Guillaume Waitr:
00:00:00
So a narrative is a choice.
Guillaume Waitr:
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A narrative is a point of view.
Guillaume Waitr:
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It's the way you look at reality, it's the way you, understand
Guillaume Waitr:
00:00:07
what is happening around you.
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A narrative is a system of stories.
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And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your
Guillaume Waitr:
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origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Um, uh,
Tim Winders:
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In the ever evolving world of professional services.
Tim Winders:
00:00:34
How do leaders cut through the noise, align their teams
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00:00:39
and drive genuine innovation.
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Welcome to today's episode of seek, go create, where we delve into
Tim Winders:
00:00:45
the art and science of creating compelling business narratives.
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With Guillaume Viat, the mastermind behind the strategic narrative methodology.
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00:00:57
Guillaume, the founder of MetaHelm has revolutionized how CEOs, founders,
Tim Winders:
00:01:02
and leadership teams of professional services firms clarify their vision,
Tim Winders:
00:01:07
differentiate their business, and inspire both their teams and the market.
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Through his unique approach, he has guided prominent organizations and leaders,
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including those from Alaska airlines, the Gates foundation, and Google towards
Tim Winders:
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greater focus, traction, and innovation.
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Guillaume, welcome to SeatGoCreate.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Hello team.
Guillaume Waitr:
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It's so good to be here with you.
Guillaume Waitr:
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It's
Tim Winders:
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It is.
Guillaume Waitr:
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having,
Tim Winders:
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I'm glad you're here too.
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We had a great little conversation before we clicked record.
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And I even said, stop, I've got to get the recorder going.
Tim Winders:
00:01:40
This is, this is some good information.
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00:01:43
And I'm, I'm going to start with like my little, I call it a little
Tim Winders:
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wimpy icebreaker thing, but I think it's an important question.
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And that is if someone asks you with the breadth that you've got, the background,
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you've got all that you do, if you just bump into someone, let's say outside of a.
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Business environment, and they ask you what you do, what do you tell them?
Guillaume Waitr:
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I'll tell them and I'm an explorer and I explore the
Guillaume Waitr:
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meaning of life through business.
Guillaume Waitr:
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That's really, this really, it's been, it's been my narrative since I was a kid.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I wanted to be an expert in the literal sense of things, you know, like
Guillaume Waitr:
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packing everything in your backpack and going to places you don't know.
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Exotic.
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unknown territories, uncharted territories, which I did
Guillaume Waitr:
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for, for a while in my life.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I was lucky enough to travel to many countries.
Guillaume Waitr:
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but I think now, and I, interestingly, I'm very sedentary now.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I'm, I'm French, but I'm established in Seattle since 2008.
Guillaume Waitr:
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And, I, I don't travel very much, but I do explore a lot more.
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I like, you know, I explore the meaning of life for me, for my clients, for
Guillaume Waitr:
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my family through business because that's kind of how I, I, I spend most
Guillaume Waitr:
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of my time doing business things.
Guillaume Waitr:
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But for me, business is a very multifaceted.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Concept, and I am an artist as well.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I am, obviously, a French native speaker, but an exo, what's called an
Guillaume Waitr:
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exophonic writer, somebody who writes in their, second or third language.
Guillaume Waitr:
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So I write in English, you know, and I explore, what I do through all
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sorts of practices, like creative practices, spiritual practices.
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practices, all sorts of things.
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So, people say, Oh, I mean, you're, you're such a Renaissance man.
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You Jack, you're a Jack of all trade.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You, you can, you're, you're talented at so many things.
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And it's because from the get go, I've always had this idea that life
Guillaume Waitr:
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is so rich, so abundant that it would be, it would be a shame not
Guillaume Waitr:
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to try a bunch of things, but my.
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My red thread, you know, my direction is, is really that idea of alignment
Guillaume Waitr:
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between what you do as a professional and, and the impact you want to have.
Guillaume Waitr:
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did I answer the question?
Tim Winders:
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I, you did, you, you gave me a lot of information that could move us in
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different directions than the, you know, three questions that I wrote down that
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I might want to ask, but the word that.
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The word that jumped out at me is curiosity and I have, I've found that
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the age that I'm at, I think as I prep for this question, that's going
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to be around curiosity, I have kind of been similar from a young age.
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There were a lot of things.
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I never have called myself an artist, but yet I've recently written a novel.
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And I, I think what we're doing here is a certain degree of art.
Guillaume Waitr:
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It is.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Yeah,
Tim Winders:
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you know, having conversations and trying to get
Tim Winders:
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a story or, or a narrative, we're going to weave this word narrative
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into what we're doing shortly.
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But it, it's, it's fascinating to me that the negative.
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of the incredibly positive way that you said what you did, which is a
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Renaissance man, someone who's talented and skilled, skilled in many areas.
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I had someone who called himself a polymath that I interviewed, that they're
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expert in so many different areas.
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The negative of it for some people could be, That they are,
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and this is not a bad thing.
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There's some people that they do one thing well, their entire life at times.
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I'm not envious of them, but I look at them and then go, huh, wonder
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what that would be like, because they will often criticize me and you
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and say, are you struggling to find something you're really good at?
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Or that you really want to do.
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That's the negative.
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And so I'll sort of ask that.
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Have you ever had someone say, Guillaume, can't you just find something
Tim Winders:
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that you can do and stick with it?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:06:04
Oh yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
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My parents,
Tim Winders:
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respond when people say that to you?
Guillaume Waitr:
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my parents saying so many times yours too.
Tim Winders:
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I mean, my early on in my corporate, early on in my corporate
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career, I worked corporate for a few years when I came out of university
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at Georgia Tech as an engineer.
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And I was one of these at about every nine months.
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In a very structured stayed environment of corporate, it was in
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the telecommunications industry that was a hundred years old at the time.
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Most people went in, stayed there, worked forever.
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Well, in the nine years I was there, I had 10 different jobs, roles, et cetera.
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and and my mother literally said at one point, is there nothing you
Tim Winders:
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could find that you can do there?
Guillaume Waitr:
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Yeah, it's because maybe, maybe it's something that,
Guillaume Waitr:
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and as a, as a dad of two boys, you know, it's probably something that
Guillaume Waitr:
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would, that would scare me a bit.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You know, so, so we'll, we'll see their, their teenagers still.
Guillaume Waitr:
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So we'll see in a few years, if they, if they keep looking for
Guillaume Waitr:
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different things, I might experience the same, the same anxiety.
Guillaume Waitr:
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My parents told me, yeah, isn't there something you want to settle on and
Guillaume Waitr:
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just do for the rest of your life?
Guillaume Waitr:
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And I said, no, I'm going to be like that for a long time.
Guillaume Waitr:
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But now outside of that.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I didn't get too much.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I didn't receive too much criticism from my friends or colleagues.
Guillaume Waitr:
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and, and, and yet, because the, you know, I heard this from the
Guillaume Waitr:
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parental voice, it still made me quite uncomfortable until I think I,
Guillaume Waitr:
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I was able to figure something out.
Guillaume Waitr:
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And the, and that's, that's the following is that you don't have
Guillaume Waitr:
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to, Specialize and niche down your whole life into something, but what
Guillaume Waitr:
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so you, you can stay very diverse.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You can, you can explore very different and maybe throughout your life.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You know, there are seasons in life.
Guillaume Waitr:
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There are things you can do and can do, at different times.
Guillaume Waitr:
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And so, but, but you may want to think about specializing specific
Guillaume Waitr:
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moments or areas of your life or your, of your, or your business journey.
Guillaume Waitr:
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and in fact, you know, the, the, the, the, some of the most successful
Guillaume Waitr:
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entrepreneurs, if you look at their portfolio of businesses, and it's
Guillaume Waitr:
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a very wide range of things, but each businesses is each business.
Guillaume Waitr:
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is highly specialized in something.
Guillaume Waitr:
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So you introduced me as the, as the principal and founder of Metahelm and that
Guillaume Waitr:
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business is highly specialized in business strategy for professional services firms.
Guillaume Waitr:
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That's all I do.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Nothing else.
Guillaume Waitr:
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and then, you know, even within that buckets, I, I'm not going to go into
Guillaume Waitr:
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details now, but there are very, very specific things that I, I think I'm
Guillaume Waitr:
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really good at and others that I won't do, but metahelm is not my whole life.
