Sarah Elkins, Storytelling and StrengthsFinder Coach

In this episode of The One Problem, our guest, Sarah Elkins shares a personal story to show us that you story doesn’t have to be epic. But it has to be meaningful.

Hi there. My name is Avil Beckford, and this is the latest episode of The One Problem. Of course, you know, there are tons of problems in the world, but we're not going to tackle all of them. We're going to tackle them one at a time. Why should we get overwhelmed? Most of the guests on this podcast, I've had some prior relationship with. And once again, this is the case. I was introduced to my guest today by her brother, who I met on Lunchclub. And I've talked about Lunchclub a few times.

So Sarah Elkins is a storytelling coach, and she had me on her podcast a few weeks ago. So over to you, Sarah.

Sarah Elkins

Thank you, Avil. I guide people in telling the stories that demonstrate their strengths as a Gallup certified strengths coach. So my one problem is that a lot of people don't realize that they have stories to share, and they think that their stories have to be epic in order to be entertaining. And I'm here to tell you that that's not the truth, that your stories need to be meaningful, not epic. So I'm going to demonstrate that when our first son was born, I was living in Washington, DC. And I had to go up three flights of stairs after I had gone to work, and I had left the baby with a nanny.

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I had been on the road for an hour. And I remember climbing up those stairs and being just exhausted. I got into the apartment and the nanny threw the baby into my arms so that I could nurse him. He had been fussy for an hour. And I sat down on the couch and I started nursing the baby. I had my phone next to me, so I called my mother, and as I was looking at the baby and my mom picked up the phone, I burst into tears.

I'm looking at this gorgeous baby with eyelashes down to his cheekbones. And when he opened his eyes to look at me, I just fell in love all over again, and I couldn't stop crying. My mom said, Sarah, what's wrong? And she's a baby nurse. So, of course, her mind went straight to the worst possible scenario. Oh, my gosh. What's wrong? Is it postpartum depression? Is the baby okay? And as my friend Shelley Brown says, she went from zero to catastrophe in less than a second.

The One Problem Interview With Storytelling and StrengthsFinder Coach, Sarah Elkins

Sarah Elkins

And I said to my mom as soon as I could catch my breath, everything's fine, mom. It's just now I know how much you love me. The solution to the question of having an epic story is to find moments, pivotal moments in your life that you can look back on now that you didn't know at the time were important. But you look back on them now, and you realize that was a moment where everything changed. Back to you. Avil.

Avil Beckford

Oh, my God. What an awesome story. When you were sharing it. I kind of felt tears in my eyes. And then it reminded me of something, so it doesn't have to be an epic story. It just has to be meaningful.

Sarah Elkins

Exactly. Yeah.

Avil Beckford

That's all I'm going to say, because people would be able to resonate with this.

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