Origin stories can be about regular people, too
Are you as devastated and confused as I am that there won’t be no more Superman movies starring Henry Cavill? Now I have to get into Warhammer. As you curl up on the couch to console yourself, please find a moment to reflect on the larger topic: the power of an origin story.
Origin stories are about point A rather than point B.
When it comes to talking about our achievements, especially at work, we tend to fixate on point B. We say, “Look at what I’ve accomplished. Look at my credentials. Look at the proof.” The purpose of the origin story is to focus on point A instead and show how far you had to go to arrive at point B. Point A puts point B into perspective.
Origin stories must be journeys, not timelines.
A timeline would be the tale of a kid who grew up playing video games and had an engineer and a designer for parents who encouraged her to follow her dreams and now creates video games for a living. That isn’t too interesting as an origin story. It's a straight (time)line. Getting to point B seemed within reach from the start.
Now let’s try the story of a kid who grew up in a family off-grid, foraging in the woods and wind-chimes on the roadside who then, through curiosity and tenacity, ends up designing video games in the big city. That journey was unpredictable and IS interesting. No one saw it coming. And who knows what kind of first-hand knowledge from living in the wild she can bring to her work?
Don’t make the mistake of sharing your origin story as a series of events.
Avoid saying, “and, and, and”—stick a “but then” in there. Make sure to emphasize the obstacles. What about the context of your point A made it unlikely that you would make it to your point B?
An origin story needs tension so that people care.
People think of origin stories in the superhero realm. Sometimes it’s a super person in an unfamiliar situation where s/he must adapt (Superman, Wonder Woman). Sometimes it’s an ordinary person catapulted into a super situation (Spiderman, Captain America). Everyone, not just heroes, needs obstacles to make their stories resonate. Even as a regular human without laser vision or super-speed, if you had to overcome something major, you might still have an intriguing origin story to tell.
The more unusual your point A, the better.
If you are the one person in the room whose origin is nothing like the others, share it. Even if your point A is nothing like anyone’s in the room, you still belong at point B just as much as they do. Black Widow got her own movie, so why not you?