You have an idea you want to get into the world. Then you discover someone else is already talking about it. Now what? In this Pep Talk, Jacquelyn Fletcher Johnson explains why you don’t need a topic no one has covered before. You need the stories, point of view, experiences, questions, contradictions, and details that could only come from you. Drawing on thousands of pitches she’s heard as a conference designer and a pivotal moment when a vulnerable personal story helped her turn around a room full of resistant senior leaders, Jacquelyn explores how specificity and strategic storytelling can make your ideas memorable. Because your topic may not be new. But nobody else has lived your version of the human story.
You have an idea you can’t stop thinking about. There’s just one problem: Someone else has already talked about it.
And now you’re wondering what you could possibly add to the conversation.
Here’s what I want you to know:
Your topic doesn’t have to be new. Your version of the human story does.
As a conference designer, former editor-in-chief, and someone who has listened to thousands of pitches, I can tell you that I’m often pitched essentially the same idea by multiple people.
What makes you stand out isn’t that you’ve discovered a subject no one else has ever considered. It’s your point of view. Your unique stories. Your strange combination of experience that have shaped how you see the world.
In this Pep Talk, we’re talking about how to find those details and why they matter if you want to write, speak, build a thought-leadership platform, or get your ideas into bigger rooms.
I also tell the story of one of the toughest audiences I’ve ever faced.
I came armed with research, data, expert stories, and all the things I thought would establish my credibility. It didn’t work. The audience wasn’t impressed.
So I changed course and told them a vulnerable story from my own life. Instantly, the people who had been sitting with their arms crossed judging my every move, leaned forward.
Choosing the stories you tell is a strategic decision that can help your audience understand something, trust something, question something, or change something.
IN THIS EPISODE
If you’ve come across someone else’s version of what you want to say, this episode is for you.
What do you see that other people don’t?
What do you disagree with?
What are you scared to say out loud?
What happened in your life that made this idea matter to you in the first place?
That’s where I’d look.
Because the more specifically you become yourself, the harder you are to duplicate.
What are the stories that only you can tell? The stories you have to tell? It’s time to tell them because ideas don’t change the world alone. Ideas love community.