​
#200 - You Don't Need To Be Loud. You Need To Be Resonant.

It’s always the same five words.
​
I've been replying with them for years. Somebody writes in to say they dug an issue, or to talk about something they've been working on and saw reflected in these pages. When I sit down to reply, I always type the same response:

I'm so glad it resonated.

Sometimes I pause and scroll back to see if I've used the phrase before. But even if I have, I sit, and stare -- and hit send.

Because nothing else fits.

It took me a long time to understand why resonate felt so apt. Longer still to appreciate that the word is so central to TalentStories. And increasingly, to the way we navigate work now.

More than a vibe

It turns out resonance isn't just a vibes word. It's a real, physical thing.

In physics, every system has a natural frequency: a guitar string, a wine glass, a tuning fork. When something from the outside vibrates at the right frequency, the system absorbs the energy, and the response becomes bigger than the input.

Strike one tuning fork, and another tuned to the same frequency starts to vibrate on its own. Push a swing at the right rhythm, and it compounds into a bigger swing. When a piece of writing lands with us, something close to the same thing is at play.

The reader is already carrying something. A question they haven't asked out loud, or a pain they haven't named, or a half-formed thought. The writing shows up at the right pitch -- and the response is bigger than the input.

I used to think resonance was a writing thing; niched to the world of readers and newsletters. But it's not. It's relevant to how we career, too. Because careers are also full of unspoken energy: ambition, doubt, frustration, fear, hope. The ever present sense that something may need to change.

The gift of clarity

Two years ago, after working with a startup in Singapore, I went to visit the founder and his team at their hip shophouse office. They sat in Aeron chairs scattered about the room, with other colleagues dialled into a big screen from remote time zones.

The work was what I love: compressing the company into a repeatable hiring narrative, naming its values and anti-values, mapping them to how the team would hire and measure performance. It had been weeks of working with the founder to distill, test, and hone it all.

That day, I was there to share the work with the team. But I told the founder what I tell every leader:

You share this, not me. Clarity is a gift, and you owe it to your team. They have to hear it from you.

He presented, and I sat to the side.

About 15 minutes in, after he went over the hiring narrative, one of the engineers shook his head and said something like, "I happened to stumble into this company; but if I'd seen this two years ago -- I'd have sprinted to come join here."

There was something rueful to it. A sort of, Why did we take so long to to say it like this? Still, it got a laugh from the room.

Ten minutes later, the founder was on the values and behaviors, explaining what it meant to perform well. Then a long-tenured employee, based in Europe, raised his hand on Zoom, unmuted himself, and paused. He was tearing up. Right there on the call. He took a deep breath and said:

I've been here three years. But I've never known what success here meant. I'm just so happy to see it laid out like this.

The room was silent. No chuckles this time. People were feeling something akin to what he was. Only this guy had had the courage to say it out loud.

I think about that moment all the time.

The values didn't choke him up. Three years of unspoken energy was already in him, asking the same questions every Sunday night: Am I doing this right? Am I good at what I do?

The clarity that day hit a frequency that had been humming, unanswered, for a long time.

It resonated. And the response was bigger than the input.

What that founder did that day was tell a story about the company to his team. Where it had been, what it had become, where it was going. He made clear: "This is what it means to belong and thrive here." The response he got was resonance.

It was a company story. But the same thing happens with career stories.

Resonance needs a story

Last week, in Your Career Has No Comms Team, I argued he case for compression. That your message has to be tight enough to travel, be remembered, and repeated. Today, I'm going to hone in on the kind of compressed message that produces resonance.

Because not all of them do.

A tagline doesn't. A positioning statement doesn't. A list of accomplishments doesn't either. They can be useful, and accurate, and impressive. But they don't resonate.

A good story does.

A story has tension, stakes, arc, and turns. It has a before and after. The structure of story is built to include, so the listener can locate themselves inside of it.

A story shows transformation. The protagonist is different at the end than they were at the beginning. It can be as simple as: I was at X. Then this happened, so now I'm at Y. Therefore, I want to go to Z.

That shape gives the listener a way in. It connects them. They can see where you've been. They can see where you're headed. And they can see how they might help get you there.

Interviews, performance reviews, ex-colleague coffee chats. They're all listening for the same thing, even when they don't know it. They're listening for the arc. They're listening for what changed in you, what you're moving toward, and whether they can be a part of that.

Without a story, it's hard for others to plug in; to direct their energy. Even if they want to.

But when a story lands, an interviewer can argue the case for hiring you. A former colleague you worked with years ago can remember you when a role comes up. A leader can get you promoted by landing a good story about you.

So the question isn't just: What have I done?

It's: What story helps someone else understand what I’m moving toward, why it makes sense, and how they might help me?

