B2B Storytelling With Heart with Camille DePutter
It’s a conundrum: we know stories help make us better communicators, but we’ve also been told that too much personality “just isn’t appropriate” in a B2B context. Communication specialist Camille DePutter tells us exactly how to use storytelling to make an impact as a soloist.
We talk about:
Why storytelling is leaning into your thoughts, ideas, opinions, unique perspective and experiences.
The questions that will help you uncover your best stories (and the role shame may have played in keeping a challenging story untold).
Being both authentic and effective as a storyteller (hint: there is no one else exactly like you isn’t just a cheesy line).
How to not only excavate your best stories, but refine and polish them.
Why you might want to develop a story vault—and how to get started.
LINKS
Camille DePutter | Website | LinkedIn | Instagram
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter| Instagram
GUEST BIO
Camille DePutter is a storytelling specialist who helps high-performing individuals communicate better.
Through her work as a communications coach, consultant, and writer/editor, Camille helps her clients express themselves effectively and authentically, so they can level-up their leadership, build their reputation, and make the impact they were born to make. Her client portfolio includes internationally-recognized brands, Olympic Gold medalists, world champion athletes, and highly respected founders, industry disruptors, and thought leaders.
Camille hosts the Storytelling with Heart podcast, is the author of two books, including Share Your Story: A Storytelling Workbook, and publishes regularly at camilledeputter.com
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?
The Soloist Women community: a place to connect with like-minded women (and join a channel dedicated to your revenue level).
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 – 00:31
Camille DePutter: It can be very easy to feel like, oh well, no, I need to speak professionally, or I need to follow this template that other people are saying, or I need to say it this way because that’s what other people are saying, or they’re telling me that’s how I have to talk to my audience, or even I need to care so much about my audience that I forget about myself and I want you to be able to bring yourself into this whole process because a I care about you and it’s more fun this way but b also
00:31 – 00:35
Camille DePutter: it’s actually more effective. So it all works together.
00:40 – 00:59
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rachelle Moulton, and today I’m here with Camille de Putter who helps high-performing individuals level up their storytelling so they can make the difference they want to make. Camille, welcome.
01:00 – 01:07
Camille DePutter: Hello Rochelle, thank you so much for being here. Or I guess that was my own podcast. See what
01:07 – 01:12
Rochelle Moulton: happens when we podcast is like, we forget which side of the mic we’re on. It’s so funny.
01:12 – 01:19
Camille DePutter: This is my podcaster positioning just autopilot. Sorry about that.
01:20 – 01:54
Rochelle Moulton: I love it. No worries. So when I first met you Camille, I was really taken by the way that you told your story on the about page of your website. It felt so authentic and real. And then my personal experience with you mirrored that perfectly. So I’m so excited to have you talk more about how to do that for soloists wanting to make an impact. But first, I’d just like to talk to you a little bit about how you got here doing what you do. So what made you decide to start your business?
01:55 – 02:36
Camille DePutter: So I’m going to kind of tell you 2 stories here as a way to answer that. And I’d say in a way it was sort of a convergence of similar themes. The first reason and more kind of pressing reason of why I decided to go out on my own, I have worked in communications in various aspects of the communications industry. So I did actually freelance a little bit when I was first starting my career. I’ve worked within agencies, marketing agencies, public relations. I’ve worked in-house in nonprofit. Public relations, I worked in house, in nonprofit. But eventually
02:36 – 03:21
Camille DePutter: I became just dissatisfied working for other people, in part because I felt like I was constantly trying or being sort of told to fit in a box, like to do, just do your job. And I would have other ideas or, you know, enthusiasm or passion for how we could do things better or more or differently. And I would look at the organization as a whole and feel strongly about how we could change it or make a bigger impact or do things better or what have you. And eventually I got to a place where I had a
03:21 – 03:23
Camille DePutter: bad boss. Many people
03:23 – 03:25
Rochelle Moulton: I think are out there. We can relate.
