The simple truth is this: most of us don't think about our lives as a story.

We live in moments and while we think about the past from time to time (or worry about the future), we don't really mine our past to better understand how to craft our future story.

This is the first lesson and ingredient to owning and honing your unique Signature Sauce because I believe our story is intertwined in everything we do. There's so much clarity, meaning, and purpose we can uncover in your life just by peeling back some of the pages on your story.

So what's your story? People want to know.

When we apply for a job a future employer might ask us to "Share a failure or success", or in other words-- share a story about our lives. When we go to a party people ask us, "What do you do?". But really, in these moments people are simply asking, "What's your story?"

Good storytellers will admit that it takes time to perfect the art of storytelling. It's something we all have to learn. While some might be more natural than others, there is a certain kind of recipe to living a good story with our lives. And I don't believe we can live a good story if we don't understand what I call pivotal plot points in our lives.

Pivotal plot points are the moments in our lives where we have experienced some kind of huge success, failure, heart break, or triumph.

These are moments in our lives we can analyze to better understand what makes us come alive and what breaks our heart. Pivotal plot points are important to understand because they will help us craft the story arch of our lives. Looking at our past triumphs will help us answer the questions, "What is it that makes me come alive?" or, "What is it that scares me?"

Your story is the context and base of your Signature Sauce that everything else is blended into.

Once we understand what stories in our life help us come alive, we can be more intentional on creating the kind of life with those stories inside of it.

Inside this key ingredient #1 video I talk about:

• How story is the base of our Signature Sauce
• How to use acting techniques to understand the power of story
• Using failures from our past to gain clarity about our future
• How to use your story to connect with people in an authentic way

Guided Video Series Section:

At the bottom of each lesson I'll be walking through some specific workbook questions with 24-year-old Heath Padgett (who you'll also get to meet here in this interview).

I created the guided video series to help walk you through the process of answering your workbook questions. We don't go through EVERY question, as that would be crazy. But I tried to pick some of the more challenging ones so you can have an idea of what it could look like as you're answering them.

Or sometimes in the Guided Series we mainly launch into a dialogue around the topic to help peel back more insight and guidance in how these ingredients directly apply to your life. It's fun, laid back, and helpful.

Workbook Questions Below

The workbook questions below (and found in each section) are also a crucial component to honing your unique Signature Sauce. Listening to me talk about this material is one thing. Going through the questions and intentionally answering them for yourself – that's what makes this program transformational.

Down below you can download the Workbook Questions for Ingredient #1 Story in a PDF format. When you download to your computer, you can then type into the boxes on the PDF and save your answers. And/or you can print it off and write in it. Whatever works best for you.

Then as well, these workbook questions are important to bring into the community here at Signature Sauce and in your community around you. While you might need some quiet time to come up with your individual answers, you should definitely find someone to walk through this process alongside you (whether it be a mentor, friend, etc.). Find someone who you can have coffee with and share your answers. Feel free to print out two of these workbooks and give one to your friend, so you can go through this part together.

If you can't find anyone to go through this process alongside-- recruit someone from this course. Leave a comment below and ask if anyone would like to "buddy up" to share workbook answers.(Also, this is why I created the weekly coaching calls within the Pro Membership-- so you can have community and support during this process!)

Workbook Question to Share with Signature Sauce Community: At the end of each lesson I'll pick one workbook question and ask you to answer it here in the comments section. The reason is because this helps bring all of us closer together as a community. We don't connect over our pretend perfection, but over our shared struggles! We're all trying to figure this out together.

Possible questions to answer below:

When looking at some of your Tragedy Pivotal Plot Points in your story, can you now see how it lead to something important in your life? What was it?

When looking at some of your Triumph Pivotal Plot Points, are you noticing any patterns?

Leave your answer below.

Bonus Interview with Sam Davidson:

In this interview we talk about...

• How to have a business with a social mission
• Building a business that solves a problem
• The importance and power of starting something with others, not alone
• How business are cheaper and easier to start now than ever
• Millennials are the entrepreneurial generation
• The value of connecting in person and detaching from screens
• Defining who is your customer and how do you find your customers
• What makes a compelling story?
• Story leads to connection
• How to use story in your business to connect with your customers
• Using stories during interviews to earn a job
• Everyone has something that they can fall back on. So what dream would you chase?
• You can chase your profession and your passion simultaneously (and they don't have to be the same thing)
• You don't have to sell out, but sometimes you have to settle
• How to take time to learn, wherever you are
• What is Sam's Signature Sauce? Answer: Finding the story and the best way to share it

Quotes:

“Who else can we help? And that allows you to collaborate, to build relationships, that ultimately ends up being a win for everybody in your organization.”

"People are starting to realize, I could be more stable working for myself. Even though there's more uncertainty, at least it's up to me."

"You are not your customer. Literally, you can't be."

"All you have to do is know your story. And when you do and you share that, then there you are. You're a storyteller now."

"There's this myth that our passion always has to become our profession. And I don't think that's the case for everybody. It doesn't have to be and maybe it shouldn't be. It can be our passion and stay a hobby."

"You can't build if you don't even know what bricks you're using or if you're not even looking at the wall that you're building."

Check out Sam & his work at http://samdavidson.net/