EP94: Your Story Matters: Embracing Diverse Perspectives for Impactful Leadership

A comment from a longtime listener sparked an important conversation about the value of diverse narratives. This listener observed a theme in recent episodes — featuring phenomenal women of color — and admitted she struggled to relate to their stories. 

This episode explores the idea that the worth of a story isn't limited to its relatability. Instead, it's about embracing different perspectives and acknowledging the richness they bring to our understanding of the big old world and the diverse people in it. 

Join me as we challenge the notion that a narrative needs to mirror our experiences to be meaningful, and celebrate the vibrant tapestry of insights from our recent guests.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers, welcome back. This is going to be a short and sweet episode because I got to be completely honest with you. We have finally settled into our new home. If you are watching on the video, you will see behind me a wall covered in painter's paper, because my office space is in the basement and, unlike my last house, where I had a beautiful office space with a blue door and it was wonderful, I don't have that here. It's an unfinished basement and so you get painter's paper instead of the fiberglass insulation that is covering all of the walls. But that's okay because it is my space. I am finally here. I'm sitting here. I have my office kind of set up. I'm ready to go. I'm finally back in a routine.

Speaker 1: 1:49

I have felt out of sorts since, I would say, probably late September, when we started packing our house to move to another province and then staying in Airbnb for three weeks and then buy a new house and set up and so it's just been a lot. It has been chaos, it has been a shit show, but we are finally here, we're settled, we're about 99% unpacked and I'm finally starting to get back into routine and I really feel good about it. And one of the saving graces has been just the sheer generosity with which women have given of their time to be on the podcast and share their stories and their insights. And you'll have seen that the last many episodes have been guest episodes. They have dropped some incredible gems, they have had fantastic feedback and I am super, super grateful because I recorded all of the episodes before we moved because obviously I had to unpack or pack up my podcast studio and my microphones and everything. So I didn't want to be doing any of that recording while we were on the road and it's been a saving grace.

Speaker 1: 2:55

But now I'm back, I'm live and first of all I want to thank every woman who gave her time to be on the podcast over the last many weeks. Thank you for the gift of your genius and your insights and your perspectives, and I hope that you have found those conversations to be as interesting as I have and insightful as I have. And it's interesting because, as often happens if you've been following the podcast for any length of time, every once in a while I will get a comment from somebody who just doesn't get it Okay, from somebody who just doesn't get it Okay. And the other day I got a comment from a longtime listener and I'm sharing this with her, her permission, because we did have the conversation that I'm about to share with you and she was totally okay with me sharing it, cause obviously I'm not going to out her that's not who I am but I thought it was a really important point. Out her, that's not who I am, but I thought it was a really important point. She shared with me that, while she appreciated that I had some really amazing guests on the show, she was like I noticed that they were all Black women, women of color, and I said, yeah, they were. And she said you know, it was. You know, it's great that you're giving them a platform and a voice, et cetera, and so forth. But I really couldn't relate to a lot of what they were sharing and I thought, okay, cool, that's, that's awesome. And I started.

Speaker 1: 4:25

I started to think to myself because I think a lot of the time we feel like a story is only valid if I can relate to it, and I see this a lot on social media. I see it on, you know, in the comment section where, honestly, humanity goes to die. I see it in comment sections, I see it on reels, I see it in people's posts. But this idea that if your story doesn't somehow relate to me and my lived experience, it is not a valid story, like everything that is shared has to somehow acknowledge the lived experience and the struggles and what people have been like, what everyone has been through, and if it doesn't, the story is invalid. If it doesn't, then there is no value to be found in the sharing of that insights, story or perspective.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And I want for all of us to pause for a second, because I think all of us have done that to some degree. I can't relate to this person, so I'm not going to listen. This person's story doesn't sound anything like mine. So there's no point in me listening. This person can't possibly have anything of importance to say because we live entirely different lives or I'm not doing their kind of business or whatever. And I thought about this and I thought about how I was going to respond and it came to me and I really wanted to share it, and I hope that you take this and share it on as well, because it was kind of an aha moment for me because I'm going to hold my hand up.

