I’m very much a recovering perfectionist.

I was one of those overachiever kids in school who was always praised for doing excellent work—and who therefore got a complex about delivering anything less than a perfect outcome.

(Not realizing for far too many years that the effort was the important part, not the outcome.)

So, yeah. I’ve spent a lot of energy over the years afraid to take action before I knew I was 100% prepared. Worried about making mistakes—especially in public. Terrified of letting people know that I actually wasn’t the perfectly put-together person they tell me I am.

When I started Story Rebel, I decided to take a different tack.

I was inspired in part by a course I took from Derek Johanson, Email Based Businesses. I’d taken his CopyHour course years ago, and have been on his email list ever since. I like his methods. But what I really like is his willingness to learn in public.

So when he launched EBB to his mailing list and invited people in for a messy beta run of the material, I jumped at the chance to see how a pro like Derek created something from scratch.

I learned a ton from the course, but the biggest thing I took away was this:

“Build it as you go” is terrifying advice for a perfectionist.

And maybe Jessie from a few years ago would have ignored that advice and just written an entire 4-week course ahead of time anyway.

But even though the thought made my inner perfectionist break out in hives, I decided to follow Derek’s advice anyways.

No more polishing something to perfection that nobody actually wants. No more creating amazing things and never letting them see the light of day because I’m too scared they aren’t good enough.

So I ran with it. And it turns out the antidote to perfectionism and analysis paralysis is committing to learning in public—and not taking yourself so seriously.

Running the Story Finding Challenge was an exhilarating experience!

And, in the spirit of learning in public, I thought you all might appreciate hearing the lessons I learned from running the course.

Let’s start with the positive, shall we?

1. Writing about this lights me up

The biggest surprise was how shockingly easy it was for me to write an email a day for four weeks. I thought it was going to be tough. I didn’t know if I’d be able to sustain my energy and momentum. After all, I’ve been in a massive writing slump in the past two years since my eye injury, so committing to an email a day was really pushing my limits.

Let me rephrase that for anyone looking in and thinking, “But, Jessie, what do you mean you’ve been in a writing slump? You’ve been so productive and resilient!”

I’ve been writing since my injury. I’ve made words happen. But I’ve been in an excitement slump, pouring from a completely empty well.

I expected that to continue—but instead I found myself inspired and excited about what I was writing for the Story Finder Challenge. I feel a little guilty that I’m not writing fiction, but apparently, talking about the intersection of fiction and marketing is my happy place right now.

So that was nice to discover!

But now for the more challenging lessons…

2. I should have picked a different format

My original vision for SFC was to create a four-week challenge course with a daily email encouraging readers to write down a story from their day. The idea was to help people build a story-finding habit and give them some light instruction along the way.

It turns out I wanted to go deeper.

What started out as a series of fairly inspirational emails quickly became tactical deep dive lessons—and I routinely had to cut myself off from writing 2,000-word missives on raising the stakes, understanding character motivation, and more.

This taught me that helping people simply build a habit isn’t nearly as interesting to me as deep dive tactical instruction. That’s why I decided to make version 2.0—the Great Story Heist—shorter in time length (only 2 weeks) so I can make each lesson more robust.

3. Not every lesson delivered real value

Along those same lines, I realized that the parts of SFC which gave me the most joy were the ones where people responded saying they’d had a real breakthrough.

It’s nice to feel like I inspired somebody. But it’s fantastic to feel like I helped them move the needle in a powerful way.

Those breakthroughs seemed to mostly come when we dug into specific types of stories (Week 3 in the original course). People discovered their own origin stories, dug into their customer stories, and learned how to craft things like audience stand-in stories and manifestos that act as a siren call to their tribes.

This taught me where exactly to focus in the Great Story Heist: on the lessons that help people find specific stories and make real impact.

4. I didn’t define my audience clearly enough

I fell into the trap many people do, which is that I tried to pretend that SFC was for everyone—instead of narrowing my audience to talk to one specific ideal customer avatar.

And, yes. So many different kinds of people could benefit from this challenge! (And from the Great Story Heist.) But not defining my audience meant I was speaking more generically than was useful—both in the email lessons, and in my marketing around it.

This taught me that I need to directly address my core audience: the purpose-driven coach/consultant/entrepreneur who sells transformation and is having trouble explaining what they do to their own customers.

5. I had a hard time making the abstract tangible

I often found myself struggling to write about fairly abstract topics like “misbelief” and “what makes a selling story” in a way that would be easy for people to grasp and apply.

Ironically, I probably should have used more stories to illustrate what I was trying to teach. I definitely should have used more real life examples of things like sales pages, social media marketing, and ad campaigns.

As I go back and rework the lessons of SFC to create the Great Story Heist, I’m adding a lot more examples and concrete details to help make sure that people can understand what I’m talking about.

I also ended up creating several tools that I sent out to the members of the original course, which I will be adding and expanding in the next version—including a Case Study template and interview guide, the Story Finder “app”, and the Origin Story Workbook I sent you all last week. (You can find it here.)

6. It’s impossible to see your own story while you’re inside of it

I wrote a bit in last week’s Door of No Return email about how I struggled to see my own story until I traded coaching calls with a friend.

But this weekend, I had a conversation with a different friend that shed more light on how hard it is to see your own story while you’re standing inside of it. I won’t go into too much detail here, because I’m still processing what he said to me, but it did highlight a big gap in the original SFC course.

Even somebody who has immersed herself in storytelling can have trouble putting these elements into practice in her own life. That’s why I decided to add an extra layer of support into the Great Story Heist. If people want real-time coaching, I added a VIP tier to facilitate that.

I appreciate each and every one of you who have joined me in these early days of Story Rebel. It’s exciting, it’s fun, and it’s been very life-giving.

Hope you’re well!

Jessie

P.S. If you’re curious about the Great Story Heist, you can learn more here.

(And if you already took SFC, I’m happy to add you to GSH for free—just let me know!)