Guillaume Waitr:
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Fortunately, I have, I have many other things.
Guillaume Waitr:
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So, so that's how I see it.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I hope this helps, you know, people who listen to us also.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:09:02
Maybe, settle with that question, which you're right.
Guillaume Waitr:
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It's a difficult question and there's a lot of criticism.
Guillaume Waitr:
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There's a lot of debate.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:09:10
Oh yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You should need to, no, you should stay a generalist.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I advise my clients for the business that I hope that I
Guillaume Waitr:
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help them with to specialize.
Guillaume Waitr:
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And there are many different ways to specialize, not just an
Guillaume Waitr:
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industry or, or, or one process.
Guillaume Waitr:
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There's different ways to do that.
Guillaume Waitr:
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and that's, that's always keeping in mind that they're more than that.
Guillaume Waitr:
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They're way more than that.
Guillaume Waitr:
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And that's okay to explore other things.
Tim Winders:
00:09:38
Hmm.
Tim Winders:
00:09:39
So that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:09:40
That's how I reconciled it for me.
Tim Winders:
00:09:43
Yeah.
Tim Winders:
00:09:43
And, and, and, so this is, I guess something, I think this
Tim Winders:
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is very valuable for a number of people, for the person that.
Tim Winders:
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Might be feeling as if they're in one place and they hear two guys
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00:10:02
talk about all these different things, explore, adventure, being
Tim Winders:
00:10:06
curious and all that kind of stuff.
Tim Winders:
00:10:07
And so I want, I want that person to stick around because I believe
Tim Winders:
00:10:11
there's value for, for what they do, because in many ways I admire that.
Tim Winders:
00:10:17
As much, sometimes if not more than the way, the way we have discussed we are.
Tim Winders:
00:10:23
But one of the things I noticed about me, and this is, I'll pose
Tim Winders:
00:10:26
this in the form of a question.
Tim Winders:
00:10:27
I noticed early on in my life, it was probably the seasons, you mentioned
Tim Winders:
00:10:33
this word seasons, I love that word, that I was finding who I was.
Tim Winders:
00:10:39
I was identifying, I was identifying the things that I
Tim Winders:
00:10:43
definitely wasn't going to do.
Tim Winders:
00:10:46
And, and I would find myself getting bored.
Tim Winders:
00:10:49
And, and, you know, you use the word explorer and explorer basically is
Tim Winders:
00:10:55
someone who goes out, but, but like you said, they could be someone close.
Tim Winders:
00:11:00
So the question I've got is, do you ever find yourself getting bored?
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And if you don't currently, did you in the past and how have you reconciled that?
Tim Winders:
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If that was the case, just, you know, boards, like, you know what?
Tim Winders:
00:11:11
This is not exciting me.
Tim Winders:
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This is not a good narrative for me, whatever I need to do something else.
Tim Winders:
00:11:19
How did you address that?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:20
You mean bored in general?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:22
Because I, I, or, or bored because I get bored every day with a bunch of
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:25
stuff that I have to, I have to, to do.
Tim Winders:
00:11:30
I'll give it, I'll let you take it.
Tim Winders:
00:11:32
I'll, I'll let you take it.
Tim Winders:
00:11:32
However you want to take it for what go big picture or go granular day to day.
Tim Winders:
00:11:37
Either way
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:39
Yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:39
well, I did, I did, I was definitely, generally bored in my life.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:44
I can think of a few times, you know, and then I triggered change.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:47
I said, Oh, let's change, let's change, country.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:50
For instance, my wife is from Seattle.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:52
So she's.
Guillaume Waitr:
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She's the one who kind of dragged me over, but we used to live in
Guillaume Waitr:
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France and, I was bored with France.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:11:58
I wanted to change and she was homesick.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:01
So good timing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:02
They, you know, let's shift this.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:04
let me tell you, it was not boring after that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:07
It was very, very intense and exciting for me.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:10
And so, so yes, so, so, so I, I, in general, am I bored right now?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:17
No.
Guillaume Waitr:
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this is a very, very exciting, time of my life.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really, really, you know, thrilled with the
Guillaume Waitr:
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amount of conversations that I have, the type of work that I do.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:27
I was, Making a list the other day of all the topics and the experts I work with
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:33
and it ranges from somebody who's like a leading expert in the resilience, you
Guillaume Waitr:
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know, human resilience all the way to people who create better ways to cool.
Guillaume Waitr:
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high performance computers.
Guillaume Waitr:
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That's that, that's a really, really critical thing right now is to
Guillaume Waitr:
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increase power, computing power.
Guillaume Waitr:
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You have to call them in a way more effective and, and, and a sustainable way.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:56
I work with people who help, highly sensitive people.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:12:59
I'm, I was just on a call, two days ago with somebody in Saudi Arabia who wants
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:04
to create a community for entrepreneurs.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:07
I mean.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:08
I don't have time to get bored with all those topics.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:10
It really, really fits my curiosity now on a date on a day to day basis.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:14
I do.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:15
Yeah, there's stuff that I'm not excited, you know, of doing in, in doing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:18
And, and, my, my son, last, this weekend we were driving and he's like,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:22
dad, I'm really bored with school.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:24
I feel like, you know, I just.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:25
Push through the week, and I, I try to do my best, but it's really, really boring.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:30
And I say, well, maybe there is a, there's a learning there, there's a lesson.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:33
Maybe the, maybe it's here to teach you that not everything in life is always
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:36
exciting and you have to learn to do the things that you must do, you know,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:42
to a certain extent and deal with that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:45
So, you know, I, I publish a lot of things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:48
I, you know, I do a lot of videos.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:49
I do a lot of writing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:50
I, I, I, I interact with the outside world and sometimes.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:55
Am I excited?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:56
No, not at all.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:58
I'm bored.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:13:59
I mean, I'm like, nah, yeah, gotta do this thing, but I do it anyways.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:06
I know that 10 seconds later I get really, really thrilled, really excited.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:13
Oh my gosh, yes.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:13
I could talk about this.
Guillaume Waitr:
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I could say this.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:15
I could do that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:15
I could create, I could draw, I could, you know, you name it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:19
So that's my relationship with boredom.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:21
And may, maybe I did.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:22
I didn't define boredom as the same as way, the same way as you do.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:26
But that's kind of my relationship.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:14:28
Yeah, that's my
Tim Winders:
00:14:29
that's good.
Tim Winders:
00:14:30
Before I hit record, you mentioned to me that you had gone back and
Tim Winders:
00:14:37
listened to the origin story.
Tim Winders:
00:14:39
And, and I gave you a little video tour of our RV here, which gave
Tim Winders:
00:14:44
you a little glimpse into our life.
Tim Winders:
00:14:47
And I'm always fascinated because it is interesting.
Tim Winders:
00:14:50
There are a number of people that I think they can't learn.
Tim Winders:
00:14:56
Much about me, my narrative, who I am, unless they listen to that.
Tim Winders:
00:15:01
And your comment was similar or relatable or something like that.
Tim Winders:
00:15:06
I don't know the exact words.
Tim Winders:
00:15:08
And so I think what I'd love to do now is maybe what is, what is that?
Tim Winders:
00:15:15
origin story that you feel is pertinent to share as we move into this discussion
Tim Winders:
00:15:21
about strategic narrative here.
Tim Winders:
00:15:22
What is, and one of the things we do not do here, we love the tactical, we
Tim Winders:
00:15:26
love strategic, but we also love that identity and core of who people are,
Tim Winders:
00:15:31
which comes from situations like that.
Tim Winders:
00:15:35
So that's me giving you permission to share whatever as light or
Tim Winders:
00:15:40
as deep as you would like to.
Tim Winders:
00:15:42
We don't.
Tim Winders:
00:15:43
We don't use words like failure.
Tim Winders:
00:15:45
We call them experiences.
Tim Winders:
00:15:47
It's part of who we are.
