In business, you are never the hero
It's a boy who discovers he's a wizard.
A young woman who takes her sister's place in a faraway, dystopian death contest.
For our people-obsessed brains, the twists and turns are built around people, not situations or events. None of it works without a compelling character to draw you into the story's world.
There are three essential characters that form a story: the hero, the shadow, and the guide.
The hero's job is to drive the story through some form of transformation.
In order to grow the hero must overcome an adversary, a force that gets in the way of the hero fulfilling their quest.
This shadow can be a rival or it could be the hero grappling with loneliness and doubt.
The shadow usually arrives at the beginning of a narrative. Its job is to force the hero to ask the story's dramatic question, "who am I, and who am I going to be?".
All the excitement and tension in a story is based on how the hero answers this central question.
But heroes seldom go at it alone.
They find help.
A wise Jedi who teaches you about the force and prepares you for the journey ahead.
This character is your guide.
A guide is somebody, or something, whose purpose in the story is to give the hero the skills, knowledge, or equipment they need to conquer their shadow and become heroic.
In business, your role as a storyteller is always to position yourself as the guide.
You're Obi-Wan, they're Luke.
...
• This all came from Will Storr's incredible storytelling course on Section4 https://www.section4.com/courses/superpowers/storytelling-sprint.
• I also have a more comprehensive post on storytelling in marketing that I'm working on at the moment. https://joshpitzalis.com/story