Speaker 1: 5:57

I have often felt that way too, that if the story doesn't relate to me, I've got nothing to take from it. So whatever. But I think where we go wrong as a species is in thinking everything has to be about us. Right, and I get it. It's a natural reaction. Right, we are the center of our own universe, and if it doesn't have to do with me, then why should I bother? And I think that's one of the things that's wrong with society as a whole.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I think that what we need to do is start actually listening to each other's stories, whether we relate to them or not, because the sharing of somebody's story is not about you and it is not about whether you can relate to it, and it's not about whether you can find some nugget to say, yeah, I've experienced that too. It is not about relating to that person. People share their stories and you should listen. People share their stories and you should listen because, if nothing else, it gives you a perspective into an experience that is not your own. And when you are able to acknowledge experiences that are not yours and that are maybe super far removed from anything you might ever experience, that is how you cultivate compassion and empathy and understanding. That is how you become a well-rounded, empathetic, compassionate human. That is how we humanize the people around us. We have to stop disregarding things just because, well, that wasn't my experience, so that can't possibly be a valid perspective. I see this so much and it grates on me every single time, and every time I see someone share something like that, I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them.

Speaker 1: 7:45

The value of a person's story is not in relation to you. The value of a person's story is inherent in it simply being that person's story, and what you should be prioritizing is understanding how that story is different from your lived experience and seeing someone else's perspective, seeing it through their eyes, so that you can broaden your own perspective and your own experience. And I really want all of us to take that into 2025 because, honestly, this year I have really been disappointed in humanity as a whole. We've become so insular in our thinking and it is time to broaden our perspectives way past what we think is comfortable, what we have personally experienced, what we can relate to, what we think is important. Everybody's perspective is valid and, again, if you can't take anything other than I see that person's experience, that's all you need to do.

Speaker 1: 8:56

And this is also one of the reasons why I have made the shift into leadership architecture because so many women have an incredible perspective and story to share insights that can be paradigm shifting, and they don't know how or where to start. They don't know how to do it. They don't know how to create a foundation around which they can share that perspective easily, comfortably, in a variety of different spaces. And that is what I want to be able to help facilitate. I want to help facilitate the creation of those foundations so that more women can share their truth, more women can share their story, more women can share their perspectives and start creating not just leading, but creating the conversations that we need to have so that we can start shifting these bullshit paradigms that we have been stuck in and dragged into and are now feeling like we have to make peace with. We don't. Your story is valid. Your story has power, it has purpose and in 2025, people are going to want to start investing with trusted, real, authentic personal brands, and the best way to do that is to uncover and embrace your thought leadership.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Now, I've said it before thought leadership is not something that you bestow upon yourself. It is something that is bestowed upon you by the people who follow you and believe in the power of your insights. But you can set yourself up so that people can potentially see you in that way, and, again, that is what I help facilitate. If you're curious, I would love to have a conversation with you, and actually I created a really, really cool quiz that I'm still doing one-to-one because I'm testing it out and so far, the results have been phenomenal. If you are interested in uncovering your thought leadership archetype and, of course, there are dragons involved I would love to help you do that.

Speaker 1: 11:07

I've identified four broad thought leadership archetypes that you can then narrow down and personalize and tailor to your specific identity how you want to do things, your vision, all of that and once you understand which archetype you are, we'll talk about how to leverage that in 2025, what kind of tweaks you can make to your messaging, what kind of offers you should be focusing on where you show up most powerfully so that you can start 2025 by sharing your story and helping people see beyond their own limited perspective. That's the kind of impact we need to start making and that's the kind of legacy we need to start leaving, and I would love to help you do just that. That's all I have for this week, but it's a lot. Share this episode, leave me a comment, let me know what you think, let me know if you agree with anything I've said today. I'd love to connect with you.

Speaker 1: 12:09

I will talk to you next week, where we're going to talk about 2025 trends and what you can do to prepare for what the futurists and economists are saying is coming down the pipeline. All right, my friends, I'll see you next week Because, remember, you can have success without the BS and that is never going to change. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode. But in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast. And don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.