03:26 – 03:55
Camille DePutter: Yeah. We, you know, often that can be the kind of tipping point, right? And it certainly was for me where I’m like, I got to get out of here. I have to leave. And in fact, a friend of mine who I sat down with at 1 point and I was just expressing to her the kind of work that I wanted to have and the kind of environment I wanted to work in. And she said, you know, I don’t know that you’re going to just find that if you really want to make that kind of difference and
03:55 – 04:30
Camille DePutter: live that kind of life and do that kind of work, you might have to make it up yourself. And that really resonated with me. And I just thought, yeah, that’s, that’s right. That’s what I’m gonna do. And so I quit that job and I started my own business, not with a ton of clarity, not knowing exactly what I was going to do. But as I looked at my resume and I looked at my past experiences and I thought back to myself as a kid and what I’ve always loved to do. I’ve always been writing and self
04:30 – 05:10
Camille DePutter: publishing and making things and I thought, oh, I’m a storyteller. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life and my whole career. And so I saw already this kind of sort of narrative thread of my life and my life’s work. And I thought, okay, I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like or how I’m going to do it, but there’s something around this and I’m going to go and explore it. So that was the real sort of jumping off point. But there’s also another kind of thing that was going on here in my
05:10 – 05:54
Camille DePutter: life at the same time. And that is the story that I told and that you kind of alluded to that’s on my website that was about growing up with a heart condition and that in many ways in my life including with a physical difference that I was born with I have kept a lot to myself. I was not always really open and expressive about who I was and what I was feeling and in particular for years growing up until well into adulthood. I had kept the secret really about first having a heart condition and then my
05:54 – 06:23
Camille DePutter: experience having a pacemaker. And so I around the same time got on stage and told this story and claimed it and owned it for myself. And so I think that even more than really made me want to commit to sharing my own story, being myself, expressing myself, and helping others do the same.
06:24 – 06:46
Rochelle Moulton: I have to say, Camille, I know they’re still coming back. I got goosebumps hearing you tell that story because it was a secret for you. And uncovering the secret changes dynamics, it changes the energy around it. It’s the freedom to feel like, yeah, this is me, accept me as I am.
06:47 – 07:29
Camille DePutter: Yeah. And that’s why I called my business Storytelling with Heart because that was you know it’s sort of that dual message. It’s like yes I want to bring my passion into what I do and help people express themselves effectively but also authentically. But it was also me saying, I’m not going to hide. My heart, my history, who I am is part of all of this. I’m going to bring that into my work and commit to really doing this kind of stuff truly from the heart, literally and metaphorically.
07:30 – 08:06
Rochelle Moulton: LB. Literally, Yeah. It’s interesting because the last interview I did, we talked about money shame. And I feel like for a lot of us, there’s a part of there may be, I don’t want to assume there may be a part of our stories that somehow we’ve applied shame to and for no good reason. Right? Right. And so I’m really struck by that lifting of potential shame and I don’t want to put words in your mouth or anybody else’s But I think a lot of us have secrets like that. And I’m not talking about deep dark secrets.
08:06 – 08:16
Rochelle Moulton: I’m talking about things we just don’t talk about about our experiences in a business environment. So, yeah, I really want to dig into this some more.
08:17 – 08:56
Camille DePutter: Yeah, I’m happy to for sure. I mean, I know in my case, absolutely, this was a story that involved shame. It involved something that really could be seen quite neutrally, you know, as like something about myself. But for various reasons, it doesn’t really matter what the reason is, you know, I grew up feeling a sense of shame about it. And I had processed a lot of that by the time that I got on stage. It was still difficult to talk about. It’s really not difficult to talk about now, although I suppose in any kind of personal
08:56 – 09:35
Camille DePutter: story, if you want to really get into it, you know, it can be. But I had done a lot of the sort of processing around that shame. So it wasn’t super raw, fresh, traumatic, but it was something that was still, it was a place where I was still holding back, the place where I gave the speech was at a motivational speaking kind of event, maybe not quite motivational, but a place for people to come and tell personal stories and some of them, you know, maybe with a bit more of an inspiring bent and the person running
09:35 – 10:19
Camille DePutter: the Event I had known for years. He was my mentor a former employer we were quite close and he invited me to come and talk about something and I said, oh, I think I want to talk about growing up with a heart condition. And he’s like, what? What? There were people in my life close to me who had no idea about this. And I think it’s important when we talk about bringing personal stories into the professional, that these stories don’t have to be, like you said, the biggest, you know, deep, dark, really heavy stuff. And nor
10:19 – 11:01
Camille DePutter: does it need to be you know really dramatic or traumatic but often these these things that have happened to you that have been challenging to you or that have shaped you or yes you may feel some discomfort or even a little bit of shame or a fear around are quite likely the things that are going to connect us that somebody else is going to want to hear about because they are actually going to relate to it and there’s going to be some relief on their part because they see another human being grappling with the same kinds
11:01 – 11:04
Camille DePutter: of things that we all grapple with.