Tim Winders:
00:15:48
So what's in, what's part of your, or your origin story that is
Tim Winders:
00:15:53
pertinent to the conversation here?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:15:57
So, when I saw that, you know, in, I listened to
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:00
your podcast and I, I picked up, there is an origin story episode.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:03
Then you mentioned it like, Oh, where is that episode?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:05
So I had to scroll down on my, I think I was on Spotify.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:08
Listen, scroll that all the way, all the way, all the way.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:10
Like, Oh, there is that episode to me.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:11
That's the most, one of the most interesting facets of a narrative
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:15
is where people come from now.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:17
and, and, or, you know, there's potentially In my, in my journey,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:23
several moments that I would call triggering events or, you know, that
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:27
could qualify for an origin story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:30
And it all depends on how you frame it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:33
And you just, you just did something, which is you, you
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:36
framed, a story with options.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:38
You gave people a possibility just a minute ago by saying
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:41
there's no, there is no failure.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:43
There's just learning is that, I think that's what you said.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:46
Right.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:46
so.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:48
Current.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:48
So I'll tell you my origin story as it relates to what I'm doing now.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:53
But as, as it relates to other things in my life, maybe there are other moments in
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:56
my life that could be the origin story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:16:58
So I just, I just want to say that because it's an exercise in, relativity.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:03
it's one of the key exercises I help my clients actually, work on and develop
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:07
because through that they unearth so much.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:12
It's really, you know, there's a famous quote by, I don't know, I can't remember
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:16
who, but you can't predict the future.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:18
The only way to predict the future is to look through the past because
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:21
there is nothing to look at in the future unless you have a crystal ball.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:26
I don't have one.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:27
So my origin story is about when I came to the, there's two moments,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:33
first of all, working in corporations.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:37
Working corporations, I thought that if I was really bored, Tim, I was really,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:44
really bored and, and, and, and, I remember this, this day when, I was
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:49
a young consultant, it was probably around the late nineties, early 2000,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:53
I was brought on to a large, energy company in France called Total.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:17:58
and that brought me on because for somehow randomly, I happen to be very,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:03
knowledgeable about the purchasing, tool that they had, and they were
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:08
stuck on a project and I'll make this part of this part of my origin story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:12
That's the first part short, but I kicked off the meeting.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:16
I'm a young consultant, probably 27, 28.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:18
I'm sitting in this room with everyone, probably double my age.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:22
running, you know, this large, very, very large company and they all expect
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:26
from me this technical expertise.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:28
And in the first 15 to 30 minutes, I noticed that the problem
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:32
is not the lack of expertise.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:33
The problem is these guys don't listen to each other.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:36
They're misaligned.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:37
They, you know, they use different terms and acronyms and.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:40
It's, it's an ego festival, like I know more than you and I can do, and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:45
I can say this jargon better than you.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:47
And so it's like, I'm like, huh, no wonder this project is stuck.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:51
And I, I derail my own agenda and say, Hey guys, you know, I, you know, I had
Guillaume Waitr:
00:18:56
a whole agenda today, but do you mind if we do this quick exercise, which
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:00
consists of grabbing a piece of paper and drawing what the project looks like.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:04
Everyone here around the room grabs a piece of letter size, you know, piece
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:08
of paper and a pen and draws a project.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:11
Which after a few seconds of looking at me with googly eyes, they go, okay,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:16
I guess if the cons if the consultant say, so we'll do it, but not convinced
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:22
they did it, we posted the drawings and the drawings did the rest.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:26
Like they could see by themselves without me saying anything, why
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:31
the project was completely stuck.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:35
So there was a first moment in my life where I'm like, okay, I probably should
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:40
my intuition more and my creativity more.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:44
And really pay attention to human dynamics, which I just did now.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:48
I was terrified him.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:49
I thought they were going to fire me right away, which at the, at
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:52
this, at this time and age in my life would have been completely
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:56
dramatic and, and the project went on.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:19:59
It was actually very successful.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:01
Two years later, they told me, Oh, we didn't, we never told you, but
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:05
you know, before you, we had fired to be consulting for us because they
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:07
couldn't, make us work together.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:11
So it was the first element then 15 years later about, sorry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:14
yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:15
What was that?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:16
Would that, that would be about 15 years?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:18
No, sorry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:18
eight years later, my wife is American and I moved to the United States and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:24
I move in this, end of July of 2008.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:27
my plan is, hey, I know no one, so picture this, I can't, I can barely,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:33
you know, I can speak English with this very French accent a little bit.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:38
I don't know anyone.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:39
And my wonderful plan is to get hired as a management consultant in the Seattle area.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:45
And two weeks after I come here, there's no job for me.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:50
So I had to reinvent myself.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:52
We can't pay the bills.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:54
My wife's a teacher.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:55
We have our first baby.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:20:57
And I am here with this, you know, pretty fancy background, you know, big firms, big
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:06
names in France that no one knows here.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:09
And I'm faced with this challenge of what do you do now?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:12
Do you go back to France?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:14
Do you stay here?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:15
Do you, what's going on?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:16
You know, you're not making any money.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:19
I can't last more maybe than a month with what I have in savings.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:24
And because it's an expensive move that I paid, you know, entirely out of my pocket.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:32
So it was a humbling moment.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:33
and I know you applied to McDonald's.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:36
team, back, you had to apply to McDonald's right in the early
Tim Winders:
00:21:39
I tried, they didn't want me.
Tim Winders:
00:21:41
I don't know why I couldn't even get the application in.
Tim Winders:
00:21:43
And I, anyway, yes,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:46
and I.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:47
yeah, so, so, so humbling moments similar to yours.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:51
And I just applied to local pharmacy, to get a job as a,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:55
you know, handyman, janitor.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:57
I was, then I was doing yard work.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:21:58
I was doing a little tutoring and it was the best thing that happened
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:02
in my life because really after that, what I noticed is that people
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:06
could not care less about my resume.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:09
What they really want to hear is how did I survive and went through this
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:14
financial crisis we all went through here.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:17
That was the narrative thereafter.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:19
And they noticed that my narrative wasn't, was it by resilience, creativity,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:24
letting go of the ego and just do what's right for, you know, for the time being.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:29
And they, they.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:31
And then they really, they really appreciated that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:33
And then as soon as, so I did all sorts of things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:36
And, I worked in retail.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:37
I learned so much in retail.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:38
I learned the English language, a bunch of slang terms too,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:42
that was interesting for me.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:43
So I explored a bunch.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:45
And then after that, I go back to consulting and that's the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:49
only thing people cared about.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:50
Like, how did you make it through this, through these times?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:54
Why are you coming from France?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:56
What are you doing here?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:58
Tell us about that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:22:59
And.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:00
I had the chance to, to, to, to frame my narrative from the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:05
perspective of my values versus telling them, Oh yeah, I failed.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:10
I plan to come here and be successful right away.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:13
And that didn't work out.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:15
So a narrative is a choice.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:16
A narrative is a point of view.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:19
It's the way you look at reality, you know, it's, it's the way you, you
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:23
understand what is happening around you.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:25
A narrative is a system of stories.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:27
And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:31
origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:36
Your narrative becomes a set of possibilities becomes more.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:41
Open, it becomes a platform for you to communicate with people more effectively.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:46
So it's a common language with, you know, with people, around you and so on.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:50
So I'll pause here.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:23:51
I
Tim Winders:
00:23:54
here thinking someone listening in might go, okay, both
Tim Winders:
00:23:58
these, both these guys went through something that would have had some pain.
Tim Winders:
00:24:03
I'm sure that, you know, there's some humbling effect.
Tim Winders:
00:24:08
There's some things that this is the way my wife and I worded.
Tim Winders:
00:24:12
I wouldn't wish our journey on anyone else, but I'm so
Tim Winders:
00:24:15
thankful that we went through it.
Tim Winders:
00:24:17
Does it have to have a valley?
Tim Winders:
00:24:18
Does it have to have a, it can't all be good.
Tim Winders:
00:24:23
Can it, or, I mean, are there any rules to this big narrative?
Tim Winders:
00:24:27
We're, and I want to, we're going to go a little bit deeper, but
Tim Winders:
00:24:30
let's talk big picture right now.
Tim Winders:
00:24:32
Are there any rules like, you know, there's gotta be a downfall.
Tim Winders:
00:24:35
There's gotta be something ugly.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:37
don't have the answer to this question, Tim.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:39
I'm still exploring.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:40
I would say as of today, March, 2024, I would lean towards, I'm going to try
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:46
to say, I don't think there is a role.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:48
I have heard origin story that are actually very positive.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:24:52
Um, I, I, I think the principle is, maybe, some sort of epiphany or aha
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:00
moment and, maybe it's human nature that we have these through difficult times.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:06
but that's a good question.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:07
That's actually, maybe a research topic that I should call
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:10
somebody out there should do.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:13
Maybe somebody has done that work already.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:25:15
That's a very good question.
