3 Storytelling Lessons We Can Learn from The Grinch
When it comes to holiday storytelling, one of the oldest and best-loved tales of all time is of course The Grinch Who Stole Christmas written by Dr. Seuss.
Long before this book was ever a movie, kids were reading about the Grinch and cheering on Cindy Lou Who and her friends as they battled it out to save their beloved Whoville Christmas.
I would argue that there are 3 timeless lessons we can all learn about brand storytelling from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Lesson 1 - Have a vision of what’s possible.
As the original book tells us, the Grinch lived just North of Whoville in a cave that overlooked the town.
Now, if you’ve ever climbed to the top of any hill or mountain, you know that looking out over a landscape from a higher altitude is going to give you a different perspective on things.
So let’s apply this concept to our own brand storytelling. When was the last time you took a bird’s eye view of your brand or business? When we’re looking at our story up close, we tend to miss out on some pretty important elements that we might see if we took a few steps back.
My advice is to step back and remember why you started your business in the first place. Your why or “purpose story” is one of those stories you can be sharing with your audience. Even if you’ve shared it before, you can remind your audience why your brand exists, and in the process, you can remember why you started in the first place.
Lesson 2 - Try new things.
When the Grinch gets his “awful idea” to steal Christmas from the people of Whoville, he makes himself a Santa Claus hat and coat to disguise himself as Old Saint Nick. He also dresses up his dog Max as a reindeer, and throws some empty sacks on a ramshackle sleigh.
All three of these tricks were new for the Grinch, but he was bound and determined to realize his goal of stealing Christmas from the Whos.
So let me ask you this: when was the last time YOU tried something new in your business? I’m not talking about pivoting – we’ve all had our share of that over the last few years. I’m talking about getting excited about trying a new tool or technique or tactic to really connect with your audience.
If you look around, there are probably a lot of things you can build on inside your existing business to reach new customers and clients, connections or even launch a new initiative.
Just be sure to try new things that keep in line with your vision (see Lesson 1).
Lesson 3 - Be an action taker.
When it comes to transformation, the Grinch was hoping to take his audience from happy to hopeless. And in his vain attempt to steal Christmas, he set out a series of steps to help lead him to his end goal.
Now, obviously his plan failed because “Christmas, after all, doesn’t come from a store” as this famous children’s story teaches us.
But it does provide a key point which is that taking action requires you to know the transformation you’re looking to achieve. So my challenge for you in this final lesson is to think about where your audience is starting and where you want them to end up. And then consider the actions that you need to take in between in order to get them there.