11:05 – 11:43
Rochelle Moulton: Yes, yes. And I think the other piece of that is that those big chunks of our story have helped make us who we are and formed our superpowers. And we don’t always understand where our superpowers come from. Sometimes we’re just born with them. But other times, the situations in our lives, the stories in our lives are what help to form them. And that’s powerful for other people to understand. So it’s it’s witnessing, yes, but it’s also, oh that makes sense. I see why they’re so good at X.
11:44 – 12:15
Camille DePutter: Yeah, absolutely. I mean 1 of the 1 of the things that I often do are kinds of questions or prompts that I will ask clients is like, well, how did you get here? How did you learn that? That thing that you know now or that you care so much about or that you’re so good at? Okay, how did you get there? And let’s go back and retrace some of the steps. And sure, on the surface you might say, oh well, you know, I have experience in this, or you know, I have education in this. But if
12:15 – 13:04
Camille DePutter: we really go deeper, there’s usually a moment or multiple moments, experiences that shaped that and allowed you to develop that. And those can be large or small. You know, I can talk about for myself as a communicator, as a storyteller, I can share the story of, you know, how sharing a personal story transformed my life and set the tone for my business. But I could also tell you about being a kid and reading Archie comics and writing in to the editor to correct their grammar or complain about the sexism in the Archie comic. And it’s like,
13:04 – 13:27
Camille DePutter: that tells you also something about the fact that I have been, that I have cared about what we say and how we say things my entire life. And so we can kind of go, if we can go back and retrace our steps, then we can likely find lots of stories along the way that will help us show, not just tell who we are and what we’re all about.
13:28 – 14:02
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. 1 of the things you said when you first started describing how you got into your business was that you saw the narrative thread. And I think that’s the thing that sometimes is a sticking point for us because it’s, you know, we usually can only understand it looking backwards and we have to really think about it sometimes to see that thread. So I think that’s, that’s kind of the first challenge, but I’m really impressed that you did it so early in your business journey. Let me just ask you 1 more question about the business and then
14:02 – 14:21
Rochelle Moulton: let’s go all in on storytelling. So do you remember how long it took you to hit your first hundred thousand in revenue? It seems like that tends to be the demarcation line where we start to feel like, yes, have a business, it’s going to work, I don’t need to worry about this, I just need to keep growing and adjusting.
14:22 – 15:06
Camille DePutter: Yeah, I think so I started my business halfway through the year. And if I remember correctly, I think I hit it. So the first half of the year, I made some money. And then if we start that next year, January to December, I’m pretty sure I hit it that year. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I have to be honest, I have not struggled in the way that freelancers, especially people in writing and communications, I feel like there’s sort of this idea that if you’re a writer, then you’re sort of squeaking by and there’s kind of this idea
15:06 – 15:34
Camille DePutter: of, you know, it being kind of nickel and dime type work. And when I talk to people, especially people who are maybe younger and just thinking about going off on their own. I recognize that we’re not all going to have the same experience, but I kind of want people to know, well, this is possible. And you don’t have to just take these little teeny little writing jobs and be barely kind of squeaking high.
