So a narrative is a choice.

A narrative is a point of view.

It's the way you look at reality, it's the way you, understand

what is happening around you.

A narrative is a system of stories.

And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your

origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.

Um, uh,

In the ever evolving world of professional services.

How do leaders cut through the noise, align their teams

and drive genuine innovation.

Welcome to today's episode of seek, go create, where we delve into

the art and science of creating compelling business narratives.

With Guillaume Viat, the mastermind behind the strategic narrative methodology.

Guillaume, the founder of MetaHelm has revolutionized how CEOs, founders,

and leadership teams of professional services firms clarify their vision,

differentiate their business, and inspire both their teams and the market.

Through his unique approach, he has guided prominent organizations and leaders,

including those from Alaska airlines, the Gates foundation, and Google towards

greater focus, traction, and innovation.

Guillaume, welcome to SeatGoCreate.

Hello team.

It's so good to be here with you.

It's

It is.

having,

I'm glad you're here too.

We had a great little conversation before we clicked record.

And I even said, stop, I've got to get the recorder going.

This is, this is some good information.

And I'm, I'm going to start with like my little, I call it a little

wimpy icebreaker thing, but I think it's an important question.

And that is if someone asks you with the breadth that you've got, the background,

you've got all that you do, if you just bump into someone, let's say outside of a.

Business environment, and they ask you what you do, what do you tell them?

I'll tell them and I'm an explorer and I explore the

meaning of life through business.

That's really, this really, it's been, it's been my narrative since I was a kid.

I wanted to be an expert in the literal sense of things, you know, like

packing everything in your backpack and going to places you don't know.

Exotic.

unknown territories, uncharted territories, which I did

for, for a while in my life.

I was lucky enough to travel to many countries.

but I think now, and I, interestingly, I'm very sedentary now.

I'm, I'm French, but I'm established in Seattle since 2008.

And, I, I don't travel very much, but I do explore a lot more.

I like, you know, I explore the meaning of life for me, for my clients, for

my family through business because that's kind of how I, I, I spend most

of my time doing business things.

But for me, business is a very multifaceted.

Concept, and I am an artist as well.

I am, obviously, a French native speaker, but an exo, what's called an

exophonic writer, somebody who writes in their, second or third language.

So I write in English, you know, and I explore, what I do through all

sorts of practices, like creative practices, spiritual practices.

practices, all sorts of things.

So, people say, Oh, I mean, you're, you're such a Renaissance man.

You Jack, you're a Jack of all trade.

You, you can, you're, you're talented at so many things.

And it's because from the get go, I've always had this idea that life

is so rich, so abundant that it would be, it would be a shame not

to try a bunch of things, but my.

My red thread, you know, my direction is, is really that idea of alignment

between what you do as a professional and, and the impact you want to have.

did I answer the question?

I, you did, you, you gave me a lot of information that could move us in

different directions than the, you know, three questions that I wrote down that

I might want to ask, but the word that.

The word that jumped out at me is curiosity and I have, I've found that

the age that I'm at, I think as I prep for this question, that's going

to be around curiosity, I have kind of been similar from a young age.

There were a lot of things.

I never have called myself an artist, but yet I've recently written a novel.

And I, I think what we're doing here is a certain degree of art.

It is.

Yeah,

you know, having conversations and trying to get

a story or, or a narrative, we're going to weave this word narrative

into what we're doing shortly.

But it, it's, it's fascinating to me that the negative.

of the incredibly positive way that you said what you did, which is a

Renaissance man, someone who's talented and skilled, skilled in many areas.

I had someone who called himself a polymath that I interviewed, that they're

expert in so many different areas.

The negative of it for some people could be, That they are,

and this is not a bad thing.

There's some people that they do one thing well, their entire life at times.

I'm not envious of them, but I look at them and then go, huh, wonder

what that would be like, because they will often criticize me and you

and say, are you struggling to find something you're really good at?

Or that you really want to do.

That's the negative.

And so I'll sort of ask that.

Have you ever had someone say, Guillaume, can't you just find something

that you can do and stick with it?

Oh yeah.

My parents,

respond when people say that to you?

my parents saying so many times yours too.

I mean, my early on in my corporate, early on in my corporate

career, I worked corporate for a few years when I came out of university

at Georgia Tech as an engineer.

And I was one of these at about every nine months.

In a very structured stayed environment of corporate, it was in

the telecommunications industry that was a hundred years old at the time.

Most people went in, stayed there, worked forever.

Well, in the nine years I was there, I had 10 different jobs, roles, et cetera.

and and my mother literally said at one point, is there nothing you

could find that you can do there?

Yeah, it's because maybe, maybe it's something that,

and as a, as a dad of two boys, you know, it's probably something that

would, that would scare me a bit.

You know, so, so we'll, we'll see their, their teenagers still.

So we'll see in a few years, if they, if they keep looking for

different things, I might experience the same, the same anxiety.

My parents told me, yeah, isn't there something you want to settle on and

just do for the rest of your life?

And I said, no, I'm going to be like that for a long time.

But now outside of that.

I didn't get too much.

I didn't receive too much criticism from my friends or colleagues.

and, and, and yet, because the, you know, I heard this from the

parental voice, it still made me quite uncomfortable until I think I,

I was able to figure something out.

And the, and that's, that's the following is that you don't have

to, Specialize and niche down your whole life into something, but what

so you, you can stay very diverse.

You can, you can explore very different and maybe throughout your life.

You know, there are seasons in life.

There are things you can do and can do, at different times.

And so, but, but you may want to think about specializing specific

moments or areas of your life or your, of your, or your business journey.

and in fact, you know, the, the, the, the, some of the most successful

entrepreneurs, if you look at their portfolio of businesses, and it's

a very wide range of things, but each businesses is each business.

is highly specialized in something.

