Brilliant Ideas

#20: How to Share Your Story Without Oversharing – Greg Halpen’s 5-Step Framework

• Alyssa Bellisario • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Have you ever felt pressured to hide your personality behind a professional facade in your business? What if the quirks, stories, and experiences you've been downplaying are actually your greatest assets?

In this illuminating conversation, Gregory shares how authenticity transforms not just how clients perceive you, but how you connect with yourself as a business owner. Drawing from his own journey through cancer and anxiety, Gregory reveals how he nearly fell into the trap many coaches experience – turning personal pain into a marketing tool before fully healing.

"When you go through something life-altering, it's tempting to turn your story into a marketing tool," Gregory admits. But he discovered a more powerful approach: authentic connection rooted in integrity and meaningful service. Together, we explore the delicate balance between vulnerability and exploitation in business storytelling.

The heart of our discussion centers on Gregory's comprehensive five-step framework for ethical storytelling: self-reflection, healing before sharing, intentional storytelling, brand alignment, and responsible sharing. This thoughtful methodology helps entrepreneurs determine not just how to share their stories, but whether they're ready to share them at all.

Perhaps the most powerful takeaway comes in Gregory's brilliant bite of wisdom: "Your story is a bridge, not bait. Share it to connect, not to convince." This simple yet profound distinction transforms how we approach marketing authenticity.

For solopreneurs tired of feeling stiff and corporate in their own businesses, this episode offers permission to bring your full self forward. Your humor, personality, and lived experiences aren't distractions from your expertise – they're what make you memorable, relatable, and ultimately, the perfect coach for your ideal clients.

Ready to stop hiding and start using your authentic story to build genuine connections? Tune in now and discover how embracing your quirks might be the business breakthrough you've been searching for.

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Greg:

When you go through something life-altering, it's tempting to turn your story into a marketing tool.

Alyssa:

Welcome to Brilliant Ideas, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of some of the most inspiring digital products created by solopreneurs just like you. I'm your host, alyssa, a digital product strategist who helps subject matter experts grow their business with online courses, memberships, coaching programs and eBooks. If you're a solopreneur with dreams of packaging your expertise into a profitable digital product, then this is the podcast for you. Expect honest conversations of how they started, the obstacles they overcame, lessons learned the hard way and who faced the same fears, doubts and challenges you're experiencing, from unexpected surprises to breakthrough moments and everything in between. Tune in, get inspired and let's spark your next big, brilliant idea.

Alyssa:

What if the very quirks you've been downplaying are actually your greatest business asset? Your humor, your weirdness, your unique way of doing things that's what makes you stand out. In today's episode, gregory is going to help you discover your real niche the one rooted in all of your quirks, talents and lived experiences, and how. That is the key to attracting your ideal clients. So let's dive into this conversation. Welcome to the show, greg. I am so happy that you're here.

Greg:

Hi Alyssa. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm excited.

Alyssa:

Me too, and you know, one thing I've really noticed over the years, whether it's through kind of my own experiences or working with clients, is how often we're told to separate our personal side from our professional side.

Alyssa:

Like having a big personality scares people away.

Alyssa:

Like there's this kind of unwritten rule that says keep it professional, don't let anyone see the real you. And over over time I find that this stiffness of being in corporate for so long, like myself, and then going into your own business, you realize how much of your personality gets washed away and you sort of have to rebuild your identity through your business and kind of be okay with being vulnerable. And there is this time and place where I think acting professional is important part of your business, but at the same time I find that we're very human and business is personal, I think anyways, especially for, like, solopreneurs and creators like us, where kind of every idea, every offer that we create, every piece of content, feels like an extension of who we are. And so I would think that if we infuse a lot more personality into our content, that our businesses would do so much better. So I'm looking to you, craig, to tell me what are some simple strategies that people can do right now to make their businesses feel more human and not robotic.

Greg:

That's a great question and I love the topic and I love the idea of putting your whole self, your personnel, to a certain extent, into your marketing and your business, because it does make it more relatable. And why, just why, not bring our whole selves, you know? But so I do sometimes like to work from the from the perspective of how we infuse our personal stories into our marketing, into our coaching business, because sometimes, you know, a lot of us like to take our um adverse experiences, things that we have overcome, and I don't know. We'd like to make it part of our business, our practice, because hopefully we want to inspire somebody else or help somebody else through a hard time. So I like to explore how we can authentically weave our personal stories into our marketing.

