Every Success Story Has a Beginning. What’s Yours?

The future is something many of us look to and aim for. We focus on the next quarter, the next project, and the next big idea, but we rarely take the time to step back and reflect on where we’ve come from.

Success stories are everywhere, but we often forget that everything that progresses has a start. There is always an origin story. 

The problem is, we either dismiss our own story as underwhelming or we bury it under the polished version that we prefer people to see, as it feels safe.

The truth is, your backstory can be your most powerful marketing tool. It’s the thing that you make you different and relatable. It’s the everyday side that people connect with, not the AI version where we create pristine versions for public consumption.

We must remember that we connect with people through their ideas, stories, hopes, and drives. That is what resonates with us.

No one needs to manufacture the ‘hero’s journey,’ but step forward to build trust and connection.

Having a backstory gives people a reason to believe in you. It allows you to share your journey, including the mistakes you made, the dead ends you encountered, the lessons you learned, and the motivation behind your actions and choices.

More importantly, it’s the proof you didn’t just arrive overnight with the slick website, sales funnel and scheduled LinkedIn posts, you earned your place. That’s what becomes compelling for others. 

A mistake people make is trying to make their story sound like everyone else’s. For instance, something along the lines of, ‘we started because we wanted to make the world a better place,’ is not a story, it’s empty with no meaning.

Your story should be raw, real and specific. That is what people connect with. 

Think about what has truly shaped you (what shaped me was a school election in middle school, I’ll save that to share for another day). What drove you to start? What frustrations never left your side? What failures made you rethink and reassess? These are the details that people remember. This is what helps others to come closer to you. This is what separates you from everyone else in your field. 

When I started You Are The Media (YATM) in 2013, I didn’t plan for it to be a ‘thing.’ 

It started as a simple newsletter, an experiment to see if I could share ideas and themes that mattered to me, without spending money on being seen. 

In 2013, while running my marketing business, I was following what I thought I was supposed to do.

My ideas fell into a typical marketing category, and topics such as ‘what is a brand’ was a well trodden path. However, something didn’t feel right. The rules I wanted to play were not about lead generation or distinguishing myself with marketing insights. I felt I was always one step behind.

I decided to shift my focus from viewing the newsletter as a lead generation exercise to building an audience. If I could show up, every week, to share what I was learning, rather than what an industry expected from me, that was a path I felt more comfortable with. 

If I can share what wasn’t working as well as the moments of clarity, I could see if people cared.

For a long time, no one did. 

Then, little by little, it started to work. The newsletter became a place where people subscribed. Conversations started to happen. I decided to find ways to bring people together, so everyone could get to meet, not just a two-way dialogue between me and someone else. From this, a community formed. It wasn’t overnight. It wasn’t easy. But it was real.

It was all built on something personal, my own frustrations with how marketing was done and never being picked, resonated. People saw themselves in the story. They connected with the journey. And that’s when everything changed.

You don’t have to paint yourself as the hero who overcame sizeable obstacles. 

Honesty wins. It’s about letting people into your sometimes messy and unfiltered reality of how you keep going and why you’re still here today.

Here is what makes a backstory effective. 

It Has A Catalyst: 

Every great backstory has a moment when something changed and a decision was made. Maybe you became frustrated with how things were done. Maybe you saw something that left you speechless. Maybe you saw a gap no one else did. Maybe you had no choice but to step up and start something new.

Whatever it is, there was a moment that pushed you forward. That’s where your story starts.

It’s Personal: 

People don’t connect with businesses, they connect with people (that’s why LinkedIn company pages are ghost towns for many). If your story feels like it could belong to someone else, it’s not specific enough. The more personal, the better.

It Shows The Struggle: 

No one trusts a story that skips the hard parts and paints a picture of unbridled success and achievement. What challenges did you face? What almost made you quit? Where were the moments when it was just you in the room? This is what makes your story believable and you seen as approachable.

It Explains Why You Care: 

What keeps you going? What is it about your work that actually matters to you? Is there a type of person where your message is relevant to them? If you can’t answer this, your audience won’t feel a reason to care either.

A good backstory isn’t just for show. It can become a foundation for everything you build. It shapes how you communicate, how you attract people, and how you create something that lasts.

Longevity is important, we don’t want to create work that was there for a moment in time and then everyone decided to move on.

1) Use It in Your Messaging: 

Your backstory should be front and centre. It’s always there to remind you. It’s how you introduce yourself, the prompts you share, the introductions you make. When people find you, they should immediately understand what you’re about and why it matters. On the YATM site, there is a timeline that shares the story from where we started in 2013 to today. 

2) Let It Shape Your Content: 

If your backstory has its roots in frustration, the way things have always been done or never being picked, like mine is, then your content should reflect that. It should challenge old ideas, highlight better ways, and reinforce why your approach can galvanise people.

3) Make It a Shared Experience: 

A great community isn’t built on one person’s story, it invites people to see themselves in it. When people recognise their own struggles in your journey, they feel like they belong. And that’s where real trust and loyalty comes from.

I wanted to share this with you because your backstory is not just a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s everything. It’s the reason people care, trust you, and stick around.

Your backstory is the heartbeat of your business and connects you with the people you serve.

When you embrace your journey, the wins, the missteps, the pivotal moments, you permit other people to do the same.

It reminds people that you’re real, that you’ve put in the work, and that what you’re building has depth. You don’t bury your backstory, you celebrate it and then it finds meaning with other people. It’s the proof you’ve earned your place.

You have to own your story. No one else can.