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Crafting Impactful Narratives for Leadership and Growth: Insights from Guillaume Wiatr
25th March 2024 • Seek Go Create - The Leadership Journey for Christian Entrepreneurs and Faith-Driven Leaders • Tim Winders - Coach for Leaders in Business & Ministry
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Have you ever considered the power of narrative in shaping your life and work? In this riveting episode of "Seek Go Create," Tim Winders engages with narrative strategist, Guillaume Wiatr, who reveals how strategic narratives can transform our personal and business journeys. Guillaume shares invaluable insights on the essential stories that mold our reality and influence our values, decisions, and cultural perceptions. Dive into a discussion that promises to shift your perspective on success, resilience, and the art of storytelling. If you're ready to uncover the narrative that drives your journey, this episode is for you.

"Framing your narrative is not just about what you've done, but who you've become through the highs and lows of your journey." - Guillaume Wiatr

Access all show and episode resources HERE

About Our Guest:

Guillaume Wiatr is the founder of Metahelm, where he utilizes his expertise in strategic narrative methodology to empower professional services firms. With a passion for blending business with the exploration of life's meaning, Guillaume has carved a niche in guiding organizations to align their professional endeavors with their personal values. His innovative approach involves specializing in storytelling, enabling leaders to craft narratives that resonate with their audience, fostering resilience, creativity, and impactful communication. Through his work, Guillaume has become a driving force for companies seeking to define and express their unique stories in a compelling way.

Reasons to Listen:

1. Uncover the Power of Strategic Narratives: Tune in to hear Guillaume Wiatr articulate the transformative influence of narratives on leadership and decision-making, unveiling four immediately actionable stories that could redefine your personal or professional journey.

2. Embrace Growth and Change: Get inspired by Guillaume's own riveting origin tale and learn how re-framing your life story can lead to resilience, creativity, and unexpected success amidst life's inevitable ebbs and flows.

3. Expand Your Influence: Delve into the principles of strategic narrative methodology with the founder of Metahelm, and discover how you can wield narrative power to create a compelling and cohesive identity that gathers people and shapes your impact on the world.

Episode Resources & Action Steps:

### Resources Mentioned:

1. **Guillaume Wiatr's Website**: Visit metahelm.com for a free assessment and to access tools related to strategic narratives.

2. **YouTube Video**: Watch Guillaume Wiatr's video "Systems of Stories" on YouTube for a deeper understanding of narrative frameworks.

3. **Guillaume Wiatr's LinkedIn**: Connect with Guillaume Wiatr on LinkedIn to follow his professional insights and engage with his content.

4. **Strategic Narrative eBook**: Guillaume Wiatr has authored a book on strategic narratives. Get a free PDF online for a comprehensive guide on the subject.

### Action Steps:

1. **Assess Your Narrative**: Take the free strategic narrative assessment on metahelm.com to evaluate the current state of your personal or business narrative.

2. **Define Your Core Stories**: Reflect on and write down your own origin story, opportunity story, perspective story, and the vision for creating the opportunity of a lifetime.

3. **Engage with Strategic Narrative Practices**: Utilize the 12 narrative-shaping practices discussed by Guillaume Wiatr to develop your personal or business narrative strategically.

Resources for Leaders from Tim Winders & SGC:

🔹 Unlock Your Potential Today!

  • 🎙 Coaching with Tim: Elevate your leadership and align your work with your faith. Learn More
  • 📚 "Coach: A Story of Success Redefined": A transformative read that will challenge your views on success. Grab Your Copy
  • 📝 Faith Driven Leader Quiz: Discover how well you're aligning faith and work with our quick quiz. Take the Quiz

Key Lessons:

1. **The Four Essential Stories for Shaping Your Narrative**: Guillaume Wiatr emphasizes the importance of understanding and conveying the innovation story, perspective story, product story, and the story of the resources available for engagement. This approach helps to establish a clear narrative that can guide individuals and organizations in their journey and communication strategy.

2. **Strategic Narrative is Key to Leadership and Group Cohesion**: Narratives are powerful tools that leaders can use to bring people together and align them with common values and objectives. Guillaume introduces the idea of working on an origin story, an opportunity story, and a perspective story—each of which is crucial for creating a narrative that resonates with and unifies a group.

3. **Narrative Versus Story**: Understanding the difference between a story and a narrative is essential, with narratives being more encompassing and broader in scope. Narratives are not only open-ended but also shape and are shaped by our language, mindset, and actions, thus continuing to evolve even after an individual's death.

4. **The Role of Values in Shaping Decision-making**: Values greatly influence our decision-making processes. Guillaume asserts that values are, in fact, choices and form part of our narrative, stressing the need to be conscious and strategic about the values we adopt and the narrative we craft around them.

5. **Engaging with Change and Overcoming Boredom**: Personal growth often requires change and the willingness to step out of our comfort zones. Guillaume shares his experiences with boredom and how significant changes, like moving to a new country, were means to combat stagnation and trigger a narrative shift focusing on resilience and creativity.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Exploring multiple talents may provoke criticism.

07:27 Diversity in life, specialize in specific moments.

15:57 Podcast episode prompts reflection on triggering events.

18:47 Derail project, prompt drawing, reveal project's status.

23:52 Reflecting on life's challenges and finding gratitude.

28:52 Propaganda can trigger wars, but it's subjective.

34:34 Stories have cycles, French movies lack happy endings.

39:59 Embrace authenticity, navigate culture clash, avoid manipulation.

48:34 Business owners, leaders, and individuals share narratives.

51:48 Exploring perspectives on right and wrong.

55:34 Explore origin story, opportunity story, and more.

01:01:47 Choosing seek over create for its potential.

Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create!

Our podcast is dedicated to empowering Christian leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals looking to redefine success in their personal and professional lives. Through in-depth interviews, personal anecdotes, and expert advice, we offer valuable insights and actionable strategies for achieving your goals and living a life of purpose and fulfillment.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Overcome Leadership Challenges with Tim Winders

Feeling overwhelmed in your leadership journey? You're not alone. Tim Winders, your SeekGoCreate host, is here to guide you through those tough moments as an experienced executive coach. From mastering team dynamics to making strategic decisions and fostering personal growth, Tim offers the support you need to break through barriers and achieve what once seemed impossible. Don’t let challenges define your leadership. Book a free Discovery Coaching Call with Tim today and take the first step towards a path of greater success and satisfaction. It's time to transform your challenges into opportunities.

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Transcripts

Guillaume Waitr:

So a narrative is a choice.

Guillaume Waitr:

A narrative is a point of view.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's the way you look at reality, it's the way you, understand

Guillaume Waitr:

what is happening around you.

Guillaume Waitr:

A narrative is a system of stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your

Guillaume Waitr:

origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.

Guillaume Waitr:

Um, uh,

Tim Winders:

In the ever evolving world of professional services.

Tim Winders:

How do leaders cut through the noise, align their teams

Tim Winders:

and drive genuine innovation.

Tim Winders:

Welcome to today's episode of seek, go create, where we delve into

Tim Winders:

the art and science of creating compelling business narratives.

Tim Winders:

With Guillaume Viat, the mastermind behind the strategic narrative methodology.

Tim Winders:

Guillaume, the founder of MetaHelm has revolutionized how CEOs, founders,

Tim Winders:

and leadership teams of professional services firms clarify their vision,

Tim Winders:

differentiate their business, and inspire both their teams and the market.

Tim Winders:

Through his unique approach, he has guided prominent organizations and leaders,

Tim Winders:

including those from Alaska airlines, the Gates foundation, and Google towards

Tim Winders:

greater focus, traction, and innovation.

Tim Winders:

Guillaume, welcome to SeatGoCreate.

Guillaume Waitr:

Hello team.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's so good to be here with you.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's

Tim Winders:

It is.

Guillaume Waitr:

having,

Tim Winders:

I'm glad you're here too.

Tim Winders:

We had a great little conversation before we clicked record.

Tim Winders:

And I even said, stop, I've got to get the recorder going.

Tim Winders:

This is, this is some good information.

Tim Winders:

And I'm, I'm going to start with like my little, I call it a little

Tim Winders:

wimpy icebreaker thing, but I think it's an important question.

Tim Winders:

And that is if someone asks you with the breadth that you've got, the background,

Tim Winders:

you've got all that you do, if you just bump into someone, let's say outside of a.

Tim Winders:

Business environment, and they ask you what you do, what do you tell them?

Guillaume Waitr:

I'll tell them and I'm an explorer and I explore the

Guillaume Waitr:

meaning of life through business.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's really, this really, it's been, it's been my narrative since I was a kid.

Guillaume Waitr:

I wanted to be an expert in the literal sense of things, you know, like

Guillaume Waitr:

packing everything in your backpack and going to places you don't know.

Guillaume Waitr:

Exotic.

Guillaume Waitr:

unknown territories, uncharted territories, which I did

Guillaume Waitr:

for, for a while in my life.

Guillaume Waitr:

I was lucky enough to travel to many countries.

Guillaume Waitr:

but I think now, and I, interestingly, I'm very sedentary now.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm, I'm French, but I'm established in Seattle since 2008.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, I, I don't travel very much, but I do explore a lot more.

Guillaume Waitr:

I like, you know, I explore the meaning of life for me, for my clients, for

Guillaume Waitr:

my family through business because that's kind of how I, I, I spend most

Guillaume Waitr:

of my time doing business things.

Guillaume Waitr:

But for me, business is a very multifaceted.

