One of the most fascinating and humbling experiences I have as a business ghostwriter is witnessing how often highly successful professionals fail to recognize the astonishing value inherent in some of the most profound experiences, client encounters, or hard-won lessons from their careers. It’s a fundamental paradox: those who have achieved the most often struggle the most to objectively assess their own historical narrative.
While a good ghostwriter is certainly adept at running with the stories a client enthusiastically provides, a truly exceptional one recognizes the huge strategic value in the stories clients may deeply undervalue, dismiss as painful, or simply deem too distant to matter. The most compelling thought leadership content frequently lies buried in these neglected anecdotes.
A perfect case in point involves a Manhattan consultant who specializes in improving internal communication within large, complex organizations. She hired us to write a book intended to burnish her credentials and serve as a powerful tool to secure more high-paying consulting gigs. As we reviewed her background, I noticed a practically hidden detail on her CV—a seminar she had presented at a top-tier investment house. It was so hard to find that she might as well have omitted it altogether.
“Tell me about what happened at the investment house,” I inquired. Her face instantly fell. “They were brutal,” she admitted. “It was a bunch of guys with that trading floor mentality. They had absolutely no interest in what I had to say. I walked out of there with my tail between my legs.” Because the experience had been personally painful, she had filed it away and tried not to think about it.
I immediately pushed back. “But that investment banking house is an incredible credit,” I insisted. “The mere fact that you were asked to speak there says so much about your standing and expertise.” She remained skeptical until I asked a crucial follow-up question: “Did you do the same presentation anywhere else?” She slowly admitted that she had, naming two of the country’s most influential and prestigious media groups. I was practically floored. Three blue-chip credits, all going virtually unmentioned simply because the personal encounters weren’t entirely positive?
Now, when she markets herself, she is able to make full use of the power and credibility inherent in these experiences she formerly devalued. Part of the value we created for her was simply helping her recognize that while she might not have been treated royally, her reader would assign an enormous level of respect to her because she was invited to those stages. The fact that her ideas came with that powerful third-party endorsement drastically increased the perceived importance of her insights ghostwriters.
Along the same lines, I was interviewing a business consultant client for his book. On a break from our scheduled interview, he casually told me a story about how a mining company had brought him in to figure out how to save the business. They were supposed to be taking a million tons of ore out of a mountain every month and were nowhere near that target. He described being ushered into a room full of angry miners and their bosses, all of whom assumed he would do what the last two consultants had done—fire people to cut costs, fail to solve the actual problem, and earn a huge payday for useless efforts.
My client quickly recognized that the group was in no mood for his standard PowerPoint deck. Instead, he channeled the wisdom of his mentor, Eliyahu Goldratt (whose book, The Goal, is legendary for its focus on manufacturing bottlenecks), and simply asked the group to identify where the production bottlenecks were. The miners quickly pointed out three major chokepoints that kept them from achieving their goals, but they assured him that solving those problems was impossible. He stood his ground in front of the angry assembly and spoke two memorable words: “Impossible, unless…” The words hung in the air just long enough for the miners to explain that the executives who ran the company could solve each problem with tens of thousands of dollars, but they were simply too cheap to invest. Following his description of the problems and the necessary costs, the consultant turned toward the managers, who gave small, telling nods of assent. The problems were solved, the mine was restored to profitability, and nobody lost their job.
“You tell that story often?” I asked. “Not really,” he said, shrugging off the magnitude of his success. “You should,” I told him, “It’s amazing.” After some persuasion, that narrative a story he initially did not deem noteworthy made it into his book as a powerful testament to his methodology.
In all fairness, it’s practically impossible to be objective about our own life experiences, especially when they are tied to a painful memory, as in the first case, or many years in the past, as in the mining story. That difficulty in maintaining perspective is one of the most powerful and recurring lessons I’ve learned as a ghostwriter: It’s often the stories that we don’t tell that are by far the most compelling and essential for establishing authority.
This tendency to overlook one’s own powerful narrative reminds us that success in business is not just about what you achieved, but how effectively you tell the story of how you achieved it. What stories are you holding back that might just be your biggest assets?
Every achievement has a story worth telling. Partner with our expert ghostwriting services and turn your experiences into a powerful book.