Greg:

Our intentions are often pure we want to help others avoid pitfalls, offer inspiration and create meaningful connections. Sharing our struggles and triumphs, you know, feels like a natural expression of our humanity. But sometimes, if we haven't fully processed or healed from certain experiences, storytelling can become sort of more performative than impactful. Instead of sparking real change, like it might it might be unintentionally serve as a coping mechanism rather than a tool for connection, and I have created this sort of five-step framework for helping a coach through that, if they decide to share their story and make it part of their marketing message. And you know, when we're not aware of that, we're not aware of our, if we think, if we have more healing to do and we're not aware of it can kind of cause more harm than good or even confusion. So, yeah, it's a very interesting thing.

Alyssa:

It is, and it's amazing how much our personality can end, you know, through our storytelling can shape the way that people connect to a business Like I find that when we share our authentic experiences, things that we've been through, it creates that deeper sense of trust that's really hard to fake. And so when you think of authentic storytelling, you know you've gone through cancer, anxiety, yourself, and so tell me about that experience and how it has shaped you. So you know, not just you know shifting the person that you've become or that you are, but how has that affected how you show up as a coach? And then what have you learned from those experiences?

Greg:

Yeah, and you're right, it is hard to fake, and sometimes when we try to fake it in our marketing and through our business, our marketing because we want to just put it out there, we want to tell our story, without doing the healing work, sometimes people can't pick up on that. Can't pick up on. Maybe that coach needs to work on themselves a little more before doing that, and so my experience with cancer, chemotherapy and anxiety could have easily led me down the path of weaponizing it's a very strong word, but weaponizing my pain for profit, and for a while I almost did. I almost went that route in terms of being more of a predatory marketer, in terms of how I and I need to be so upfront and honest about this, because this is a thing that's highly practiced today in the world of online business, and when you go through something life altering, it's tempting to turn your story into a marketing tool before fully understanding how that could impact someone else.

Greg:

But these challenges didn't just shape me as a person. They transformed me as a business owner. They made me more self-aware, more patient and gave me a deeper sense of knowing who I am and what truly matters, to me at least, and how I want to show up in my work. You know, instead of using my pain as a selling point, I've learned to channel it into something more powerful authentic connection, integrity and a business rooted in real, meaningful service and sometimes, when you're not self-aware, or healing. If you haven't healed enough, you can't possibly know how to do that.

Alyssa:

I feel like that is so true because there are coaches out there who every emotion, they want to talk about it and they turn it into a selling point and not every story needs to be turned into a product that you offer. Like you just you feel terrible that day so you say, oh, this is what I'm feeling right now and this is the. You know, this is how you can also feel better by doing, you know, like I just find that there's a lot of that sort of marketing that's out there right now and I feel like you should be telling your story, that you know, telling your personal stories that are real and authentic, that have happened to you, like with cancer and anxiety, but not using it as a Like if you ever noticed, if you ever kind of noticed a friend, if you're telling your friend something like I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine and I was telling the story but I wasn't listing out like the facts, like I wasn't just listing out, oh, this is what I did this weekend, like I went into like a lot more detail, I threw it. I threw in like the emotional part of it, the, the drama, and I just find that that makes people curious and they'll ask more questions and it makes them care.

Alyssa:

And so and I guess through business as well like people don't just connect with bullet points and I feel like I've read a lot of about pages, like on their websites, they have a lot of bullet points, there's a lot of those, and they just have straight facts on there and I just don't find that I connect with. Like when I'm reading about it, I'm just like what else is there? It's like, yes, I know your certifications, I know all that about you, I know all of the facts about where you started. But like, how do you build that into like a story? Because that's what's interesting to me, um, and when we, when we're able to tell stories properly, then we can start to see how relatable we are to each other and how we remember things about each other.