Guillaume Waitr:

Concept, and I am an artist as well.

Guillaume Waitr:

I am, obviously, a French native speaker, but an exo, what's called an

Guillaume Waitr:

exophonic writer, somebody who writes in their, second or third language.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I write in English, you know, and I explore, what I do through all

Guillaume Waitr:

sorts of practices, like creative practices, spiritual practices.

Guillaume Waitr:

practices, all sorts of things.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, people say, Oh, I mean, you're, you're such a Renaissance man.

Guillaume Waitr:

You Jack, you're a Jack of all trade.

Guillaume Waitr:

You, you can, you're, you're talented at so many things.

Guillaume Waitr:

And it's because from the get go, I've always had this idea that life

Guillaume Waitr:

is so rich, so abundant that it would be, it would be a shame not

Guillaume Waitr:

to try a bunch of things, but my.

Guillaume Waitr:

My red thread, you know, my direction is, is really that idea of alignment

Guillaume Waitr:

between what you do as a professional and, and the impact you want to have.

Guillaume Waitr:

did I answer the question?

Tim Winders:

I, you did, you, you gave me a lot of information that could move us in

Tim Winders:

different directions than the, you know, three questions that I wrote down that

Tim Winders:

I might want to ask, but the word that.

Tim Winders:

The word that jumped out at me is curiosity and I have, I've found that

Tim Winders:

the age that I'm at, I think as I prep for this question, that's going

Tim Winders:

to be around curiosity, I have kind of been similar from a young age.

Tim Winders:

There were a lot of things.

Tim Winders:

I never have called myself an artist, but yet I've recently written a novel.

Tim Winders:

And I, I think what we're doing here is a certain degree of art.

Guillaume Waitr:

It is.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah,

Tim Winders:

you know, having conversations and trying to get

Tim Winders:

a story or, or a narrative, we're going to weave this word narrative

Tim Winders:

into what we're doing shortly.

Tim Winders:

But it, it's, it's fascinating to me that the negative.

Tim Winders:

of the incredibly positive way that you said what you did, which is a

Tim Winders:

Renaissance man, someone who's talented and skilled, skilled in many areas.

Tim Winders:

I had someone who called himself a polymath that I interviewed, that they're

Tim Winders:

expert in so many different areas.

Tim Winders:

The negative of it for some people could be, That they are,

Tim Winders:

and this is not a bad thing.

Tim Winders:

There's some people that they do one thing well, their entire life at times.

Tim Winders:

I'm not envious of them, but I look at them and then go, huh, wonder

Tim Winders:

what that would be like, because they will often criticize me and you

Tim Winders:

and say, are you struggling to find something you're really good at?

Tim Winders:

Or that you really want to do.

Tim Winders:

That's the negative.

Tim Winders:

And so I'll sort of ask that.

Tim Winders:

Have you ever had someone say, Guillaume, can't you just find something

Tim Winders:

that you can do and stick with it?

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

My parents,

Tim Winders:

respond when people say that to you?

Guillaume Waitr:

my parents saying so many times yours too.

Tim Winders:

I mean, my early on in my corporate, early on in my corporate

Tim Winders:

career, I worked corporate for a few years when I came out of university

Tim Winders:

at Georgia Tech as an engineer.

Tim Winders:

And I was one of these at about every nine months.

Tim Winders:

In a very structured stayed environment of corporate, it was in

Tim Winders:

the telecommunications industry that was a hundred years old at the time.

Tim Winders:

Most people went in, stayed there, worked forever.

Tim Winders:

Well, in the nine years I was there, I had 10 different jobs, roles, et cetera.

Tim Winders:

and and my mother literally said at one point, is there nothing you

Tim Winders:

could find that you can do there?

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah, it's because maybe, maybe it's something that,

Guillaume Waitr:

and as a, as a dad of two boys, you know, it's probably something that

Guillaume Waitr:

would, that would scare me a bit.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, so, so we'll, we'll see their, their teenagers still.

Guillaume Waitr:

So we'll see in a few years, if they, if they keep looking for

Guillaume Waitr:

different things, I might experience the same, the same anxiety.

Guillaume Waitr:

My parents told me, yeah, isn't there something you want to settle on and

Guillaume Waitr:

just do for the rest of your life?

Guillaume Waitr:

And I said, no, I'm going to be like that for a long time.

Guillaume Waitr:

But now outside of that.

Guillaume Waitr:

I didn't get too much.

Guillaume Waitr:

I didn't receive too much criticism from my friends or colleagues.

Guillaume Waitr:

and, and, and yet, because the, you know, I heard this from the

Guillaume Waitr:

parental voice, it still made me quite uncomfortable until I think I,

Guillaume Waitr:

I was able to figure something out.

Guillaume Waitr:

And the, and that's, that's the following is that you don't have

Guillaume Waitr:

to, Specialize and niche down your whole life into something, but what

Guillaume Waitr:

so you, you can stay very diverse.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can, you can explore very different and maybe throughout your life.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, there are seasons in life.

Guillaume Waitr:

There are things you can do and can do, at different times.

Guillaume Waitr:

And so, but, but you may want to think about specializing specific

Guillaume Waitr:

moments or areas of your life or your, of your, or your business journey.

Guillaume Waitr:

and in fact, you know, the, the, the, the, some of the most successful

Guillaume Waitr:

entrepreneurs, if you look at their portfolio of businesses, and it's

Guillaume Waitr:

a very wide range of things, but each businesses is each business.

Guillaume Waitr:

is highly specialized in something.

Guillaume Waitr:

So you introduced me as the, as the principal and founder of Metahelm and that

Guillaume Waitr:

business is highly specialized in business strategy for professional services firms.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's all I do.

Guillaume Waitr:

Nothing else.

Guillaume Waitr:

and then, you know, even within that buckets, I, I'm not going to go into

Guillaume Waitr:

details now, but there are very, very specific things that I, I think I'm

Guillaume Waitr:

really good at and others that I won't do, but metahelm is not my whole life.

Guillaume Waitr:

Fortunately, I have, I have many other things.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, so that's how I see it.

Guillaume Waitr:

I hope this helps, you know, people who listen to us also.

Guillaume Waitr:

Maybe, settle with that question, which you're right.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's a difficult question and there's a lot of criticism.

Guillaume Waitr:

There's a lot of debate.

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

You should need to, no, you should stay a generalist.

Guillaume Waitr:

I advise my clients for the business that I hope that I

Guillaume Waitr:

help them with to specialize.

Guillaume Waitr:

And there are many different ways to specialize, not just an

Guillaume Waitr:

industry or, or, or one process.

Guillaume Waitr:

There's different ways to do that.

Guillaume Waitr:

and that's, that's always keeping in mind that they're more than that.

Guillaume Waitr:

They're way more than that.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that's okay to explore other things.

Tim Winders:

Hmm.

Tim Winders:

So that.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's how I reconciled it for me.

Tim Winders:

Yeah.

Tim Winders:

And, and, and, so this is, I guess something, I think this

Tim Winders:

is very valuable for a number of people, for the person that.

Tim Winders:

Might be feeling as if they're in one place and they hear two guys

Tim Winders:

talk about all these different things, explore, adventure, being

Tim Winders:

curious and all that kind of stuff.

Tim Winders:

And so I want, I want that person to stick around because I believe

Tim Winders:

there's value for, for what they do, because in many ways I admire that.

Tim Winders:

As much, sometimes if not more than the way, the way we have discussed we are.

Tim Winders:

But one of the things I noticed about me, and this is, I'll pose

Tim Winders:

this in the form of a question.

Tim Winders:

I noticed early on in my life, it was probably the seasons, you mentioned

Tim Winders:

this word seasons, I love that word, that I was finding who I was.

Tim Winders:

I was identifying, I was identifying the things that I

Tim Winders:

definitely wasn't going to do.

Tim Winders:

And, and I would find myself getting bored.

Tim Winders:

And, and, you know, you use the word explorer and explorer basically is

Tim Winders:

someone who goes out, but, but like you said, they could be someone close.

Tim Winders:

So the question I've got is, do you ever find yourself getting bored?

Tim Winders:

And if you don't currently, did you in the past and how have you reconciled that?

Tim Winders:

If that was the case, just, you know, boards, like, you know what?

Tim Winders:

This is not exciting me.

Tim Winders:

This is not a good narrative for me, whatever I need to do something else.

Tim Winders:

How did you address that?

Guillaume Waitr:

You mean bored in general?

Guillaume Waitr:

Because I, I, or, or bored because I get bored every day with a bunch of

Guillaume Waitr:

stuff that I have to, I have to, to do.

Tim Winders:

I'll give it, I'll let you take it.

Tim Winders:

I'll, I'll let you take it.

Tim Winders:

However you want to take it for what go big picture or go granular day to day.

Tim Winders:

Either way

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

well, I did, I did, I was definitely, generally bored in my life.

Guillaume Waitr:

I can think of a few times, you know, and then I triggered change.

Guillaume Waitr:

I said, Oh, let's change, let's change, country.

Guillaume Waitr:

For instance, my wife is from Seattle.

Guillaume Waitr:

So she's.

Guillaume Waitr:

She's the one who kind of dragged me over, but we used to live in

Guillaume Waitr:

France and, I was bored with France.

Guillaume Waitr:

I wanted to change and she was homesick.

Guillaume Waitr:

So good timing.

Guillaume Waitr:

They, you know, let's shift this.

Guillaume Waitr:

let me tell you, it was not boring after that.