15:35 – 15:42
Rochelle Moulton: The dollar a word projects. Right. So did you ever have employees or contractors or have you always been a
15:43 – 16:24
Camille DePutter: solo? I’ve certainly used contractors and I do have like I have a virtual assistant for example and I’ve you know I’ve worked the odd time very rarely with another writer so on but I right out of the gate I knew I wanted to operate solo do my own thing and that I wasn’t trying to be an entrepreneur and create a business that I could then sell or grow to have employees. And there’s kind of been some, I have felt at different points, maybe sort of some pressure. Like there’s not as many resources or even, I don’t
16:24 – 16:43
Camille DePutter: know, celebration out there of this kind of company of 1. Not that freelancer stuck in, you know, hustle mode, barely getting by, but also not the, you know, person who’s trying to grow a business and add employees and, you know, become an agency or something.
16:44 – 17:19
Rochelle Moulton: There’s a lot of, I think of it as societal pressure, at least in the US. I don’t know if you find the same in Canada, but there is this idea that, you know, it’s not a real business until you have employees or until you have like a physical location. And it’s so complex. And there’s all sorts of reasons why someone might want to have employees. But there is such a wonderfully fulfilling life as a soloist when you’re focused on creating transformations for people that you really care about and making the impact that you want in the
17:19 – 17:23
Rochelle Moulton: world. So yeah, this is about celebrating the soloist way.
17:23 – 17:40
Camille DePutter: Yeah, I love it so much. We need more of that. And yeah, like I said, wanting people to know that it’s possible. I mean, it feels like this little, you know, like best-kept secret sometimes. Like, how am I getting away with this?
17:40 – 18:13
Rochelle Moulton: Exactly. It’s like almost guilt because I think so many of us have been taught you have to work really, really hard. And if you want more, you have to work more. And it’s a different way to look at things. And it can feel a little weird at first. I mean, good weird, but weird. And so sometimes we do things that are not in our best interest because we have this little voice in our head saying, oh, you know, I really should be working more. I really should hire somebody so I can get more revenue and advance
18:13 – 18:51
Rochelle Moulton: in the way that society is going to pat me on the head for. But okay, so let’s get down to storytelling because I feel like, especially for people in the B2B space, that it’s both a delicious topic and a scary topic. This idea of disclosing somehow more about ourselves than we might want to in service to our point of view. Well, not even our point of view, our thought leadership and our business. So what’s your point of view on storytelling? Like, how do you think about this for the B2B style professionals?
18:52 – 19:36
Camille DePutter: Sure, I mean, there’s so much that I could unpack there, but you used the phrase point of view. And I really liked that phrase. And I think that in many ways that summarizes what I’m kind of trying to say when I talk about storytelling. I’m really inviting people to have a point of view, to lean into the thoughts, ideas, opinions, unique perspective, experiences that they have within them and that they have to offer. And storytelling is really just a way of expressing that. When I say storytelling, I think I tend to use it in a pretty,
19:36 – 20:11
Camille DePutter: it’s a broad word, it could mean a lot of different things to different people. What it means to me in the way that I use it is that anytime we communicate and interact with other people or express ourselves, we are telling stories. So when you talk to someone, when you write an email, when you even when you think to yourself, you are using stories to make sense of the world. That is how our brains work. So we’re telling stories all the time. And so what I want to invite people to do is just to be more
20:12 – 20:52
Camille DePutter: intentional and thoughtful around what those stories are, how they are expressing themselves, taking that stuff that lives within their own heads and bringing it out into the world. And I want to help people do that in a way that is both more effective, that resonates with the people that they’re trying to interact with and reach and connect with, that it is going to have a bigger and more significant and positive impact, and also that feels right to them, so that it feels like, oh, okay, this is true to me. This is what I have actually felt
20:52 – 20:58
Camille DePutter: or what has lived within me for some time. And now I can get out there in a real way that’s going to make a difference.
21:01 – 21:16
Rochelle Moulton: So authenticity and effectiveness. So maybe talk about how a little bit more about how those kind of factor in like what makes authenticity effective or what makes a story effective.
