Where the One Minute Message began

During the early years of my career, I was a writer at a magazine. And without realising it, that is where the One Minute Message began. I sat down with people who built businesses, lost children, won medals, survived accidents, suffered from physical and mental conditions, travelled the world, realised their dreams... different stories, with similar constraints - the people who "owned" the stories did not tell them well. Even those who spoke a lot. Because their stories were complex, not complicated. Complicated is hard to understand, but has a clear and logical structure and can be solved by applying rules - like building a rocket. Complex has many interconnected parts that interact in unpredictable ways - like you.

Could I have just written down what they told me? Yes. Would that have been fair to them, their stories, and the people downstream reading them? No. Gripping tales of grit, resilience, love, and loss would have been drowned in the flood of soulless stories you can find anywhere. 

I wanted to write down what I heard, not what they told me.

And that is how it began. 

I stopped asking for facts, and I guided them towards what their story was really about, why it mattered, and what must happen. I found that people mostly share their experiences to be of some value to others - a call to action, if you wish. No story is complete without it, and no call to action will take effect without convincing arguments or evidence. And you cannot formulate an argument or present evidence if you are not clear about the topic.

In a way, I reverse-engineered the One Minute Message during those years - without having a clue that I was busy building a communication model. It not only captivated readers, but also helped the people behind the stories make sense of what had happened to them (good or bad). And no, not like therapy. We didn't dig deep; we just took the already revealed content and structured it in a simple, sensible way. And if you can tell your story well, you can move on to deal with its impact and consequences (again, good or bad). 

I received many emails and messages of thanks back then, and I might share some of the actual stories as I remember them, but one that really stood out was about a young man who shared his story of addiction. He told me about his failures and shortcomings, but I heard about his talent and success. About his creativity and musical genius that he wanted to share with the world. As always, I asked him if I could write down what I heard first, and then he could change it as he pleased. "This is it," he said as he read it. "This is my story - I just didn't know how to tell it."

Today, he is living a full life as a music teacher and has described that article as a turning point. But it wasn't the article; it was his message that finally found the right words so that he, and those around him, could understand what he wanted to say, why it mattered, and what should happen. 

As my career progressed, I realised that the same principle applied in marketing, management, collaboration, and so on.

I'll share more examples and new insights here, so stay tuned.