So you introduced me as the, as the principal and founder of Metahelm and that

business is highly specialized in business strategy for professional services firms.

That's all I do.

Nothing else.

and then, you know, even within that buckets, I, I'm not going to go into

details now, but there are very, very specific things that I, I think I'm

really good at and others that I won't do, but metahelm is not my whole life.

Fortunately, I have, I have many other things.

So, so that's how I see it.

I hope this helps, you know, people who listen to us also.

Maybe, settle with that question, which you're right.

It's a difficult question and there's a lot of criticism.

There's a lot of debate.

Oh yeah.

You should need to, no, you should stay a generalist.

I advise my clients for the business that I hope that I

help them with to specialize.

And there are many different ways to specialize, not just an

industry or, or, or one process.

There's different ways to do that.

and that's, that's always keeping in mind that they're more than that.

They're way more than that.

And that's okay to explore other things.

Hmm.

So that.

That's how I reconciled it for me.

Yeah.

And, and, and, so this is, I guess something, I think this

is very valuable for a number of people, for the person that.

Might be feeling as if they're in one place and they hear two guys

talk about all these different things, explore, adventure, being

curious and all that kind of stuff.

And so I want, I want that person to stick around because I believe

there's value for, for what they do, because in many ways I admire that.

As much, sometimes if not more than the way, the way we have discussed we are.

But one of the things I noticed about me, and this is, I'll pose

this in the form of a question.

I noticed early on in my life, it was probably the seasons, you mentioned

this word seasons, I love that word, that I was finding who I was.

I was identifying, I was identifying the things that I

definitely wasn't going to do.

And, and I would find myself getting bored.

And, and, you know, you use the word explorer and explorer basically is

someone who goes out, but, but like you said, they could be someone close.

So the question I've got is, do you ever find yourself getting bored?

And if you don't currently, did you in the past and how have you reconciled that?

If that was the case, just, you know, boards, like, you know what?

This is not exciting me.

This is not a good narrative for me, whatever I need to do something else.

How did you address that?

You mean bored in general?

Because I, I, or, or bored because I get bored every day with a bunch of

stuff that I have to, I have to, to do.

I'll give it, I'll let you take it.

I'll, I'll let you take it.

However you want to take it for what go big picture or go granular day to day.

Either way

Yeah.

well, I did, I did, I was definitely, generally bored in my life.

I can think of a few times, you know, and then I triggered change.

I said, Oh, let's change, let's change, country.

For instance, my wife is from Seattle.

So she's.

She's the one who kind of dragged me over, but we used to live in

France and, I was bored with France.

I wanted to change and she was homesick.

So good timing.

They, you know, let's shift this.

let me tell you, it was not boring after that.

It was very, very intense and exciting for me.

And so, so yes, so, so, so I, I, in general, am I bored right now?

No.

this is a very, very exciting, time of my life.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really, really, you know, thrilled with the

amount of conversations that I have, the type of work that I do.

I was, Making a list the other day of all the topics and the experts I work with

and it ranges from somebody who's like a leading expert in the resilience, you

know, human resilience all the way to people who create better ways to cool.

high performance computers.

That's that, that's a really, really critical thing right now is to

increase power, computing power.

You have to call them in a way more effective and, and, and a sustainable way.

I work with people who help, highly sensitive people.

I'm, I was just on a call, two days ago with somebody in Saudi Arabia who wants

to create a community for entrepreneurs.

I mean.

I don't have time to get bored with all those topics.

It really, really fits my curiosity now on a date on a day to day basis.

I do.

Yeah, there's stuff that I'm not excited, you know, of doing in, in doing.

And, and, my, my son, last, this weekend we were driving and he's like,

dad, I'm really bored with school.

I feel like, you know, I just.

Push through the week, and I, I try to do my best, but it's really, really boring.

And I say, well, maybe there is a, there's a learning there, there's a lesson.

Maybe the, maybe it's here to teach you that not everything in life is always

exciting and you have to learn to do the things that you must do, you know,

to a certain extent and deal with that.

So, you know, I, I publish a lot of things.

I, you know, I do a lot of videos.

I do a lot of writing.

I, I, I, I interact with the outside world and sometimes.

Am I excited?

No, not at all.

I'm bored.

I mean, I'm like, nah, yeah, gotta do this thing, but I do it anyways.

I know that 10 seconds later I get really, really thrilled, really excited.

Oh my gosh, yes.

I could talk about this.

I could say this.

I could do that.

I could create, I could draw, I could, you know, you name it.

So that's my relationship with boredom.

And may, maybe I did.

I didn't define boredom as the same as way, the same way as you do.

But that's kind of my relationship.

Yeah, that's my

that's good.

Before I hit record, you mentioned to me that you had gone back and

listened to the origin story.

And, and I gave you a little video tour of our RV here, which gave

you a little glimpse into our life.

And I'm always fascinated because it is interesting.

There are a number of people that I think they can't learn.

Much about me, my narrative, who I am, unless they listen to that.

And your comment was similar or relatable or something like that.

I don't know the exact words.

And so I think what I'd love to do now is maybe what is, what is that?

origin story that you feel is pertinent to share as we move into this discussion

about strategic narrative here.

What is, and one of the things we do not do here, we love the tactical, we

love strategic, but we also love that identity and core of who people are,

which comes from situations like that.

So that's me giving you permission to share whatever as light or

as deep as you would like to.

We don't.

We don't use words like failure.

We call them experiences.

It's part of who we are.

So what's in, what's part of your, or your origin story that is

pertinent to the conversation here?

So, when I saw that, you know, in, I listened to

your podcast and I, I picked up, there is an origin story episode.

Then you mentioned it like, Oh, where is that episode?

So I had to scroll down on my, I think I was on Spotify.

Listen, scroll that all the way, all the way, all the way.

