Perspective Makes Your Story Powerful in Business with Liam Marshall

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to Stories Built Businesses. The show that proves that your story isn't just something to tell, it's the strategy to build from here. We think deeply, we care hard and we explore how your stories and lived experiences are the key to building a business that's uncopyable, unforgettable and unmistakably you. I'm your host, Megan Wright, story and strategy coach and founder of Stories Built Businesses. And I'm very excited because today I'm joined by Liam Marshall. Hi Liam, thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: So Liam, before we get started, I'd love you to just say a little bit about what you do.

Speaker B: So I'm Liam, um, I'm the founder of Liam Marshall Creative. I am a creative facilitator and um, content writer. So what that means is that I help people with writing their stories, uh, from a brand perspective. But I also host and um, facilitate creative writing workshops, events, retreats which are all focused about around using writing as more of a well being practice and helping people understand that we are all creative, we're all storytellers at heart. And that's something that a lot of us have lost in the day to day of everyday busy life.

Speaker A: No, it's so true. One of the narratives in the business world that I reject is uh, you've got to learn storytelling and no one needs to learn storytelling. We're all natural storytellers. Whether that's you come home from a day out and you tell people what you did or about that stupid thing you did when you, you were younger. Like people are always telling stories, but it's the uh, how to connect it with your business that's a bit that people don't necessarily have innately.

Speaker B: And it is one of those things that it's ingrained. It's just that people don't really understand that that's what they're doing. Once we can understand the mechanics of it, that's where we can really start to utilize it and deploy it. Whether that's for business or whether that's for just personal expression and well being.

Speaker A: And I actually think that what you said about you can use it for business, you can also use it for that personal well being. I actually think they intersect so much because actually our businesses, the way we communicate, should work for our well being. We shouldn't be putting ourselves in situations where we feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. And I think so often storytelling is framed as this vulnerable sharing of things, whereas actually you can storytell in a boundaried way that feels good and not in protects. It actually enhances your well being.

Speaker B: Yeah. And obviously we're now fully in the age of social media and everything is very fast paced. It's never ending, it never stops. And people are always going on about we need authenticity, we need to see the raw, we need to see behind the scenes. And because of that, because there's this constant pressure to feed the machine, everybody starts to assume that every piece of writing needs to have a transactional value. And it really doesn't. Writing doesn't always need to shoot for publication. It doesn't always need to be a piece of content. Sometimes it can just be an emotional regulation tool.

Speaker A: 100% agree. And I was, I was very much the teenager that was like into the angsty poems to the point where my friends like, if I was ever in like a bad mood, they're like, oh, she needs to take it out on the paper. For me that was such an outlet. And it wasn't just a creative outlet, it was an emotional outlet. And I think it's definitely something I've kept with me that I don't just see writing and storytelling as a professional tool, but it's also a creative art form. It's a emotional, uh, outlet. It's all of those things to me,

Speaker B: yeah, experienced that firsthand, where you get to a point where you're just so sort of overwhelmed by the pressure to produce content for your business as well as running the rest of your business that it's almost like paralysis. So what I like to do is even if it's five, ten minutes a day, just splurging onto the page and it doesn't matter what I'm putting down, it's just emptying, dumping it, taking out on the page like you say. And now that that's detached from me, I can move on. And so it really is an expressive art form that can really help, um, sort of lift that heaviness of business expectation from people.

Speaker A: Yeah, I've definitely beaten myself up about that. That I'm like, I should be able to do this non stop, but actually like it is a creative well and at some point it is going to run dry. And if you're not taking the opportunities to top it up, then it becomes, I've not posted in 3 days and I'm sure everyone's gonna notice I've been gone for so long and no one notices. But you put that pressure on yourself. So then getting back into it is so much harder because you've lost that momentum.

Speaker B: I Think often when it comes to sitting down and for the business, you kind of overanalyze things, or at least I do anyway. Sort of clients that I do, and they go, well, this is what our audience wants. This is what we need to be doing. And so when they can't think of an idea that matches that, then it sends them into that downward spiral. Whereas getting into that creative flow, getting into that creative expression, it will help to reveal the things that you can then talk about through your business. But the first draft is never going to be the thing that you publish. So you might as well just do the messy first draft and then go sort of sift in for the gold inside of it.

