Grow Your Business Part 12
THE EPIPHANY BRIDGE SCRIPT
Now that you understand the concept of the Epiphany Bridge, and you’ve also seen the structure of the hero’s two journeys. You have everything you need to start to creating powerful Epiphany Bridge stories.
The Epiphany Bridge story had eight core sections that pull you through the hero’s two journeys. There are questions that goes with each section, and answering each question actually creates the story for you. We will go into more depth for each of the questions below, but let me show you quickly how it works.
- THE BACKSTORY: What is your backstory that gives us a vested interest in your journey?
- YOUR DEIRES: What is it you want to accomplish?
A. EXTERNAL: What is the external struggle you are dealing with?
B. INTERNAL: What is the internal struggle you are dealing with?
3. THE WALL: What was the wall or problem you hit within your current opportunity that started you on this new journey?
4. THE EPIPHAY: What was the epiphany you experienced and new opportunity you discovered?
5. THE PLAN: What was the plan you created to achieve your desire?
6. THE CONFLICT: What conflict did you experience along the way?
7. THE ACHIEVENMENT: What was your end result?
8. THE TRANSFORMATION: What was the transformation you experienced?
For many of you, that outline and those questions will be enough to give you the framework to tell any story. But lets dig a little deeper into each question so you have a really clear understanding on how to answer those questions.
THE BACKSTORY: WHAT IS YOUR BACKSTORY THAT GIVES US A VESTED INTEREST IN YOUR JOURNEY?
All good stories start with the backstory. For an Epiphany Bridge, that means remembering where you were before you had your big “aha”. You need to go back to that time and place and remember the circumstances that caused you to start on your journey. Usually this backstory starts at about the same point where your clients are in their life right now
Remember they desire the same result that you have already achieved, But when they see you as the expert and see what you’ve accomplished it can be really had for them to relate to you and trust you. That’s why you must come down from your positioning as an expert, and return to the beginning where you were struggling with the same things they are. When they see that you were once where they are now, they will have faith that you can take them where they want to go.
YOUR DESIRES: WHAT IS IT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH?
When you created your plot statement, you learned about the three foundational elements of every good story.
- Character
- Desire
- Conflict
This is the part where you talk about the what it is that you desired the most. What most people miss is that there are almost always two types of struggles keeping you from what you desire the most: the more surface level external struggles and more importantly, the deeper internal struggles that you (and your listeners) are experiencing.
WHAT IS THE EXTERNAL STRUGGLE YOU ARE DEALING WITH?
The external struggle is what drives the journey of accomplishment. This is tied to your desire and is usually based on one of the goals you learned about earlier: to win, to retrieve, to escape, or to stop.
Most people are usually willing to share their external struggles. But these are rarely the real issue they are dealing with. To find out the true cause of their pain, you need to dig deeper and share your internal conflicts.
WHAT IS THE INTERNAL STRUGGLE YOU ARE DEALING WITH?
The internal struggle is the journey of transformation from fear to courage. This is the root cause of your struggles.
Most of the time it is had to share, or even know, what the actual internal struggles are. But if you’ve willing and able to get vulnerable and share your internal struggles, this will build rapport faster than anything else you can do. Why? Because your audience also shares these same internal struggles. Most people never talk about them, but when they hear you get vulnerable and expose what you are really struggling with, the audience will form an almost instant connection with you.
The secret to identifying people’s internal struggles is to take their external struggles, and ask them “why?” about five or six times. Keep drilling down until you get to the real reason they want to change. Here’s a hint: It’s usually tied to love or status or maybe both.
As you are telling the story, your really need to touch upon the external, because that’s what they’re willing to acknowledge, but then share your internal struggles too. Those people who are dealing with the same internal struggles will have an instant rapport with you, and you’ll be speaking to them at a subconscious level. They’ll be thinking about feeling they’ve never really shared in the past, but know are true.
When you get to the end of the story, typically you’ve solved the external struggles and accomplished what that person has set out to do. But for your story to be really impactful, you need to show that you have done more than just accomplished your goal. People need to see that you have become someone different in the process.
Remember the internal journey is all about the death of our identity, and the rebirth of our essence. Our internal struggles are about us holding onto these things that we’re attached to such as love, our status, our identity. If you took away all those things, what is left would be your essence. Realizing that your kids love you no matter what, and that others don’t really care about your status that much that is the essence of happiness.
So, while we want to achieve our goal, it’s more important that we become someone different along the way. There has been a death of our internal struggles and a rebirth of something more.
THE WALL: WHAT WAS THE WALL OR PROBLEM YOU HIT WITHIN YOUR CURRENT OPPORTUNITY THAT STARTED YOU ON THIS NEW JOURNEY?