Alyssa:

And honestly, like I I feel like it's also deciding about how we vibe with someone or not. Like, um, like when I'm looking at someone through, if I'm hiring someone like a contractor or like a coach, and I look at their website and look at their about page, like I'm waiting for like a story that's like really real, raw, authentic. That's different and not just something that's just generic and boring and just like it makes me feel like, oh, I don't think I relate to this person at all, so I don't think I want to work with that person. And so I'm curious about how you bring your storytelling into your coaching work, like, is there, like I know you mentioned like a framework? Um, we mentioned a framework earlier about your five-step method, so tell me about this method and how does it actually work.

Greg:

Yeah. So this method, this framework, is about how someone can weed through their story and detect whether or not they're ready to share it, if they've processed enough of whatever it is they need to process before really putting out there into the. Some people are not comfortable with telling their stories, and that's very fine too, because there are so many ways to. You know what's it called. So there are so many ways to present your story that doesn't say your story, and you know what I mean. There are just so many creative ways to do that. But for this system it kind of it helps the, it helps the coach.

Greg:

I like to work with new coaches. I like to it helps the new coach kind of, you know, deconstruct everything before they decide to go that route. You know, deconstruct everything before they decide to go that route. Because I think, I think everyone should do this in the world of marketing. Because, because it's just, I don't know if it's very helpful to just put it out there willy nilly, to just put it out there to write a, you know, a biography of this is what happened to me. It's just so, I don't know there's, I don't know, maybe it can happen, but I haven't seen it be very successful. I mean, maybe it's helped people make a lot of money.

Alyssa:

But so as an example, like I don't want to put you on the spot here, but when you say deconstruct their stories, so what happens? So do you ask them a bunch of questions first or like how is the, how do they, how can they deconstruct their story so that it doesn't feel like it's overwhelming to them?

Greg:

Sure, so this I'll go through the five steps briefly. This is how I would walk them through the process us, um, use our personal stories in a way that uplifts and inspires and create real and creates real impact and builds a relationship with somebody, rather than just selling and cold calling and all of that stuff. Um, I think, because it's the first and foremost, uh, the customer, the audience. Without any of, without those people, we will have nothing there's, that's the bottom line, they're just, it's, it's really all about them. So, before and before we start selling, we really need to know how to take care of our people, our audience, in a way that's just really true and authentic.

Greg:

So the first part is self-reflection, understanding your story. So, before you share your personal story, take time to reflect, and a really powerful way I like to do this is by journaling, and this is aside from therapy and all of those other modalities, but for this example, I like to journal and I think it's a powerful tool to explore what parts of our story feel most compelling to share. Because sometimes we're compelled to share a part of our story, but is that because we're reacting to it emotionally, or is this part really going to teach something to someone important that they're going to actually take away, or am I trauma dumping? And the next part is why don't I want to share this story with people? And third, how does share, how does sharing this serve me, our businesses and the people who will hear it? These are like three parts to number one that are really important to answer.

Alyssa:

That was just step one.

Greg:

That was step one.

Greg:

Yes, Wow, you go really, really, that's super comprehensive yeah, because I think it's when it comes to, you know, psychology and emotional pain. You gotta really go in there. You can't, can't mess around with this, because it it can just do a lot of harm towards other people not just towards other people, but to yourself too. It can, you know, you're not ready to put something out there it can just have catastrophic effects. Wow. So the second part is and I'll try to go through this because I know we don't have a lot of time but the second one is healing before sharing, because our story can be a powerful tool for good, or sharing, because our story can be a powerful tool for good, but if we haven't fully processed or healed from certain experiences, sharing too soon can be more performative and impactful, because unhealed wounds can clutter a message, potentially cause harm or confusion. So part of this is have I truly made peace with this part of my story or do I realize that it's an ongoing journey of grief and, you know, letting go? Am I sharing to inspire and guide, or am I seeking validation or catharsis? Or can I talk about this with neutrality, or does it still trigger deep emotions? So that's the second part. So the third part is intentional storytelling, choosing what and how to share, because not every part of our story needs to be shared publicly. Instead of trauma dumping or using pain as a marketing tool desperation marketing Consider what lessons or insights does the story offer? How can I provide value, inspiration and guidance to my audience, and am I framing my story in a way that empowers rather than seeks sympathy? And you feel free to interrupt me anytime, but I'm going to go through these, okay, cool.

