Hello Reader,
This week was a packed one with two panel discussions I moderated on Tuesday, then a trip over to KL for w.media's Malaysia CDC. On Friday, I interviewed a founder at length about the convictions that powered his firm's growth into the region.
I'm actually writing today's commentary from another time zone, so I'll have to keep this brief. But I'd like to talk about storytelling today.
Everyone has one
As I reviewed the many conversations I've had, including Episode 2 of my podcast series with Micron (it went out on Thursday!), one realisation bubbled to the fore. And that is how all of us have a story to tell.
Storytelling is powerful. Not in the marketing sense of the word, but in a far more personal way: the story we tell ourselves about who we are, what we believe and why we do what we do. That story goes a long way towards shaping our actions and our conviction.
The founder I spoke to on Friday had a clear one. So did Cher Whee and Dane on the podcast. So did my panelists on stage on Tuesday. You could hear it in how they answered questions they hadn’t prepared for. When you know your own story, you don’t need to prepare for every question. The answers are already in there.
Write it or say it
But here’s the thing. A coherent story rarely appears by magic. It takes effort, energy and time to tease a jumble of half-formed ideas into something that holds together. Most of us walk around with the raw material. What we lack is the deliberate effort to assemble it.
For those exceptionally gifted at thinking it through in their heads, good for you. For the rest of us, there are really just two practical routes to get there: write it or say it.
Writing could be a private journal that nobody ever reads. It could be a public blog, or these days, a regular post on LinkedIn or Substack. Speaking is the other route, whether to a podcast microphone, on a stage at the front of a room, or with someone over coffee.
It doesn’t really matter which. What matters is that you put the idea into words. That’s where the thinking happens.
Why leaders write
It is perhaps no accident that some of the top leaders are phenomenal communicators. And many of them write regularly, in their own words. No AI-generated nonsense. If I may hazard a guess: they are sharpening their ideas as part of the writing process, not after it.
To be clear, I’m not saying that communicating and writing will automatically propel you to the top of your field. There are many prolific writers who stay writers.
But the leaders who do rise tend to have clarity about their ideas and beliefs, and that clarity inevitably shines through in how they write and speak. The writing didn’t create the clarity on its own. But it is very often how the clarity was forged.
So let me end with a question to you. What’s your story? And if you can’t quite articulate it yet, perhaps it’s time to start writing.
Regards,
Paul Mah
