A Confession About "Tell Your Story"

This week on the Millennial Ag podcast, Valene and I discussed ways to advocate for agriculture beyond social media. Essentially what we were saying was, “Tell your story”. 

I’ve got a confession here guys. A couple months ago, I was a guest on Damian Mason’s podcast, the Business of Agriculture. And I said if I had to hear the phrase “tell your story” one more time, I’d barf. 

I still feel that way. I think the phrase has been over-said, and under-utilized in effective ways. However, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time with Google and a thesaurus trying to find a different way to say it, and  there’s no other phrase that gets the point across that we’ve got to talk to people beyond our production ag bubbles about food and agriculture. If you have an idea for one, please tell me!

I think perhaps it’s not so much the words “tell your story” that has been bugging me as the how we’ve gone about it. 

We use data to try and convince people that we’re in the right. There’s a million cool stats and infographics out there that make our scientific little agriculturist hearts dance with joy. It doesn’t seem to have the same effect with folks outside our industry bubble. In fact, if you’ll forgive me the irony, the Center for Food Integrity has done numerous studies about how consumers build trust with agriculturists. Their findings, again and again, are that connecting with shared values first, and establishing that those values align among the people in the conversation is the best and most effective way to begin engaging with consumers. If you aren’t familiar with CFI, check them out. They’ve got a lot of great information and insights.

Human connection is a powerful tool. It requires vulnerability, which is incredibly hard to do, especially with people you don’t know. Vulnerability though, begets respect and trust, which are truly the foundation to build relationships on. Once those are established, useful data and facts are just the icing on the cake. 

Human connection is also not a one-size-fits-all solution. You can’t just make one meme or infographic, stick it on your Twitter feed, and call it a day. Tell your story is kind of like a resume. It needs to be tailored to your specific audience. Your experiences and skill set don’t change with the audience, but individual aspects of each that you focus on will, depending on what company or prospective employer you’re sending it to. 

Some days it feels to me as though “tell your story” has become a rallying cry to tell the world how hard we work and how little we get paid. I often see the words “You don’t know *insert complaint here*” used in the name of telling a story, and I think that approach doesn’t really win friends or influence people. Telling your story isn’t really about you, it’s about the consumer, and listening to them. It’s figuring out what you have in common, so that they can begin to understand your how, why, and what in agriculture. 

Not all the storytelling going on out there is bad. I just see some places where we’ve gotten off track, and where perhaps we can tweak our thinking about how we approach sharing how and why and what we do. 

A cool thing about being a human is that as we grow more, learn more, and experience more, our perspectives shift and expand and change. The further along in this blogging and podcasting journey I go, the more I am finding to challenge my own beliefs and perspectives. You, dear readers and listeners, are a huge part of that growth. I can’t say thank you enough, because uncomfortable as it is to let go of dearly held ideas, it would be worse to remain static and stuck in my own comfort zone. 

What do you think “tell your story” should mean?

A special thanks to my brother-in-law Dan for encouraging me to write this post.