Tim Winders:
00:25:16
Well, let me, I want to give you a little bit of data for it, and I
Tim Winders:
00:25:19
don't think we'll come up with the answer,
Tim Winders:
00:25:21
but I did a, when I, when I, when I wrote a novel a few years back, I did a pseudo.
Tim Winders:
00:25:30
PR type tour that ended up being virtual, not because of COVID and things like that.
Tim Winders:
00:25:36
But I, I got on often, I would get on big zoom calls that had a lot of media people.
Tim Winders:
00:25:45
And we made our pitch three minutes to be on their show, their publication.
Tim Winders:
00:25:51
I mean, some of these were national television shows, things like that.
Tim Winders:
00:25:54
And, and that was a little bit out of reach of a lot of us that were there,
Tim Winders:
00:25:58
but they were, there were people there.
Tim Winders:
00:26:01
And, and Guillaume, I, I noticed that when I told the story that I like to
Tim Winders:
00:26:08
tell, which is, at that time I'm a strategic coach, I work with leaders
Tim Winders:
00:26:12
and businesses, et cetera, and all.
Tim Winders:
00:26:15
I wouldn't see people falling asleep, but I sensed it was just extremely boring.
Tim Winders:
00:26:21
To most of them, but when I told him the story that we had three seven
Tim Winders:
00:26:26
figure companies in 2008, and by 2013, we were homeless and bankrupt.
Tim Winders:
00:26:31
It was like, they perked up immediately and wanted to know more
Tim Winders:
00:26:33
and said, Oh, you'd be perfect.
Tim Winders:
00:26:34
And so when I found myself, and this is what I had to caution myself, I found
Tim Winders:
00:26:40
myself repeating that over and over.
Tim Winders:
00:26:42
I had like 80 pitches that I did within a course of a few days.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:26:47
Mm
Tim Winders:
00:26:47
And when I told my other story, crickets, nothing, but when I told
Tim Winders:
00:26:52
that story and what I was concerned was, is that I was falling into a click bait.
Tim Winders:
00:26:59
It was really my story.
Tim Winders:
00:27:00
I am not, that's not the story.
Tim Winders:
00:27:02
There's a lot more to it.
Tim Winders:
00:27:02
You know, there's a lot more to that story and that, that hook,
Tim Winders:
00:27:06
I call it click bait sometimes.
Tim Winders:
00:27:11
And, and at times I wonder if we start molding those narratives, maybe even
Tim Winders:
00:27:16
exaggerate, embellish to make them fit what social media, what all is,
Tim Winders:
00:27:23
that might be a different question.
Tim Winders:
00:27:24
I'll see if I just mentioned that.
Tim Winders:
00:27:26
Do you, what's your response?
Tim Winders:
00:27:27
I don't even know if that's a question or anything.
Tim Winders:
00:27:28
I would just commenting.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:30
Everything you said is true.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:31
We shape narratives, for, to, to our advantage.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:34
The reason why, the human species is still around for now.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:38
is because we have an ability to do what animals can do, which is imagine things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:45
And we, you know, and we, we imagine terrible things or great things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:49
And we, we stretch the truth and we spin off things to our advantage.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:54
We, you know, we, we do that all the time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:56
It's human nature.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:27:57
so, so the reasons why Religions exist and are able to gather people in such
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:04
powerful movements is because we believe in, in stories that are what they are.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:12
They're, some of them, I believe are true, some of them are not.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:15
They're completely fictitious, but we still need them.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:20
We, this, it's, it's, it is an existential thing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:23
So the fact that you go on those, on those calls and pitches and people say,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:27
Hey, we want that piece, that narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:29
Because it works in your favor and works in their favor.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:34
And yes, they're going to get more, more clicks and baits, sorry, clicks.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:37
And, and, and, and it's going to be more compelling.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:40
so it's a little bit like, a Trojan horse to the mind and hearts.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:45
And then, and then you do what you want to do and need to do with it,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:49
hopefully for positive intentions, right?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:52
But some people do, do it also for negative stuff and, and it's
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:56
called, it's called propaganda.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:28:59
And, and, and they do it to trigger wars and, and dominate and,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:03
and create more arms than good.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:04
So, But that's, that's all a question of values of it's all subjective after that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:08
So by definition, what you did here is you came across, Hey, yeah, we could
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:13
tell, we, I could tell so many stories.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:16
That's what I hear all the time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:17
Like, you know, my clients go, Oh, I want to be able to tell my story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:20
And I go, okay, which one?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:22
Well, my story, I go, well, you, you, you could tell like a thousand stories.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:27
Which one are we going to work on?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:29
What's going to be the most important to you?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:31
Right?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:32
So you are in a situation where.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:35
You could tell a set of stories and the PR people say, no, we want this one.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:29:42
There's nothing wrong with that.
Tim Winders:
00:29:43
So one of the things I just had a visual that is so interesting with
Tim Winders:
00:29:49
you being from the country of France.
Tim Winders:
00:29:53
I, I, I think the way I look at that story.
Tim Winders:
00:29:58
Is the equivalent of June 6th, 1944, when the allied forces were made the
Tim Winders:
00:30:07
decision with, you know, Eisenhower and the others to come across the channel and
Tim Winders:
00:30:13
re establish a presence in the North of France, Normandy region and all of that.
Tim Winders:
00:30:19
And I'm a big fan of history and things like that.
Tim Winders:
00:30:21
So this is, I almost can tear up when I discuss this day in history.
Tim Winders:
00:30:28
And I, and I love it that I'm speaking with someone who has an origin from, from
Tim Winders:
00:30:32
that region, or at least that country
Guillaume Waitr:
00:30:34
And I, I am, I am from that region team, by the way.
Tim Winders:
00:30:38
it's, it's much more of a heart message to me.
Tim Winders:
00:30:41
So the way I perceive that portion of my narrative is the equivalent of what
Tim Winders:
00:30:48
Eisenhower said that they were going to do before they put the troops on.
Tim Winders:
00:30:52
They were going to shell, shell, shell to soften the
Tim Winders:
00:30:56
beachhead so that it would allow.
Tim Winders:
00:30:59
The troops to come in with limited loss, et cetera.
Tim Winders:
00:31:05
There was a lot of loss.
Tim Winders:
00:31:06
There was a lot that went on.
Tim Winders:
00:31:07
I consider that portion, that really short condensed portion of my narrative
Tim Winders:
00:31:13
as softening the beachhead so that there's more of an opening for me to.
Tim Winders:
00:31:18
Go in and do what I believe I need to do, which is discuss strategy,
Tim Winders:
00:31:23
discuss, you know, what can we do with the leadership circles?
Tim Winders:
00:31:26
And, and it did open up doors.
Tim Winders:
00:31:28
I mean, people love that story.
Tim Winders:
00:31:29
And then they sell, by the way, now, what do you, tell me more
Tim Winders:
00:31:31
about what you do and how you help companies and how you help leaders.
Tim Winders:
00:31:35
So, anyway, that thoughts.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:39
Well, I, I think, you know, we, we want to work with people
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:42
who we can, relate to or connect with.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:45
I mean, that's what we do in a podcast like that, by the way.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:48
And, And the way we do this is by, is by sharing the truth from our perspective
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:54
and seeing what resonates with them.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:31:56
So when people hear your story of success and struggle and success
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:01
again, ups and downs, you know, it portrays something, it portrays life.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:06
in fact, you know, the, if we want to measure your heartbeat and you look at
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:10
this instrument, I don't know in English what the name for the instruments, you
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:13
know, it's a black screen with a little green dot it's ups and downs all the time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:18
Fortunately, you're alive because you know, there's moments of activity and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:22
moments of rest and the same goes for your, for your life story is the same.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:26
So we want to, we want to relate to somebody who's alive.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:29
that's the, that's the nature of our society.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:31
That's, that's the nature of who we are.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:32:34
so I guess that's probably why that's my, that would be my read on
Tim Winders:
00:32:39
so it's.
Tim Winders:
00:32:40
Yeah, I want to let, let's kind of go a layer or two down and discuss what
Tim Winders:
00:32:46
you've titled as strategic narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:32:51
And there, there are a couple of words that are really fascinating to me.
