Staying Focused

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Telling better stories through vulnerability

email.shivan.xyz

Telling better stories through vulnerability

Shivan
Feb 5, 2022
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Telling better stories through vulnerability

email.shivan.xyz

Kia ora e hoa,

Happy Waitangi Day. I hope you are all having a safe weekend.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do for the future:

  1. Have a positive impact on the world

  2. Provide value for millions of people

  3. Do this without going crazy

  4. It starts with making life for healthcare professionals better

But in order to do this, you have to be a bit crazy. And thinking “you can do” it isn’t enough. You NEED to take action.

Where is this going?

That means doing the work. Cool, so what's the next step?

The work I’ve been doing is making videos. But I want to make better videos.

So how am I going to do that?

By introducing vulnerability.

But why be vulnerable on camera for all eyes to see? I'll answer that and then discuss the difference between vulnerability and oversharing.

Vulnerability is a version of confidence. It’s the raw side of oneself, honest and without shame.

Vulnerability allows you to connect to your audience on an emotional level. Especially, if they are going through a similar event in their point of life. You are able to connect better and provide useful advice. This is the basics of storytelling.

I tap into my previous pain points, which will hopefully be the audience’s current pain points. Then coming up with a resolution through that story.

Then, there is oversharing. When you show vulnerability, you are sharing an event in the past that has been personally resolved.

On the other hand, oversharing is where you thrust an unkept emotion onto an individual. The problem with oversharing is you alienate your audience. You make them feel uncomfortable.

So, it is important to distinguish the difference between oversharing and showing vulnerability.

Vulnerability is positive; oversharing isn’t.

To conclude, I want to say that I’m trying something different. On top of my once week publishing schedule, I’m publishing raw, unedited and unscripted videos. They aren’t difficult to make and all it involves is hitting record on the camera. The content comes easily because it's a deep issue in my mind, which is what I talk about, similar to these newsletters.

Here is the playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh6AHTxRODzoRdsuBVAbeDJPa7dON1UH5

I had someone get in touch with me to share a similar experience they had.

Let me know what you think.

Feel free to share this or any content with anyone who you would think will benefit. Thanks for reading and talk soon.

Ngā mihi nui,

Shivan


Discoveries

  1. Book Originals Adam Grant writes about the entrepreneurial pursuit. Entrepreneurs aren’t crazy individuals who take crazy risks. They take calculated risks — i.e. they wait for the business to boom before quitting their full-time jobs. There is a risk but it’s mitigated.

  2. Video How to Escape a Sick Society Another Captain Sinbad special, little wins and small progress we see can be rewarding. This has been in conflict with what I have been reading, where you need big lofty goals to get you out of bed.

  3. App Medito There are many benefits to meditation. This is an amazing app if you want to get into meditation. It’s free and open-sourced. There are courses on there to get you into this valuable habit.

Video

I want to introduce the idea of delegation to save time. We are told to save money but never use that money effectively to save time. If you save time, we have more in the tank to pursue our side ventures and focus on our well-being.

In this short, I introduce a tactic that I'm using to stop doom scrolling on my phone.

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Telling better stories through vulnerability

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