The Power of Storytelling, Other Lessons from Lance Armstrong

I have no doubt that Lance Armstrong used doping to win many of his races, but besides the many questions on that matter, we can also look at Armstrong in the view of thought leadership and ask ourselves what lessons we can learn.

One is quite clear to me. It seems as if you can build and maintain a strong personal brand even if you are accused of lying and breaking the law as long as you have a great compelling story to tell. Yes, Armstrong might be quite unique in this sense, but it nevertheless shows us the importance of having a mission and great story to tell.

Too often, we see aspiring thought leaders, who look like the guy next door. They have no unique story to tell and thus they have to base their breakthrough on sheer persistence and a dose of luck. I am to some extent in this category myself and I have begun wondering how I can create a compelling story to tell. This is difficult, but it is also a good and worthwhile exercise.

A second lesson is the importance of having a few, clear messages that are easy to communicate. Lance Armstrong comes out as a very strong communicator although he does not really say that much beyond stating his innocence on doping and his strong support for the cancer cause.

It would be another worthwhile exercise for aspiring thought leaders to look into questions such as:

What are my key messages?

Who are the target audience of these messages?

What channels can I use to broadcast my messages?

Hey, I gave myself some food for thought by writing this blog post and I hope this can inspire you as well.

Hey again, as I wrote the above sentence, I just realized that there is another important lesson to learn from Armstrong: the ability to inspire others is a great tool that can help overcome many difficulties.

So how can you inspire others?