Speaker A: And I'm also curious about how writing might have shaped you as a person, even away from the job roles that you do.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me, writing is something that can be both deeply personal and can also be commercial. It's kind of like there are two very distinct worlds of writing. And, you know, I am not the greatest person at, uh, expressing myself, like, expressing my emotions or talking about my feelings. And it contrasts because I'm a very emotional person, so I feel a lot of things. And I'm a very empathic person as well, which really helps with my job, is that I have a natural sort of sense of how other people are feeling. And I feel that as well. Obviously, um, that comes with quite an energetic burden, um, a lot of the time. So writing for me, in that sense, it really helps to process and regulate. You know, over the years, I've written many things that have never been seen by other people's eyes because it helps me make sense of my own head.

Speaker A: I completely relate to that. I would also class myself in that empath, but also slightly introverted. And people always say, like, oh, but you're so confident. I'm like, I didn't say I wasn't confident. They're different things. You can be confident and introverted.

Speaker B: I always say to people that I'm an extroverted introvert.

Speaker A: There's a new word. And I think that's probably where I fit, where, like, I can be extroverted for short periods, but then I'm like, I need to go away and recharge.

Speaker B: But that, uh, is really interesting that the sort of the recharge aspect, because when it comes to content writing for other people's businesses, that really does sort of drain that battery because of that empathic nature that it requires, especially for personal brands and solo founders that I work with, quite a lot of it. Really demands a high level of understanding of who they are, how they would respond, and putting myself into their shoes. But sometimes what I'll do is I will write as that. Which sounds completely like. So your break from writing is writing. But it's a different form of writing in that, you know, I step away from that and then I can step back into me or step back into someone else's shoes.

Speaker A: I used to work in mental health, so there was a lot of taking on of other people's traumas and challenges. And I definitely learned through that, uh, how important that stepping away and recharging was not just for myself, but also to be able to work to the best of my ability. So making sure I had those little brain breaks where I could like, emotionally recharge was a practice I really learned in that environment. And it's what I've then brought into my business as well that I never book multiple clients in a short space of time. Because I. I want to be not just mentally present, but emotionally present. So that when we're exploring their stories, I am able to give them the best possible support that I can.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that emotional presence is such a huge part of what both of us do. Like you say, in exploring those stories, we need to be able to not just understand this person that we're talking to, but we also need to understand the people that they are talking to. So you have to almost do a bit of a Horcrux situation in sort of dividing yourself into all of these different states of mind and understanding, um, the different emotional capacities.

Speaker A: And it's that piece of emotional safety. So for me, it's not just the emotional safety of the business owner who's telling their story, but also I always have in mind of what is the emotional safety of the audience. Because I think we've all come across pieces of writing before that, ah, have been perhaps a little bit too raw and have hit us in the wrong way. And sometimes that's unavoidable. But, uh, in a business setting where you want to be building trust, I think safety is such a big part of building trust with your audience. And so making sure that you're not over sharing to the point where people who are, uh, reading it are going to feel uncomfortable or triggered in a way that isn't going to help build that connection and that relationship.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I suppose in that respect, sort of the editing process is. It could be seen as a safeguarding process. And that process of refinement is putting it down and then stepping away and then Coming back with a fresh pair of eyes, a more subjective pair of eyes, and going, okay, what parts of this are too intense? Which parts of this do they need to hear? Can I do? Is this detail necessary to forward that story? So it's refining the detail so that what you put forward represents that authenticity of the first draft, but it has been sort of more carefully constructed into a narrative that supports the audience rather than sort of antagonizing the audience.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's that thing of, like, making sure it's not. It's not just reading, like, a diary entry, that it actually is reading as something that is going to support your business. And a lot of people talk about storytelling as, like, sharing the hardest times in your life. But actually, the interesting bit isn't the trauma. It's not the tough times. It's the lessons learned. And I think people skip over that bit so often, particularly when, like, the hero's journey construct that a lot of people talk about. They spend a long time in the before. They go, oh, and then I did xyz. And then they spend a lot of time in the after. And like, whoa, whoa. Like, the middle is the most important bit. Like, when you read normal books, the middle is the bit that takes the longest. And yet so often in content, that's the bit people rush over, uh, like some kind of montage of all of the things they did just to get to the result.