Guillaume Waitr:

It was very, very intense and exciting for me.

Guillaume Waitr:

And so, so yes, so, so, so I, I, in general, am I bored right now?

Guillaume Waitr:

No.

Guillaume Waitr:

this is a very, very exciting, time of my life.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really, really, you know, thrilled with the

Guillaume Waitr:

amount of conversations that I have, the type of work that I do.

Guillaume Waitr:

I was, Making a list the other day of all the topics and the experts I work with

Guillaume Waitr:

and it ranges from somebody who's like a leading expert in the resilience, you

Guillaume Waitr:

know, human resilience all the way to people who create better ways to cool.

Guillaume Waitr:

high performance computers.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's that, that's a really, really critical thing right now is to

Guillaume Waitr:

increase power, computing power.

Guillaume Waitr:

You have to call them in a way more effective and, and, and a sustainable way.

Guillaume Waitr:

I work with people who help, highly sensitive people.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm, I was just on a call, two days ago with somebody in Saudi Arabia who wants

Guillaume Waitr:

to create a community for entrepreneurs.

Guillaume Waitr:

I mean.

Guillaume Waitr:

I don't have time to get bored with all those topics.

Guillaume Waitr:

It really, really fits my curiosity now on a date on a day to day basis.

Guillaume Waitr:

I do.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah, there's stuff that I'm not excited, you know, of doing in, in doing.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, and, my, my son, last, this weekend we were driving and he's like,

Guillaume Waitr:

dad, I'm really bored with school.

Guillaume Waitr:

I feel like, you know, I just.

Guillaume Waitr:

Push through the week, and I, I try to do my best, but it's really, really boring.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I say, well, maybe there is a, there's a learning there, there's a lesson.

Guillaume Waitr:

Maybe the, maybe it's here to teach you that not everything in life is always

Guillaume Waitr:

exciting and you have to learn to do the things that you must do, you know,

Guillaume Waitr:

to a certain extent and deal with that.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, you know, I, I publish a lot of things.

Guillaume Waitr:

I, you know, I do a lot of videos.

Guillaume Waitr:

I do a lot of writing.

Guillaume Waitr:

I, I, I, I interact with the outside world and sometimes.

Guillaume Waitr:

Am I excited?

Guillaume Waitr:

No, not at all.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm bored.

Guillaume Waitr:

I mean, I'm like, nah, yeah, gotta do this thing, but I do it anyways.

Guillaume Waitr:

I know that 10 seconds later I get really, really thrilled, really excited.

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh my gosh, yes.

Guillaume Waitr:

I could talk about this.

Guillaume Waitr:

I could say this.

Guillaume Waitr:

I could do that.

Guillaume Waitr:

I could create, I could draw, I could, you know, you name it.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's my relationship with boredom.

Guillaume Waitr:

And may, maybe I did.

Guillaume Waitr:

I didn't define boredom as the same as way, the same way as you do.

Guillaume Waitr:

But that's kind of my relationship.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah, that's my

Tim Winders:

that's good.

Tim Winders:

Before I hit record, you mentioned to me that you had gone back and

Tim Winders:

listened to the origin story.

Tim Winders:

And, and I gave you a little video tour of our RV here, which gave

Tim Winders:

you a little glimpse into our life.

Tim Winders:

And I'm always fascinated because it is interesting.

Tim Winders:

There are a number of people that I think they can't learn.

Tim Winders:

Much about me, my narrative, who I am, unless they listen to that.

Tim Winders:

And your comment was similar or relatable or something like that.

Tim Winders:

I don't know the exact words.

Tim Winders:

And so I think what I'd love to do now is maybe what is, what is that?

Tim Winders:

origin story that you feel is pertinent to share as we move into this discussion

Tim Winders:

about strategic narrative here.

Tim Winders:

What is, and one of the things we do not do here, we love the tactical, we

Tim Winders:

love strategic, but we also love that identity and core of who people are,

Tim Winders:

which comes from situations like that.

Tim Winders:

So that's me giving you permission to share whatever as light or

Tim Winders:

as deep as you would like to.

Tim Winders:

We don't.

Tim Winders:

We don't use words like failure.

Tim Winders:

We call them experiences.

Tim Winders:

It's part of who we are.

Tim Winders:

So what's in, what's part of your, or your origin story that is

Tim Winders:

pertinent to the conversation here?

Guillaume Waitr:

So, when I saw that, you know, in, I listened to

Guillaume Waitr:

your podcast and I, I picked up, there is an origin story episode.

Guillaume Waitr:

Then you mentioned it like, Oh, where is that episode?

Guillaume Waitr:

So I had to scroll down on my, I think I was on Spotify.

Guillaume Waitr:

Listen, scroll that all the way, all the way, all the way.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like, Oh, there is that episode to me.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's the most, one of the most interesting facets of a narrative

Guillaume Waitr:

is where people come from now.

Guillaume Waitr:

and, and, or, you know, there's potentially In my, in my journey,

Guillaume Waitr:

several moments that I would call triggering events or, you know, that

Guillaume Waitr:

could qualify for an origin story.

Guillaume Waitr:

And it all depends on how you frame it.

Guillaume Waitr:

And you just, you just did something, which is you, you

Guillaume Waitr:

framed, a story with options.

Guillaume Waitr:

You gave people a possibility just a minute ago by saying

Guillaume Waitr:

there's no, there is no failure.

Guillaume Waitr:

There's just learning is that, I think that's what you said.

Guillaume Waitr:

Right.

Guillaume Waitr:

so.

Guillaume Waitr:

Current.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I'll tell you my origin story as it relates to what I'm doing now.

Guillaume Waitr:

But as, as it relates to other things in my life, maybe there are other moments in

Guillaume Waitr:

my life that could be the origin story.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I just, I just want to say that because it's an exercise in, relativity.

Guillaume Waitr:

it's one of the key exercises I help my clients actually, work on and develop

Guillaume Waitr:

because through that they unearth so much.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's really, you know, there's a famous quote by, I don't know, I can't remember

Guillaume Waitr:

who, but you can't predict the future.

Guillaume Waitr:

The only way to predict the future is to look through the past because

Guillaume Waitr:

there is nothing to look at in the future unless you have a crystal ball.

Guillaume Waitr:

I don't have one.

Guillaume Waitr:

So my origin story is about when I came to the, there's two moments,

Guillaume Waitr:

first of all, working in corporations.

Guillaume Waitr:

Working corporations, I thought that if I was really bored, Tim, I was really,

Guillaume Waitr:

really bored and, and, and, and, I remember this, this day when, I was

Guillaume Waitr:

a young consultant, it was probably around the late nineties, early 2000,

Guillaume Waitr:

I was brought on to a large, energy company in France called Total.

Guillaume Waitr:

and that brought me on because for somehow randomly, I happen to be very,

Guillaume Waitr:

knowledgeable about the purchasing, tool that they had, and they were

Guillaume Waitr:

stuck on a project and I'll make this part of this part of my origin story.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's the first part short, but I kicked off the meeting.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm a young consultant, probably 27, 28.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm sitting in this room with everyone, probably double my age.

Guillaume Waitr:

running, you know, this large, very, very large company and they all expect

Guillaume Waitr:

from me this technical expertise.

Guillaume Waitr:

And in the first 15 to 30 minutes, I noticed that the problem

Guillaume Waitr:

is not the lack of expertise.

Guillaume Waitr:

The problem is these guys don't listen to each other.

Guillaume Waitr:

They're misaligned.

Guillaume Waitr:

They, you know, they use different terms and acronyms and.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's, it's an ego festival, like I know more than you and I can do, and

Guillaume Waitr:

I can say this jargon better than you.

Guillaume Waitr:

And so it's like, I'm like, huh, no wonder this project is stuck.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I, I derail my own agenda and say, Hey guys, you know, I, you know, I had

Guillaume Waitr:

a whole agenda today, but do you mind if we do this quick exercise, which

Guillaume Waitr:

consists of grabbing a piece of paper and drawing what the project looks like.

Guillaume Waitr:

Everyone here around the room grabs a piece of letter size, you know, piece

Guillaume Waitr:

of paper and a pen and draws a project.

Guillaume Waitr:

Which after a few seconds of looking at me with googly eyes, they go, okay,

Guillaume Waitr:

I guess if the cons if the consultant say, so we'll do it, but not convinced

Guillaume Waitr:

they did it, we posted the drawings and the drawings did the rest.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like they could see by themselves without me saying anything, why

Guillaume Waitr:

the project was completely stuck.

Guillaume Waitr:

So there was a first moment in my life where I'm like, okay, I probably should

Guillaume Waitr:

my intuition more and my creativity more.

Guillaume Waitr:

And really pay attention to human dynamics, which I just did now.

Guillaume Waitr:

I was terrified him.

Guillaume Waitr:

I thought they were going to fire me right away, which at the, at

Guillaume Waitr:

this, at this time and age in my life would have been completely

Guillaume Waitr:

dramatic and, and the project went on.

Guillaume Waitr:

It was actually very successful.

Guillaume Waitr:

Two years later, they told me, Oh, we didn't, we never told you, but

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, before you, we had fired to be consulting for us because they

Guillaume Waitr:

couldn't, make us work together.

Guillaume Waitr:

So it was the first element then 15 years later about, sorry.

Guillaume Waitr:

yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

What was that?

Guillaume Waitr:

Would that, that would be about 15 years?

Guillaume Waitr:

No, sorry.