Tim Winders:
00:32:55
The word strategic, if one looks at the strength finders, my
Tim Winders:
00:32:59
number one strength is strategic.
Tim Winders:
00:33:03
And, you know, there was a period of time where I called myself a strategic coach.
Tim Winders:
00:33:08
and, and till there was an organization called strategic coach that said,
Tim Winders:
00:33:13
we'd rather you not use that name.
Tim Winders:
00:33:14
We had some discussions about that and which I was fine with, you know,
Tim Winders:
00:33:18
but tell me about the two words.
Tim Winders:
00:33:21
Strategic and narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:33:24
And that's going to be kind of our gateway to begin moving in.
Tim Winders:
00:33:27
And as in, in, in, in the time that we have, there's a few layers down that
Tim Winders:
00:33:31
I want to keep going as far as we can.
Tim Winders:
00:33:33
And then people can get more information in other ways, but strategic narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:39
I'll start with the second word narrative,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:41
which I, I make a difference between a story and a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:44
First of all, most people, use them interchangeably rightfully.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:48
So if you look in a basic dictionary, you'll see it's pretty much the same
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:52
definition, but there is one element that a narrative, brings in addition to
Guillaume Waitr:
00:33:57
a story, which is what I said earlier, a narrative is, It's a way to look at
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:01
things, you know, and it's, you, you probably caught this on, in conversations
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:05
or on TV, we, you know, especially the, the, the journalists say very often,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:09
Oh, the narrative about our country, the narrative about society, the narrative
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:13
about this and this, you know, problem or the near, and we say, you know,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:19
the world has a narrative countries have narratives, your company has a
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:23
narrative and yourself has a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:24
So.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:26
So we're looking at something that is bigger than just the stories who are,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:31
in my opinion, more granular concepts.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:34
A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:37
You know, we, we like to think of the story as a, as, as, as a, as a cycle, as
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:43
a loop, a happy ending, typically, not in French movies, by the way, we have
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:48
no happy ending in French movies, but we still have a closure to the story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:52
Whereas narratives, because there are these systems of stories are open ended.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:34:57
You know, your narrative unfolds all the time, as long as you, as long as
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:00
you're, you're alive and sometimes after your death, your narrative carries on.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:05
you know, I was talking to a client, he was mentioning you, so Steve Job
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:08
with, with Apple, his narrative is still very, very much around us.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:14
Right.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:14
And you, and we continue to, to, to interpret it and re interpret it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:18
I think he was the 30 year 30th anniversary or 40th anniversary of
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:22
that famous commercial that jobs, you know, team, came to about, you
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:27
know, big brother and this lady coming into the, the, the movie theater,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:31
throwing the hammer on the screen,
Tim Winders:
00:35:33
1984.
Tim Winders:
00:35:34
That was
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:35
right.
Tim Winders:
00:35:35
of the commercial.
Tim Winders:
00:35:36
And that was the year in the Orwell book that
Tim Winders:
00:35:38
they brought together.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:40
there you go.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:40
1984.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:41
So that narrative, we continue to try to do something with that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:44
So I want, I want to make sure that we talk about this.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:47
So a narrative is a system and, three, there are three
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:51
things that shape a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:53
again, I'll start with the most obvious and simple.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:55
It's the language.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:35:57
when people Asked me, Oh, you can, can you, you know, can you work with me?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:02
They immediately think, Oh, we're going to work on our marketing, our communications
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:06
and sales, whatever in involves language.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:08
And in, in an organization is very much thought as what is happening outside.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:12
I mean, there's obviously also internal communication, but the first layer of a
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:17
narrative is what we say, words forge.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:20
So many things around us, you know, and the first thing they, they
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:23
forge is our mindset, which is the second layer of a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:27
Your narrative happens.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:29
First of all, in your mind, without you saying anything, you look at something,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:35
you think about a situation, Tim, and immediately your narrative kicks in.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:40
Narratives are these, cognitive bias.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:43
They are there to help us function without thinking too much.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:47
Our brain doesn't, doesn't like to overthink.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:50
So, the way you look at working with a client, the way you look
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:54
at your day, you have a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:56
That narrative can be positive or negative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:36:58
You wake up and you go, Gosh, I'm so excited today.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:01
Oh, yeah, it's gonna be, I'm gonna learn something.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:04
Or, oh my gosh, another day.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:07
you know, I hear people say, how are you doing today?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:10
Ah, just like a Monday.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:14
What kind of mindset, you know, does this bring to, to a day to, you know, and even
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:19
my tone of voice indicated a negative narrative about, about a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:25
The third element of a narrative is just simply, your actions.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:29
What, what do you do, you know, and in a company, it's
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:32
going to be mostly materialized through your workflow processes.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:37
So that's what a narrative is.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:38
You can look and look around.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:40
It's not just true for businesses.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:41
It's true for, religious organizations, societies, government, any,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:48
groups of human beings trying to achieve a goal together.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:53
That's a fundamental mechanism that you will see just everywhere.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:58
Look around.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:37:59
It's everywhere.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:38:01
So that's what a narrative is.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:38:02
Now, why did I put strategic in front of it is because I wanted to,
Tim Winders:
00:38:07
Can I pause you, can I pause you one second?
Tim Winders:
00:38:09
Because I want to, I, you know, I'm not going to let the strategic die.
Tim Winders:
00:38:13
We'll come back to that, but I've got a few.
Tim Winders:
00:38:18
questions about narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:38:20
And if it, if it's going to tie in later, you could say, Tim, we'll
Tim Winders:
00:38:23
get to that, or they could do more.
Tim Winders:
00:38:25
The first thing that came up for me when I was doing some studying research
Tim Winders:
00:38:29
and I read through your book was one of the things we're told in our modern
Tim Winders:
00:38:37
business world is something around this.
Tim Winders:
00:38:41
You need to know who your audience is.
Tim Winders:
00:38:44
And, and so one of the things that I kept thinking about, it wasn't nagging
Tim Winders:
00:38:49
at me, but usually if I'm thinking about it, it's something that's
Tim Winders:
00:38:52
rolling around in my mind is how does.
Tim Winders:
00:38:56
Narrative relate to the person that's creating it versus a
Tim Winders:
00:39:02
person that's attempting to create something for a specific audience.
Tim Winders:
00:39:06
Okay.
Tim Winders:
00:39:08
Is that something you want to address?
Tim Winders:
00:39:09
Is it
Tim Winders:
00:39:10
quickly or is it not?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:11
it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:12
No, no, I can
Tim Winders:
00:39:13
Let me kind of quick, cause there's a few other
Tim Winders:
00:39:14
things that are a little deeper.
Tim Winders:
00:39:15
So just kind of say a few things about that quickly.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:18
quickly is a narrative is very much something that comes,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:22
comes from the inside, inside out.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:24
So it has to be really, really tied to, you know, where we
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:28
talked about the origin stories.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:29
what are your values?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:30
What do you, it's almost like spiritual, emotional.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:34
You have to feel it inside before you preoccupy yourself with the audience.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:39
And, and that that's, it goes in tandem.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:42
but I would, I would encourage you guys, whoever's listening and team, you know,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:47
think about the narrative as something that, because it's, it's such, like I said
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:51
earlier, it's such a, it's subjective.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:53
So it's something you get to shape.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:56
It's a perspective.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:39:57
So I'll, I'll pose here.
Tim Winders:
00:39:59
All right.
Tim Winders:
00:39:59
So I like that because that's good because what that does is it allows people to
Tim Winders:
00:40:04
be true to themselves and not get into the manipulation embellishment or, you
Tim Winders:
00:40:13
know, a lot of things that could happen in the world today where it's like, you
Tim Winders:
00:40:16
know, and I need to come up with a story.
Tim Winders:
00:40:17
It's not me, it's not my narrative, but I just need to come up with
Tim Winders:
00:40:21
one so I could sell some stuff.
Tim Winders:
00:40:22
That's the cynical comment that I'll make.
Tim Winders:
00:40:25
Second thing, how does.
Tim Winders:
00:40:27
Cultures fit into narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:40:31
I think you said it earlier, but I just want to make sure I'm clear because we do
Tim Winders:
00:40:37
have cultures here in the United States.