Speaker B: Like you say, there's so much going on in the middle of that journey that to just go, here was a problem. Here's how I solved it. That's where the detachment comes in, how so many people tell their stories. Because we want to know, what did you go through in order to overcome it? I want to be able to recognize the struggle I was like, and. And the other interesting thing that you said there was sort of about how people think that they always need to share the craziest thing that happened to them. Um, crazy stories don't automatically make good stories. So it's the perspective that shapes the story and makes a story interesting. And so when you're looking at how you're telling a story for your business, your story is not superpower. It's how you shape that story. What perspective, what angle you choose to tell it from.

Speaker A: And I think sometimes actually, the smaller stories are more relatable for people. If you've got, like, the big crazy story, people might be like, wow, I can't believe that happened. But will they relate to it? Perhaps not. If they can't, if they've never had anything in their life similar, then they're not going to relate to it. It's not going to build that relationship. Whereas the little stories that they're like, oh, yeah, me too. Oh, yeah, I've done that. Uh, oh, yeah, that's happened to me. Those are the ones that people are going to connect with more.

Speaker B: Sometimes those more ordinary stories work better because the details don't overshadow the value in the story. And sometimes the most ordinary things are, uh, the most beautiful. And one of the things that I always believe in the writing is that writing should always evoke some kind of emotional response from people. And that doesn't have to be an extreme emotion. It doesn't have to have you sobbing tears or laughing out loud. To me, an emotional response is that you just can sometimes just be like, yeah, I get that. Uh, or going away and just if it pops back into your brain later on and going, oh, uh, yeah, or leaves you questioning something, you know, an emotional response doesn't have to be a massive, massive thing, but as long as it's enough to get somebody without thinking about it, thinking about it.

Speaker A: And I think that when writing is really strong, it does stay with you. So I always think there are books that I read in childhood that I feel really shaped me as a person in the same way as there's some music and some films. But there are books that, when I look back at, they were pivotal parts of my childhood and I can remember where I was when I read them. I can remember, uh. Like, I could probably tell you the exact story of the book even now, like years later, but it's because it resonated so much with me that I didn't just read the book, but I saw myself in the characters. And, um, their struggles became my struggles and my struggles related to theirs and it became this shared experience.

Speaker B: Yeah. And, um, you might not remember the details of the book necessarily, but like you say, you remember where you were when you read it, you remember how you felt when you read it, or you. You remember sort of the emotional connection to that particular character. You may not remember everything that they did, but you remember really something, seeing yourself or empathising. And that, to me, is what makes strong writing. It doesn't have to mean that every word has to be remembered, but that feeling does.

Speaker A: Would you say there are books from your childhood that either stand out as, uh, shaping you or being particular favourites that evoke that feeling in you?

Speaker B: I think for me, Philip Pullman is just like, classic. Obviously, his Dark Materials was one of the first kind of big series that I read growing up. Just the way that he writes and the way that he builds worlds and builds characters, there's just something so visceral. He really just draws you into the world. And, um, he makes you completely understand without questioning that, yes, all of these people just have these little creatures that are part of their soul that follow them around. And no, you shouldn't touch somebody else's. They can take any shape when they're younger, but they settle into a. Of form. Form that reflects your person. Like, he just makes it all so obvious and you don't question it. So that, that kind of writing really inspires me.

Speaker A: And I think the Philip Pullman books, I remember reading them and he takes very complex, potentially tricky subjects and makes them so accessible through his storytelling. And I remember reading them and having such a vivid picture in my head. And I was like, I 100% believe this. There is no doubt in my mind that this world exists. Exists. And then watching the film and being so doubtful that it existed and being like, how can a writer, uh, create a world so vivid and real in my imagination? But yet when it's real people, and admittedly some cgi, I believe it less.