Like, Oh, there is that episode to me.

That's the most, one of the most interesting facets of a narrative

is where people come from now.

and, and, or, you know, there's potentially In my, in my journey,

several moments that I would call triggering events or, you know, that

could qualify for an origin story.

And it all depends on how you frame it.

And you just, you just did something, which is you, you

framed, a story with options.

You gave people a possibility just a minute ago by saying

there's no, there is no failure.

There's just learning is that, I think that's what you said.

Right.

so.

Current.

So I'll tell you my origin story as it relates to what I'm doing now.

But as, as it relates to other things in my life, maybe there are other moments in

my life that could be the origin story.

So I just, I just want to say that because it's an exercise in, relativity.

it's one of the key exercises I help my clients actually, work on and develop

because through that they unearth so much.

It's really, you know, there's a famous quote by, I don't know, I can't remember

who, but you can't predict the future.

The only way to predict the future is to look through the past because

there is nothing to look at in the future unless you have a crystal ball.

I don't have one.

So my origin story is about when I came to the, there's two moments,

first of all, working in corporations.

Working corporations, I thought that if I was really bored, Tim, I was really,

really bored and, and, and, and, I remember this, this day when, I was

a young consultant, it was probably around the late nineties, early 2000,

I was brought on to a large, energy company in France called Total.

and that brought me on because for somehow randomly, I happen to be very,

knowledgeable about the purchasing, tool that they had, and they were

stuck on a project and I'll make this part of this part of my origin story.

That's the first part short, but I kicked off the meeting.

I'm a young consultant, probably 27, 28.

I'm sitting in this room with everyone, probably double my age.

running, you know, this large, very, very large company and they all expect

from me this technical expertise.

And in the first 15 to 30 minutes, I noticed that the problem

is not the lack of expertise.

The problem is these guys don't listen to each other.

They're misaligned.

They, you know, they use different terms and acronyms and.

It's, it's an ego festival, like I know more than you and I can do, and

I can say this jargon better than you.

And so it's like, I'm like, huh, no wonder this project is stuck.

And I, I derail my own agenda and say, Hey guys, you know, I, you know, I had

a whole agenda today, but do you mind if we do this quick exercise, which

consists of grabbing a piece of paper and drawing what the project looks like.

Everyone here around the room grabs a piece of letter size, you know, piece

of paper and a pen and draws a project.

Which after a few seconds of looking at me with googly eyes, they go, okay,

I guess if the cons if the consultant say, so we'll do it, but not convinced

they did it, we posted the drawings and the drawings did the rest.

Like they could see by themselves without me saying anything, why

the project was completely stuck.

So there was a first moment in my life where I'm like, okay, I probably should

my intuition more and my creativity more.

And really pay attention to human dynamics, which I just did now.

I was terrified him.

I thought they were going to fire me right away, which at the, at

this, at this time and age in my life would have been completely

dramatic and, and the project went on.

It was actually very successful.

Two years later, they told me, Oh, we didn't, we never told you, but

you know, before you, we had fired to be consulting for us because they

couldn't, make us work together.

So it was the first element then 15 years later about, sorry.

yeah.

What was that?

Would that, that would be about 15 years?

No, sorry.

eight years later, my wife is American and I moved to the United States and

I move in this, end of July of 2008.

my plan is, hey, I know no one, so picture this, I can't, I can barely,

you know, I can speak English with this very French accent a little bit.

I don't know anyone.

And my wonderful plan is to get hired as a management consultant in the Seattle area.

And two weeks after I come here, there's no job for me.

So I had to reinvent myself.

We can't pay the bills.

My wife's a teacher.

We have our first baby.

And I am here with this, you know, pretty fancy background, you know, big firms, big

names in France that no one knows here.

And I'm faced with this challenge of what do you do now?

Do you go back to France?

Do you stay here?

Do you, what's going on?

You know, you're not making any money.

I can't last more maybe than a month with what I have in savings.

And because it's an expensive move that I paid, you know, entirely out of my pocket.

So it was a humbling moment.

and I know you applied to McDonald's.

team, back, you had to apply to McDonald's right in the early

I tried, they didn't want me.

I don't know why I couldn't even get the application in.

And I, anyway, yes,

and I.

yeah, so, so, so humbling moments similar to yours.

And I just applied to local pharmacy, to get a job as a,

you know, handyman, janitor.

I was, then I was doing yard work.

I was doing a little tutoring and it was the best thing that happened

in my life because really after that, what I noticed is that people

could not care less about my resume.

What they really want to hear is how did I survive and went through this

financial crisis we all went through here.

That was the narrative thereafter.

And they noticed that my narrative wasn't, was it by resilience, creativity,

letting go of the ego and just do what's right for, you know, for the time being.

And they, they.

And then they really, they really appreciated that.

And then as soon as, so I did all sorts of things.

And, I worked in retail.

I learned so much in retail.

I learned the English language, a bunch of slang terms too,

that was interesting for me.

So I explored a bunch.

And then after that, I go back to consulting and that's the

only thing people cared about.

Like, how did you make it through this, through these times?

Why are you coming from France?

What are you doing here?

Tell us about that.

And.

I had the chance to, to, to, to frame my narrative from the

perspective of my values versus telling them, Oh yeah, I failed.

I plan to come here and be successful right away.

And that didn't work out.

So a narrative is a choice.

A narrative is a point of view.

It's the way you look at reality, you know, it's, it's the way you, you

understand what is happening around you.

A narrative is a system of stories.

And when you start connecting those stories together, like connecting your

origin story with what you do now, then incredible things can happen.

Your narrative becomes a set of possibilities becomes more.

Open, it becomes a platform for you to communicate with people more effectively.

So it's a common language with, you know, with people, around you and so on.

So I'll pause here.