The backstory builds rapport with your clients, then take your clients to the moment of frustration that causes them to start on their journey. That wall is the frustration you felt because of the current opportunity is not working and is the reason you (as well as your clients) are willing to go on a journey to try something new.
This is what drives the emotion for the client and sets up the correct circumstances for them to experience the epiphany. Something happened on your journey that has kept you from your desire. The wall is often the point of frustration, fear, or hopelessness. So be sure to spend time here describing how you felt. This will help to get your client into the same stat you were in when you had your big epiphany.
THE EPHPHANY: WHAT WAS THE EPIPHANY YOU EXPERIENCED AND NEW OPPORTUUNITY YOU DISCOVERD?
Up to this point you have been introduced, your clients know what the ultimate desire is, and they also know the wall their current opportunity has created that is keeping them form their goal. This is the point where something happens that shows them the path they need to follow. It could be a person who helped you to understand something. it might be an idea you had while reading, or it could be a breakthrough you discovered while trying to overcome conflict. Something happened that gave you the epiphany, which changed your perception of reality.
Now that you’ve had this epiphany about what you needed to do, what was the new opportunity it led you to? The epiphany is the thought or idea, and the new opportunity is the vehicle you’ve decided to step into to accomplish that goal.
THE PLAN: WHAT WAS THE PAN YOU CREATED TO ACHIEVE YOUR DESIRE?
Now that you have the epiphany, and you’ve learned about the new opportunity, let talk about the plan you’ve created to see if this new opportunity will lead you to what you desire the most. What is the plan, and then what are the steps you took to get to your goal?
Inside this plan, you are inevitably going to run into conflict, which is where you start to get the emotion from the story. Remember, it isn’t the desire of the expert that causes the emotion it comes for the conflict they experience while they are trying to reach that goal.
THE CONFLICT: WHAT CONFLICT DID YOU EXPERIENCE ALONG THE WAY?
After you have developed a plan, you move forward on it until something happens, you start to run into conflict. This is called the POINT OF NO RETURN because before this point, you could have easily just walked away from the plan and things would have been okay. Here something happens where you must either decide to go back to you old life, or burn the boats and keep moving forward.
This is where you take the step of faith out into the dark, only to find that there’s a light just a little further ahead. Most people are to scared of executing on an idea an “aha’ an epiphany that you never move forward.
In spite of al the reasons you may have said no in the past, this time it’s different. This is when the desire shifts from a SHOULD to a MUST.
When you do this it is like a battle cry to your clients because they, too, have been “should-ing” for too long. It’s time to finally make the change once and for all. They will see you as someone who successfully took a stand and shifted from SHOULD to MUST. And you will inspire them to do the same. Describe for them the moment you made the shift, including how it felt inside.
In all good stories, once you have moved past the point of no return, things start to fall apart. You discovered the journey isn’t as easy you had assumed in the beginning. If you had known all the pain you’d have to go through, you might never have started the journey at all.
You need to describe the major setback and conflict you experienced that made you feel like all was lost. But then there was a glimmer of light, one last way you could accomplish your goal. You alter your plan and go for one last final push.
THE ACHIEVEMENT: WHAT WAS YOUR END RESULT
After your finial push, something happens. Either you achieve your external desire, or you don’t. Share the aftermath of what happened so people can see the results that you got from the new opportunity.
THE TANSFORMATION: WHAT WAS THE TRANSFORMATION YOU EXPERIENCED?
This is the part where you talk about who you became through this process. This is the resolution of your internal struggles, and is the death of the your old identity and the rebirth of your new belief system.
As you will see in the next part of this series, the goal of all good stories is to break old belief patterns and rebuild them with new ones. When you create your stories this way, you are helping people to break free from their old belief system and create a new future. That is the goal of a good Epiphany Bridge story.
THE EPIPHANY BRIDGE QUESTIONS
- THE BACKSTORY: What is your backstory that gives us a vested interest in your journey?
- YOUR DEIRES: What is it you want to accomplish?
A. EXTERNAL: What is the external struggle you are dealing with?
B. INTERNAL: What is the internal struggle you are dealing with?
3. THE WALL: What was the wall or problem you hit within your current opportunity that started you on this new journey?
4. THE EPIPHAY: What was the epiphany you experienced and new opportunity you discovered?
5. THE PLAN: What was the plan you created to achieve your desire?
6. THE CONFLICT: What conflict did you experience along the way?
7. THE ACHIEVENMENT: What was your end result?
8. THE TRANSFORMATION: What was the transformation you experienced?
You can if you choose to make your stories more complex by going deeper into the settings emotions, other characters, etc. But at their core, they follow a very simple progression.
If you want to work with me and my team to grow your business you can contact me below. Just click on one of the links.
Email: Tinadonovan@secretwealthcreators.com
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