Expert-Secrets full book

“Why is that important?”
“Because my mom was home when I got home from school, and I want that
for my kids, too.”
“Why?”
“Because people may think I’m a bad father if I can’t provide this way for
them.”
(Notice status reason here.)
“Why?”
“Because I want my kids to love me and look up to me.”
There it is again!
The internal struggle is not that they want to make money, it’s that they
want their kids and spouse to love them. They want love, security, status.
As you’re telling the story, touch upon the external, because that’s what
they’re willing to acknowledge. But then share your internal struggles, too.
Those people who are dealing with the same internal struggles will have instant
rapport with you, and you’ll be speaking to them at a subconscious level. They’ll
be thinking about feelings they’ve never really shared in the past, but know are
true.
When you get to the end of the story, typically you’ve solved the external
struggles and accomplished what the hero has set out to do. But for your story to
be really impactful, the hero needs to have done more than just accomplish their
goal. They need to have become someone different in the process.
In fact, sometimes it’s even more powerful if the hero does not reach their
initial goal. Lightning McQueen didn’t win the Piston Cup. Rocky Balboa lost to
Apollo Creed (in Part 1), but that is why we love those characters so much. Even
though they failed at their external goals, both of them won their internal
struggles, the journey of transformation.
Michael Hauge said that the internal journey is all about the death of our
identity, and the rebirth of our essence. Our internal struggles are about us
holding onto these things that we’re attached to such as love, our status, our
identity. If you took away all those things, what is left would be your essence.
Realizing that your kids love you no matter what, and that others don’t really
care about your status that much—that is the essence of happiness.
So while we want our hero to achieve his goal, it’s more important that he
becomes someone different along the way. There has been a death of his internal
struggles and a rebirth of something more.
The Wall