Guillaume Waitr:

eight years later, my wife is American and I moved to the United States and

Guillaume Waitr:

I move in this, end of July of 2008.

Guillaume Waitr:

my plan is, hey, I know no one, so picture this, I can't, I can barely,

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, I can speak English with this very French accent a little bit.

Guillaume Waitr:

I don't know anyone.

Guillaume Waitr:

And my wonderful plan is to get hired as a management consultant in the Seattle area.

Guillaume Waitr:

And two weeks after I come here, there's no job for me.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I had to reinvent myself.

Guillaume Waitr:

We can't pay the bills.

Guillaume Waitr:

My wife's a teacher.

Guillaume Waitr:

We have our first baby.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I am here with this, you know, pretty fancy background, you know, big firms, big

Guillaume Waitr:

names in France that no one knows here.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I'm faced with this challenge of what do you do now?

Guillaume Waitr:

Do you go back to France?

Guillaume Waitr:

Do you stay here?

Guillaume Waitr:

Do you, what's going on?

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, you're not making any money.

Guillaume Waitr:

I can't last more maybe than a month with what I have in savings.

Guillaume Waitr:

And because it's an expensive move that I paid, you know, entirely out of my pocket.

Guillaume Waitr:

So it was a humbling moment.

Guillaume Waitr:

and I know you applied to McDonald's.

Guillaume Waitr:

team, back, you had to apply to McDonald's right in the early

Tim Winders:

I tried, they didn't want me.

Tim Winders:

I don't know why I couldn't even get the application in.

Tim Winders:

And I, anyway, yes,

Guillaume Waitr:

and I.

Guillaume Waitr:

yeah, so, so, so humbling moments similar to yours.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I just applied to local pharmacy, to get a job as a,

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, handyman, janitor.

Guillaume Waitr:

I was, then I was doing yard work.

Guillaume Waitr:

I was doing a little tutoring and it was the best thing that happened

Guillaume Waitr:

in my life because really after that, what I noticed is that people

Guillaume Waitr:

could not care less about my resume.

Guillaume Waitr:

What they really want to hear is how did I survive and went through this

Guillaume Waitr:

financial crisis we all went through here.

Guillaume Waitr:

That was the narrative thereafter.

Guillaume Waitr:

And they noticed that my narrative wasn't, was it by resilience, creativity,

Guillaume Waitr:

letting go of the ego and just do what's right for, you know, for the time being.

Guillaume Waitr:

And they, they.

Guillaume Waitr:

And then they really, they really appreciated that.

Guillaume Waitr:

And then as soon as, so I did all sorts of things.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, I worked in retail.

Guillaume Waitr:

I learned so much in retail.

Guillaume Waitr:

I learned the English language, a bunch of slang terms too,

Guillaume Waitr:

that was interesting for me.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I explored a bunch.

Guillaume Waitr:

And then after that, I go back to consulting and that's the

Guillaume Waitr:

only thing people cared about.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like, how did you make it through this, through these times?

Guillaume Waitr:

Why are you coming from France?

Guillaume Waitr:

What are you doing here?

Guillaume Waitr:

Tell us about that.

Guillaume Waitr:

And.

Guillaume Waitr:

I had the chance to, to, to, to frame my narrative from the

Guillaume Waitr:

perspective of my values versus telling them, Oh yeah, I failed.

Guillaume Waitr:

I plan to come here and be successful right away.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that didn't work out.

Guillaume Waitr:

So a narrative is a choice.

Guillaume Waitr:

A narrative is a point of view.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's the way you look at reality, you know, it's, it's the way you, you

Guillaume Waitr:

understand what is happening around you.

Guillaume Waitr:

A narrative is a system of stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your

Guillaume Waitr:

origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.

Guillaume Waitr:

Your narrative becomes a set of possibilities becomes more.

Guillaume Waitr:

Open, it becomes a platform for you to communicate with people more effectively.

Guillaume Waitr:

So it's a common language with, you know, with people, around you and so on.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I'll pause here.

Guillaume Waitr:

I

Tim Winders:

here thinking someone listening in might go, okay, both

Tim Winders:

these, both these guys went through something that would have had some pain.

Tim Winders:

I'm sure that, you know, there's some humbling effect.

Tim Winders:

There's some things that this is the way my wife and I worded.

Tim Winders:

I wouldn't wish our journey on anyone else, but I'm so

Tim Winders:

thankful that we went through it.

Tim Winders:

Does it have to have a valley?

Tim Winders:

Does it have to have a, it can't all be good.

Tim Winders:

Can it, or, I mean, are there any rules to this big narrative?

Tim Winders:

We're, and I want to, we're going to go a little bit deeper, but

Tim Winders:

let's talk big picture right now.

Tim Winders:

Are there any rules like, you know, there's gotta be a downfall.

Tim Winders:

There's gotta be something ugly.

Guillaume Waitr:

don't have the answer to this question, Tim.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm still exploring.

Guillaume Waitr:

I would say as of today, March, 2024, I would lean towards, I'm going to try

Guillaume Waitr:

to say, I don't think there is a role.

Guillaume Waitr:

I have heard origin story that are actually very positive.

Guillaume Waitr:

Um, I, I, I think the principle is, maybe, some sort of epiphany or aha

Guillaume Waitr:

moment and, maybe it's human nature that we have these through difficult times.

Guillaume Waitr:

but that's a good question.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's actually, maybe a research topic that I should call

Guillaume Waitr:

somebody out there should do.

Guillaume Waitr:

Maybe somebody has done that work already.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's a very good question.

Tim Winders:

Well, let me, I want to give you a little bit of data for it, and I

Tim Winders:

don't think we'll come up with the answer,

Tim Winders:

but I did a, when I, when I, when I wrote a novel a few years back, I did a pseudo.

Tim Winders:

PR type tour that ended up being virtual, not because of COVID and things like that.

Tim Winders:

But I, I got on often, I would get on big zoom calls that had a lot of media people.

Tim Winders:

And we made our pitch three minutes to be on their show, their publication.

Tim Winders:

I mean, some of these were national television shows, things like that.

Tim Winders:

And, and that was a little bit out of reach of a lot of us that were there,

Tim Winders:

but they were, there were people there.

Tim Winders:

And, and Guillaume, I, I noticed that when I told the story that I like to

Tim Winders:

tell, which is, at that time I'm a strategic coach, I work with leaders

Tim Winders:

and businesses, et cetera, and all.

Tim Winders:

I wouldn't see people falling asleep, but I sensed it was just extremely boring.

Tim Winders:

To most of them, but when I told him the story that we had three seven

Tim Winders:

figure companies in 2008, and by 2013, we were homeless and bankrupt.

Tim Winders:

It was like, they perked up immediately and wanted to know more

Tim Winders:

and said, Oh, you'd be perfect.

Tim Winders:

And so when I found myself, and this is what I had to caution myself, I found

Tim Winders:

myself repeating that over and over.

Tim Winders:

I had like 80 pitches that I did within a course of a few days.

Guillaume Waitr:

Mm

Tim Winders:

And when I told my other story, crickets, nothing, but when I told

Tim Winders:

that story and what I was concerned was, is that I was falling into a click bait.

Tim Winders:

It was really my story.

Tim Winders:

I am not, that's not the story.

Tim Winders:

There's a lot more to it.

Tim Winders:

You know, there's a lot more to that story and that, that hook,

Tim Winders:

I call it click bait sometimes.

Tim Winders:

And, and at times I wonder if we start molding those narratives, maybe even

Tim Winders:

exaggerate, embellish to make them fit what social media, what all is,

Tim Winders:

that might be a different question.

Tim Winders:

I'll see if I just mentioned that.

Tim Winders:

Do you, what's your response?

Tim Winders:

I don't even know if that's a question or anything.

Tim Winders:

I would just commenting.

Guillaume Waitr:

Everything you said is true.

Guillaume Waitr:

We shape narratives, for, to, to our advantage.

Guillaume Waitr:

The reason why, the human species is still around for now.

Guillaume Waitr:

is because we have an ability to do what animals can do, which is imagine things.

Guillaume Waitr:

And we, you know, and we, we imagine terrible things or great things.

Guillaume Waitr:

And we, we stretch the truth and we spin off things to our advantage.

Guillaume Waitr:

We, you know, we, we do that all the time.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's human nature.

Guillaume Waitr:

so, so the reasons why Religions exist and are able to gather people in such

Guillaume Waitr:

powerful movements is because we believe in, in stories that are what they are.

Guillaume Waitr:

They're, some of them, I believe are true, some of them are not.

Guillaume Waitr:

They're completely fictitious, but we still need them.

Guillaume Waitr:

We, this, it's, it's, it is an existential thing.

Guillaume Waitr:

So the fact that you go on those, on those calls and pitches and people say,

Guillaume Waitr:

Hey, we want that piece, that narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

Because it works in your favor and works in their favor.

Guillaume Waitr:

And yes, they're going to get more, more clicks and baits, sorry, clicks.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, and, and, and it's going to be more compelling.

Guillaume Waitr:

so it's a little bit like, a Trojan horse to the mind and hearts.

Guillaume Waitr:

And then, and then you do what you want to do and need to do with it,

Guillaume Waitr:

hopefully for positive intentions, right?

Guillaume Waitr:

But some people do, do it also for negative stuff and, and it's

Guillaume Waitr:

called, it's called propaganda.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, and, and they do it to trigger wars and, and dominate and,

Guillaume Waitr:

and create more arms than good.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, But that's, that's all a question of values of it's all subjective after that.

