Storytelling and vulnerability
Recently I was asked to speak at a freelancer event. Any topic I liked. The organiser suggested storytelling and I said yes straightaway.
I’ve spent the past six years helping other people tell their stories and often the hardest parts of them, for charities and organisations working in perinatal health, from trauma to mental health and the spaces in between. So storytelling to me felt like the most obvious choice, and the most natural one for me. The more I thought about it though, I realised that the interesting bit isn’t storytelling itself, it’s what storytelling asks of you.
It asks you to be vulnerable.
The bit nobody says out loud
If you go to enough freelancer networking events (not entirely my scene), scroll enough Linkedin feeds or browse Instagram and TikTok, you will pick up the same message: put yourself out there. Share your story. Be authentic. It’s good advice - people connect with people, (one of my fave sayings!) not with polished bios and service offerings - you know my thoughts on this already.
I want my connections to be real and genuine.
Somewhere along the way, ‘share your story’ feels like it’s turned into ‘share e-v-e-r–y-t-h-i-n-g’. As if vulnerability only counts if it costs you something. Like that’s the only part of you that’s worth sharing. As if the version of your story that’s useful to a client or a collaborator, or a room full of freelancers has to come with your whole history attached, warts and all, nothing held back.
I don’t think that’s true, and I think a lot of freelancers would agree with me.
Vulnerability isn’t the same as disclosure
In the talk, I want to draw the distinction between being open and oversharing before you’ve decided what you really feel comfortable with. They are different. You can tell a story that’s honest and real, that lets someone see the real you, without narrating every detail of how you got there. Vulnerability is about letting something true land with the people who need to hear it. It’s not a transaction where more detail earns more trust.
It’s something I’ve had to work out for myself. There are things in my own life that I’ve chosen to share, and things I’ve chosen to hold close. Neither choice has made the sharing feel less real and if anything deciding what’s just for me is part of what makes the rest land properly.
What I want people to leave with
When I do the talk, I know that it won’t be a masterclass in storytelling techniques or a hard sell on personal branding. I want to start broad: why storytelling matters at all. Whether that’s for a bio or a pitch, or a networking conversation. And then we’ll get specific about the choice underneath it. Which is - what you actually want to share, on your own terms.
If you’re self-employed and you’ve felt that low hum of pressure to be more ‘out there’ than you’re comfortable with, I hope this gives you a bit of permission. Your story is yours and only you can decide how that looks.
