From Humility to Impact: How to Use Storytelling to Share Your Wins
In a world where sharing personal achievements can sometimes feel boastful, storytelling provides a powerful tool to communicate your successes with humility, impact, and a focus on God’s goodness. Denise Grace Gitsham explores how you can use your personal and professional victories to inspire others without turning the spotlight solely on yourself by shifting the focus from self-promotion to showcasing what God is doing through you. Your accomplishments are a testimony of faith, resilience, and growth. Learn how to harness the power of authentic storytelling to connect deeply with your audience, giving glory to God and encouraging others along the way.
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You can listen to this conversation with Denise on our podcast, Work, Love, Pray! Listen below or click here to find your preferred listening platform.
How can someone use storytelling to share about personal accomplishments and professional successes?
First, let’s talk about the underlying reason why we’re often so hesitant to talk about our success. Most of us don’t really want to put ourselves in the spotlight because it feels like we’re bragging, even though we’re just talking about what we’ve accomplished. Whenever I get sort of caught up in myself and try to prove to someone that I’m worthy of their attention, that’s really just me striving for someone else’s accolades and affirmation. And whenever that type of striving is the motivation for what we’re doing, we’re starting in the wrong place.
When we think of storytelling as a means of being able to share what God is doing through our lives, the emphasis of what we’re trying to say drastically changes. There are times when I’m on TV that I say things I don’t really believe because I just have to respond to something I hadn’t prepared to answer. Usually, what I say comes across as false or rooted in that feeling of striving or trying hard to be entertaining.
I think that when you have deep convictions and are very much aware of what God is doing through you in His power, the attention and the onus of responsibility shifts onto God’s shoulders, because you’re just giving a testimony of His goodness in your life. When we think of our stories as a testimony, as opposed to just being a way to brag about ourselves and what we’ve accomplished, we have a chance to not only to shine a light on what God has done in our lives but to also inspire other people to believe that the same could happen for them.
How can you use storytelling to be transparent about all the results of a year while also making sure that you don’t negatively turn the conversation?
As Christians, we always want to speak with hope and encouragement, but sometimes, life just sucks. Things happen and sometimes you can’t sugar-coat it. I dealt with this in my own life in 2018. I had been invited by Christine Caine to go on tour with a group of incredible women. I was so excited to be with women like Priscilla Shirer and Lisa Harper and others that I just looked up to so much.
But when Christine first asked me to come, my first question was, ‘Are you sure? I’m just a lawyer who works in Washington, DC and I’m in politics and I’ve never been in ministry and I’m really nervous. I don’t think I’m qualified.’ But she felt really certain of it. Well, right after I accepted, I met my future husband and we got married very quickly. Immediately, things were difficult in my marriage. The person I’d been when Christine Caine had asked to join her became a very different sort of person in the context of a very difficult marriage.
I remember asking God, ‘How do you expect me to go out on stage and talk to women and inspire them when my life is such a mess? When my emotions are such a mess? When I feel like I really don’t have it together?’ I eventually talked with my pastor and told him how I didn’t feel like I was qualified to still go out there and speak to women. And he said, ‘Denise, just ask the Lord to channel the truth without dishonoring your husband, to allow you to speak truthfully about the challenges you’ve gone through in ways that women can relate to. Your authenticity is going to do more to really speak and minister to the hearts of these women in those stadiums than anything else you try to say.’ So I had to ask the Lord, ‘How do I do speak what’s on my heart without dishonoring my husband?’
I’m no longer married, but God was working from the very beginning of my marriage to teach me that showing up as someone who’s broken and in need of grace and love that I truly could only get from the Lord really made me relatable in a way that many women needed to hear.
If you’re just obedient to God’s call to share your story truthfully, it will hit a different sort of nerve with people. It will enable them to see that even if you don’t have it all together, God can still work through you, even when you’re broken.
What are some other ways that you like to use storytelling in your career? And what are some of the top ways you coach others to use storytelling?
I’m in the PR world, so I wear a lot of hats, but primarily I work in the media as a political commentator. At my PR agency, our favorite thing to do is develop thought-leaders. We take a lot of the storytelling tactics and strategies and teach them to those who are remarkable leaders but may not know how to share what it is that they’ve done in an effective manner. Generally, we only work with people that we really believe in, because sharing these strategies and tactics is powerful. We want to make sure they’re in the hands of the right people, people we think are really channeling what God has placed them on this earth to do for good.
One of the things we always tell our clients is that they have everything within themselves. God has given them everything they need to be the people that they are today. Then we go through the process of looking back and piecing together their testimony so that they can tell their story in a way that relates to their audience.
People want to be able to relate to other people. They want to feel like they have something in common with the people that they’re following. So if you’re a leader or a speaker, you need to know who your audience is any time you engage in storytelling. If you’re telling a story that’s meant for a completely different audience, your story is going to fall flat. It’s not going to resonate.
Again, don’t share from a ‘me perspective’ and only talk about how great you are. Approach your story and accomplishments from a perspective of ‘How do I glorify God through the telling of my story?’ If that’s your intention, God is always going to give you the words you need to really share what He wants you to share with that message and that audience. Let the Holy Spirit show up and God will do the rest.
Denise Grace Gitsham is a political contributor, attorney, speaker, and author of the book Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How to Engage without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul.
Denise is a graduate of Bowdoin College and the Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to starting her own public affairs firm, Vitamin D Public Relations, she practiced law at K&L Gates and served as a presidential appointee at the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a law clerk in the U.S. Senate. In 2016, Denise ran for Congress in California’s Fifty-second Congressional District. Today, Denise advises businesses, ministries, and nonprofits as a consultant and board member.
Born and raised at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, Denise’s mother is a Chinese immigrant who escaped communism in 1949, and her father is a Canadian immigrant who served twenty years in the U.S. Air Force. As a member of a proud military family, Denise has a special appreciation for the liberties that enabled her parents to achieve the American dream. She also recognizes the personal significance of her favorite Bible verse: To whom much is given, from him much will be required (Luke 12:48). This verse underlies Denise’s lifelong commitment to public service.
Denise speaks Mandarin Chinese, is an avid reader, and has competed as an Ironman triathlete. When she isn’t on a plane headed to or from DC, she’s basking in the California sun with her golden retriever, Jack.