Storytelling: Do All Motivational Speakers Tell Similar Stories?
I hate motivational speakers because they all tell the same story.
I was once having a conversation with a colleague of mine and I asked if he loved to read. He answered yes and I was eager to know the kinds of books he loved to read. Just to give you some context, this was when I had just started out selling books in my classroom.
He talked at length but my interest was in getting to know which particular book to sell to him. I had a few of the entrepreneurship and motivational books that I had read and was recommending to people available at the time. I, therefore, asked a follow-up question; What about reading motivational and entrepreneurship-related books?
His answer shocked me. “I hate motivational speakers because they all tell the same stories” was his answer. And how is that I asked?
“They will all tell you how they were broke, struggling and how they eventually made it big”.
Hmmm! That sounds true. I kind of agreed with his assertion but not his perspective about it. This got me thinking. What else was he expecting to hear from motivational speakers? If a particular motivational speaker comes to you and tells you about all the nice things, like how he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and hasn’t suffered a single moment in his life before, will you enjoy that kind of story and what will be motivational about it?
It was not until recently when I started learning about the art of storytelling did I realize the importance and why all the good motivational speakers tell us about their struggles and eventually how they made it out of those struggles.
Here is what I found out.
For any story to be interesting, the story must have a hook (to get people to want to even listen to it), it must have a conflict (something challenging or unusual happening) which piques your interest letting want to know what happens next and finally a resolution (brings you home and makes you appreciate how they finally overcame the conflict and exactly happened afterwards).
Any story without these elements will be boring and not so many people will want to hear about it. If there is no conflict in your story, there can’t be a resolution and nothing will pique the interest of your readers to continue reading. Even the most interesting movies that you watch incorporate all these features of a good story and that is what makes you want to watch it again.
Also, a story will be boring if all you talk about is the conflict with no resolution. Imagine watching a movie where the protagonist goes through pain and challenges throughout the movie and never succeeds. You may watch such a movie to the end but you will find it to be boring after you finish watching it.
This is because as you are watching, your mind will be expecting the point in time where everything changes for the good of the protagonist. Thus you become disappointed if it doesn’t happen.
Your own personal story has to also have these three features if you want people to be motivated by it. So let me ask you this question; How is your story like? Are there challenges that you are facing or have you overcome certain challenges?
A few years ago, I was hard up on cash and I desperately needed money, so I decided to master a skill that will make me money and that decision gave me a good story. People are now willing to listen to my story and how I started making money on my own even as a student.
If you are in a state where you are also in dire need of money, then it’s time you mastered some skills that can make you money. Preferably you should master at least one money-making digital skill. This will enable you to make money and change your story or even put you in a better position at work which also gives you a better story.
Your journey to creating a better story for yourself starts with the Money-Making Digital Skills Ebook. This ebook is where I share all the secrets I have discovered, having been in the digital space for over 8 years.
From this ebook, you will discover;
- how to choose a relevant skill,
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For just Ghc20.00, you can change your life and change your story. Your financial status is waiting for a boom, just click on the link below to get started.
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PS: If you are interested in learning more about content creation, digital skills, online marketing, and the likes then join my private Facebook group (iKrate Community) using this link; https://ehoneahobed.com/ikrate
Dr. Ehoneah Obed (Pharmacist, Software Engineer, Health Informatician, Founder)
My work focuses on identity engineering, which is the deliberate process of designing and updating who you are, personally and professionally.
Most people experience identity as something fixed or accidental. It is shaped by parents, early success or failure, education, and society’s definition of what a “good life” looks like. They adapt to it rather than questioning it. What most people do not realize is that identity is not just something you discover. It is something you can actively engineer.
Personal identity engineering is about gaining control over how your beliefs, values, and self-concept are formed and reinforced.
Professional identity engineering is about translating that internal identity into skills, work, leverage, and visible contribution in the world.
When people feel stuck, it is rarely because they lack motivation or talent. It is because they are trying to change outcomes while leaving the underlying identity system untouched. Careers stall. Confidence collapses. Direction feels unclear. The system keeps producing the same results.
I learned this by rebuilding myself multiple times.
I trained as a pharmacist for six years. While working in hospitals, I began learning to code alongside my job. That led to building real software, selling products, transitioning into software engineering, completing a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Toronto, and now building startups and systems full time. Each transition followed the same pattern. My identity did not change because I thought differently. It changed because I took specific actions that produced new evidence, and that evidence forced a new story about who I was capable of being.
That is the core mechanism behind identity engineering.
Identity updates when you intentionally generate evidence that contradicts your old self-image, then compound that evidence until the old identity can no longer run the system.
This blog is where I document that process. I write about how to design identity experiments that are small, controlled, and reversible. How to build proof-of-work that changes both how you see yourself and how the world responds to you. How to move forward without waiting for clarity, confidence, or permission.
This is not motivation and it is not coaching. It is systems thinking applied to human change.
I also write The Ledger, a weekly record of systems and experiments for building a life you own.
And I built the Identity Audit, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand your current identity state before you attempt to change it.
I am not presenting a finished theory. I am engineering this in real time, using my own life as the test environment. If you want more agency over who you are becoming, both personally and professionally, you are in the right place.