Tim Winders:
00:40:39
My concern is we have two different cultures that are clashing currently,
Tim Winders:
00:40:44
but then you have a good perspective of obviously another country's culture.
Tim Winders:
00:40:49
I just got back from a trip, uh, where I went to the central Ohio
Tim Winders:
00:40:55
where it's a very heavy Amish.
Tim Winders:
00:40:57
Culture.
Tim Winders:
00:40:58
I had some business to do and also some ministry work.
Tim Winders:
00:41:02
It was fascinating to me to learn.
Tim Winders:
00:41:04
I learned some things about narratives there, but so just talk
Tim Winders:
00:41:08
a little bit more about culture and then I've got one more item that
Tim Winders:
00:41:12
will lead us into that strategic.
Tim Winders:
00:41:13
Discussion.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:15
Well, okay.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:16
So the, one of the basic definition of cultures is the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:19
way we do things around here.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:20
So we'll let, let's start there.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:22
So, and you talk about the Amish, the Amish are known, you
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:25
know, move those barns and build those barns very, very quickly.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:28
How do they do this?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:29
Well, they, you know, they, they, they rally a bunch of people.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:32
It's a number thing like it's, and, and it's, it's very, okay.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:36
well orchestrated.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:37
I've never seen one live, but I've watched many, many videos because that
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:40
was actually one of the culture I was interested in learning more about.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:44
And when you do things around here, you do certain things based,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:48
you, you base your decisions.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:51
on a certain type of values.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:54
Values are how we decide, right?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:41:57
And values, then there's another connection, which is values are
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:03
inherently, their, their choices, their, their, their, their ways
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:07
you look at things, which is by definition, what a narrative is.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:12
So, this is getting a little technical here in my, in my domain,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:17
but clearly culture, cultures have narratives because the way we interpret
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:23
reality, we do it through our values.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:25
And that's what a culture is.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:42:28
Does this make
Tim Winders:
00:42:28
All right.
Tim Winders:
00:42:29
Yeah, that's very good.
Tim Winders:
00:42:31
And, and I also want to be clear.
Tim Winders:
00:42:32
I, I am actually not Amish, but one of the things I had to do real
Tim Winders:
00:42:36
quickly was, adjust a few things.
Tim Winders:
00:42:41
I didn't, I didn't change.
Tim Winders:
00:42:42
I don't believe I did not change my narrative, but I changed a few things.
Tim Winders:
00:42:47
About what I discussed and how I said some things.
Tim Winders:
00:42:49
That's another topic it's based on how you've said narrative up up to this
Tim Winders:
00:42:55
point, it, it's becoming apparent to me that there, everyone has a narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:43:00
It's just many people have not taken the time to work on it.
Tim Winders:
00:43:04
And my guess is that's where the strategic comes in.
Tim Winders:
00:43:08
Is that a good gateway into talking about strategic?
Tim Winders:
00:43:12
Okay.
Tim Winders:
00:43:12
Take off and go.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:14
So, yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:14
So the whole, the whole point is to realize, okay, so we, we've just,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:19
you know, in the, in the past 10, 15 minutes, we've just laid the foundation
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:22
to define what a narrative is.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:24
So if you agree with that, that definition, then you go, wow.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:29
Okay.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:29
Well, I know that I understand it better.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:31
I see that's a system.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:32
There, there are things I get, there are choices I can make.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:35
Strategy is now a practice that makes a lot of sense.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:38
You can, you can, you can shape that narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:41
You can decide on it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:42
You can set some intentions.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:44
There are things that, why strategic is because we're taking a narrative
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:48
from unconscious to consciousness.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:52
Right.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:52
And there is always layers of neuronarrative data that are, you're
Guillaume Waitr:
00:43:56
not going to be fully aware of, but if you start really digging into this and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:01
looking at it as a system, you can be strategic about it, which means you can
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:05
align what you're trying to do, And, and, and really shape your narrative
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:09
to, to your advantage, as we said earlier, and to get your goals better.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:13
So if you're, if, if you are, you know, we said ministry, you said
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:18
they were running ministry, you know, you're, you're in ministry, maybe,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:21
maybe the narrative about you and your group and your organization needs to.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:27
Be revisited to have higher impact or an impact that is more aligned with the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:33
kind of ministry you want to engage in.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:35
In fact, I like to say that, one of the ways you can, change your
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:39
narrative is through, marketing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:42
I, you know, and I'm, I'm going to talk about, private for profit organizations
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:45
for, for a moment, marketing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:47
And I define your marketing as your ministry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:51
I even say this to my clients who are not particularly religious or
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:54
spiritual, say, this is your ministry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:44:56
It's, it's about how you care for others, give value first, see, see your community,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:02
your market as the people you serve.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:04
And that's what you do through.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:06
Your marketing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:08
So how do we get strategic about your narrative?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:12
I broke it down because it was very, it was very complex for me for a while.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:16
And, specializing in professional services firms.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:20
I thought, okay, I mapped it out for many, many years, Tim.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:24
And I broke it down into 12 practices.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:27
I looked around and like, okay, there are really 12 things, 12
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:31
patterns that I see all the time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:33
I've been in consulting for 32 years and that's the research I did being in
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:38
large firms, small firms, engineers, consultants, coaches, designers,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:42
marketers, all sorts of, and they all engage in those 12 practices.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:47
So that's my framework.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:49
That's my model.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:50
Is it perfect?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:52
Is it true?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:52
No, but it's useful.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:55
When people see this, they go, Oh yeah, that's me.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:45:59
I see these 12 all the time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:01
I'm so glad it's on the map because now we can be strategic about them.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:04
We can decide where we want to spend our time.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:06
We can decide how we want to approach some of those practices,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:10
maybe ignore them totally or.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:12
Or completely dabble down on some of them.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:15
And that's how your narrative becomes strategic.
Tim Winders:
00:46:17
fits together.
Tim Winders:
00:46:20
Yeah, that, that, that all, that fits together well.
Tim Winders:
00:46:23
And I'm, I'm sitting here now going, let's see here.
Tim Winders:
00:46:27
We, we definitely don't have time to hit all 12.
Tim Winders:
00:46:31
And as we wrap up here, we'll tell people where they can go to get that.
Tim Winders:
00:46:34
I think I, just before we got on, I looked, I think you've got those 12 laid
Tim Winders:
00:46:40
out in a chart type form in your book.
Tim Winders:
00:46:42
Is that correct?
Tim Winders:
00:46:44
And I was.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:45
yeah, the, my, my, so you're, you're mentioning my book.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:48
It's the, it's a, it's an online digital book that only that I, I did in 2021.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:54
And I have a new updated version on my website and it turns out I, I'm,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:46:58
I'm preparing, you can't see it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:00
It's on the side of my office here, but I have big charts and that's good.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:03
I'm going to make it more visual for people, more metaphorical, for people
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:07
to look at that, at that visual.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:08
Yeah.
Tim Winders:
00:47:09
Right.
Tim Winders:
00:47:10
And maybe that fits into the meta helm that you were bringing up there.
Tim Winders:
00:47:14
Then, and I want to get some feedback here.
Tim Winders:
00:47:16
I loved the visual aspect.
Tim Winders:
00:47:18
I actually downloaded that portion of the book and I don't know if it was the 2021.
Tim Winders:
00:47:22
I thought I had 2022 on the,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:24
Oh yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:25
Sorry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:26
Yes.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:26
Yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:26
Yeah.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:47:27
It was early
Tim Winders:
00:47:27
Anyway, maybe it was, but, but I, I downloaded it to read
Tim Winders:
00:47:30
on my Kindle and just the visuals I missed because when I opened it up on
Tim Winders:
00:47:36
my computer a little while ago, like, you know, 30 minutes ago, I went, wow,
Tim Winders:
00:47:41
the visual is excellent on my computer.
Tim Winders:
00:47:44
The Kindle, Kindle took away from it a little bit.
Tim Winders:
00:47:47
The information was still there.
Tim Winders:
00:47:49
So, great, great resource.
Tim Winders:
00:47:50
I look forward to the next
Tim Winders:
00:47:51
iteration of it.
Tim Winders:
00:47:53
There's something, there's something, I think I want to hang out.
Tim Winders:
00:47:57
on narrative in the time we have left, because I, I think
Tim Winders:
00:48:00
it's so foundational, okay?