Guillaume Waitr:

So by definition, what you did here is you came across, Hey, yeah, we could

Guillaume Waitr:

tell, we, I could tell so many stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's what I hear all the time.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like, you know, my clients go, Oh, I want to be able to tell my story.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I go, okay, which one?

Guillaume Waitr:

Well, my story, I go, well, you, you, you could tell like a thousand stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

Which one are we going to work on?

Guillaume Waitr:

What's going to be the most important to you?

Guillaume Waitr:

Right?

Guillaume Waitr:

So you are in a situation where.

Guillaume Waitr:

You could tell a set of stories and the PR people say, no, we want this one.

Guillaume Waitr:

There's nothing wrong with that.

Tim Winders:

So one of the things I just had a visual that is so interesting with

Tim Winders:

you being from the country of France.

Tim Winders:

I, I, I think the way I look at that story.

Tim Winders:

Is the equivalent of June 6th, 1944, when the allied forces were made the

Tim Winders:

decision with, you know, Eisenhower and the others to come across the channel and

Tim Winders:

re establish a presence in the North of France, Normandy region and all of that.

Tim Winders:

And I'm a big fan of history and things like that.

Tim Winders:

So this is, I almost can tear up when I discuss this day in history.

Tim Winders:

And I, and I love it that I'm speaking with someone who has an origin from, from

Tim Winders:

that region, or at least that country

Guillaume Waitr:

And I, I am, I am from that region team, by the way.

Tim Winders:

it's, it's much more of a heart message to me.

Tim Winders:

So the way I perceive that portion of my narrative is the equivalent of what

Tim Winders:

Eisenhower said that they were going to do before they put the troops on.

Tim Winders:

They were going to shell, shell, shell to soften the

Tim Winders:

beachhead so that it would allow.

Tim Winders:

The troops to come in with limited loss, et cetera.

Tim Winders:

There was a lot of loss.

Tim Winders:

There was a lot that went on.

Tim Winders:

I consider that portion, that really short condensed portion of my narrative

Tim Winders:

as softening the beachhead so that there's more of an opening for me to.

Tim Winders:

Go in and do what I believe I need to do, which is discuss strategy,

Tim Winders:

discuss, you know, what can we do with the leadership circles?

Tim Winders:

And, and it did open up doors.

Tim Winders:

I mean, people love that story.

Tim Winders:

And then they sell, by the way, now, what do you, tell me more

Tim Winders:

about what you do and how you help companies and how you help leaders.

Tim Winders:

So, anyway, that thoughts.

Guillaume Waitr:

Well, I, I think, you know, we, we want to work with people

Guillaume Waitr:

who we can, relate to or connect with.

Guillaume Waitr:

I mean, that's what we do in a podcast like that, by the way.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, And the way we do this is by, is by sharing the truth from our perspective

Guillaume Waitr:

and seeing what resonates with them.

Guillaume Waitr:

So when people hear your story of success and struggle and success

Guillaume Waitr:

again, ups and downs, you know, it portrays something, it portrays life.

Guillaume Waitr:

in fact, you know, the, if we want to measure your heartbeat and you look at

Guillaume Waitr:

this instrument, I don't know in English what the name for the instruments, you

Guillaume Waitr:

know, it's a black screen with a little green dot it's ups and downs all the time.

Guillaume Waitr:

Fortunately, you're alive because you know, there's moments of activity and

Guillaume Waitr:

moments of rest and the same goes for your, for your life story is the same.

Guillaume Waitr:

So we want to, we want to relate to somebody who's alive.

Guillaume Waitr:

that's the, that's the nature of our society.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's, that's the nature of who we are.

Guillaume Waitr:

so I guess that's probably why that's my, that would be my read on

Tim Winders:

so it's.

Tim Winders:

Yeah, I want to let, let's kind of go a layer or two down and discuss what

Tim Winders:

you've titled as strategic narrative.

Tim Winders:

And there, there are a couple of words that are really fascinating to me.

Tim Winders:

The word strategic, if one looks at the strength finders, my

Tim Winders:

number one strength is strategic.

Tim Winders:

And, you know, there was a period of time where I called myself a strategic coach.

Tim Winders:

and, and till there was an organization called strategic coach that said,

Tim Winders:

we'd rather you not use that name.

Tim Winders:

We had some discussions about that and which I was fine with, you know,

Tim Winders:

but tell me about the two words.

Tim Winders:

Strategic and narrative.

Tim Winders:

And that's going to be kind of our gateway to begin moving in.

Tim Winders:

And as in, in, in, in the time that we have, there's a few layers down that

Tim Winders:

I want to keep going as far as we can.

Tim Winders:

And then people can get more information in other ways, but strategic narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'll start with the second word narrative,

Guillaume Waitr:

which I, I make a difference between a story and a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

First of all, most people, use them interchangeably rightfully.

Guillaume Waitr:

So if you look in a basic dictionary, you'll see it's pretty much the same

Guillaume Waitr:

definition, but there is one element that a narrative, brings in addition to

Guillaume Waitr:

a story, which is what I said earlier, a narrative is, It's a way to look at

Guillaume Waitr:

things, you know, and it's, you, you probably caught this on, in conversations

Guillaume Waitr:

or on TV, we, you know, especially the, the, the journalists say very often,

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh, the narrative about our country, the narrative about society, the narrative

Guillaume Waitr:

about this and this, you know, problem or the near, and we say, you know,

Guillaume Waitr:

the world has a narrative countries have narratives, your company has a

Guillaume Waitr:

narrative and yourself has a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

So.

Guillaume Waitr:

So we're looking at something that is bigger than just the stories who are,

Guillaume Waitr:

in my opinion, more granular concepts.

Guillaume Waitr:

A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, we, we like to think of the story as a, as, as, as a, as a cycle, as

Guillaume Waitr:

a loop, a happy ending, typically, not in French movies, by the way, we have

Guillaume Waitr:

no happy ending in French movies, but we still have a closure to the story.

Guillaume Waitr:

Whereas narratives, because there are these systems of stories are open ended.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, your narrative unfolds all the time, as long as you, as long as

Guillaume Waitr:

you're, you're alive and sometimes after your death, your narrative carries on.

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, I was talking to a client, he was mentioning you, so Steve Job

Guillaume Waitr:

with, with Apple, his narrative is still very, very much around us.

Guillaume Waitr:

Right.

Guillaume Waitr:

And you, and we continue to, to, to interpret it and re interpret it.

Guillaume Waitr:

I think he was the 30 year 30th anniversary or 40th anniversary of

Guillaume Waitr:

that famous commercial that jobs, you know, team, came to about, you

Guillaume Waitr:

know, big brother and this lady coming into the, the, the movie theater,

Guillaume Waitr:

throwing the hammer on the screen,

Tim Winders:

1984.

Tim Winders:

That was

Guillaume Waitr:

right.

Tim Winders:

of the commercial.

Tim Winders:

And that was the year in the Orwell book that

Tim Winders:

they brought together.

Guillaume Waitr:

there you go.

Guillaume Waitr:

1984.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that narrative, we continue to try to do something with that.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I want, I want to make sure that we talk about this.

Guillaume Waitr:

So a narrative is a system and, three, there are three

Guillaume Waitr:

things that shape a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

again, I'll start with the most obvious and simple.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's the language.

Guillaume Waitr:

when people Asked me, Oh, you can, can you, you know, can you work with me?

Guillaume Waitr:

They immediately think, Oh, we're going to work on our marketing, our communications

Guillaume Waitr:

and sales, whatever in involves language.

Guillaume Waitr:

And in, in an organization is very much thought as what is happening outside.

Guillaume Waitr:

I mean, there's obviously also internal communication, but the first layer of a

Guillaume Waitr:

narrative is what we say, words forge.

Guillaume Waitr:

So many things around us, you know, and the first thing they, they

Guillaume Waitr:

forge is our mindset, which is the second layer of a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

Your narrative happens.

Guillaume Waitr:

First of all, in your mind, without you saying anything, you look at something,

Guillaume Waitr:

you think about a situation, Tim, and immediately your narrative kicks in.

Guillaume Waitr:

Narratives are these, cognitive bias.

Guillaume Waitr:

They are there to help us function without thinking too much.

Guillaume Waitr:

Our brain doesn't, doesn't like to overthink.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, the way you look at working with a client, the way you look

Guillaume Waitr:

at your day, you have a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

That narrative can be positive or negative.

Guillaume Waitr:

You wake up and you go, Gosh, I'm so excited today.

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be, I'm gonna learn something.

Guillaume Waitr:

Or, oh my gosh, another day.

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, I hear people say, how are you doing today?

Guillaume Waitr:

Ah, just like a Monday.

Guillaume Waitr:

What kind of mindset, you know, does this bring to, to a day to, you know, and even

Guillaume Waitr:

my tone of voice indicated a negative narrative about, about a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

The third element of a narrative is just simply, your actions.

Guillaume Waitr:

What, what do you do, you know, and in a company, it's

Guillaume Waitr:

going to be mostly materialized through your workflow processes.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's what a narrative is.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can look and look around.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's not just true for businesses.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's true for, religious organizations, societies, government, any,

Guillaume Waitr:

groups of human beings trying to achieve a goal together.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's a fundamental mechanism that you will see just everywhere.

Guillaume Waitr:

Look around.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's everywhere.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's what a narrative is.

