Don't "autotune" your story

Greetings, Chief Storytelling Officers.

I loved this quote that David Senra of Founders Podcast shared from Jony Ive:

“Grind it out. You can make something look like magic by going further than most reasonable people would go.”

The difference between great and world-class seems like a ton of work but that’s exactly what makes it so rewarding when you get there. That’s my own personal journey when it comes to storytelling. There’s nothing else I’d rather obsess over and spend my time on.

One thing I can promise is that if you’re an early stage founder, I’ve poured that obsession into what we’re building with Potential.ai. If you’re raising this quarter, you can email me directly [email protected] to get priority access as it’s still invite only off the waitlist.

Here’s to storytelling excellence.

-Robbie

Lessons from a surprising place

There’s a grammy award winning artist who for his entire career has had insults thrown his way. That artist is T-Pain. Yes, the guy behind Buy U a Drank, I’m Sprung, and (no joke) I’m N Luv (wit a stripper).

So why do I bring him up?

A few years ago he started live streaming over on Twitch and I heard him sing…without autotune. If you think back to his songs, they all had heavy autotune which created his unique style. So when I heard him sing without it, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

The guy was freaking amazing.

All of this time he had been hiding this raw talent. And I guess that most people weren’t paying attention to T-Pain’s twitch livestream so it went mostly unheard.

But a few weeks ago he came out with a cover of Tennessee Whisky and it floored people. I’ve even seen as voice coaches who had near vitriolic hate towards him completely flipped their opinions. It’s beautiful.

If you go down that rabbit hole you will find out he even won The Masked Singer with his natural talent.

Sadly for decades now this artist has had to live with being spoken down to and ridiculed by so many in that world. I’m glad the world is waking up to his talent.

Which brings me to how this applies for you.

For decades T-Pain was trapped in this box he had created for himself. He was the autotune guy.

This happens to so many founders, investors, and executives I talk with about their storytelling. They create this caricature of themselves who they think the world wants to see and next thing they know, they become trapped in that story.

You see story tends to be self-fulfilling.

If you tell yourself the story that you’re not good enough, that’s what will take place. If you tell yourself the story that you are good enough, that’s what will take place.

Story follows that Henry Ford quote: “Whether you think you can or you can’t…you’re right.”

So what if T-Pain had shown the world his voice without autotune earlier?

I have no idea but he would’ve been able to be his real self, not this manufactured version.

When you’re out telling your story, the first thing you must do is the deep discovery phase. That’s why at Potential.AI we created the process to guide you through it to find that 100% authentic and powerful story.

Your story shouldn’t run away from who you are. Your story shouldn’t run away from what you believe. Your story shouldn’t put you into a manufactured box.

If you’re just driven by greed and want to manipulate as many people as possible, then sure create the inauthentic story that tricks people into backing you. And if that line resonates with you, this is not the newsletter for you and I encourage you to move on.

That’s not the world I’m building with Competitive Storytelling and we are building with Potential.

Because just like you, I don’t want my story to put me into a manufactured box.

We have a chance to change the way storytelling is done in the business world. By leaning into the raw and talented version of yourself and sharing that version with the world you can lead and guide others to join you. That talent will of course have flaws. It’s not supposed to be perfect.

Do you really want to wait decades for the world to realize the innate talent you have?

Go through the deep discovery of who you are and then show it to the world. Scars and all.

I’ll finish with one last quick personal story.

There’s a case that haunts me to this day. It was the first murder case of my career. A cold case that had sat unsolved for 5 years when it came across my desk. It was a high school graduation party where a fight broke out and then a drive by shooting killed an innocent bystander.

It was horrific.

I prepared like crazy for that case. It was a huge puzzle to put all the witnesses and evidence together to paint the picture for the jury. But then things went south. Witnesses starting disappearing and then solid testimony changed overnight.

My lead detective on the case had been indicted on felony charges so I couldn’t even have him testify about his investigation (a story for another day).

So this case where a mother and father had lost their 19 year old son to a random act of brutal violence, were left believing in me to pull of a miracle.

I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough for them. Not enough for me. Not enough for justice.

Mid way through trial the defense attorney leaned over and offered to talk about a plea bargain. He told me 10 years. I wanted to throw up. This case should have been a 50 plus year sentence. But I wasn’t in a position to risk the case with the jury.

We negotiated and I got it up to 15 years. I told the family we had to take it.

To this day I know it was the right decision but it broke them. They hated me for it and I understand it.

I didn’t win the case like I told them I would.

It haunts me and it’s part of my story. I’m not perfect. I didn’t win every case. I wasn’t good enough in that case to get what the victim and his family deserved.

I share to tell you that it’s okay to have failures and frustrations from your past. Don’t try to smooth out the rough edges. Those rough edges, the scars, the pain from it all make you human and in the world ahead that will be more valuable than anything.

AI won’t replace the human, instead when it’s used right it will elevate humanness.

Tell your story. The real one.

Be like the new T-Pain.

Brilliant and real.

Resources

If you haven’t heard/seen Milei’s speech from Davos about the age of the entrepreneur and why Capitalism is great…watch it now. It’s incredible and the ai technology that translated it to english in his voice is a huge leap forward.

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Major trends from GPs and LPs collected by Allocate. Always good to stay on top of where investors see things going.

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Carl Jung’s archetypes have always been an interesting subject for my own storytelling thought process and style. Nathan Baugh put together a great quick resource to better understand them (and I don’t like to recreate the wheel so I’d rather you just see what he put together).

Wanting support with your capital raising or storytelling?

1. If you’re an early stage company looking to nail your fundraising story, check out Potential AI. Our ai will guide you through the exact process and then write your 3 minute founder origin story and 3 minute startup vision story.

2. If you’re raising at least 8m as a founder or 50m as a fund, apply to work with me here.

3. If you’re a leader in your company and you think that it’s time to write the perfect vision story (might be a new strategic narrative, might be for a major company wide keynote, might be for a huge product launch you have coming up), or if you want to see how storytelling can generate returns in your talent, marketing, and sales function, you can email me at [email protected].

4. If you’re looking to have me speak to your organization, leadership team, or at an event, email me at [email protected].