Trust is static. Resonance is kinetic.

Trust makes you credible. It can get you on a list, say, or into a room, or into consideration. People who trust you take your call, give you a meeting, and forward your CV. That's all real, and hard-won.

But trust built on credentials has a ceiling, and that ceiling is lower than it's ever been.

Because where you went to school, and the brands you've worked for -- even what a ex-boss says about you -- are just signals. They tell someone that others have validated you, so they should too. They lower the risk of engaging with you.

But they don't eliminate it.

And they don't tell me whether you can evolve from here on out.

That's a problem when we know our jobs and organizations will look so different in six months' time. Now, I need proof of adaptation. I need to trust not just who you've been -- but that you can become something new with me.

Your story gives me that.

A story with a before and an after is the most efficient way to show me you can adapt. Your ability to tell it means you've internalized change before; that you understand what's required, and that you can do it again.

What's more, trust from credentials is static. Trust from story is kinetic: it moves people.

Trust pries the door open. But story moves you through it. It creates the resonance that makes others put their words, reputation, and energy behind you.

That matters now, because we're no longer explaining a predictable ladder. We're explaining pivots, pauses, layoffs, experiments, side projects, reinventions, and remixes.

Credentials make you credible. Story makes you resonant. And resonance is what makes people move with you.

Credible vs. compelling

Last month, I sat down with a coaching client, to prep for a set of high-stakes interviews.

When I asked her to walk me through her background, she did what most people do. She laid out the facts: what she'd done, where she'd worked, the highlights of what happened.

It was a credible, polished, reasonable summary.

But it fell short.

I understood where she'd been and where she now saw herself. But she didn't tell me where she wanted to go. Or how any of it was connected.

So the person across from her -- an interviewer, or hiring manager, or recruiter -- was going to have to take on the connective work. They'd have to infer the chapter she wanted next, then map that onto their role, team, and problem.

That's a lot of lift.

So we crafted an arc together, using what was already there. We ID'd what had actually changed over the last decade. We used cause and effect to articulate where it was all now pointing.

The facts she'd given me started doing more work. The interviewer wouldn't have to infer anymore. They'd be given an arc; something to grasp, and do more with.

Nothing about her background changed. The story just gave those facts direction.

That's the difference between credible and compelling. Credible says: this person has done good things. Compelling says: I understand the chapter this person is trying to write next, and I can see why they're writing it.

First, with yourself

All of this assumes something foundational that I should make explicit. Which is, for a story to resonate externally with others, it has to resonate with you, first.

The signal you're putting out has to fit you. The story has to be true to you.

It doesn't have to be perfect, or final. But it does have to be authentic. It has to sound like something you've actually lived, and come to understand.

If the story feels borrowed, it falls flat. If the story feels rehearsed, listeners sense that, even if they don't know what's off.

But when the story feels like yours -- hard-earned, human, authentic -- it lands. The signal is tuned to you. Now, others can pick it up. 📡

Before your story can help others understand you, it has to help you understand yourself.

Saying the quiet part out loud

There's something I keep circling around in these issues, in coaching conversations, even at TalentStories events:

I think most of us already know.

Consciously, subconsciously, openly, privately, reluctantly, eagerly, painfully: we know.

We know work is changing. We know the old playbooks are out the window. We know the market is noisier, the organizations are wonkier, the signals are weirder, and the pace of it all is accelerating.

Sometimes a layoff or a reorg forces that knowing into the open. But sometimes there's no dramatic event; it's just a subtle refrain that starts to get louder:

I need to adapt.

That sentence can carry shame, because it can sound like an admission we're behind. It can carry fear, because adapting means admitting that the version of us that worked before may not suffice for what's next.

But daunting as it may be, the need to adapt isn't a personal failing. It's a part of being in a changing system. We're biological organisms, after all, needing to keep up with external change.

Part of what I'm trying to do is say the quiet part out loud. Without shame. Without suggesting I'm immune. Without turning adaptation into performance.

Yes, the world is changing. Yes, it's hard. Yes, we need to adapt.

This, too, is resonance. The kind we share just by being here right now.

Why those five words

This is why I keep typing:

I'm so glad it resonated.

I don't mean: I'm glad you liked it.

I mean: I'm glad it struck a chord. I'm glad it landed. I'm glad it helped make the next step feel a little more doable. I'm glad your response was bigger than the input.

This is why I do TalentStories. The writing, the community, the consulting, the coaching, all of it.
​
Depending on the day, depending on the context, I'm pushing, prodding, poking, saying, shouting: we’re all in it. It’s hard. But I see you. And you don't have to go it alone.

That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.

Thanks for reading and exploring with me -- and have a great end of the week. 🙏

AkiSomeone forwarded it to you? Sign up here for every issue.