21:17 – 21:55
Camille DePutter: Oh, I mean, there are so many things that can, you know, that we could like get into of what makes something effective. But I think whenever you, so I’ve just said, hey, you’re probably communicating a lot, right? If you’re a leader in particular, if you are running your own business like I am, or even just you’re a person in the world who wants to make some kind of impact or have some sort of positive influence. Okay, so you are communicating in various forms. You’re speaking and writing and finding other ways of expressing yourself. So what is
21:55 – 22:28
Camille DePutter: it that you are actually trying to do when you do that? Who are you trying to talk to? What do you want them to take away from this interaction that you’re having? What do you want them to learn or to do or to think or to feel? And then when you do that, well what’s the sort of cumulative impact that you want that to have? Like, okay, I want people to be able to think about a different topic differently or to care about it more or to do something different. Well, how do we get more people
22:28 – 23:01
Camille DePutter: to do that or have them move the needle more towards that outcome that you want. And so when I talk about effectiveness I’m really kind of asking people say all right well what what is it actually that you want to achieve? What does it you want that impact to look like and with whom? And so then we can say to ourselves, when we have more clarity around that, all right, well then what’s the best way of expressing these ideas and thoughts that I have so that they’re going to reach the right people, that they’ll resonate, that
23:01 – 23:39
Camille DePutter: those folks that I want to think, feel, do things differently, that I can actually affect that outcome. But there’s another piece to it as well, because we can get super hyper-focused on that and just be thinking really strategically. And maybe some of the ways that people might think more about kind of old-school type of marketing or advertising type work where it’s more of sort of like they might think of like PR spin or you know manipulation or persuasion and they’re not really thinking about but what do I care about? What’s the way that I would say
23:39 – 24:11
Camille DePutter: it? How can I bring in my unique point of view, my own take on things And some of the things we were talking about before, like, well, how did I get to this? Why do I care about it? What makes me the best person to talk about this? How did I form this opinion? So that you can, while expressing yourself, yes, with all those other things in mind You know your your bigger vision and the audience you want to reach and the impact you want to have but also like who you are and what feels right
24:11 – 24:17
Camille DePutter: to you and good to you and what you Actually care about and who you want to be and how you want to show up in the world
24:18 – 24:33
Rochelle Moulton: It’s kind of like you’re putting your story in service to the idea or, you know, I call it the revolution that you wanna make. It’s like, how can you use your story, This positive outcome for this group of people that you care about
24:34 – 25:11
Camille DePutter: Yeah, absolutely and to not feel like you have to surrender yourself To that process. I mean if you are trying to lead a revolution like you obviously already care about this. But I think for many of us, even like in a professional space, in a business space in particular, even if you this is driven out of you and your own passion and your own heart, it can be very easy to feel like, oh well, no, I need to speak professionally, or I need to follow this template that other people are saying, or I need to say
25:11 – 25:37
Camille DePutter: it this way because that’s what other people are saying, or they’re telling me that’s how I have to talk to my audience, or even I need to care so much about my audience that I forget about myself. And I want you to be able to bring yourself into this whole process. Because A, I care about you and it’s more fun this way. But B, also, it’s actually more effective. So it all it works together.
25:38 – 26:14
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it’s that when you think about anybody that you follow, like you listen to their podcasts or you read their books or you watch them in social media, they have something special that attracts you to them. And I always feel like the ones who are best at it, and I don’t even know if best is the right word, that are really good at it, have something unique. They’ve got a unique point of view. They have a way of telling the story that engages you where it’s not all about them. And it’s different. It makes those people
26:14 – 26:50
Rochelle Moulton: unforgettable. They’re memorable. And it’s because of all the combination of these things that you’re mentioning The thing that I find I mean I’ve struggled with it myself But I’ve especially seen it with some clients is how do you decide? How much story to tell? Especially when you’re using it for things like thought leadership. So you’re in a B2B situation, you’re paying attention to this idea that this is professional, but you want to weave in kind of your special sauce? Like how do you find that balance?
