Work 1:1 with Storytelling Coach, Jordan Bower

Introducing Storytelling Coach, Jordan Bower

Storytelling and narrative have been my passion ever since I was a little boy, when my mother used to scold me for bringing books to the dinner table. To appease her, I would put the book on the floor, holding it open with my feet. I can’t remember if I ever grew skilled enough with my toes to turn the pages, but I do remember that my mother still found this solution unpalatable.

Through high school and college, I always had my nose in a book. Often, I dreamed of being an author, but I never imagined that I could actually make a career out of it. Instead, my early storytelling exploits were long emails and travelblogs—remember them?—that I would send home when I galavanted around the world as a soul-searching twenty-something. I would often supplement these long, navel-gazing articles with my travel snapshots. Assembling these stories digitally made me think about storytelling in a much different way—experiential, immersive.

I threw myself into studying this subject matter, teaching myself off the side of my desk. Eventually, I had the great fortune of stumbling into storytelling mentors who taught me the kinds of things that one discovers on one’s own hero’s journey.

By my early 30s, I told myself that I knew enough about storytelling to call myself a subject matter expert. I began marketing a business storytelling training that I intended to sell to corporate and leadership communicators. When I put up my first website, everyone I knew thought I was nuts. But the idea stuck—ten years plus later, I have delivered nearly 200 storytelling trainings to thousands of learners, and I have become fluent in my subject matter.

I still swoon for the art of the subject matter—though, in truth, these days, I read fewer books than I would like. 😝

Though I have a busy professional practice as a workshop facilitator, a keynote speaker, and a strategic narrative consultant, I still enjoy maintaining several 1:1 coaching clients at a time. I find being a story coach deeply fulfilling—working 1:1 brings a feeling of connection, creativity, and collaboration. Most importantly, I get to enjoy the tangible results of watching my coach-ees learn and grow right before my eyes.

I would welcome the opportunity to travel this unique and remarkable creative journey together!

How I Approach Storytelling Coaching

When you spend as much time thinking and talking about storytelling as I do, you start to realize that the word “story” carries almost unimaginable complexity.

Many people tend to think of a story as a single concrete thing. This makes sense, because it is the version of story that we are most familiar with. A book, a speech, an article, a TikTok video, a movie, and a streaming series all have a beginning, middle and an end. (So does a Powerpoint deck.) So naturally, most people tend to think that storytelling is about perfecting this thing. Understanding structure. Focusing on language. After all, this was the way that many of us learned storytelling in English class.

Most people are disarmed when I remind them that these perfectly structured things are actually built on an invisible foundation. You could think of this as a storytelling process. In the process of developing a story, we find ourselves asking questions like:

• What’s the essence of the message I’m trying to get across

• Who am I trying to speak to, and what do I understand about their habits, perceptions, needs, wants and values

• What part of my message will they find interesting

• What’s the best way to present the message so that they will find it engaging

The result of answering questions like this is what we can think about as storytelling “choices”—like structure and language, but also voice, perspective, and tone. Design approaches. Typefaces. The pursuit is endless.

Learning to be a storytelling can not be accomplished through structure alone. If you only learn structure, then you sound like a storyteller who has only learned structure. You sound like a Mad Lib. Or ChatGPT. You sound like someone else.

One of my primary goals, as your storytelling coach, is to help you sound like… you.

What I Coach People On

The short answer is that people come to me with many different questions and issues that relate to business, leadership and communication.

The slightly longer answer is that some people come to me with a specific storytelling need in mind.

• Some need to perfect a storytelling thing, like a speech, a presentation or a piece of thought leadership.

• Some are thinking bigger picture about the types of stories they want to tell—so they can elevate the perception of their projects, their business, or even themselves. I call these narratives. For example, a brand narrative, a change narrative, a fundraising narrative, or your personal narrative as a leader that you want to share to your stakeholders or audiences

• Some people are coming to me with a problem. They get lost in the weeds. They’ve got feedback that they are a little boring. They want to do a better job thinking on their feet, they want to feel a little more confident in their public speaking.

• Many feel like they have an important story that needs to get heard—and they aren’t quite sure how to advance it.

Each of these are wonderful jumping off points. They are the start of the story. As a coach, I see my role as walking the creative journey alongside of you. Sometimes I will offer advice or subject matter expertise—like storytelling principles or frameworks. Sometimes I will give you feedback. Sometimes I will listen to your frustration.

As every storyteller knows, each of these—and more—are essential parts of the process. This collaborative approach helps you find the right story, and connect yourself with the storyteller that we all have inside.

