Why I’m building StoryPal

The way you tell your stories is about to change.

4.5 years ago, I stumbled into something that completely changed how I share and grow: building in public.

Today, I’m sharing what I’m building after getting burned out 12 months ago. I took my time to search for it and I’ll also tell you why I think it matters now more than ever. Ready?

I want to bring you back to 4.5 years ago when I discovered the topic “building in public”.

If you don’t fully understand this strategy, let me try to share it in 5 seconds: you’re sharing stories around what you’re building to attract people to what you’re building, all while lifting your credibility and trustworthiness in them.

Look closer around you and you’ll find a few people doing it so well. Like think of that YouTuber who is speaking from the heart to connect with you. That’s an example. But nope, you don’t need to film a 20-min video to do the same. You can choose your own format.

In the last few years, my teaching was pretty old school.

You buy my course and learn from the videos and bite-sized exercises I’ve put together. Once you feel ready, you start building in public and telling your stories.

Learn → Do.

But … I said old school for a reason. This two-phase process lacked something.

I started thinking, what if you can do first and then pick up the learnings as you do? I’m not talking about bite-sized exercises for learning's sake, I’m talking about actually telling stories and learning from the action.

LEARN → DO vs DO → LEARN

Imagine flipping this: instead of learning first, what if the doing is the learning?

My daughter learned cycling last month by getting on the bike on day 1!

It wasn’t possible before, but now with AI, I’m seeing it differently:

• AI is a smart companion and can be there to both execute and guide you.

• For most people, it is difficult to use LLM like ChatGPT to achieve this themselves. Too many steps. It has to be easier.

So, I’m not turning away from teaching. I still love it so much. I’m a little tired of just selling courses. I want to explore a new way to help you tell your stories and learn storytelling at the same time.

Introducing StoryPal

StoryPal is your new friend to help you get your stories out to the world.

Think of it like a friend sitting across from you with a warm cup of coffee, asking just the right questions.

Or think of it as you’re having a group conversation and this friend just patiently listens to what’s said.

StoryPal is there to capture what you’re building, thinking, and living through and help shape it into something worth sharing. This way you can stay relevant and connected to the world.

Don’t Build a Personal Brand. Build an Active Presence

Also, I think this is where a lot of people get it wrong when posting about themselves.

In my book, I talked about this.

A static personal brand is the image you put up for other people to see. It is a perception. It is a one-way street.

An active presence is you being there, sharing what’s happening in your life right now, and engaging with people. It is a two-way street.

Which one do we all enjoy these days? Pretty obvious.

This is why I think so many new tools out there get it wrong. They promise to help you create 100 pieces of content in 9 seconds. Yup, you’ll have a bunch of posts to “keep your presence alive”. But for what?

For no one to care about you?

You don’t build any connections and you don’t earn any credibility.

I’m more interested in helping you showcase what an amazing person you are in real life and bringing you closer to the people around you.

But how?

StoryPal is Here for You

I’ve taught, coached, and chatted with so many people who struggle with this over the last few years.

Here’s what I know about busy entrepreneurs and CEOs:

• You know you have so many goodies in your head, but you have no time to sit down to create content to share them in public.

• You try to perfect the stories or content (whatever you call it) and overthink to the point you just don’t do it.

• You have no time to learn and apply those amazing storytelling frameworks.

These are the moments I want to build StoryPal to smooth out.

StoryPal is Not Magic

But I don’t want to set the wrong expectation here. I don’t think StoryPal is 100% magic, like you just do nothing and it creates all the stories and builds your brand for you.

That’s a scam.

I can’t build something like that. That’s not what a “Broccoli Guy” would do.

The way I want you to see StoryPal is more like …. yup, a pal.

You’ve got to do your part so that your pal here can do the rest.

If you don’t even take the time to live, build, and reflect, then what stories can your pal manufacture to represent you?

Because you’re doing it, you’ll get better at capturing and telling your stories over time.

Where I’m At

Honestly, I’m still super early in building StoryPal (except I still took the time to whip up a logo ha!)

I started my career as a software engineer, and I ran a SaaS startup in 2019-2020, but all this is still new to me. I plan to just get started by myself to see what I can make out of this.

I want to share early because well, I’m a fan of building in public. I want to share the steps I’m taking to make this happen. I want to share the good, the ugly, and everything in between. I'd love you to get involved at some point if you’re interested.

Who knows. Maybe this project evolves into something unexpected, or maybe it doesn’t take off at all. But that’s the spirit of building in public. I’m not looking for guarantees, I’m all for sharing my honest progress.

Not going to lie but I’m very excited about this. I feel like the tools are there to make this happen, but the art is in the user experience design. It has to be something simple and useful. That’s it.

If this sounds like the kind of pal you’ve needed by your side, click here to join the list. And I’ll keep you posted as StoryPal takes shape into something real, useful, and fun.