26:51 – 27:30
Camille DePutter: Yeah, that’s a great question. And first I just wanna jump back really quickly to what you were saying about being unforgettable. Because I just want people to know this, That you might be thinking, like listeners might be thinking, yeah these people, these people who are doing it so well, they’re different, they’re special, there’s something special about them. You, any individual out there, you have that too. I promise you if you think oh well I’m not different enough, my story’s not special, whatever else. You, it is the things that just make you, you, your unique mix of
27:30 – 28:05
Camille DePutter: experience and take on things. There is uniqueness there because there’s, this might sound cheesy, but it’s like there’s no 1 like you, but it’s true. And if we dig into this, as I do with clients where we’re going, okay, now like literally, what is the word on the page? What exact thing am I saying here? It’s going to be unique and different. So I just want to emphasize that, that there’s no excusing yourself from it because you really just by virtue of being a human being, do have something unique and special to
28:06 – 28:22
Rochelle Moulton: bring. That’s core to all of this. Thank you for saying that, Camille, because it really is. It’s so important and it breaks my heart when somebody says, oh, I’m not as good as so-and-so. I don’t have enough of a thing to say. Horse pucky.
28:23 – 29:03
Camille DePutter: And I mean, especially as a soloist, right? We really get to show up as ourselves. We have more room to really play around with this. No 1 is putting us in a box. Having said that, okay, so now in a professional communications concept or context, we’re saying, all right, what do I actually say and how do I know kind of what is appropriate to tell and what isn’t? So the first thing that I would say is going back to sort of what I was talking about before where yes, we do want to consider what is this
29:03 – 29:41
Camille DePutter: for? If you’re writing your website copy, if you’re writing a speech, if you are you’re starting a podcast and you’re going to introduce yourself, whatever the thing is, consider who it’s for in the first place. So that website, like who are you writing to? You’re giving that speech, who’s in the audience? Who do you want to reach? Who do you want to be there? So let’s think about first what the purpose of this is. Who it’s for, what you want them to think, feel, do. Once we have that context, then we can drill into it a
29:41 – 30:16
Camille DePutter: little more specifically. Well, what is it that you actually want them to know? What do you want them to believe and take away from this? Then we can start combing through everything that you’ve got in your files and your brain to say, what are the stories that we actually tell to get people to believe that thing that you want them to believe or know that thing that you want them to know. And when it comes to using your own personal story, the other thing too, and this goes for really any type of writing, but is to
30:16 – 30:56
Camille DePutter: come up with the, Rochelle can I swear? Have at it. Okay, shitty first draft. If you have never heard of the shitty first draft concept, it was coined by Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird, and in the story Bird by Bird. And basically this means you’re gonna write something down on the page and you’re not gonna think about it too much. So Let’s say you are writing that speech, your website copy, and you’re like, I think I have kind of an experience or something happened to me that I would like to talk about in
30:56 – 31:26
Camille DePutter: order to demonstrate this point or show people who I am and what I’m doing here. But I don’t know what details to include, and what if I reveal too much, and yada yada. You’re gonna put all that stuff aside, and you’re just gonna write it down. You’re just gonna get that shitty first draft down on paper without thinking about it too much. Once you have that, now you’ve got something drafted. And now this process is more about kind of like, yeah, what details are appropriate? You know, if some of this stuff is kind of dark or
31:26 – 32:04
Camille DePutter: heavy, you don’t need to skip over it completely, but You don’t necessarily want to tell every single detail. So you can go through and figure out what bits will probably have the most impact, what will make sense to my reader, what will resonate with them, Which bits do I maybe want to leave out? And then there’s this whole process of editing and refining. And I don’t want to make it sound less challenging than it is. I mean, this is why I do what I do, right? Because this whole process of figuring out what you want to
32:04 – 32:35
Camille DePutter: say in the in the first place Then how to actually pick what stories to use and how to talk about them and then how to refine it in this balanced Way, I mean it it isn’t easy It’s what I help my clients do and it’s going to be ever changing because yes you may get a strong roster of like signature stories and stuff you can come back to time and again but every time you go to communicate especially to a different kind of audience and if you’re trying to branch out and do more thought leadership, it
32:35 – 32:49
Camille DePutter: will continue to involve this sort of weighing of what is the right thing to say and to share to this audience and the right time for me and in the right way. And so it is an ongoing process and practice.