Guillaume Waitr:

Now, why did I put strategic in front of it is because I wanted to,

Tim Winders:

Can I pause you, can I pause you one second?

Tim Winders:

Because I want to, I, you know, I'm not going to let the strategic die.

Tim Winders:

We'll come back to that, but I've got a few.

Tim Winders:

questions about narrative.

Tim Winders:

And if it, if it's going to tie in later, you could say, Tim, we'll

Tim Winders:

get to that, or they could do more.

Tim Winders:

The first thing that came up for me when I was doing some studying research

Tim Winders:

and I read through your book was one of the things we're told in our modern

Tim Winders:

business world is something around this.

Tim Winders:

You need to know who your audience is.

Tim Winders:

And, and so one of the things that I kept thinking about, it wasn't nagging

Tim Winders:

at me, but usually if I'm thinking about it, it's something that's

Tim Winders:

rolling around in my mind is how does.

Tim Winders:

Narrative relate to the person that's creating it versus a

Tim Winders:

person that's attempting to create something for a specific audience.

Tim Winders:

Okay.

Tim Winders:

Is that something you want to address?

Tim Winders:

Is it

Tim Winders:

quickly or is it not?

Guillaume Waitr:

it.

Guillaume Waitr:

No, no, I can

Tim Winders:

Let me kind of quick, cause there's a few other

Tim Winders:

things that are a little deeper.

Tim Winders:

So just kind of say a few things about that quickly.

Guillaume Waitr:

quickly is a narrative is very much something that comes,

Guillaume Waitr:

comes from the inside, inside out.

Guillaume Waitr:

So it has to be really, really tied to, you know, where we

Guillaume Waitr:

talked about the origin stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

what are your values?

Guillaume Waitr:

What do you, it's almost like spiritual, emotional.

Guillaume Waitr:

You have to feel it inside before you preoccupy yourself with the audience.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, and that that's, it goes in tandem.

Guillaume Waitr:

but I would, I would encourage you guys, whoever's listening and team, you know,

Guillaume Waitr:

think about the narrative as something that, because it's, it's such, like I said

Guillaume Waitr:

earlier, it's such a, it's subjective.

Guillaume Waitr:

So it's something you get to shape.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's a perspective.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I'll, I'll pose here.

Tim Winders:

All right.

Tim Winders:

So I like that because that's good because what that does is it allows people to

Tim Winders:

be true to themselves and not get into the manipulation embellishment or, you

Tim Winders:

know, a lot of things that could happen in the world today where it's like, you

Tim Winders:

know, and I need to come up with a story.

Tim Winders:

It's not me, it's not my narrative, but I just need to come up with

Tim Winders:

one so I could sell some stuff.

Tim Winders:

That's the cynical comment that I'll make.

Tim Winders:

Second thing, how does.

Tim Winders:

Cultures fit into narrative.

Tim Winders:

I think you said it earlier, but I just want to make sure I'm clear because we do

Tim Winders:

have cultures here in the United States.

Tim Winders:

My concern is we have two different cultures that are clashing currently,

Tim Winders:

but then you have a good perspective of obviously another country's culture.

Tim Winders:

I just got back from a trip, uh, where I went to the central Ohio

Tim Winders:

where it's a very heavy Amish.

Tim Winders:

Culture.

Tim Winders:

I had some business to do and also some ministry work.

Tim Winders:

It was fascinating to me to learn.

Tim Winders:

I learned some things about narratives there, but so just talk

Tim Winders:

a little bit more about culture and then I've got one more item that

Tim Winders:

will lead us into that strategic.

Tim Winders:

Discussion.

Guillaume Waitr:

Well, okay.

Guillaume Waitr:

So the, one of the basic definition of cultures is the

Guillaume Waitr:

way we do things around here.

Guillaume Waitr:

So we'll let, let's start there.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, and you talk about the Amish, the Amish are known, you

Guillaume Waitr:

know, move those barns and build those barns very, very quickly.

Guillaume Waitr:

How do they do this?

Guillaume Waitr:

Well, they, you know, they, they, they rally a bunch of people.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's a number thing like it's, and, and it's, it's very, okay.

Guillaume Waitr:

well orchestrated.

Guillaume Waitr:

I've never seen one live, but I've watched many, many videos because that

Guillaume Waitr:

was actually one of the culture I was interested in learning more about.

Guillaume Waitr:

And when you do things around here, you do certain things based,

Guillaume Waitr:

you, you base your decisions.

Guillaume Waitr:

on a certain type of values.

Guillaume Waitr:

Values are how we decide, right?

Guillaume Waitr:

And values, then there's another connection, which is values are

Guillaume Waitr:

inherently, their, their choices, their, their, their, their ways

Guillaume Waitr:

you look at things, which is by definition, what a narrative is.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, this is getting a little technical here in my, in my domain,

Guillaume Waitr:

but clearly culture, cultures have narratives because the way we interpret

Guillaume Waitr:

reality, we do it through our values.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that's what a culture is.

Guillaume Waitr:

Does this make

Tim Winders:

All right.

Tim Winders:

Yeah, that's very good.

Tim Winders:

And, and I also want to be clear.

Tim Winders:

I, I am actually not Amish, but one of the things I had to do real

Tim Winders:

quickly was, adjust a few things.

Tim Winders:

I didn't, I didn't change.

Tim Winders:

I don't believe I did not change my narrative, but I changed a few things.

Tim Winders:

About what I discussed and how I said some things.

Tim Winders:

That's another topic it's based on how you've said narrative up up to this

Tim Winders:

point, it, it's becoming apparent to me that there, everyone has a narrative.

Tim Winders:

It's just many people have not taken the time to work on it.

Tim Winders:

And my guess is that's where the strategic comes in.

Tim Winders:

Is that a good gateway into talking about strategic?

Tim Winders:

Okay.

Tim Winders:

Take off and go.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

So the whole, the whole point is to realize, okay, so we, we've just,

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, in the, in the past 10, 15 minutes, we've just laid the foundation

Guillaume Waitr:

to define what a narrative is.

Guillaume Waitr:

So if you agree with that, that definition, then you go, wow.

Guillaume Waitr:

Okay.

Guillaume Waitr:

Well, I know that I understand it better.

Guillaume Waitr:

I see that's a system.

Guillaume Waitr:

There, there are things I get, there are choices I can make.

Guillaume Waitr:

Strategy is now a practice that makes a lot of sense.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can, you can, you can shape that narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can decide on it.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can set some intentions.

Guillaume Waitr:

There are things that, why strategic is because we're taking a narrative

Guillaume Waitr:

from unconscious to consciousness.

Guillaume Waitr:

Right.

Guillaume Waitr:

And there is always layers of neuronarrative data that are, you're

Guillaume Waitr:

not going to be fully aware of, but if you start really digging into this and

Guillaume Waitr:

looking at it as a system, you can be strategic about it, which means you can

Guillaume Waitr:

align what you're trying to do, And, and, and really shape your narrative

Guillaume Waitr:

to, to your advantage, as we said earlier, and to get your goals better.

Guillaume Waitr:

So if you're, if, if you are, you know, we said ministry, you said

Guillaume Waitr:

they were running ministry, you know, you're, you're in ministry, maybe,

Guillaume Waitr:

maybe the narrative about you and your group and your organization needs to.

Guillaume Waitr:

Be revisited to have higher impact or an impact that is more aligned with the

Guillaume Waitr:

kind of ministry you want to engage in.

Guillaume Waitr:

In fact, I like to say that, one of the ways you can, change your

Guillaume Waitr:

narrative is through, marketing.

Guillaume Waitr:

I, you know, and I'm, I'm going to talk about, private for profit organizations

Guillaume Waitr:

for, for a moment, marketing.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I define your marketing as your ministry.

Guillaume Waitr:

I even say this to my clients who are not particularly religious or

Guillaume Waitr:

spiritual, say, this is your ministry.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's, it's about how you care for others, give value first, see, see your community,

Guillaume Waitr:

your market as the people you serve.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that's what you do through.

Guillaume Waitr:

Your marketing.

Guillaume Waitr:

So how do we get strategic about your narrative?

Guillaume Waitr:

I broke it down because it was very, it was very complex for me for a while.

Guillaume Waitr:

And, specializing in professional services firms.

Guillaume Waitr:

I thought, okay, I mapped it out for many, many years, Tim.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I broke it down into 12 practices.

Guillaume Waitr:

I looked around and like, okay, there are really 12 things, 12

Guillaume Waitr:

patterns that I see all the time.

Guillaume Waitr:

I've been in consulting for 32 years and that's the research I did being in

Guillaume Waitr:

large firms, small firms, engineers, consultants, coaches, designers,

Guillaume Waitr:

marketers, all sorts of, and they all engage in those 12 practices.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's my framework.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's my model.

Guillaume Waitr:

Is it perfect?

Guillaume Waitr:

Is it true?

Guillaume Waitr:

No, but it's useful.

Guillaume Waitr:

When people see this, they go, Oh yeah, that's me.

Guillaume Waitr:

I see these 12 all the time.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm so glad it's on the map because now we can be strategic about them.

Guillaume Waitr:

We can decide where we want to spend our time.

Guillaume Waitr:

We can decide how we want to approach some of those practices,

Guillaume Waitr:

maybe ignore them totally or.

Guillaume Waitr:

Or completely dabble down on some of them.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that's how your narrative becomes strategic.

Tim Winders:

fits together.

Tim Winders:

Yeah, that, that, that all, that fits together well.

