Most people begin their story too early. Here is a simple shift that changes everything.
You have a story worth telling.
You know that. Somewhere, you know that. And yet the moment someone asks you to introduce yourself, or tell them about your work, or explain what you do, the words come out in the wrong order. You start at the beginning. The degree. The first job. The context. The backstory.
By the time you get to the interesting part, you have lost them.
This is one of the most common storytelling habits we see at Settle Stories. And it is one of the easiest to change.
The background is not the beginning
When we tell stories, we tend to reach for context first. We want the listener to understand everything that led up to the moment. We want to set the scene, explain ourselves, lay the groundwork.
That instinct makes sense, but it works against you.
Background is information. A story begins when something changes. And people pay attention from the moment something changes, not from the moment you start explaining.
Think about the last film you saw, the last book you picked up. It did not begin with a full account of where the main character grew up and what shaped them. It began with a moment. Something happening. Something already in motion.
Your story can work the same way.
Start with the moment something changed
Here is the practical shift. Ask yourself: what is the moment in this story when something changed? A decision. A realisation. A conversation that went differently to how you expected. A day things looked different.
Start there. One sentence. Right in the middle of it.
The background can come after, once people are already listening. Once they are curious. Once they are in.
“The background can come after, once people are already listening.”
A structure to try: Before, Change, Now
At Settle Stories we often work with a simple three-part structure. Before, Change, Now.
Before is a brief, grounded picture of where you were. One or two sentences. Enough to set the scene without losing the listener in detail.
Change is the moment something shifted. This is where your story actually begins. A specific thing that happened, a decision made, a realisation arrived at.
Now is where you are as a result. What you know, what you do differently, what you carry forward.
This works in job interviews. It works in funding applications. It works when someone asks you to introduce yourself at the start of a meeting and you want your answer to actually land.
It works because it respects the listener. It gives them a story with a shape, a shape they can hold.
The pivot sentence
There is one sentence that ties these three parts together. We call it the pivot sentence, and it sits between Change and Now.
It goes like this: Here is what I know now.
That one sentence signals to your listener that you have made meaning from what happened to you. That you are someone who has learned something. That your experience has a point.
It is the difference between a list of things that happened and a story.
Try it today
- Think of one story you tell about yourself. A professional one, a personal one, whichever comes to mind first.
- Write it out using Before, Change, Now.
- Find the moment something changed. Start there.
- Add the pivot sentence. Here is what I know now.
- Read it back. Notice how much shorter it is. Notice how much more it says.
If you want to go deeper with this, we would love to have you in the room.
You can check out all our training events here.