32:51 – 33:28
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it’s almost like, I think of it sometimes like a vault, like a story vault, because we have the personal stories and then we have the professional stories, right? The ones where we dealt with client X and this happened or we had a boss who was, you know, insane and this happened. And so we have those stories. And what’s really cool and people who are really good at this are able to access that really quickly because they’ve thought about the stories and they’ve thought about when is the right time to use them. And a good storyteller,
33:28 – 33:39
Rochelle Moulton: and I’m not talking about the person you think of on TV who sits down and spins a yarn. But somebody who connects the dots for you by using a story is a powerful communicator.
33:41 – 34:19
Camille DePutter: Yeah, absolutely. And a couple of points I wanted to build on with that. So the first, like you said, of having a story vault. The more you do this, the more you will, and you can deliberately develop, like you say, a story vault. So I could tell the story about growing up with a heart condition, you know, like that. Because I’ve shared it a bunch and I could make it longer and I could make it shorter and I could make it work to indicate different kinds of messages. So it’s a great practice to think about what
34:19 – 34:54
Camille DePutter: is my signature story, you know, maybe it’s the story about how you got to where you are today, why you do what you do, but also to have a number of other kind of stories in your arsenal. Having said that, another practice you can do to do the kind of thing that you just mentioned Rochelle, like be able to answer questions with a story or you’ll be able to write with more stories, is to be on the lookout all the time for little experiences and things that may happen throughout the course of a day or week
34:55 – 35:24
Camille DePutter: that could be good stories. Another way of thinking about this would be like ask yourself oh what is this if you’re trying to express an idea, you can think, oh, well, what is this like? Where else in my life have I experienced something kind of like this? And so I try to do this a lot, especially in my own newsletter, where I might fall into the trap of being like, all right, I’m going to tell people what to do. Like, you know, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. It’s so tempting.
35:24 – 35:26
Rochelle Moulton: Like, this is what you should do.
35:29 – 36:09
Camille DePutter: And I’m like, okay, hang on. Where in my life have I experienced something kind of like this? Where did I learn this lesson? And a lot of them can be metaphors or just examples. It doesn’t have to be super literal. So you I’m trying to think of an example off the top of my head. I wanted to make the 0.1 time in a piece that I wrote that it can be worth taking the sort of the longer way around. That it can be worth investing yourself in the process of learning and improving and striving to make
36:09 – 36:47
Camille DePutter: something better, like a piece of work better, and trying to encourage folks in their writing to, you know, not just give up or phone it in, say, but to really like dig into it. And I used in that a couple of stories. I talked about, I live in Toronto and I take the subway and I take it like far across the city to go to a gym because I have the best fitness coaches like hands down. And so I traveled to see them. And so I use this point of like me on the subway going out
36:47 – 37:18
Camille DePutter: of my way because it’s worth it to make the point. I also told a story about being in hiking in South Africa and going all the way up to this mountain only to be turned away because we couldn’t get in but it turned out the view was really beautiful. And I kind of bring up those 2 points because it’s like 1 of the stories is really cool. It’s from a travel experience. It’s unusual. And the other is so mundane. And so you can use these experiences in your life if you pay attention to them. And what
37:18 – 37:49
Camille DePutter: I found happens with clients too is that we might start off where I’m like probing them a lot. Okay, well, can you think of a story or think about what happened this week or let’s sort of dig into some of the nuances of something that happened through the course of a day. I’m digging around for stories. But in time they start doing this naturally and they’re like I know what I want to write about and they’ve got an incident or something that happened at work or like a mundane example that popped into their head and they’re
37:49 – 38:08
Camille DePutter: like, yeah, I want to use this as a story to talk about XYZ. And so if you engage in that practice more of seeing just what happens in your life as a source of potential story material, then I promise more of those stories are going to start to develop and you’re going to get more in that habit of thinking and working like a storyteller.
38:10 – 38:34
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it’s also the gift of blogging or writing newsletters because after the first 5 or 6, like you have to look around you, right? That’s where, what are you going to talk about? Right. After you’ve done a certain number and it really does help people when you can relate it either, as you said, to something mundane or something extraordinary. Those are both notable.