I

here thinking someone listening in might go, okay, both

these, both these guys went through something that would have had some pain.

I'm sure that, you know, there's some humbling effect.

There's some things that this is the way my wife and I worded.

I wouldn't wish our journey on anyone else, but I'm so

thankful that we went through it.

Does it have to have a valley?

Does it have to have a, it can't all be good.

Can it, or, I mean, are there any rules to this big narrative?

We're, and I want to, we're going to go a little bit deeper, but

let's talk big picture right now.

Are there any rules like, you know, there's gotta be a downfall.

There's gotta be something ugly.

don't have the answer to this question, Tim.

I'm still exploring.

I would say as of today, March, 2024, I would lean towards, I'm going to try

to say, I don't think there is a role.

I have heard origin story that are actually very positive.

Um, I, I, I think the principle is, maybe, some sort of epiphany or aha

moment and, maybe it's human nature that we have these through difficult times.

but that's a good question.

That's actually, maybe a research topic that I should call

somebody out there should do.

Maybe somebody has done that work already.

That's a very good question.

Well, let me, I want to give you a little bit of data for it, and I

don't think we'll come up with the answer,

but I did a, when I, when I, when I wrote a novel a few years back, I did a pseudo.

PR type tour that ended up being virtual, not because of COVID and things like that.

But I, I got on often, I would get on big zoom calls that had a lot of media people.

And we made our pitch three minutes to be on their show, their publication.

I mean, some of these were national television shows, things like that.

And, and that was a little bit out of reach of a lot of us that were there,

but they were, there were people there.

And, and Guillaume, I, I noticed that when I told the story that I like to

tell, which is, at that time I'm a strategic coach, I work with leaders

and businesses, et cetera, and all.

I wouldn't see people falling asleep, but I sensed it was just extremely boring.

To most of them, but when I told him the story that we had three seven

figure companies in 2008, and by 2013, we were homeless and bankrupt.

It was like, they perked up immediately and wanted to know more

and said, Oh, you'd be perfect.

And so when I found myself, and this is what I had to caution myself, I found

myself repeating that over and over.

I had like 80 pitches that I did within a course of a few days.

Mm

And when I told my other story, crickets, nothing, but when I told

that story and what I was concerned was, is that I was falling into a click bait.

It was really my story.

I am not, that's not the story.

There's a lot more to it.

You know, there's a lot more to that story and that, that hook,

I call it click bait sometimes.

And, and at times I wonder if we start molding those narratives, maybe even

exaggerate, embellish to make them fit what social media, what all is,

that might be a different question.

I'll see if I just mentioned that.

Do you, what's your response?

I don't even know if that's a question or anything.

I would just commenting.

Everything you said is true.

We shape narratives, for, to, to our advantage.

The reason why, the human species is still around for now.

is because we have an ability to do what animals can do, which is imagine things.

And we, you know, and we, we imagine terrible things or great things.

And we, we stretch the truth and we spin off things to our advantage.

We, you know, we, we do that all the time.

It's human nature.

so, so the reasons why Religions exist and are able to gather people in such

powerful movements is because we believe in, in stories that are what they are.

They're, some of them, I believe are true, some of them are not.

They're completely fictitious, but we still need them.

We, this, it's, it's, it is an existential thing.

So the fact that you go on those, on those calls and pitches and people say,

Hey, we want that piece, that narrative.

Because it works in your favor and works in their favor.

And yes, they're going to get more, more clicks and baits, sorry, clicks.

And, and, and, and it's going to be more compelling.

so it's a little bit like, a Trojan horse to the mind and hearts.

And then, and then you do what you want to do and need to do with it,

hopefully for positive intentions, right?

But some people do, do it also for negative stuff and, and it's

called, it's called propaganda.

And, and, and they do it to trigger wars and, and dominate and,

and create more arms than good.

So, But that's, that's all a question of values of it's all subjective after that.

So by definition, what you did here is you came across, Hey, yeah, we could

tell, we, I could tell so many stories.

That's what I hear all the time.

Like, you know, my clients go, Oh, I want to be able to tell my story.

And I go, okay, which one?

Well, my story, I go, well, you, you, you could tell like a thousand stories.

Which one are we going to work on?

What's going to be the most important to you?

Right?

So you are in a situation where.

You could tell a set of stories and the PR people say, no, we want this one.

There's nothing wrong with that.

So one of the things I just had a visual that is so interesting with

you being from the country of France.

I, I, I think the way I look at that story.

Is the equivalent of June 6th, 1944, when the allied forces were made the

decision with, you know, Eisenhower and the others to come across the channel and

re establish a presence in the North of France, Normandy region and all of that.

And I'm a big fan of history and things like that.

So this is, I almost can tear up when I discuss this day in history.

And I, and I love it that I'm speaking with someone who has an origin from, from

that region, or at least that country

And I, I am, I am from that region team, by the way.

it's, it's much more of a heart message to me.

So the way I perceive that portion of my narrative is the equivalent of what

Eisenhower said that they were going to do before they put the troops on.

They were going to shell, shell, shell to soften the

beachhead so that it would allow.

The troops to come in with limited loss, et cetera.

There was a lot of loss.

There was a lot that went on.

I consider that portion, that really short condensed portion of my narrative

as softening the beachhead so that there's more of an opening for me to.

Go in and do what I believe I need to do, which is discuss strategy,

discuss, you know, what can we do with the leadership circles?

And, and it did open up doors.

I mean, people love that story.

And then they sell, by the way, now, what do you, tell me more

about what you do and how you help companies and how you help leaders.

So, anyway, that thoughts.

Well, I, I think, you know, we, we want to work with people

who we can, relate to or connect with.

I mean, that's what we do in a podcast like that, by the way.

And, And the way we do this is by, is by sharing the truth from our perspective

and seeing what resonates with them.