Greg:

Number four is aligning storytelling with your business and brand. Our personal stories should align with our coaching philosophy and brand message. So ask yourself does the story connect with the core values of my business? How does it support my ideal client's journey? And am I using this story to create authentic engagement or to manipulate emotions, which we see a lot of that in marketing all across the board, whether it's online or, you know, coaching, the coaching world or the non-coaching world.

Greg:

There's a lot of you know manipulation. I mean it's all manipulative and you know at the bottom, but there are some manipulation. That's just not. It's not cool. Number five is ethical and responsible sharing. It's not cool. Number five is ethical and responsible sharing. Storytelling should always be handled with integrity before posting or speaking about an experience. So consider, would I be comfortable sharing this if I knew my clients were in the same position? Am I respecting the privacy of others involved in the story? Does my story serve my audience or is it unintentionally self-indulgent? So that is the five steps that I just, you know, I kind of bulleted through it, but I would take a client through this over a series of time.

Alyssa:

Wow, and how long does it take usually?

Greg:

It, just it can be. It depends on the client. Some people are quick, Some people are healed through stuff quicker, Some people need a little more time. It could take a month to six months depending on the person.

Alyssa:

I guess it depends on their story too and how much of it there is to get through, Because even when you're dealing with trauma that could have happened decades previously I mean, who knows right and how long that healing would take and to go and then just and then to extract that and put that into a story, oh my goodness, Like that sounds real that would take. That could, yeah, that could take some time. So, wow, that's really helpful. Thanks so much, greg.

Greg:

Cancer cancer Like I really struggled with and I still don't really share it a lot. I may pop it in there, I weave it in there sometimes in my own stuff, but I really struggled with wanting to share it like I wanted. I blew it out there like crazy because I was still in pain from the chemo and all of that, but then I reeled it back and think and thought, like, do I really want to keep talking about this or do I want to keep it? Just, I don't want to keep it in the past. So there's a whole, there's a whole bunch.

Alyssa:

it's so nuanced yeah, and it's also like, how do I share it? Like, if I'm a business coach, how does that relate to cancer? So there's always that that self-doubt of like how do I weave into my story but still be relevant for my clients too?

Greg:

yes, and in terms of like how long it takes, too, it's. I always encourage the clients who know that themselves from their how are they? It's such a feeling like you know when you're ready. If you don't know if you're ready, you're not ready, but it's more of I mean, sometimes there's some ambivalence. It's like I'm ready but I'm scared, or I'm nervous. But if you're like, oh, I'm not sure if I should do this or not, I'm not. That means you kind of you know, maybe there's still a little bit more work, but I always encourage the client to approach it from a place of how they're feeling about it.

Alyssa:

Yeah, especially also if you there's more than one person involved and you know how do you approach privacy and confidentiality without revealing names, and you know the person that you're talking to and what happened to you, and so that also could make things more complex.

Greg:

Yes, absolutely, yes, absolutely, Because it's I don't know part of the healing process is not dragging somebody else through dragging, is not dragging somebody else through dragging. But you know, even if they may be part of your story in the way that they did harm to you or whatever, but it's still important to know if that could cause harm to them. You know there are other ways to deal with that.

Alyssa:

Yeah, it's so complex because then if you put your story out there and whoever that person sees it or whatever, how do they feel and how is it going to affect them and is there any kind of legalities involved? I don't know Right Like that could be.

Greg:

Yeah.

Alyssa:

That's its own beast. I mean, we've kind of opened up a can of worms here, but yeah, I know, we can go so many directions with this.

Alyssa:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So now we've come to our my favorite segment of the week. Here is where it's called the brilliant bite of the week, and this is where you get to leave a piece of wisdom or actionable advice that listeners can use to put into practice with their own business. So we've talked about a lot here, but what is one tip, mantra or insight that you would like to share that they can take the next step with?

Greg:

Sure. So I have a short mantra and a little bit of an insight. So I like to say this I like my story is a bridge, not a bait and that's pretty intense to use that word bait but when we're talking about marketing and online business, we got to really be transparent, and so our story is a bridge, not bait. Share it to connect, not to convince, because that's our job is to connect. And so the insight around that I think authentic storytelling isn't about using your pain as a selling point. It's about sharing from a place of wisdom and service.

