65. Showing up, Taking Up Space, and Telling Your Story with Hillary Rea

 
 
 
 
 
 

Our Stories Connect Us

Storytelling is a powerful component of brand visibility. 

Telling your story is an opportunity to connect more deeply with others–our people, our audience, our colleagues, our clients–and begin to humanize our brand.

We all have stories living within us–funny ones, inspiring ones, some that people wouldn’t expect you to have. And often, it’s the stories we think are inconsequential, or too strange, or too vulnerable that will resonate with others the most and build meaningful and lasting relationships.

But how do we begin to tell our story? How do we navigate doing that in a way that doesn’t change who we are and builds those deep connections? How do we learn to trust that we can take up space and be our vulnerable selves?

Hillary Rea joins India for a discussion about storytelling, trust, and taking up space.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

  • How Hillary’s three pillars of trust support taking up space

  • Why leaders and service providers need to model their work

  • How to build trust in your story outside of dominant paradigms

Committed to Storytelling 

Hillary Rea told her first story on stage over 12 years ago. She cashed in all of her change at her bank’s coin counter for admission into the event and then, while leisurely walking to the venue, was splashed from head to toe by a bus. Her name was drawn first out of the bag, and she has been telling stories ever since.

Hillary is the Founder of Tell Me A Story, a communication consulting and coaching business that teaches multi-passionate entrepreneurs, mission-driven leaders, and committed change-makers how to use the art of storytelling as a powerful communication tool.  She is a spirited Philadelphian, lives with a Japanese cat, and produces and hosts a narrative storytelling podcast called Rashomon.

Holistic Trust

On the Flaunt Your Fire® Podcast, Hillary Rea says that in the context of her work and her company, trust exists in three pillars: trust yourself, trust your story, and trust your audience.

“I need, or I hope to have…all three of those realms in order holistically, for trust to be there as I move through the world.”

She says that she identified those three pillars overtime working with clients on how they were using visibility in their work, but this concept in some ways goes back to her history of performing and theater. 

“As a kid that was encouraged to perform, encouraged to use my voice, encouraged to be visible, I had a lot of trust in myself, and a lot of trust in whatever it was that I was doing…and I trusted my audience.”
But as so often happens, that trust was eroded over time through various life experiences. “It wasn’t until I started using storytelling…where I could start to trust myself again…I just felt aligned in sharing who I was with purpose.”

Trust and Taking Up Space

India adds that being able to trust and take up space are layered in with different demographics and different lived experiences. She asks Hillary what the relationship is between trust and being able to take up space confidently.

Hillary says that those three pillars of trust won’t always be distributed equally, but “I don’t think it’s possible to take up space in a way that feels in service of the people I’m communicating with, but also in service of myself, without having that core of trust, and especially trust in self.”

However, she continues that “taking up space isn’t like turning up the volume…I see it as coming into the light as yourself, but with purpose and for a purpose.”

Hillary describes the first time her name was picked out of the bag to share a story at the Moth in Brooklyn as a moment she felt that light and that trust in herself, her story, and her audience.

Over time, she says she has cultivated a strong enough sense of trust in herself and her story that when she doesn’t fully trust an audience, “it feels uncomfortable, but not unsafe, because I’ve worked so hard on those other realms of trust.”

And she has had moments where her stories haven’t landed with an audience, which she says can make “trusting what’s going to happen once you’re visible…the hardest area of trust, I think, to cultivate.”

India adds that so much can change in how a story is received depending on the environment, the energy, the audience, and the medium. “If something’s not working, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to throw the story out.”

Hillary describes part of the process she goes through with clients when they’re developing stories for their brands and marketing. She says the communication channel, from spoken word to a social media post, changes the circumstances of the story. Still, the key questions she always asks are, “why are you telling the story, and what do you want your audience to do once they’ve heard it?”

She encourages her clients to answer the “why” selfishly to get to the heart of their internal motivations, then “you can consider who it is that you’re communicating to and what you want them to do.”

Modeling the Work

For service providers, creatives, and business owners, India says, “it can be very easy to pour ourselves into our work for our clients, and our network, and our audience,” and not do the work on ourselves. 

She notes that Hillary appears to be applying her own message and methodologies to herself in her business and asks how that kind of leading by example benefits service providers.

Hillary says that has been an intentional shift for her. She felt like she was at a breaking point of how she wanted to show up as a provider. “It was easier for me to stay small…I felt it was a kind of watered-down version of me because I was scared of audiences for sure. And I also lacked a bit of trust in my expertise.”

She made the shift by committing to using a story every time she communicates with an audience, whether it’s an audience of one or to her whole newsletter list.

“I’m modeling the craft of storytelling…[and] I’m modeling that it’s possible to be visible through sharing a story, I’m modeling how stories can play a role in professional communication…and I’m modeling showing up to any situation wholeheartedly and genuinely.”

Since making that commitment and shift in her communications, Hillary has noticed changes in her business. Prospective clients tell her that they feel comfortable coming to her because they’ve heard her stories. And she says she gets more replies to her newsletters and people often share stories of their own in their responses.

India says, “when you begin to have conversations in a way that opens the door or the window, or whatever it may be for people to communicate back, that really strengthens the relationship with the audience that you’ve built. And it humanizes you, but it also allows them to be witnessed and seen back by you.”

Questioning the Hero’s Journey

Part of building those genuine connections means questioning the dominant paradigms of how we tell stories and how we communicate. 

The framework of the Hero’s Journey is incredibly pervasive in storytelling, “whether you see it in Disney films or whether it’s somebody’s TED talk.” Still, Hillary says, “I just don’t believe that everyone needs to have that kind of story because that’s not actually everybody’s experience. And I would say that’s actually not most people’s experience.”

The Hero’s Journey never resonated with Hillary, and her methodology reflects that. “When I work with people, the only requirement is beginning, middle, and end, and everything else is up to you.”

By not relying on a dominant paradigm and “giving people that freedom to explore that, so many people unlock something within them that gives them permission to trust themselves.”

Audit Yourself

If you take one action today, Hillary recommends doing a self-audit of your pillars of trust.

  • What does self-trust mean to you? 

  • Where have you already cultivated it? 

  • What are you curious about? 

Think about what you’re communicating or what you want to communicate and what’s there or what might be missing.

“It can feel overwhelming to be visible and to take up space without being grounded in those three pillars. It can feel untethered. And really, I believe it’s possible to feel grounded and visible at the same time.”

How Does Hillary Flaunt Her Fire?

Hillary says that Flaunting Her Fire is consistently sharing who she is, what she does, and what she values.

“I can trust that if I’m communicating with a beginning, middle, and an end, and I have thought about why I’m telling the story, and what I want the listener to do, and I know that it’s an exchange of dialogue and there’s reciprocity, that’s all I have to do.”

Connect With Hillary Rea:

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Ready to Dive Deeper?:

For more conversations about trusting your intuition on your journey to take up space and tell your story, head to Pause on the Play® the Community and join to get access to our community, monthly workshops, Q&As, and on-demand replays of workshops and masterclasses, including a special guest workshop on Human Design from Cynthia Davidson.

 
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