Tim Winders:

And I'm, I'm sitting here now going, let's see here.

Tim Winders:

We, we definitely don't have time to hit all 12.

Tim Winders:

And as we wrap up here, we'll tell people where they can go to get that.

Tim Winders:

I think I, just before we got on, I looked, I think you've got those 12 laid

Tim Winders:

out in a chart type form in your book.

Tim Winders:

Is that correct?

Tim Winders:

And I was.

Guillaume Waitr:

yeah, the, my, my, so you're, you're mentioning my book.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's the, it's a, it's an online digital book that only that I, I did in 2021.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I have a new updated version on my website and it turns out I, I'm,

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm preparing, you can't see it.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's on the side of my office here, but I have big charts and that's good.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm going to make it more visual for people, more metaphorical, for people

Guillaume Waitr:

to look at that, at that visual.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah.

Tim Winders:

Right.

Tim Winders:

And maybe that fits into the meta helm that you were bringing up there.

Tim Winders:

Then, and I want to get some feedback here.

Tim Winders:

I loved the visual aspect.

Tim Winders:

I actually downloaded that portion of the book and I don't know if it was the 2021.

Tim Winders:

I thought I had 2022 on the,

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

Sorry.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yes.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah.

Guillaume Waitr:

It was early

Tim Winders:

Anyway, maybe it was, but, but I, I downloaded it to read

Tim Winders:

on my Kindle and just the visuals I missed because when I opened it up on

Tim Winders:

my computer a little while ago, like, you know, 30 minutes ago, I went, wow,

Tim Winders:

the visual is excellent on my computer.

Tim Winders:

The Kindle, Kindle took away from it a little bit.

Tim Winders:

The information was still there.

Tim Winders:

So, great, great resource.

Tim Winders:

I look forward to the next

Tim Winders:

iteration of it.

Tim Winders:

There's something, there's something, I think I want to hang out.

Tim Winders:

on narrative in the time we have left, because I, I think

Tim Winders:

it's so foundational, okay?

Tim Winders:

Because I see it everywhere.

Tim Winders:

And when you were speaking about a business sharing what they did,

Tim Winders:

you mentioned ministry leaders.

Tim Winders:

I, I literally kind of had this sentence of You know, gospel, the word gospel

Tim Winders:

is, is really the root of that is good news and sharing the gospel of

Tim Winders:

even a business, a business owner, someone who's an electrician is sharing

Tim Winders:

the good news about your business.

Tim Winders:

And I, there's nothing blasphemous about that.

Tim Winders:

So if anybody's out here and wants to throw rocks at me,

Tim Winders:

you know, You can't find me.

Tim Winders:

I live in an RV and travel.

Tim Winders:

So anyway, but I do think that business owners, I think leaders, I think people,

Tim Winders:

even in families in all areas need to be able to share that good news about

Tim Winders:

whatever it is they're doing, whether.

Tim Winders:

Whether they think they do or not, I believe they do.

Tim Winders:

And there's a term that I saw called narrative power, and I've got the

Tim Winders:

definition, this written here, but I think what I'd love for you to, let's

Tim Winders:

talk in the time we have about narrative power, you can maybe go through the

Tim Winders:

definition that you've got or whatever.

Tim Winders:

And, and let's just, let's just really hit home with people why

Tim Winders:

it's important to establish.

Tim Winders:

Their narrative, not someone else's, one they think will work, but their narrative.

Tim Winders:

So however you want to go with that, take, take off Guillaume.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like I said before, narratives have this ability to bring

Guillaume Waitr:

people together because we start to share a common set of stories and

Guillaume Waitr:

therefore, and from these stories, we pull, learnings, insights.

Guillaume Waitr:

principles and, you know, narratives help us share our values.

Guillaume Waitr:

So narratives have really this effect of gathering people, assembling

Guillaume Waitr:

groups that can accomplish more than the sum of themselves.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's one, of the powers of narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

But more recently, and I think you're, you're probably referring to

Guillaume Waitr:

a definition that I put online and I talked a lot about in the last two years.

Guillaume Waitr:

One, and I would say one of the main power of the narrative is to defy

Guillaume Waitr:

the normal when the normal is wrong.

Guillaume Waitr:

and I thought, okay, yeah, that's the, that's the definition.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I'm like, Hmm, it's probably one of the main definitions, but it's not

Guillaume Waitr:

the only power that the narrative has.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I just want to, I just want to, I mean, constant evolution team.

Guillaume Waitr:

So,

Tim Winders:

Well, that, that's actually what I, that's

Tim Winders:

actually what I picked up on.

Tim Winders:

And there were two thoughts that went through my head when I read that.

Tim Winders:

My first thought.

Tim Winders:

Which I'm, I'm at a stage in life where I think I'm getting more mature.

Tim Winders:

Finally, that I said, Oh, I like that.

Tim Winders:

It's like, if we get really good at communicating our message, our

Tim Winders:

narrative, then we can let other people know where they're wrong, but then my.

Tim Winders:

more mature answer was later and you've kind of brought it up.

Tim Winders:

It brings people together.

Tim Winders:

There is a way that I think it communicates kind of who we

Tim Winders:

are and the people that might need to be in, in our group.

Tim Winders:

I hate to say tribe because that's one of the challenges that

Tim Winders:

we're seeing in a bigger, you know, political and other arenas.

Tim Winders:

But I do think it lets people know.

Tim Winders:

And again, I just went to a part of the country that they are

Tim Winders:

very close knit and I would.

Tim Winders:

Typically be critical of that.

Tim Winders:

But after spending some time there, I, I think I'm not.

Tim Winders:

So, so anyway, those, that was the bouncing around in my head

Tim Winders:

about using the word wrong.

Guillaume Waitr:

Yeah, I, I was experimenting with the definition

Guillaume Waitr:

because I wanted to, to, to be a little bit thought provoking here and also

Guillaume Waitr:

exploring with, I really felt this and I really meant that definition.

Guillaume Waitr:

I will still use that definition, but I think it's, like I said, you know, it's

Guillaume Waitr:

not the only one, but, look at values, you know, there's, there's, depending on how,

Guillaume Waitr:

on how you look at a situation with your.

Guillaume Waitr:

Personal set of values.

Guillaume Waitr:

You may look at things as, as right or wrong.

Guillaume Waitr:

Go to a different country and I go to France and your table manners

Guillaume Waitr:

are going to be probably very wrong.

Guillaume Waitr:

Table manners that are very right in the U S are going to be very wrong.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm using the examples because I have the conversation with my kids

Guillaume Waitr:

or half French and half Americans.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, so that, that, that's one of the powers of, of narrative is, and

Guillaume Waitr:

that's, that's a little bit tying to this idea of, it's divisive, right?

Guillaume Waitr:

We agree, we disagree, what's wrong, what's right, and all that.

Guillaume Waitr:

So we have tribes and clans and, and maybe tensions and conflicts and wars

Guillaume Waitr:

then, you know, how does this escalate?

Guillaume Waitr:

So it's not, so looking at narrative just from that perspective, just for that

Guillaume Waitr:

purpose, I don't think it's very healthy.

Guillaume Waitr:

Narratives, can really help bring people along together.

Guillaume Waitr:

And actually also bring a lot of peace narratives are also very stabilizing.

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, there are two powers to, to, to, to, to major kinds

Guillaume Waitr:

of powers for a narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

One is to transform and disrupt to change things.

Guillaume Waitr:

And one is to stabilize things.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, if you think about the, the narrative around recycling.

Guillaume Waitr:

You know, why do we recycle here in this, in this country?

Guillaume Waitr:

We forgot why.

Guillaume Waitr:

It was a, it was a made up narrative made by the, the packaging and plastic

Guillaume Waitr:

manufacturers because they needed to sell more, more of their products

Guillaume Waitr:

and make people feel good about it.

Guillaume Waitr:

So they say, Oh, no problem.

Guillaume Waitr:

We'll recycle it.

Guillaume Waitr:

Right.

Guillaume Waitr:

And that has stabilized a whole entire industry.

Guillaume Waitr:

We keep recycling just this morning.

Guillaume Waitr:

I got my blue bin out here in the street and I keep doing it.

Guillaume Waitr:

But then I also know because I tried to be informed that only six

Guillaume Waitr:

to 9 percent of my recyclable stuff actually is only recycled the rest.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, 91 to 94 percent goes to landfill.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's, that, that, that stabilize, that, that narrative, that stabilize

Guillaume Waitr:

and the whole entire industry and society probably needs to change.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm not an expert.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm not in this conversation, but just to illustrate here that there

Guillaume Waitr:

are many facets to narrative power.

Guillaume Waitr:

Now, now that I have researched and thought about it,

Tim Winders:

agree.

Tim Winders:

And, and I, and I think, and this is what I don't want to do with this conversation.

Tim Winders:

I want to give someone, who's sitting here going, Hmm, I'm not sure about my

Tim Winders:

narrative, my organizations, my teams, my business, my, I even think families.

Tim Winders:

You know, have narratives also.

Tim Winders:

So let's, let's assume in our last minute or two here, let's just

Tim Winders:

say someone's going, Oh, I need, I need some work in this area.

Tim Winders:

Because I think you and I are in agreement.

Tim Winders:

This spills over into everything that begins happening after here.

Tim Winders:

So.

Tim Winders:

tangible, tactical, maybe some first steps.

Tim Winders:

And I know, and we'll talk about it in just a moment.