Tim Winders:
00:48:03
Because I see it everywhere.
Tim Winders:
00:48:04
And when you were speaking about a business sharing what they did,
Tim Winders:
00:48:09
you mentioned ministry leaders.
Tim Winders:
00:48:10
I, I literally kind of had this sentence of You know, gospel, the word gospel
Tim Winders:
00:48:16
is, is really the root of that is good news and sharing the gospel of
Tim Winders:
00:48:20
even a business, a business owner, someone who's an electrician is sharing
Tim Winders:
00:48:24
the good news about your business.
Tim Winders:
00:48:26
And I, there's nothing blasphemous about that.
Tim Winders:
00:48:28
So if anybody's out here and wants to throw rocks at me,
Tim Winders:
00:48:31
you know, You can't find me.
Tim Winders:
00:48:33
I live in an RV and travel.
Tim Winders:
00:48:34
So anyway, but I do think that business owners, I think leaders, I think people,
Tim Winders:
00:48:39
even in families in all areas need to be able to share that good news about
Tim Winders:
00:48:47
whatever it is they're doing, whether.
Tim Winders:
00:48:49
Whether they think they do or not, I believe they do.
Tim Winders:
00:48:51
And there's a term that I saw called narrative power, and I've got the
Tim Winders:
00:48:55
definition, this written here, but I think what I'd love for you to, let's
Tim Winders:
00:48:59
talk in the time we have about narrative power, you can maybe go through the
Tim Winders:
00:49:04
definition that you've got or whatever.
Tim Winders:
00:49:07
And, and let's just, let's just really hit home with people why
Tim Winders:
00:49:12
it's important to establish.
Tim Winders:
00:49:15
Their narrative, not someone else's, one they think will work, but their narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:49:21
So however you want to go with that, take, take off Guillaume.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:25
Like I said before, narratives have this ability to bring
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:29
people together because we start to share a common set of stories and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:34
therefore, and from these stories, we pull, learnings, insights.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:39
principles and, you know, narratives help us share our values.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:46
So narratives have really this effect of gathering people, assembling
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:51
groups that can accomplish more than the sum of themselves.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:55
That's one, of the powers of narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:49:56
But more recently, and I think you're, you're probably referring to
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:02
a definition that I put online and I talked a lot about in the last two years.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:08
One, and I would say one of the main power of the narrative is to defy
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:12
the normal when the normal is wrong.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:15
and I thought, okay, yeah, that's the, that's the definition.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:19
And I'm like, Hmm, it's probably one of the main definitions, but it's not
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:23
the only power that the narrative has.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:25
So I just want to, I just want to, I mean, constant evolution team.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:50:28
So,
Tim Winders:
00:50:29
Well, that, that's actually what I, that's
Tim Winders:
00:50:31
actually what I picked up on.
Tim Winders:
00:50:33
And there were two thoughts that went through my head when I read that.
Tim Winders:
00:50:37
My first thought.
Tim Winders:
00:50:39
Which I'm, I'm at a stage in life where I think I'm getting more mature.
Tim Winders:
00:50:43
Finally, that I said, Oh, I like that.
Tim Winders:
00:50:47
It's like, if we get really good at communicating our message, our
Tim Winders:
00:50:52
narrative, then we can let other people know where they're wrong, but then my.
Tim Winders:
00:51:01
more mature answer was later and you've kind of brought it up.
Tim Winders:
00:51:04
It brings people together.
Tim Winders:
00:51:06
There is a way that I think it communicates kind of who we
Tim Winders:
00:51:10
are and the people that might need to be in, in our group.
Tim Winders:
00:51:16
I hate to say tribe because that's one of the challenges that
Tim Winders:
00:51:19
we're seeing in a bigger, you know, political and other arenas.
Tim Winders:
00:51:24
But I do think it lets people know.
Tim Winders:
00:51:27
And again, I just went to a part of the country that they are
Tim Winders:
00:51:29
very close knit and I would.
Tim Winders:
00:51:33
Typically be critical of that.
Tim Winders:
00:51:35
But after spending some time there, I, I think I'm not.
Tim Winders:
00:51:39
So, so anyway, those, that was the bouncing around in my head
Tim Winders:
00:51:43
about using the word wrong.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:51:46
Yeah, I, I was experimenting with the definition
Guillaume Waitr:
00:51:50
because I wanted to, to, to be a little bit thought provoking here and also
Guillaume Waitr:
00:51:55
exploring with, I really felt this and I really meant that definition.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:51:59
I will still use that definition, but I think it's, like I said, you know, it's
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:03
not the only one, but, look at values, you know, there's, there's, depending on how,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:08
on how you look at a situation with your.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:10
Personal set of values.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:11
You may look at things as, as right or wrong.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:13
Go to a different country and I go to France and your table manners
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:19
are going to be probably very wrong.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:21
Table manners that are very right in the U S are going to be very wrong.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:25
I'm using the examples because I have the conversation with my kids
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:28
or half French and half Americans.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:31
So, so that, that, that's one of the powers of, of narrative is, and
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:35
that's, that's a little bit tying to this idea of, it's divisive, right?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:39
We agree, we disagree, what's wrong, what's right, and all that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:42
So we have tribes and clans and, and maybe tensions and conflicts and wars
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:47
then, you know, how does this escalate?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:48
So it's not, so looking at narrative just from that perspective, just for that
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:52
purpose, I don't think it's very healthy.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:55
Narratives, can really help bring people along together.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:52:59
And actually also bring a lot of peace narratives are also very stabilizing.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:04
you know, there are two powers to, to, to, to, to major kinds
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:08
of powers for a narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:09
One is to transform and disrupt to change things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:13
And one is to stabilize things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:15
You know, if you think about the, the narrative around recycling.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:18
You know, why do we recycle here in this, in this country?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:21
We forgot why.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:22
It was a, it was a made up narrative made by the, the packaging and plastic
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:26
manufacturers because they needed to sell more, more of their products
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:31
and make people feel good about it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:33
So they say, Oh, no problem.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:34
We'll recycle it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:35
Right.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:35
And that has stabilized a whole entire industry.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:39
We keep recycling just this morning.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:41
I got my blue bin out here in the street and I keep doing it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:45
But then I also know because I tried to be informed that only six
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:51
to 9 percent of my recyclable stuff actually is only recycled the rest.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:53:56
So, 91 to 94 percent goes to landfill.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:00
So that's, that, that, that stabilize, that, that narrative, that stabilize
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:05
and the whole entire industry and society probably needs to change.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:11
I'm not an expert.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:12
I'm not in this conversation, but just to illustrate here that there
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:16
are many facets to narrative power.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:54:17
Now, now that I have researched and thought about it,
Tim Winders:
00:54:23
agree.
Tim Winders:
00:54:23
And, and I, and I think, and this is what I don't want to do with this conversation.
Tim Winders:
00:54:28
I want to give someone, who's sitting here going, Hmm, I'm not sure about my
Tim Winders:
00:54:36
narrative, my organizations, my teams, my business, my, I even think families.
Tim Winders:
00:54:43
You know, have narratives also.
Tim Winders:
00:54:47
So let's, let's assume in our last minute or two here, let's just
Tim Winders:
00:54:52
say someone's going, Oh, I need, I need some work in this area.
Tim Winders:
00:54:58
Because I think you and I are in agreement.
Tim Winders:
00:55:00
This spills over into everything that begins happening after here.
Tim Winders:
00:55:05
So.
Tim Winders:
00:55:06
tangible, tactical, maybe some first steps.
Tim Winders:
00:55:10
And I know, and we'll talk about it in just a moment.
Tim Winders:
00:55:12
There's a book you've got, there's things you do to work with people,
Tim Winders:
00:55:15
but let's just say it's someone that says, okay, what would be a first step?