So when people hear your story of success and struggle and success

again, ups and downs, you know, it portrays something, it portrays life.

in fact, you know, the, if we want to measure your heartbeat and you look at

this instrument, I don't know in English what the name for the instruments, you

know, it's a black screen with a little green dot it's ups and downs all the time.

Fortunately, you're alive because you know, there's moments of activity and

moments of rest and the same goes for your, for your life story is the same.

So we want to, we want to relate to somebody who's alive.

that's the, that's the nature of our society.

That's, that's the nature of who we are.

so I guess that's probably why that's my, that would be my read on

so it's.

Yeah, I want to let, let's kind of go a layer or two down and discuss what

you've titled as strategic narrative.

And there, there are a couple of words that are really fascinating to me.

The word strategic, if one looks at the strength finders, my

number one strength is strategic.

And, you know, there was a period of time where I called myself a strategic coach.

and, and till there was an organization called strategic coach that said,

we'd rather you not use that name.

We had some discussions about that and which I was fine with, you know,

but tell me about the two words.

Strategic and narrative.

And that's going to be kind of our gateway to begin moving in.

And as in, in, in, in the time that we have, there's a few layers down that

I want to keep going as far as we can.

And then people can get more information in other ways, but strategic narrative.

I'll start with the second word narrative,

which I, I make a difference between a story and a narrative.

First of all, most people, use them interchangeably rightfully.

So if you look in a basic dictionary, you'll see it's pretty much the same

definition, but there is one element that a narrative, brings in addition to

a story, which is what I said earlier, a narrative is, It's a way to look at

things, you know, and it's, you, you probably caught this on, in conversations

or on TV, we, you know, especially the, the, the journalists say very often,

Oh, the narrative about our country, the narrative about society, the narrative

about this and this, you know, problem or the near, and we say, you know,

the world has a narrative countries have narratives, your company has a

narrative and yourself has a narrative.

So.

So we're looking at something that is bigger than just the stories who are,

in my opinion, more granular concepts.

A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

You know, we, we like to think of the story as a, as, as, as a, as a cycle, as

a loop, a happy ending, typically, not in French movies, by the way, we have

no happy ending in French movies, but we still have a closure to the story.

Whereas narratives, because there are these systems of stories are open ended.

You know, your narrative unfolds all the time, as long as you, as long as

you're, you're alive and sometimes after your death, your narrative carries on.

you know, I was talking to a client, he was mentioning you, so Steve Job

with, with Apple, his narrative is still very, very much around us.

Right.

And you, and we continue to, to, to interpret it and re interpret it.

I think he was the 30 year 30th anniversary or 40th anniversary of

that famous commercial that jobs, you know, team, came to about, you

know, big brother and this lady coming into the, the, the movie theater,

throwing the hammer on the screen,

1984.

That was

right.

of the commercial.

And that was the year in the Orwell book that

they brought together.

there you go.

1984.

So that narrative, we continue to try to do something with that.

So I want, I want to make sure that we talk about this.

So a narrative is a system and, three, there are three

things that shape a narrative.

again, I'll start with the most obvious and simple.

It's the language.

when people Asked me, Oh, you can, can you, you know, can you work with me?

They immediately think, Oh, we're going to work on our marketing, our communications

and sales, whatever in involves language.

And in, in an organization is very much thought as what is happening outside.

I mean, there's obviously also internal communication, but the first layer of a

narrative is what we say, words forge.

So many things around us, you know, and the first thing they, they

forge is our mindset, which is the second layer of a narrative.

Your narrative happens.

First of all, in your mind, without you saying anything, you look at something,

you think about a situation, Tim, and immediately your narrative kicks in.

Narratives are these, cognitive bias.

They are there to help us function without thinking too much.

Our brain doesn't, doesn't like to overthink.

So, the way you look at working with a client, the way you look

at your day, you have a narrative.

That narrative can be positive or negative.

You wake up and you go, Gosh, I'm so excited today.

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be, I'm gonna learn something.

Or, oh my gosh, another day.

you know, I hear people say, how are you doing today?

Ah, just like a Monday.

What kind of mindset, you know, does this bring to, to a day to, you know, and even

my tone of voice indicated a negative narrative about, about a narrative.

The third element of a narrative is just simply, your actions.

What, what do you do, you know, and in a company, it's

going to be mostly materialized through your workflow processes.

So that's what a narrative is.

You can look and look around.

It's not just true for businesses.

It's true for, religious organizations, societies, government, any,

groups of human beings trying to achieve a goal together.

That's a fundamental mechanism that you will see just everywhere.

Look around.

It's everywhere.

So that's what a narrative is.

Now, why did I put strategic in front of it is because I wanted to,

Can I pause you, can I pause you one second?

Because I want to, I, you know, I'm not going to let the strategic die.

We'll come back to that, but I've got a few.

questions about narrative.

And if it, if it's going to tie in later, you could say, Tim, we'll

get to that, or they could do more.

The first thing that came up for me when I was doing some studying research

and I read through your book was one of the things we're told in our modern

business world is something around this.

You need to know who your audience is.

And, and so one of the things that I kept thinking about, it wasn't nagging

at me, but usually if I'm thinking about it, it's something that's

rolling around in my mind is how does.

Narrative relate to the person that's creating it versus a

person that's attempting to create something for a specific audience.

Okay.

Is that something you want to address?

Is it

quickly or is it not?

it.

No, no, I can

Let me kind of quick, cause there's a few other

things that are a little deeper.

So just kind of say a few things about that quickly.

quickly is a narrative is very much something that comes,

comes from the inside, inside out.

So it has to be really, really tied to, you know, where we

talked about the origin stories.

what are your values?

What do you, it's almost like spiritual, emotional.

You have to feel it inside before you preoccupy yourself with the audience.

