I was on the trans-gentle wife blog recently and saw a very
interesting post. What fascinated me the
most was the concept of having a signature story.
This is how Mary Lasher at the Trans Gentle Wife described a signature
Story:
Most of us have two stories. We have the story we tell. The story we pitch when we want to impress. The story we tell at high school reunions and to the person sitting next to us on an airplane over a bag of honey-flavored peanuts and a $5 can of beer. The story that makes us, look good.
And then there is the other story. The story that if known, reveals who we really are without saying the words. The story that is vulnerable and raw. The story we protect and guard from others because we are afraid to tell the world who we really are. It’s the story that is made up of truth. It’s our signature story. The bottom line.
Professional speakers who are at the top of their game are
often known for their “signature stories.” These are original, compelling
stories on which reputations are built.
Most of us have an elevator pitch. You know the 30 second pitch you give at
business networking meetings. How would
you sell yourself if you only have 30 seconds.
Quick concise, compelling. What
is different about signature story - Your “signature story” reveals WHY you do
what you do. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
And then there is the other story. The story that if known,
reveals who we really are without saying the words. The story that is
vulnerable and raw. The story we protect and guard from others because we are
afraid to tell the world who we really are. It’s the story that is made up of
truth. It’s our signature story. The
bottom line.
I travel quite often and occasionally get caught sitting next
to someone chatty. This happens more often when traveling as
Rhonda and especially when sitting next to another woman. Women seem to be more sociable and almost always
want to talk and share. It always starts
with, “Where are you going - Where are you from?” Kids, husband and career usually
come next.
If we start making up stories
and the flight is long we are going to need to remember the untruths so when you
backtrack we don’t contradict yourself. To much effort for me. Most of time, based on the close proximity, you might as well just own up to being
transgender. And this is when the signature story begins. I have
found on more than several occasions, I have had wonderful conversations.
Consider it outreach or just being sociable - Overall, I have had very good conversations
and hopefully shared understanding. At the
very least, flight mates must admit, they now know someone transgender. In future post I will share some of these
conversations.
Rhonda -
ReplyDeleteI like your approach.... Although I'm usually open about being transgender, there are times that I find it better to describe my life as if I were a cisgender woman. And it's easy for me to do the mental gymnastics to simply flip the genders in telling my life story ("my husband passed away", instead of "my wife passed away", etc.) reducing the cognitive load for the person with whom I'm having a conversation.
An example of the above situation happened on a recent cruise. A little old lady from a Caribbean country came up to me and started a conversation. She was obviously a conservative kind of person (as people coming from the islands, or the lesser developed countries tend to be), and might not have taken kindly to me blurting out that I'm transgender. So we chatted about out life stories, with me flipping genders seamlessly (I have a lot of practice talking about my late wife as my late husband), and this lady ended up having friendly chats with me several more times on the cruise.
I'd prefer to be able to be totally honest. But the world hasn't shown it's ready for that yet. Some of us have to be as stealth as possible - even if our bodies try to give us away....