
Truly great songs stick in the mind and demand repeating. Even though they also have beginnings and ends, they somehow stay with us long after they end.
Because to the imagination, a song isn't linear. It's like a merry-go-round. There's a chorus, to state the theme of the song. Then a few verses spin around it. Even long after the end fades away, that chorus keeps spinning with heart, mind and soul. And this is why we thrill to return to a song we love.
You also are not linear. There are far too many facets to the endlessly exciting you to be captured in a single narrative. Sure, you could condense a few turning points, hash us a plot, and give us a story. But we'd all be missing so much.
You can escape endings when you become a song, where each action you take brings us back to your theme, your chorus, your raison d'etre. And as your chorus keeps working, we thrill to return as each action you make is familiar yet new.
And when you know your own chorus so well that it's beating the rhythms of your heart and your soul, the verses grow easy. Decisions are clear. Your prowess evolves as we feel such vitality spinning through each and all of the choices you choose.
This clarity and ease is what some people call personal branding. Your Story's important, a significant part. But it's only one verse, and you have many others that make up the song.
So take care with your chorus. For this is how you've gotten so good at staying the same while racing through change. Because each time you approach us a new verse is formed, which you so helpfully gift as a worthy refrain.