And, and that that's, it goes in tandem.

but I would, I would encourage you guys, whoever's listening and team, you know,

think about the narrative as something that, because it's, it's such, like I said

earlier, it's such a, it's subjective.

So it's something you get to shape.

It's a perspective.

So I'll, I'll pose here.

All right.

So I like that because that's good because what that does is it allows people to

be true to themselves and not get into the manipulation embellishment or, you

know, a lot of things that could happen in the world today where it's like, you

know, and I need to come up with a story.

It's not me, it's not my narrative, but I just need to come up with

one so I could sell some stuff.

That's the cynical comment that I'll make.

Second thing, how does.

Cultures fit into narrative.

I think you said it earlier, but I just want to make sure I'm clear because we do

have cultures here in the United States.

My concern is we have two different cultures that are clashing currently,

but then you have a good perspective of obviously another country's culture.

I just got back from a trip, uh, where I went to the central Ohio

where it's a very heavy Amish.

Culture.

I had some business to do and also some ministry work.

It was fascinating to me to learn.

I learned some things about narratives there, but so just talk

a little bit more about culture and then I've got one more item that

will lead us into that strategic.

Discussion.

Well, okay.

So the, one of the basic definition of cultures is the

way we do things around here.

So we'll let, let's start there.

So, and you talk about the Amish, the Amish are known, you

know, move those barns and build those barns very, very quickly.

How do they do this?

Well, they, you know, they, they, they rally a bunch of people.

It's a number thing like it's, and, and it's, it's very, okay.

well orchestrated.

I've never seen one live, but I've watched many, many videos because that

was actually one of the culture I was interested in learning more about.

And when you do things around here, you do certain things based,

you, you base your decisions.

on a certain type of values.

Values are how we decide, right?

And values, then there's another connection, which is values are

inherently, their, their choices, their, their, their, their ways

you look at things, which is by definition, what a narrative is.

So, this is getting a little technical here in my, in my domain,

but clearly culture, cultures have narratives because the way we interpret

reality, we do it through our values.

And that's what a culture is.

Does this make

All right.

Yeah, that's very good.

And, and I also want to be clear.

I, I am actually not Amish, but one of the things I had to do real

quickly was, adjust a few things.

I didn't, I didn't change.

I don't believe I did not change my narrative, but I changed a few things.

About what I discussed and how I said some things.

That's another topic it's based on how you've said narrative up up to this

point, it, it's becoming apparent to me that there, everyone has a narrative.

It's just many people have not taken the time to work on it.

And my guess is that's where the strategic comes in.

Is that a good gateway into talking about strategic?

Okay.

Take off and go.

So, yeah.

So the whole, the whole point is to realize, okay, so we, we've just,

you know, in the, in the past 10, 15 minutes, we've just laid the foundation

to define what a narrative is.

So if you agree with that, that definition, then you go, wow.

Okay.

Well, I know that I understand it better.

I see that's a system.

There, there are things I get, there are choices I can make.

Strategy is now a practice that makes a lot of sense.

You can, you can, you can shape that narrative.

You can decide on it.

You can set some intentions.

There are things that, why strategic is because we're taking a narrative

from unconscious to consciousness.

Right.

And there is always layers of neuronarrative data that are, you're

not going to be fully aware of, but if you start really digging into this and

looking at it as a system, you can be strategic about it, which means you can

align what you're trying to do, And, and, and really shape your narrative

to, to your advantage, as we said earlier, and to get your goals better.

So if you're, if, if you are, you know, we said ministry, you said

they were running ministry, you know, you're, you're in ministry, maybe,

maybe the narrative about you and your group and your organization needs to.

Be revisited to have higher impact or an impact that is more aligned with the

kind of ministry you want to engage in.

In fact, I like to say that, one of the ways you can, change your

narrative is through, marketing.

I, you know, and I'm, I'm going to talk about, private for profit organizations

for, for a moment, marketing.

And I define your marketing as your ministry.

I even say this to my clients who are not particularly religious or

spiritual, say, this is your ministry.

It's, it's about how you care for others, give value first, see, see your community,

your market as the people you serve.

And that's what you do through.

Your marketing.

So how do we get strategic about your narrative?

I broke it down because it was very, it was very complex for me for a while.

And, specializing in professional services firms.

I thought, okay, I mapped it out for many, many years, Tim.

And I broke it down into 12 practices.

I looked around and like, okay, there are really 12 things, 12

patterns that I see all the time.

I've been in consulting for 32 years and that's the research I did being in

large firms, small firms, engineers, consultants, coaches, designers,

marketers, all sorts of, and they all engage in those 12 practices.

So that's my framework.

That's my model.

Is it perfect?

Is it true?

No, but it's useful.

When people see this, they go, Oh yeah, that's me.

I see these 12 all the time.

I'm so glad it's on the map because now we can be strategic about them.

We can decide where we want to spend our time.

We can decide how we want to approach some of those practices,

maybe ignore them totally or.

Or completely dabble down on some of them.

And that's how your narrative becomes strategic.

fits together.

Yeah, that, that, that all, that fits together well.

And I'm, I'm sitting here now going, let's see here.

We, we definitely don't have time to hit all 12.

And as we wrap up here, we'll tell people where they can go to get that.

I think I, just before we got on, I looked, I think you've got those 12 laid

out in a chart type form in your book.

Is that correct?

And I was.

yeah, the, my, my, so you're, you're mentioning my book.

It's the, it's a, it's an online digital book that only that I, I did in 2021.

And I have a new updated version on my website and it turns out I, I'm,

I'm preparing, you can't see it.

It's on the side of my office here, but I have big charts and that's good.

I'm going to make it more visual for people, more metaphorical, for people

to look at that, at that visual.

Yeah.

Right.

And maybe that fits into the meta helm that you were bringing up there.

Then, and I want to get some feedback here.