Speaker B: The beautiful thing about sort of reading and books is that you do still have that sense of imagination. So it actively asks you to picture these characters in this world. And so you're almost creating your own story while reading somebody else's. And that, that's a, uh, really lovely thing to be able to embrace. And again, people wouldn't necessarily go, well, I was making my own story. But you were. And like you say, uh, when text to screen adaptations happen, that adaptation is a person or a small team's interpretation of that world.

Speaker A: Yeah. And again, like thinking about that in a business context, I think that's why content, and particularly media, social story writing or storytelling content is so powerful, because people will bring their own lens, their own experience to what you are writing. And through reading it, they will transpose it onto their own experiences in a way that wouldn't happen with any other type of medium.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that can be both a blessing and a curse in, in terms of writing for your business. And that's part of the craft of content. Writing for business is being able to remove as much of the ambiguity as possible, but still leaving enough in for people to draw that personal experience from. So it can be a tricky process depending on the story that you tell. And again, that's where the editing and the drafting comes into it. But it's always making sure that there's just enough to give them their own, um, worldview of it and be able to apply their experience to it, but not giving them enough rope that they can go and create a completely different film.

Speaker A: Completely agree. I did a training recently about core messaging, and I used a still from the fork handles, slash, fork handles sketch where they're having this, like, conversation where they're both very clear on what they think they're hearing and what they think they're saying, but the lines are getting so crossed at every turn. And I think that's, again, that's what happens with Content Zone sometimes, if people aren't really crystal clear on what they want to say and also really clear on what their audience's experiences are. So I think it's knowing yourself, knowing your core message, but it's knowing your audience as well, because if you know where they're coming from, then you're able to look at it from their lens as well to make sure that that ambiguity M doesn't come across as strongly.

Speaker B: I think that's where a lot of people struggle and it's. It's difficult to write your own content. And, um, a lot of people sort of say they write their own content as a bit of a flex, and I don't think it's the flex that they think it is. Sometimes you have to let go of that and let your story be told the way that somebody else wants it. And I get it. It's. It's difficult to let that go. But that's where I think, you know, working with somebody on learning to craft your story and understand your story or working directly with a content writer can really help.

Speaker A: Completely agree. And it is very personal. So it's hard to give up that ownership and authorship of it. But equally, it's so important to have a second pair of eyes. I always think is a really great example, is you can proofread your own work and miss a million mistakes because you know what you think it says. And so you will glance over the typos and you'll glance over the missing words, whereas someone else with an external point of view who didn't write them can come and go, okay, well, there's a typo, there's a this, there's that. And having someone else look at your content not from a typo point of view, but from a. Is this saying what you think it's saying? Am I hearing what you're putting out there? So helpful, because we don't know other people's perspectives. And if we're only ever looking at something with one lens, then we're missing the opportunity to make it accessible and relatable and more powerful for our business.

Speaker B: And again, it comes back to how we communicate as storytellers. We can't tell stories if there's nobody to listen to them. Creativity and storytelling as a whole is a communal experience. And so it makes sense that the same applies to the process of, um, writing. We need others to help shape that, to make it the strongest version of the story that we can. So I think a lot of people have a perception of editors as being really ruthless, but it's always an editor's role is there to challenge you, to challenge your ideas, challenge your perspectives, to make sure that you get the strongest version of them out there. And I'm sure that's something that you do with your clients a lot when you're going through their stories, you'll be questioning them and challenging them to think differently.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think for me, the thing I find most often is I pull on threads that they're not expecting. So they'll go to the crazy story, and they're like, oh, I've got this story. I'm like, okay, well, let's park that for a second. Like, let's look at all the other stories, and the ones that I tend to then want, um, to go deeper on. They're like, I never would have thought to tell that one. And I'm like, I know, but it's because you're seeing it from your perspective of, like, what are the big stories in your life? Whereas I'm looking at it from the perspective of what are the stories that are going to build your business? What are the stories that relate to the work you do and have shaped your perspective of how you offer your offers and how you build your frameworks. Those are the stories I want to pull out. And often those aren't, um, the big, obvious stories. They're the little ones along the way.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think quite often the most important question to ask is just why. Like I. I say to clients, sometimes I'm going to sound like, you know, petulant toddler for a while, Because I'm just gonna sit here and I'm gonna go, why, why, why, why, why? And, um, it's. It's not because I'm being annoying. It's because I'm genuinely trying to dig down into what your understanding is of why that's an important story to tell.