38:34 – 38:48
Camille DePutter: Totally, yeah, I love that you pointed that out. Like putting yourself in the position where you have to tell stories and you have to come up with something, it definitely trains your brain to do this. Oh, for a while, it
38:48 – 39:26
Rochelle Moulton: was about a year. I just, as an experiment, I tried writing and publishing every day. And oh my goodness, like I had to look at what was happening or I had nothing to say. It was really a good writing and thinking challenge. So I recommend that if somebody needs a little push to try that. So Camille, I have 1 final question for you, which is kind of going back to who you were when you started your business. What’s the 1 thing you’d advise her to do if you could go back in time?
39:30 – 40:11
Camille DePutter: I would say, and this is advice that I give to other people when I’m mentoring young people or just talking to other folks who are starting something. I think I did this somewhat, you know, pretty well, but I would reinforce it. I would say, yeah, listen to what other folks are saying and doing, but really know that by doing things your own way and what is true to you, you’re doing it right. In other words, like don’t be afraid to block out the stuff that just doesn’t feel right for you or isn’t a fit. And like
40:11 – 40:38
Camille DePutter: I say, I think I did this well, but I can also recall just taking on more of that kind of anxiety and maybe trying a little bit too hard to follow some of the advice or formulas. And even as much as I did block it out and did do my own thing. I still just remember carrying a little bit more of that heaviness around me. And I think like comparing myself as well.
40:38 – 40:39
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.
40:39 – 41:01
Camille DePutter: Feeling like, you know, oh, well, these people are making this amount of money or growing their businesses this way or and I just really would go back and reinforce like no what you’re doing like by ignoring that or by following your own path or what works for you like it’s awesome that is right keep doing that.
41:02 – 41:14
Rochelle Moulton: Yes oh I wish I had that advice when I started my business too. It yeah, it’s forging your own path is key and that comparison is just the death of excitement and confidence.
41:16 – 41:38
Camille DePutter: Yeah, and like it’s really okay to not necessarily want what other people want. There are a lot of folks who are prepared to make trade-offs that I’m not prepared to make. Like I don’t want to work like that. I don’t want my lifestyle to look like that. And so that’s cool. That’s fine. You don’t have to be them.
41:39 – 42:02
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and as a soloist, as we talked at the beginning, you will get pressure to conform to the norms, to hire employees, to do things that just don’t fit with your vision of where you want to go. It’s like a muscle. You just resist, and the muscle gets stronger until you don’t even think about those things anymore, and you laugh them off when somebody brings them up.
42:03 – 42:42
Camille DePutter: Right. And I remember too at points of trying some different things, like doing some public speaking and just thinking like, this is going to, is this going to take me somewhere? Like is this going to take me where I want to go? And just thinking like, keep on putting these bricks in place, like building what you want to build. Or I’ll say to myself, like, keep on planting seeds. Just keep on planting seeds. And they do grow. And I felt this in my life and my business. When you do that, yes, you might not see it
42:42 – 42:44
Camille DePutter: right away, but eventually it will grow.
42:45 – 42:58
Rochelle Moulton: Perfect. Perfect. Camille, we’re going to be putting all kinds of links to you in the show notes, but where’s the best place for people to learn more about you? And I want to mention your podcast as well.
42:59 – 43:33
Camille DePutter: Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me because sometimes I forget. So definitely come find me at my website, camildaputter.com. I do have a blog there and most importantly, a place to sign up for my newsletter. I write every 2 weeks. I’ve been doing that for years and I write about storytelling and communications and life and try to share resources as well as my own stories in that. And they can also find my podcast there. It is called the Storytelling with Heart podcast. And you can find that, listen to that pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts.
43:34 – 44:03
Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. Camille, thank you so much. I mean, I appreciate not only that you shared your own story with such heart, but also that you’ve really given us some things to think about as we decide how to weave our stories into our thought leadership, into our brands, I mean, into how we work every day. I feel like It’s a superpower. So thank you so much.
44:04 – 44:21
Camille DePutter: Well, thank you. And thanks for being such a champion of soloists and really recognizing the folks who are out here doing this on our own and really supporting that and celebrating that. I appreciate it so much.
44:22 – 44:33
Rochelle Moulton: Always, it’s a celebration here. So that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time for Soloist Women. Bye bye!