I loved the visual aspect.

I actually downloaded that portion of the book and I don't know if it was the 2021.

I thought I had 2022 on the,

Oh yeah.

Sorry.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was early

Anyway, maybe it was, but, but I, I downloaded it to read

on my Kindle and just the visuals I missed because when I opened it up on

my computer a little while ago, like, you know, 30 minutes ago, I went, wow,

the visual is excellent on my computer.

The Kindle, Kindle took away from it a little bit.

The information was still there.

So, great, great resource.

I look forward to the next

iteration of it.

There's something, there's something, I think I want to hang out.

on narrative in the time we have left, because I, I think

it's so foundational, okay?

Because I see it everywhere.

And when you were speaking about a business sharing what they did,

you mentioned ministry leaders.

I, I literally kind of had this sentence of You know, gospel, the word gospel

is, is really the root of that is good news and sharing the gospel of

even a business, a business owner, someone who's an electrician is sharing

the good news about your business.

And I, there's nothing blasphemous about that.

So if anybody's out here and wants to throw rocks at me,

you know, You can't find me.

I live in an RV and travel.

So anyway, but I do think that business owners, I think leaders, I think people,

even in families in all areas need to be able to share that good news about

whatever it is they're doing, whether.

Whether they think they do or not, I believe they do.

And there's a term that I saw called narrative power, and I've got the

definition, this written here, but I think what I'd love for you to, let's

talk in the time we have about narrative power, you can maybe go through the

definition that you've got or whatever.

And, and let's just, let's just really hit home with people why

it's important to establish.

Their narrative, not someone else's, one they think will work, but their narrative.

So however you want to go with that, take, take off Guillaume.

Like I said before, narratives have this ability to bring

people together because we start to share a common set of stories and

therefore, and from these stories, we pull, learnings, insights.

principles and, you know, narratives help us share our values.

So narratives have really this effect of gathering people, assembling

groups that can accomplish more than the sum of themselves.

That's one, of the powers of narrative.

But more recently, and I think you're, you're probably referring to

a definition that I put online and I talked a lot about in the last two years.

One, and I would say one of the main power of the narrative is to defy

the normal when the normal is wrong.

and I thought, okay, yeah, that's the, that's the definition.

And I'm like, Hmm, it's probably one of the main definitions, but it's not

the only power that the narrative has.

So I just want to, I just want to, I mean, constant evolution team.

So,

Well, that, that's actually what I, that's

actually what I picked up on.

And there were two thoughts that went through my head when I read that.

My first thought.

Which I'm, I'm at a stage in life where I think I'm getting more mature.

Finally, that I said, Oh, I like that.

It's like, if we get really good at communicating our message, our

narrative, then we can let other people know where they're wrong, but then my.

more mature answer was later and you've kind of brought it up.

It brings people together.

There is a way that I think it communicates kind of who we

are and the people that might need to be in, in our group.

I hate to say tribe because that's one of the challenges that

we're seeing in a bigger, you know, political and other arenas.

But I do think it lets people know.

And again, I just went to a part of the country that they are

very close knit and I would.

Typically be critical of that.

But after spending some time there, I, I think I'm not.

So, so anyway, those, that was the bouncing around in my head

about using the word wrong.

Yeah, I, I was experimenting with the definition

because I wanted to, to, to be a little bit thought provoking here and also

exploring with, I really felt this and I really meant that definition.

I will still use that definition, but I think it's, like I said, you know, it's

not the only one, but, look at values, you know, there's, there's, depending on how,

on how you look at a situation with your.

Personal set of values.

You may look at things as, as right or wrong.

Go to a different country and I go to France and your table manners

are going to be probably very wrong.

Table manners that are very right in the U S are going to be very wrong.

I'm using the examples because I have the conversation with my kids

or half French and half Americans.

So, so that, that, that's one of the powers of, of narrative is, and

that's, that's a little bit tying to this idea of, it's divisive, right?

We agree, we disagree, what's wrong, what's right, and all that.

So we have tribes and clans and, and maybe tensions and conflicts and wars

then, you know, how does this escalate?

So it's not, so looking at narrative just from that perspective, just for that

purpose, I don't think it's very healthy.

Narratives, can really help bring people along together.

And actually also bring a lot of peace narratives are also very stabilizing.

you know, there are two powers to, to, to, to, to major kinds

of powers for a narrative.

One is to transform and disrupt to change things.

And one is to stabilize things.

You know, if you think about the, the narrative around recycling.

You know, why do we recycle here in this, in this country?

We forgot why.

It was a, it was a made up narrative made by the, the packaging and plastic

manufacturers because they needed to sell more, more of their products

and make people feel good about it.

So they say, Oh, no problem.

We'll recycle it.

Right.

And that has stabilized a whole entire industry.

We keep recycling just this morning.

I got my blue bin out here in the street and I keep doing it.

But then I also know because I tried to be informed that only six

to 9 percent of my recyclable stuff actually is only recycled the rest.

So, 91 to 94 percent goes to landfill.

So that's, that, that, that stabilize, that, that narrative, that stabilize

and the whole entire industry and society probably needs to change.

I'm not an expert.

I'm not in this conversation, but just to illustrate here that there

are many facets to narrative power.

Now, now that I have researched and thought about it,

agree.

And, and I, and I think, and this is what I don't want to do with this conversation.

I want to give someone, who's sitting here going, Hmm, I'm not sure about my

narrative, my organizations, my teams, my business, my, I even think families.

You know, have narratives also.

So let's, let's assume in our last minute or two here, let's just

say someone's going, Oh, I need, I need some work in this area.

Because I think you and I are in agreement.

This spills over into everything that begins happening after here.

So.

tangible, tactical, maybe some first steps.

And I know, and we'll talk about it in just a moment.