Tim Winders:
00:55:21
What is something that I can do to just kind of get it started or move to a
Tim Winders:
00:55:26
next stage in, in helping to define my narrative or, or, or move that forward?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:34
I said earlier that a narrative is a system of stories
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:38
and there are four, four stories that you can start working on immediately.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:44
We covered one in detail today, which is the origin story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:48
Like what, what defines who you are as a leader or as a dad or mom or a
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:52
partner or, or, or a kid or family?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:55:55
Like what is one, one event that really had the type of impact
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:01
that it shaped the way you behave?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:03
So I'll leave it at that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:05
That's one story you can explore as a family, as a group.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:08
The second story I invite everyone to explore is what
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:11
I call the opportunity story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:13
Opportunity comes from the Latin root of portum venens,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:18
which is, you know, indicates, a safe harbor we want to get to.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:22
you know, and if you read in the Bible, you know, the, the, the,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:26
there's many allusions to us, to an opportunity, you know, a safe harbor.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:31
people cross, you know, that when the seas, the sea open and people crossing,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:35
they want to go to the promised land.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:37
That's the promised land.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:38
So as a person, as a family, as a group, as whoever, what is the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:44
opportunity you're thriving for?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:46
How do you describe it?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:47
What will you see when you get there?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:50
What will happen if you don't get there?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:53
These are very basic.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:56:55
I didn't say simple questions because they are deep questions, right?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:01
But these are the questions that you need to explore, maybe journal
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:05
about, talk about with your friends, and then, you know, have a certain
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:10
degree of formality and really try to answer those questions of today.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:14
If it's for a business or a ministry, religious organization,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:17
write them down, publish them, and have the conversation about them.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:21
The third story is the perspective story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:24
Okay, if we agree on Where we come from and where we're headed,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:29
what's our perspective about how we're going to get there?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:32
I know your perspective currently, Tim, is to have a smaller footprint.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:37
In your life, you live in an RV.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:40
That's your perspective.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:41
In fact, this morning I asked my wife, Hey, I'm going to
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:43
talk to Tim this morning.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:45
I really, I would really love to live in an RV like he does.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:48
And she said, Oh, I would hate it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:50
I'm like, why?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:52
Oh my gosh, I need space.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:53
I need to be settled.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:54
I need to be somewhere.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:55
And I'm like, okay, all right.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:57
I guess that's a difference.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:57:58
We have a difference in perspective about how we want to create the
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:01
opportunity of our lifetime.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:03
So that's an example.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:04
Cause I know it's yours.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:05
So I, taking and our listeners know that.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:08
So, but for, for an organization, is it, you know, do we want to bring,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:12
innovation through engineering or teaching or what's our perspective
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:16
on the problem we're trying to solve?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:18
And then the fourth thing is what I call for business is the product story.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:23
think about here in our context, think about product as something
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:26
tangible material you can have in your head, not necessarily just as
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:29
a business product that you sell and package and market, but what is
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:33
the tangible thing that you will do?
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:35
So maybe the product story in a ministry is going to be a set of
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:39
events, for instance, or actions or campaigns or conversations or things
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:44
we give to people or do with people.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:47
It's a very tangible.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:48
Aspect of that material.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:50
So you can see it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:51
You think you can take pictures of it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:52
You can describe it in very, very practical, you know, tangible things.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:58:58
You can most of the time put a price on it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:59:00
You can put monetary value on it.
Guillaume Waitr:
00:59:03
These are the four key essential stories that you can start immediately,
Guillaume Waitr:
00:59:08
work on to shape your narrative.
Tim Winders:
00:59:11
That is perfect because I think that gives people something
Tim Winders:
00:59:16
tangible, but it is a beginning.
Tim Winders:
00:59:20
Guillaume at this.
Tim Winders:
00:59:21
Yeah, it's per, I mean, I think, I think some people will need some outside help
Tim Winders:
00:59:26
definitely, but there are people that can take that and, and like you said, journal,
Tim Winders:
00:59:31
think about it, talk to their spouse, talk to their leadership team, talk to other
Tim Winders:
00:59:36
people in their organization, you know, bring somebody in that type thing, tell me
Tim Winders:
00:59:41
now, this is a great time to transition.
Tim Winders:
00:59:43
Tell me about the resources that you have.
Tim Winders:
00:59:47
And if someone wanted to engage with you or do some interaction
Tim Winders:
00:59:50
with you, this is a time to promote.
Tim Winders:
00:59:53
Tell me where they need to go.
Tim Winders:
00:59:55
We're going to include it in the notes, books, resources, coaching.
Tim Winders:
00:59:58
I know, you know, consulting, I know you've got all that.
Tim Winders:
01:00:01
Tell us about all of that now.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:03
the good news is I have a lot of free resources for people
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:06
and, I'm just going to, pull one out of the multitude here, which is, it's
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:10
a video on YouTube that I, that I have, and it's called systems of stories.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:14
So if you look up on YouTube system of stories to GD narrative, and if you can,
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:19
add my name, Guillaume Viat, you will immediately go there and it walks you.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:23
It's a case study from, from, from, from a company I have there.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:26
So that's the first resource if we, cause we just talked about it.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:29
But now if you want a broader picture and, and really learn more, go to metahelm.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:33
com.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:34
M E T A H E L M.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:36
that's the name for my business, now eight years old.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:39
And I thought about MetaHelm because it means guiding the guides.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:43
It's what guides the guides and that's your narrative.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:45
And on my website, you will have a free assessment, 12 questions to
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:50
see, help you gauge where you are in, in building narrative power.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:53
More articles, more resources, and there is a tab called services.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:00:57
And if you want to my, my professional, help and bring me on, that's where
Guillaume Waitr:
01:01:03
you will find the information.
Tim Winders:
01:01:05
Yeah, I do agree.
Tim Winders:
01:01:06
I believe you've definitely generous with information on my On my laptop
Tim Winders:
01:01:12
here, I've got the windows that are open where I was looking at your information.
Tim Winders:
01:01:17
And I've got strategic narratives, the YouTube channel.
Tim Winders:
01:01:21
I've got your LinkedIn profile, which is has information and, and information.
Tim Winders:
01:01:25
So, and your book, I've got your book that's opened up here too.
Tim Winders:
01:01:28
So we'll definitely include all that.
Tim Winders:
01:01:30
So Guillaume, thank you so much.
Tim Winders:
01:01:32
We are Go create those three words.
Tim Winders:
01:01:36
If there was one of those words that resonated more with you or means more at
Tim Winders:
01:01:41
this time, don't overthink it, but seek, go or create, which one do you choose?
Tim Winders:
01:01:45
And why?
Guillaume Waitr:
01:01:47
I'll go with sick.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:01:49
but I have to confess that, I, can I get create too?
Guillaume Waitr:
01:01:54
I like both, but I'll start if I really have to make a choice, I'll just,
Guillaume Waitr:
01:01:58
I'll go with sick because it ties to curiosity and constantly going,
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:03
looking for something you will, you know, you don't, you don't know yet.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:06
And I think that's such a refreshing term and.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:11
indicates motion, openness, possibilities.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:15
I'm, I'm part of a group called, the school of possibilities.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:18
I am a, a possibility Tarjan.
Guillaume Waitr:
01:02:21
And so that's why I will pick sick.
Tim Winders:
01:02:24
Very good.
Tim Winders:
01:02:24
Well, there's a reason that we put them in that order and seeking.
Tim Winders:
01:02:29
almost always leads to creating.
Tim Winders:
01:02:30
So, beautiful thing.
Tim Winders:
01:02:32
Guillaume Viot, thank you so much for joining us here.
Tim Winders:
01:02:36
I appreciate all, all of this conversation and I believe it's been a blessing
Tim Winders:
01:02:40
and nourished the people listening in and I encourage people to go.
Tim Winders:
01:02:44
Get more, get more from Guillaume.
Tim Winders:
01:02:47
He gives a lot of information and I could tell from his heart.
Tim Winders:
01:02:51
He genuinely wants, people to get this.
Tim Winders:
01:02:54
And so, and so go check out his information.
Tim Winders:
01:02:58
We are SeekGoCreate.
Tim Winders:
01:02:59
We release new episodes here every Monday.
Tim Winders:
01:03:01
keep supporting us.
Tim Winders:
01:03:02
You can go support us at SeekGoCreate.
Tim Winders:
01:03:04
com forward slash.
Tim Winders:
01:03:06
Support, leave some comments, or you could also support us.
Tim Winders:
01:03:09
If you like what we're doing here, you can support us financially.
Tim Winders:
01:03:12
They're give as little as a dollar or as much as you would like to.
Tim Winders:
01:03:16
We welcome and receive that.
Tim Winders:
01:03:18
And so thanks again for joining us until next time, continue being
Tim Winders:
01:03:23
all that you were created to be.