One of the games we play in the Story Coaching framework is that of aspirational identities.
It's not a new concept, asking ourselves who we aspire to become in life, or considering who our customers want to be and how we can sell them something that helps them get there. It's advertising 101.
For now I'll leave the aspiration of self to the gurus like Tony Robbins, and the aspirations of customers to Don Draper and his Mad Men advertising team. What I'm interested in is the aspirational identity of your book. Who does your book want to be when it grows up? Or if you are a speaker, what does your keynote or your talk aspire to become? We are spending time with the entity that will deliver your idea.
Exercises like this are important for two reasons. First, it helps to actually paint a picture of the greatest version of your work. When I was a kid, I heard a story about how Scotty Pippin, epic US basketball legend, would start each practice session by standing at the 3-point line and taking one hundred shots, sinking every one of them. And he did it without a basketball. It was his mental warm-up - he was setting his aspirational identity as someone who could score three-pointers like that. He was creating his reality.
Before I knew anything about the neuroscience of visualisation and all that, as a 14 year old kid with a basketball, I would do the same kind of exercises, and it would help my game. In the car on the way to the courts, I would close my eyes and play Love You Right by Euphoria on my Sony Walkman (80's kid), and visualise all the moves I would do in the game. I was never 100% successful, but I definitely did better than if I had just spent the time staring out the window.
The second reason this aspiration identity exercise is important has to do with narcissism.
We all have it, and we all naturally attach “what I do” to “who I am.” It’s not entirely false to do this, but it isn’t the healthiest thing to lay on your fledgling book or idea. It would be like inviting a new friend out to dinner to meet your people, and then spending the entire night telling everyone how you and her met, instead of letting her speak for herself.
When we have an idea to share, or a book to write, there is a great danger that it stays in the shadow of our own insecurities, our pride, our filters, and whatever else is wrapped up in who we are. We end up writing about ourselves. We share our stories, our experience, our research, without every giving the idea space to speak and grow for itself. We take our little book out to meet everyone, and spend the night talking about ourselves.
So, spending some time asking your book what it aspires to be effectively give it its own voice. Just for a second, we separate ourselves from our ideas, and allow the idea to become its own person.
I recently played this game for myself, and thought it may be helpful to share one of my answers. The questions start at the surface, what does my book look and feel like? Then they drop to emotion-level, how does a reader feel when reading it? And then we ask the deeper philosophical questions, like why does it all matter?
Below is my response to one of those philosophical-level questions, “What is a book? What should a book be?"
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A book should be looked forward to. Enjoyed, relished, easy to comprehend, with a lot of return power. It should be so great, you want to share it, you want to buy copies for your friends.
A book should move you. It should make you feel things, because it reminds you of some piece of yourself you’d forgotten all about until you opened it.
A book should point to something, just, not its author. It should point to the reader, to the good, or hope, or joy, an opinion, an aspiration.
A book should raise questions, and invite new conversations. It should encourage more discussion, not be the final veto on a topic.
You should feel proud to hold a book, like its very existence in your hand walks you taller, and laces your language with fresh nuance and intrigue.
A book should be a well that dips deep into your soul, drawing ancient waters of your own spirit for you to drink, perhaps with company.
A book should light you up.
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After answering this question about what I think a book should be, I realised that the book had spoken for itself. It has raised its voice and shared its aspirational identity, this is what I want to be in the world.
If I am wise, I will hold on to these words, and consider them a true aspiration of the book I am yet to write. My book has spoken, and I should listen, and not be afraid of its lofty aspirations.
Because (of course) the aspirations we most fear call us forward to our best work.