There's a book you've got, there's things you do to work with people,

but let's just say it's someone that says, okay, what would be a first step?

What is something that I can do to just kind of get it started or move to a

next stage in, in helping to define my narrative or, or, or move that forward?

I said earlier that a narrative is a system of stories

and there are four, four stories that you can start working on immediately.

We covered one in detail today, which is the origin story.

Like what, what defines who you are as a leader or as a dad or mom or a

partner or, or, or a kid or family?

Like what is one, one event that really had the type of impact

that it shaped the way you behave?

So I'll leave it at that.

That's one story you can explore as a family, as a group.

The second story I invite everyone to explore is what

I call the opportunity story.

Opportunity comes from the Latin root of portum venens,

which is, you know, indicates, a safe harbor we want to get to.

you know, and if you read in the Bible, you know, the, the, the,

there's many allusions to us, to an opportunity, you know, a safe harbor.

people cross, you know, that when the seas, the sea open and people crossing,

they want to go to the promised land.

That's the promised land.

So as a person, as a family, as a group, as whoever, what is the

opportunity you're thriving for?

How do you describe it?

What will you see when you get there?

What will happen if you don't get there?

These are very basic.

I didn't say simple questions because they are deep questions, right?

But these are the questions that you need to explore, maybe journal

about, talk about with your friends, and then, you know, have a certain

degree of formality and really try to answer those questions of today.

If it's for a business or a ministry, religious organization,

write them down, publish them, and have the conversation about them.

The third story is the perspective story.

Okay, if we agree on Where we come from and where we're headed,

what's our perspective about how we're going to get there?

I know your perspective currently, Tim, is to have a smaller footprint.

In your life, you live in an RV.

That's your perspective.

In fact, this morning I asked my wife, Hey, I'm going to

talk to Tim this morning.

I really, I would really love to live in an RV like he does.

And she said, Oh, I would hate it.

I'm like, why?

Oh my gosh, I need space.

I need to be settled.

I need to be somewhere.

And I'm like, okay, all right.

I guess that's a difference.

We have a difference in perspective about how we want to create the

opportunity of our lifetime.

So that's an example.

Cause I know it's yours.

So I, taking and our listeners know that.

So, but for, for an organization, is it, you know, do we want to bring,

innovation through engineering or teaching or what's our perspective

on the problem we're trying to solve?

And then the fourth thing is what I call for business is the product story.

think about here in our context, think about product as something

tangible material you can have in your head, not necessarily just as

a business product that you sell and package and market, but what is

the tangible thing that you will do?

So maybe the product story in a ministry is going to be a set of

events, for instance, or actions or campaigns or conversations or things

we give to people or do with people.

It's a very tangible.

Aspect of that material.

So you can see it.

You think you can take pictures of it.

You can describe it in very, very practical, you know, tangible things.

You can most of the time put a price on it.

You can put monetary value on it.

These are the four key essential stories that you can start immediately,

work on to shape your narrative.

That is perfect because I think that gives people something

tangible, but it is a beginning.

Guillaume at this.

Yeah, it's per, I mean, I think, I think some people will need some outside help

definitely, but there are people that can take that and, and like you said, journal,

think about it, talk to their spouse, talk to their leadership team, talk to other

people in their organization, you know, bring somebody in that type thing, tell me

now, this is a great time to transition.

Tell me about the resources that you have.

And if someone wanted to engage with you or do some interaction

with you, this is a time to promote.

Tell me where they need to go.

We're going to include it in the notes, books, resources, coaching.

I know, you know, consulting, I know you've got all that.

Tell us about all of that now.

the good news is I have a lot of free resources for people

and, I'm just going to, pull one out of the multitude here, which is, it's

a video on YouTube that I, that I have, and it's called systems of stories.

So if you look up on YouTube system of stories to GD narrative, and if you can,

add my name, Guillaume Viat, you will immediately go there and it walks you.

It's a case study from, from, from, from a company I have there.

So that's the first resource if we, cause we just talked about it.

But now if you want a broader picture and, and really learn more, go to metahelm.

com.

M E T A H E L M.

that's the name for my business, now eight years old.

And I thought about MetaHelm because it means guiding the guides.

It's what guides the guides and that's your narrative.

And on my website, you will have a free assessment, 12 questions to

see, help you gauge where you are in, in building narrative power.

More articles, more resources, and there is a tab called services.

And if you want to my, my professional, help and bring me on, that's where

you will find the information.

Yeah, I do agree.

I believe you've definitely generous with information on my On my laptop

here, I've got the windows that are open where I was looking at your information.

And I've got strategic narratives, the YouTube channel.

I've got your LinkedIn profile, which is has information and, and information.

So, and your book, I've got your book that's opened up here too.

So we'll definitely include all that.

So Guillaume, thank you so much.

We are Go create those three words.

If there was one of those words that resonated more with you or means more at

this time, don't overthink it, but seek, go or create, which one do you choose?

And why?

I'll go with sick.

but I have to confess that, I, can I get create too?

I like both, but I'll start if I really have to make a choice, I'll just,

I'll go with sick because it ties to curiosity and constantly going,

looking for something you will, you know, you don't, you don't know yet.

And I think that's such a refreshing term and.

indicates motion, openness, possibilities.

I'm, I'm part of a group called, the school of possibilities.

I am a, a possibility Tarjan.

And so that's why I will pick sick.

Very good.

Well, there's a reason that we put them in that order and seeking.

almost always leads to creating.

So, beautiful thing.

Guillaume Viot, thank you so much for joining us here.

I appreciate all, all of this conversation and I believe it's been a blessing

and nourished the people listening in and I encourage people to go.

Get more, get more from Guillaume.

He gives a lot of information and I could tell from his heart.

He genuinely wants, people to get this.

And so, and so go check out his information.

We are SeekGoCreate.

We release new episodes here every Monday.

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