"Let me tell you about the time I..."

I'm starting to change the way I talk to people.

Through my life, I feel I have had some pretty wild success stories as well as some interesting stories of failure. In fact, I've been pretty eager to share these stories with people. I've always thought my stories could help people cope with their own situations.

Have you ever had someone share a struggle with you?

...something painful?

...something hard?

...something unjust?

For some reason, I've always felt that this is an important time to share my stories.

"Maybe if they knew my story, then they wouldn't realize how bad theirs really is.

Maybe the success of my story of struggle will help them succeed in theirs."

Recently I've been sharing some of my struggles.

Recently I've been running into a lot of other people's stories.

Quite honestly, I'm learning something.

I'm learning not to attempt to heal someone else's struggles with my stories.

"Maybe my token of advice isn't as helpful as I thought.

Maybe they don't want to hear my story.

Maybe our perspectives and cognitive clockwork aren't as compatible as I thought.

Maybe they don't want to hear how I've been there before."

What I'm learning is that maybe its far more effective to enter into someone's suffering with them, than it is to give them a token of advice or a story.

Encouragement

Motivation

Inspiration

I'm starting to think that the comfort of a loving friend will go much farther than a personal story or a token of advice.

Instead of being so quick to make their story about me, now I'm going to try and make my story about them.