Tim Winders:

There's a book you've got, there's things you do to work with people,

Tim Winders:

but let's just say it's someone that says, okay, what would be a first step?

Tim Winders:

What is something that I can do to just kind of get it started or move to a

Tim Winders:

next stage in, in helping to define my narrative or, or, or move that forward?

Guillaume Waitr:

I said earlier that a narrative is a system of stories

Guillaume Waitr:

and there are four, four stories that you can start working on immediately.

Guillaume Waitr:

We covered one in detail today, which is the origin story.

Guillaume Waitr:

Like what, what defines who you are as a leader or as a dad or mom or a

Guillaume Waitr:

partner or, or, or a kid or family?

Guillaume Waitr:

Like what is one, one event that really had the type of impact

Guillaume Waitr:

that it shaped the way you behave?

Guillaume Waitr:

So I'll leave it at that.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's one story you can explore as a family, as a group.

Guillaume Waitr:

The second story I invite everyone to explore is what

Guillaume Waitr:

I call the opportunity story.

Guillaume Waitr:

Opportunity comes from the Latin root of portum venens,

Guillaume Waitr:

which is, you know, indicates, a safe harbor we want to get to.

Guillaume Waitr:

you know, and if you read in the Bible, you know, the, the, the,

Guillaume Waitr:

there's many allusions to us, to an opportunity, you know, a safe harbor.

Guillaume Waitr:

people cross, you know, that when the seas, the sea open and people crossing,

Guillaume Waitr:

they want to go to the promised land.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's the promised land.

Guillaume Waitr:

So as a person, as a family, as a group, as whoever, what is the

Guillaume Waitr:

opportunity you're thriving for?

Guillaume Waitr:

How do you describe it?

Guillaume Waitr:

What will you see when you get there?

Guillaume Waitr:

What will happen if you don't get there?

Guillaume Waitr:

These are very basic.

Guillaume Waitr:

I didn't say simple questions because they are deep questions, right?

Guillaume Waitr:

But these are the questions that you need to explore, maybe journal

Guillaume Waitr:

about, talk about with your friends, and then, you know, have a certain

Guillaume Waitr:

degree of formality and really try to answer those questions of today.

Guillaume Waitr:

If it's for a business or a ministry, religious organization,

Guillaume Waitr:

write them down, publish them, and have the conversation about them.

Guillaume Waitr:

The third story is the perspective story.

Guillaume Waitr:

Okay, if we agree on Where we come from and where we're headed,

Guillaume Waitr:

what's our perspective about how we're going to get there?

Guillaume Waitr:

I know your perspective currently, Tim, is to have a smaller footprint.

Guillaume Waitr:

In your life, you live in an RV.

Guillaume Waitr:

That's your perspective.

Guillaume Waitr:

In fact, this morning I asked my wife, Hey, I'm going to

Guillaume Waitr:

talk to Tim this morning.

Guillaume Waitr:

I really, I would really love to live in an RV like he does.

Guillaume Waitr:

And she said, Oh, I would hate it.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm like, why?

Guillaume Waitr:

Oh my gosh, I need space.

Guillaume Waitr:

I need to be settled.

Guillaume Waitr:

I need to be somewhere.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I'm like, okay, all right.

Guillaume Waitr:

I guess that's a difference.

Guillaume Waitr:

We have a difference in perspective about how we want to create the

Guillaume Waitr:

opportunity of our lifetime.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's an example.

Guillaume Waitr:

Cause I know it's yours.

Guillaume Waitr:

So I, taking and our listeners know that.

Guillaume Waitr:

So, but for, for an organization, is it, you know, do we want to bring,

Guillaume Waitr:

innovation through engineering or teaching or what's our perspective

Guillaume Waitr:

on the problem we're trying to solve?

Guillaume Waitr:

And then the fourth thing is what I call for business is the product story.

Guillaume Waitr:

think about here in our context, think about product as something

Guillaume Waitr:

tangible material you can have in your head, not necessarily just as

Guillaume Waitr:

a business product that you sell and package and market, but what is

Guillaume Waitr:

the tangible thing that you will do?

Guillaume Waitr:

So maybe the product story in a ministry is going to be a set of

Guillaume Waitr:

events, for instance, or actions or campaigns or conversations or things

Guillaume Waitr:

we give to people or do with people.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's a very tangible.

Guillaume Waitr:

Aspect of that material.

Guillaume Waitr:

So you can see it.

Guillaume Waitr:

You think you can take pictures of it.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can describe it in very, very practical, you know, tangible things.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can most of the time put a price on it.

Guillaume Waitr:

You can put monetary value on it.

Guillaume Waitr:

These are the four key essential stories that you can start immediately,

Guillaume Waitr:

work on to shape your narrative.

Tim Winders:

That is perfect because I think that gives people something

Tim Winders:

tangible, but it is a beginning.

Tim Winders:

Guillaume at this.

Tim Winders:

Yeah, it's per, I mean, I think, I think some people will need some outside help

Tim Winders:

definitely, but there are people that can take that and, and like you said, journal,

Tim Winders:

think about it, talk to their spouse, talk to their leadership team, talk to other

Tim Winders:

people in their organization, you know, bring somebody in that type thing, tell me

Tim Winders:

now, this is a great time to transition.

Tim Winders:

Tell me about the resources that you have.

Tim Winders:

And if someone wanted to engage with you or do some interaction

Tim Winders:

with you, this is a time to promote.

Tim Winders:

Tell me where they need to go.

Tim Winders:

We're going to include it in the notes, books, resources, coaching.

Tim Winders:

I know, you know, consulting, I know you've got all that.

Tim Winders:

Tell us about all of that now.

Guillaume Waitr:

the good news is I have a lot of free resources for people

Guillaume Waitr:

and, I'm just going to, pull one out of the multitude here, which is, it's

Guillaume Waitr:

a video on YouTube that I, that I have, and it's called systems of stories.

Guillaume Waitr:

So if you look up on YouTube system of stories to GD narrative, and if you can,

Guillaume Waitr:

add my name, Guillaume Viat, you will immediately go there and it walks you.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's a case study from, from, from, from a company I have there.

Guillaume Waitr:

So that's the first resource if we, cause we just talked about it.

Guillaume Waitr:

But now if you want a broader picture and, and really learn more, go to metahelm.

Guillaume Waitr:

com.

Guillaume Waitr:

M E T A H E L M.

Guillaume Waitr:

that's the name for my business, now eight years old.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I thought about MetaHelm because it means guiding the guides.

Guillaume Waitr:

It's what guides the guides and that's your narrative.

Guillaume Waitr:

And on my website, you will have a free assessment, 12 questions to

Guillaume Waitr:

see, help you gauge where you are in, in building narrative power.

Guillaume Waitr:

More articles, more resources, and there is a tab called services.

Guillaume Waitr:

And if you want to my, my professional, help and bring me on, that's where

Guillaume Waitr:

you will find the information.

Tim Winders:

Yeah, I do agree.

Tim Winders:

I believe you've definitely generous with information on my On my laptop

Tim Winders:

here, I've got the windows that are open where I was looking at your information.

Tim Winders:

And I've got strategic narratives, the YouTube channel.

Tim Winders:

I've got your LinkedIn profile, which is has information and, and information.

Tim Winders:

So, and your book, I've got your book that's opened up here too.

Tim Winders:

So we'll definitely include all that.

Tim Winders:

So Guillaume, thank you so much.

Tim Winders:

We are Go create those three words.

Tim Winders:

If there was one of those words that resonated more with you or means more at

Tim Winders:

this time, don't overthink it, but seek, go or create, which one do you choose?

Tim Winders:

And why?

Guillaume Waitr:

I'll go with sick.

Guillaume Waitr:

but I have to confess that, I, can I get create too?

Guillaume Waitr:

I like both, but I'll start if I really have to make a choice, I'll just,

Guillaume Waitr:

I'll go with sick because it ties to curiosity and constantly going,

Guillaume Waitr:

looking for something you will, you know, you don't, you don't know yet.

Guillaume Waitr:

And I think that's such a refreshing term and.

Guillaume Waitr:

indicates motion, openness, possibilities.

Guillaume Waitr:

I'm, I'm part of a group called, the school of possibilities.

Guillaume Waitr:

I am a, a possibility Tarjan.

Guillaume Waitr:

And so that's why I will pick sick.

Tim Winders:

Very good.

Tim Winders:

Well, there's a reason that we put them in that order and seeking.

Tim Winders:

almost always leads to creating.

Tim Winders:

So, beautiful thing.

Tim Winders:

Guillaume Viot, thank you so much for joining us here.

Tim Winders:

I appreciate all, all of this conversation and I believe it's been a blessing

Tim Winders:

and nourished the people listening in and I encourage people to go.

Tim Winders:

Get more, get more from Guillaume.

Tim Winders:

He gives a lot of information and I could tell from his heart.

Tim Winders:

He genuinely wants, people to get this.

Tim Winders:

And so, and so go check out his information.

Tim Winders:

We are SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders:

We release new episodes here every Monday.

Tim Winders:

keep supporting us.

Tim Winders:

You can go support us at SeekGoCreate.

Tim Winders:

com forward slash.

Tim Winders:

Support, leave some comments, or you could also support us.

Tim Winders:

If you like what we're doing here, you can support us financially.

Tim Winders:

They're give as little as a dollar or as much as you would like to.

Tim Winders:

We welcome and receive that.

Tim Winders:

And so thanks again for joining us until next time, continue being

Tim Winders:

all that you were created to be.

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