What do a falling skirt, a Love Island soundbite, and a sick emoji have in common? According to storytelling strategist Akua Konadu: everything. They’re stories that make an impact.
In this episode, I sit down with Akua—host of the Unbreakable Business Podcast and a master of making micro-moments unforgettable. We talk about how the smallest, most awkward, or most seemingly mundane stories are often the ones that create the deepest connections in your brand. Akua shares why authenticity trumps aesthetics and gives tactical prompts to help you turn everyday moments into powerful content that moves your audience.
Today’s episode will show you that no story is too small to make an impact.
Why the Smallest Stories Stick
When Akua shared a vulnerable post early in her business—about feeling insecure teaching social media strategy without a massive following—she wasn’t expecting it to resonate so deeply. But it did. Because people don’t connect with polish. They connect with honesty.
We tend to think our stories aren’t worth sharing unless they’re epic. But Akua flips that idea on its head: the more human your story is, the more powerful it becomes. The typo that led to a client loss. The meltdown outside a Taco Bell. The quiet win that changed everything. These are the stories that build trust.
As she puts it: “You don’t need to go viral. You need to go deeper.”
How to Spot Stories in Your Everyday
Storytelling isn’t about manufacturing drama—it’s about noticing real-life moments and reflecting on why they matter. Akua emphasizes curiosity as the foundation of powerful content. If you want to find stories worth sharing, you have to slow down enough to observe them.
Here are a few prompts to help you start:
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What made you feel something this week?
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What conversation stuck with you?
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What challenge surprised you?
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What moment reminded you of something deeper?
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What did a child, client, or stranger say that made you laugh—or think?
Akua recommends building a “story bank”—a place where you collect these moments, whether they’re scribbled in a notebook, typed in your Notes app, or captured in voice memos. They don’t have to be ready to post. They just have to be remembered.
The Three-Question Filter: Should You Tell This Story?
Just because a moment is meaningful doesn’t mean it’s ready for content. Akua uses a three-part filter before shaping any personal story for her audience:
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Why do I want to share this?
Is it to connect, educate, entertain, or promote? If there’s no purpose, she saves it for later. -
How does it serve my audience?
Is the lesson or takeaway something they can use, relate to, or learn from? -
What’s the call to action?
Whether it’s “think about this,” “reply and share,” or “work with me,” every story should guide the reader toward some kind of engagement.
If the story doesn’t meet those three criteria, she lets it sit in the story bank until it does.
Turning Stories Into Systems
Once you have a story, what do you do with it? Akua recommends using simple prompts to shape your storytelling process. Here are some she shared in the episode:
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How were you feeling in the moment?
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What made that moment stick in your memory?
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What did you learn—and how did it change you?
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How is that relevant to your audience’s journey right now?
She also reminds us that some stories don’t need to lead to a sales pitch. Sometimes, connection is the point.
Storytelling is a muscle. It doesn’t matter if you’re more of a talker than a writer (hello, voice notes!), or if your stories come out jumbled at first. The more you practice reflecting, processing, and sharing with intention, the more confident you’ll become.
What If You Think Your Story’s Too Small?
If this episode had a thesis, it’s this: Your story matters—even when it feels small.
If you’ve ever doubted whether your experience is “big enough” to be content, Akua encourages you to dig deeper. That fear might not be about the story—it might be about your own visibility. Are you afraid to be seen? Are you afraid to take up space?
Her advice: Ask people who know you well what they see in you. Sometimes the best way to start is by letting others reflect your value back to you. From there, you can begin to explore the moments that shaped you, even if they never made it into a highlight reel.
As she says, “There’s someone out there who needs exactly what you have. Don’t rob them of it by staying silent.”
Review the Show Notes:
The system reboot (1:12)
Sharing something small that became significant (5:53)
How business owners can notice the moments worth sharing (8:30)
Connecting your story to your audience (10:42)
Shaping a story into content (12:30)
Turning stories into content on the spot (15:58)
Is your story too small to matter? (24:02)
The system shutdown (27:33)
Mentioned In This Episode:
Akua Konadu Website: akuakonadu.com
Akua Konadu Instagram: instagram.com/akuakonadu_
The Unbreakable Business Podcast: podcast.honeybook.com
Julie Instagram: instagram.com/dallasgirlfriday
Review the Transcript:
Julie: Welcome back to the System for Everything podcast. Today’s TI System tip. For every deeply moving story you share, make sure to also tell one about crying in your car outside of Taco Bell. It’s called Balance. Welcome back to the system for everything, the podcast where we believe the tiniest details like an awkward client call or a typo in a DM can spark your most impactful stories.
Today’s guest is Akua Konadu. A storytelling strategist who helps small business owners and SaaS companies use everyday stories to transform their content marketing and brand presence. She is known for her fun, relatable approach that empowers people to share their experiences. With confidence and clarity, Akua teaches creatives and entrepreneurs how to lean into who they are, creating content that connects deeply while staying authentic.
She’s also the host of the Unbreakable Business Podcast, powered by HoneyBook, where she explores the untold stories of entrepreneurship and what it really takes to build a business that lasts. She’s not here to make you go viral people. She’s here to help you go deeper, and that is way more powerful.