Greg:

Before we tell our stories, ask yourself is this for me or is it for them? And honestly, sometimes it can be for both. Sometimes, telling our story, even if we're ready to tell it, can also be healing for us as well, for ourselves. It's not, you know, it's not only for them, and that's another thing that it's important to differentiate, that we do things not just for other people, but we also do things for ourselves too. In terms of sharing our story, it could be healing. Maybe we ran in. Maybe, as we're telling our story, we learned something new that we didn't realize before. I'm like, oh my God, I didn't know. I was still feeling that way, anyway. So is this for me or for them? If your story empowers, educates or inspires without seeking validation, then it's ready to be shared.

Alyssa:

Wow, that's a lot of value what you just shared.

Alyssa:

I think it's that kind of like insight that moves the needle for people who are in the thick of trying to share their story and just be comfortable to do so, to get that kind of reassurance that maybe it is time or maybe they need to connect with someone like you who can help them bring out that story for them.

Alyssa:

And you know, I can't help but reflect on the major takeaways that we've learned today from your story to you know, to helping us humanize what we talk, be comfortable in our business, to talk about these types of things and to just make sure that we're coming from a place of connection rather than just guru marketing and doing all those things that we, yes, want to get away from and just to be ourselves like that's like the the main point here, and so thanks so much, greg, for um, for helping on today and for listeners. You know, don't forget to check out the show notes for all the ways that you can connect with Greg and to learn more about he also has a membership as well. So I mean, if you want, do you want to share anything about that?

Greg:

If it's okay, I'll just quickly share Go ahead.

Greg:

I'm just super proud of this because all of this work stems from my own frustrations and experiences around not having money and struggling and growing up poor and all of that stuff and just almost getting caught up in the online, needing to make six to seven figures kind of mindset, and I just couldn't do it and I got you know, you internalize it as you're the problem, but so, anyways, all of this was born from goodness, healing and frustration. But so I have a membership site coming out March 1st called the Quirky Rebel Coach Membership and I sort of like want to be like the Walmart of the coaching industry in terms of offering, the Walmart of the coaching industry in terms of offering. So I want to make sure coaches have the resources, strategies and support to take action in terms of building their coaching business, without you know if they don't have a budget or if they have a small budget or if they're struggling financially. I want this to be at their disposal and so you could join for nine dollars a month.

Greg:

There's no upselling, there's no, no, you know no surprises later on, as you know, I just want to keep it that. I want to offer a lot of value. You get like plug and play coaching scripts and done for you email and welcome sequences. You get pricing calculators that I created monthly live Q&As, a private community, just deep dive trainings and tutorials and you know, content gets fresh, freshened every week, there's stuff added every week and it's only $9. And yeah, that's it. It's really upfront, honest and no surprises.

Alyssa:

I like that you're pushing the ethical side, like you're not just like some, like scammy, that you're coming from a place of good hearted coaching rather than pushy sales tactics that we see in the coaching industry, because I do think that we're. I think as a group, as an industry, we're trying to move away from that because we know that it doesn't work. It works for FOMO tactics and doing all of those things that don't make the customer feel good, but we can't sleep at night. So I feel like, from a coaching perspective, you're coming from a good place, and that is that you're going to attract people who also want to feel good in their business too.

Greg:

Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, I joined something for $7 because I'm like, oh wow, this is so cool. Look at all this value and all this stuff. But then I got behind the, you know, I joined up and behind closed doors I'm like, oh my God, they want me to buy all this other stuff. And 10,000. I'm like, oh my God, what did I just do? So I fell into that a lot and I got frustrated. I got to do something about this and help deconstruct it all. So thank you so much for letting me share that.

Alyssa:

I appreciate it and I hope everyone, for everyone who's listening right now. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you do want to connect with Greg directly, just look at the show notes. I'll have. Look at the show notes. I have all the links there and I will catch you next time on another brilliant idea. Thanks so much. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Brilliant Ideas. If you love the show, be sure to leave a review and follow me on Instagram for even more insider tips and inspiration. Ready to bring your next big, brilliant idea to life? Visit AlyssaBelsercom for resources, guidance and everything you need to start creating something amazing.