I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. But this was a new one. This was… saucy!

“Christine – you are business porn!” a fellow entrepreneur declared during our phone conversation.

In the words of George Takei – “Oh myyyy!”

What I’ve always considered to be a healthy left and right brain balance, my innate mixture of creative intuition and “literary drill sergeant” project management skills, is apparently quite sexy. Most creatives don’t share my love of spreadsheets, and most spreadsheet lovers don’t dream up new dramatic ways of writing memoirs that keep readers up at night. What good is a great idea without reliable, professionally engineered execution?

How did he get this about me? The best conversations, after all, are not “I” fests. They’re “you” paloozas. What fascinates me is YOUR story and how I can be of service in telling it. But that certainly doesn’t mean that I need to hide behind a personality curtain during the conversation, and neither do you.

The more people you talk to, the more you’ll find out about yourself. Always be yourself in business conversations because you never know what magic will be revealed. Imagine showing the other person a piece of your soul that leads to the exclamation – “Yes! We MUST work together!” If you hold back, that might never happen.

Which pieces of your story are you holding back in your conversations? Is there a charming, dramatic, inspiring or hilarious piece of yourself that you’re hesitant to reveal when you meet people, whether for the first, third or tenth time?

Use your conversations as storytelling practice for when you finally decide to write your memoir (which you WILL do if you’ve been paying attention to me at all). Disclose key plot points about your life, open up about lessons you’ve learned, and present yourself as a memorable three-dimensional character. Don’t be a “business bot” – nobody wants to play with a business bot. A wafflebot possibly, but not a business bot.

Be a unique character. Be the person your spouse fell in love with, your kids are proud to introduce to their friends, your parents still brag about, and your friends love to be around.

Kurt Vonnegut said that every word in a book should either advance the plotline or reveal something about a character. Why not apply this writing rule to your life?

Find a way to move your story forward today!