Speaker A: I literally warned my clients about the exact same Thing Because I will, I'll uh, ask them like, why this story? Why do you work like this? Why is that important to you? But also looking at it from. Quite often people come to me and they're like, oh, I help people with this problem. Like, well, why, why do they need help with that? Because it's not the surface level problems that uh, you're actually helping me. There's always a reason behind why they want those things. Yeah, I've, I mean if I had a counter on my sessions of like how many times I ask why. But I just think curiosity and creativity have to go hand in hand. Like they just have to.

Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, I can't even disagree with that in the slightest. Like, you know, if, if we stop being curious, then we do stop being creative because our creativity almost implores us to explore new things.

Speaker A: It's so true. It's. And I think for me, I was such a people watcher. Well, I mean, still am. Um, and I do think like a smidge of nosiness is quite helpful when it comes to storytelling and creativity because I am curious about where have people come from? Or like, where are they going? What are they up to? To like I'm curious, I want to know people. I think it's what led me to working in mental health was a genuine curiosity for people and wanting to help them and understand where they were at and where they wanted to go. And it's so interesting to me that I've built a business where it's almost the same in that I'm like, okay, where are you? Where's your business? Where do you want it to go? How are we going to get you there? And I think yes, I was a child who wasn't allowed to sit next to windows in classrooms because I would daydream and yes, I would time spend, spend hours people watching, just sat at a cafe or something. But that to me is as much training and skill building for what I do now as any of the qualifications I've got. Because the hours that I spent imagining and thinking and creating in my mind before I even put pen to paper mean that I'm able to hit, hear other people's stories and an understanding of what their world is so that they can share it with other people.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I love it. Like I was at an event not long ago and um, I was kind of sat in the corner observing all of these conversations happening and then somebody came over and started like, why were you just sat here, you know, on your own? And I sort of said to them, I just enjoy watching people because each of these stories is adding to sort of my own creativity. It's fueling my own curiosity. And, you know, we learn from each other. And I always carry a little notebook with me because you never know when you might overhear something interesting and you might just start jotting that down. And the more that you do that, the more that you'll be able to spot stories and, um, shape stories within your own work.

Speaker A: It's been so lovely exploring all of this with you. The thing I always do at the end as I'm wrapping up is I like to gift people a word. So I always have a word pop into my head that I feel like has summed up a lot of what we've talked about. And, um, through this conversation, the word that kept popping into my head was just inspiration. The idea that it is all around us, that we don't need to be looking for these big moments, that we can take everyday moments, prompts, and it can inspire us not just in terms of writing itself, but also to fuel that creativity that we use across our business.

Speaker B: I love that.

Speaker A: I don't know if that resonates with you.

Speaker B: It does. I've talked about this before, but to me, the inspiration idea, like, ideas are all around us. And when that idea pops into your head, that's something saying to you, you know, this could be for you. Do you want to go with it? And, um, if you choose to go with, might not be right at that moment, but the right ones will come back to you. And so I think inspiration is a very sort of. It's all around us and it comes to us as it needs to come to us and, uh, have to listen to our intuition and sort of either say, yes, that's the one I'm going to go with, or maybe not yet, or, you know, it's not quite sitting right. But we have that power to accept or reject the inspiration.

Speaker A: I think, particularly like as business owners, we have the freedom to follow that curiosity and that creativity and the inspiration in a way that perhaps we wouldn't have had if we were in that nine to five.

Speaker B: It doesn't always work out, but you'll never know if you don't try.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Liam, for joining m me today. It's been so lovely chatting and, um, thank you to everyone for listening to stories about businesses. If this episode resonated, I'd love you to share it with somebody. And please do connect with me at, uh, stories, build businesses on Instagram and Liam on Instagram as well. I will drop his details below so that you can go find him. And, um, remember, your story matters more than you think. And the way you build your business gets to feel really good. See you next time. Bye.