What to Expect from the Storytelling Coaching Experience

Let’s address the logistics first:

• Normally, I work in 60 min coaching sessions that are most often scheduled via Zoom

• Initially, I often recommend beginning with 5 or 6 sessions that are scheduled about once every week. This allows us to create a cadence, get to know each other, and get beneath the surface. I find that if these initial sessions are too far spread out, then we struggle creating coaching momentum.

• My packages are based on time that you actually use. If you don’t use time, you won’t pay for it. If you pay for time that you no longer want to use, I refund what you’ve paid.

• My rates are pretty middle-of-the-road as far as coaching goes. (If you ask me, my rates are a steal. 😂)

Every individual coaching session is different. In some calls, you’ll have a creative breakthrough. In other calls, we'll get down into the weeds of storytelling theory. It truly depends on you—what you want to learn, and the learning style that works best for you.

My style can appear—at first—to be highly unstructured. I don’t lead you through a pre-defined coaching curriculum. In my experience, that approach doesn’t work nearly as well, and it’s way less fun for both of us. Instead, we work collaboratively to develop your curriculum in real time. Sessions may be supplemented by additional reading, videos or other creative exercises that fit you and your life. It’s a little different for everyone.

I am a good match for: people who are excited about learning a new perspective and stepping outside-the-box

I am not a good match for: people who need every step of the journey to be highly controlled. (I respect you and I wish you well finding a storytelling coach who is well suited to you.)

As I said, the creative chaos makes it fun—and it helps ensure that your learning is meaningful and sustainable.

How Coaching Engagements Are Structured

Initial engagements begin with 5 or 6 sessions. As I said, I think this allows us enough time to get into the subject matter—and to give you something insightful, individual and juicy that you can chew on and bring back into your life.

After that initial engagement, clients tend to fall into one of these streams:

1. Some clients continue to work with me on a regular schedule—weekly, bi-weekly, or quarterly check-ins

2. Other clients work with me for a short, intense burst when they need help around a specific project, speech or deadline. These clients see me as an extension to their work or team. I love these long-lasting relationships.

Part of my role is helping you envision how to best use me. I check-in with you often—together, we define the engagement and respond to new goals and unexpected challenges as they emerge.

To repeat what I said above, I bill you based on time you actually use. All my work is no-pressure. You’re in charge, and you can book me as often or as little as you want. I don’t want to hold anything over you—I genuinely want to help.

Some Outcomes You Can Expect

I’m sure I sound like a broken record—but, truly, individualized outcomes are core aspects of a coaching process. As a reference point, here are some general applications of what you’ll learn:

• Designing effective stories

• Developing strategic narrative arcs

• Elevating the impact of data

• Developing content ideas

• Improving your understanding of your audience

• Visual storytelling and online communications tools

• storytelling frameworks

• Thought leadership storytelling

• Personal and professional branding

These storytelling principles can be applied to a wide range of business-y narratives—brand narrative, data narratives, leadership narratives and so on. They can also be applied to personal stories. Certainly I help people tell wedding stories effectively as well!

Much of what you’ll take away will also be in the human dynamics/interpersonal/creative/emotional realms. (That’s one heck of a mouthful.)

Many of my clients report feeling more confident, creative, or inspired. Some tell me that they have a little Jordan on their shoulder—I think that’s supposed to be a good thing—to interrupt them when they’re returning to legacy habits.

Ultimately, I am walking beside you on a journey of change and supporting you along the ups and downs that go with transformation. Seeing you integrate that change, truly becoming different, is what makes storytelling coaching such a fulfilling endeavor. I definitely gotta go back and edit this last sentence.

Specific examples of my expertise

You can learn a lot about me by reading the front page of my website.

• I can help with presentations and visuals

• I can helping with finding the emotional narrative of a specific piece

• I can help you create connection, buy-in and alignment

• I can help you strengthen your thought leadership or personal brand

• I can help you develop messaging for leadership opportunities, like town halls, QBRs, and all-hands

• I can help you develop identities, visions, and missions for your team or company

• I can help you give a great wedding or political speech

• And much, much more

Beyond these, I also offer a full suite of strategic communications and change leadership services. Many of my leadership clients bring me in for a workshop, training or change engagement to extend my work to their team. I will be happy to explore some of this potential with you—if we ever get that far down the road.

That should be enough info to get you started… If you like what you’ve read, the next step is to schedule a consultation. Send me a message with the form below.