Hello {{first_name}}. This week I want to write to someone slightly different. Not the charity CEO or the head of social impact, though you are all still here among the 3,439 of us reading this newsletter every week.

This week I am writing to the changemaker: the person with a story and a reason to tell it, who does not need an organisation behind them to start changing the world.

Last week I asked a simple question: when you tell your organisation's story, what usually trips you up? By a good majority, you said that you say too much and the main thing gets lost. A few of you tell the same version to everyone. A few just tell it and hope. And almost nobody worried about saying too little.

Here is where that leads this week. The answer to saying too much is not simply saying less. It is telling the right version for whoever is in front of you, in a way that keeps you safe and in control.

So here is one thing to try this week: Before your next talk, post or interview, write a single line at the top of your notes:

Let that line decide what stays in and what comes out. Everything in this edition grows from there.

Earlier this week I co-delivered a safe storytelling workshop with my friend Payzee Mahmod for Karma Nirvana’s Survivor Ambassador Panel. Two hours with survivors of forced marriage and honour-based abuse, all of them learning to tell their own stories on their own terms.

I want to bring some of that experience to you this week, because most weeks I write to you as leaders of organisations. This week I am writing to you as people.

The main takeaway I want to highlight is that you do not need a charity, an organisation, a job title, or anyone's permission to change the world. You need a story that is yours, a reason to tell it, and a way to tell it safely.

Let me start with the safety, because Payzee taught it better than I could, and it belongs to her. Her core message to the room was simple:

No journalist, no platform, no organisation gets to reshape it into something that does not feel true to you. She put safety before impact, deliberately.

She talked about practice, not performance, about the right to say no on the day even after you have said yes, and about the fact that consent is ongoing. You can withdraw a story long after it is out.

Time, she said, is a form of control: if today does not feel right, you can reschedule, decline, or step back, and the world does not end.

Those principles are hers, drawn from seven years of telling her own story and learning where it was safe to and where it was not. Payzee is a survivor advocate and three-time TEDx speaker whose advocacy has helped shape UK law. You can follow her work at payzeespeaks.com and on LinkedIn.

What I brought to the room was the other half. Not how to stay safe while you tell it, but why the telling works at all.

Here is the thing I have learned in nearly twelve years of sharing the story of Naz and me:

I know this because people still come up to me years after a talk. They cannot tell me a single sentence I said. What they tell me is that it made them feel something, and because of that feeling they went and did something. That’s it. Mission complete.

Storytelling is not the currency of information. Storytelling is the currency of human emotion.

Which means before you tell your story, the question is not "what happened to me?" It is "where do I want to take the people listening?"

I call that the emotional destination, and it was the whole subject of the very first edition of this newsletter.

When I speak in a school, the destination is a young person knowing they are not alone and that there is a safe adult in the room. When I speak to a government department, the destination is breaking through a hard professional exterior to reach a heart that has switched off to protect itself.

Same story. Different destination. Different version.

And once people arrive at that feeling, and only then, you can ask them to do the one thing you actually want: to talk to someone, to change a policy, to sign up, to not look away.

I also want to say the honest part, the part I shared with the room while my voice was going (I was recovering from quite a bad cold).

The trauma I experienced has scarred me with PTSD and heightened anxiety. On stage or speaking in front of a group can steal my breath and my train of thought.

What I have found is that naming it out loud, telling the audience I might need to pause to manage these feelings, does the opposite of making me weak. It makes the room hold me. The vulnerability is the strength. You do not have to perform being fine.

None of this requires an organisation.

It requires a keystone story: the single moment that set you on the path you are on now. Not your whole life. The moment it turned. For me it was losing my late fiancé Naz and deciding the world could not lose more people like him.

For the survivors at the workshop, each had their own, and no two were the same.

Find that moment, learn to tell it safely and to the right destination, and you can change the small piece of the world you can reach.

That has always been enough. It is how every big change started.

A story you own is one that is safe to tell, true to you, and aimed at a destination. The first three checks below are drawn from what Payzee teaches on safe storytelling. The last two are the ones I add on emotional destination. Run your story through all five before you share it.

1. Safety before impact. Ask "Is this room, platform or person safe for me?" before you ask "Will this land?" If the setting does not feel safe, you are allowed to decline, however good the opportunity looks. (Payzee's principle.)

2. It stays yours. Your words, your framing, your pace. If someone wants to reword your story into something that does not feel true, you can say no. Consent is ongoing: you can withdraw a story after it is published. (Payzee's principle.)

3. Control, not performance. Have a person in your corner, a grounding move (a pause, a glass of water, a breath), and a quiet exit if you need one. You are building a skill through practice, not delivering a flawless performance. (Payzee's principle.)

4. Name the emotional destination. Before you tell it, decide the one feeling you want the listener to leave with. The same true story has a different version for a school, a funder, a councillor, a stranger. Choose the version, not just the facts.

5. Name the one action. Once they feel it, what is the single thing you want them to do? A story that creates a feeling but asks for nothing rarely changes anything.

Fill this in before your next talk, post or interview. It works whether or not you belong to an organisation.

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter and found it useful, I would really appreciate you forwarding this to a colleague or friend and asking them to subscribe (free): www.impactstoryteller.org

Until next Thursday, please stay safe, and take care.

Warm regards,

Matt Mahmood-Ogston
Award-winning impact storyteller, photographer and charity CEO.
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