We’re gonna start the episode as we always do with our system. Reboot a quick little reset to start our episode with Humor and humanity. Akua, you can only use one emoji for a year. What are you committing to?
Akua: How appropriate or inappropriate Can I, I’m just kidding.
Julie: I would like both, please.
Akua: I would like both.
No, I’m just kidding. I always send the crying laughing emoji. That would be through and through. Or the one that like, it looks like they’re sick, but I always send that one where it’s like you say some dumb stuff or like, you know, which I’m talking about where the Facebook’s like,
Julie: yeah, I do the, I do the lady shrugging a lot.
Oh,
Akua: do you? I do like. I use those two a lot. Those are my top two. The crying laughing one or the one, and like it’s listed as like sick emoji, but it literally gives a look of like, what the fuck? Like what are you doing? And I send that a lot where I’m like, what? It would be those two.
Julie: What is a product you recently bought that actually lived up to the hype?
Akua: Can I Business related or not? Oh, either. Okay. I did just buy a makeup brush. Automatic cleaner, and that has been amazing on Amazon. And it’s Amazon Prime deal right now. You know that whole spiel, so go get it. I really love it because you know, obviously like with the podcast and you know, being on camera a lot now, I have had to really change up my makeup game, my brush, so I have to clean my brushes more often.
It was my face will break out. So that has been really good. I love it. And then, um, I just hired somebody to help me with my social media and she told me about a app called Ella. Like it’s a desktop, but I like it so far. It like has everything you need to plan in your content. Like everything from the, it’s everything like in one place, like content calendar.
I like it. So those are two things that I have purchased that I feel like is gonna help really create systems for me in my bus business and my personal life. So,
Julie: yay. There we go. All right. And finally, what pop culture moment lives rent free in your head?
Akua: Oh my gosh. Right now currently Love Island.
There’s a trending sound. There is a, um, woman, her name is Hura. She’s on the show and she is a mom and she was originally keeping it secret, you know, on like didn’t wanna tell her fellow islanders, which is fair. And she was dating a guy named Jeremiah and she eventually told him, and you know, she wanted Jeremiah to have somebody to, you know, talk about process that information with, so she told another islander, his name is Nick, and it’s trending on TikTok.
It is so funny. And she goes, I’m a mommy. And he goes, A what? She goes, I’m a mommy. He goes, mama Cita. She goes, no, I’m a mommy. And he goes, A, A what? A mommy of like a person. It is the funniest clip. And I watched it in real time on Love Island. Like he couldn’t, he did not understand the concept that this woman.
Was a mother to a living human being. He was like, to what? Like a dog or, you know, a like a per, he’s like, oh, you mean like a person? And she was like, yeah, she, but I, but also in his defense, she kept saying, I’m a mommy, and that could mean a lot of things. That is weird. She could have just said, I’m a mother, just like
Julie: I’m a, I’m a mother.
A mom. I have a daughter.
Akua: You know, but she just kept saying. That is actually you should, you should, should. She just kept saying, mommy a child, mama. And that cracked me up.
Julie: Like
that’s really solid. I know that I would love, love Island. I’ve just never gotten into it. It’s such a big commitment and like the day that we’re recording this Big Brother starts this night, and that’s already three days a week. Oh. I just, I don’t think I have the
Akua: time. Yeah. I just got into Love Island this season and I will say I don’t like it.
And also, can we talk about how. When you watch reality shows like Love Island, like Big Brother, it is truly a reflection of society today. And it’s so interesting. It was just like the peril, social, mostly the garbage of it. Mostly the garbage of it. And I’m just like, there’s so many things like what is wrong with humanity?
But I don’t think I’ll watch Love Island again. This is my first time getting into it and I was just so upset this, this, this season was terrible, but my sister said season six. ’cause she loves love Island. She’s a love island. Girly through and through and she said Season six is the best season. Hands down.
She was like, stop watching this season and go to season six. So I’m gonna try it. I’m gonna give it a shot and watch season six. But, um, okay. I’m gonna try it. Yeah, try but do season six, but don’t even watch season seven. It’s true. No, no, no. I’m gonna, I’m
Julie: gonna try with season six. Yes.
Akua: Yeah. Try it with season six.
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie: All right everyone. You have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. Here is my conversation with Akua on the system for turning small moments into big movements. All right. I wanna dive into why the smallest stories are often the ones that resonate the most. So has there been a time you shared something you thought was really minor and it unexpectedly landed with your audience?
Akua: Oh yeah. Like so many times. I think that has been like the biggest piece for me as a business owner, just wanting to try and do anything is like anytime I share about who I am, honestly and authentically, it’s always paid off. And this was like an older, pers older post, but I just remembered like even now, like just.
I was having a really hard time, like I was in the very beginning stages of my business and this is something I still work through and people are probably like really shocked because, you know, I’m a host of a podcast and you know, I’m still a business owner and doing all these things, I still have struggled with being seen.
I still do. I now have to like really just be comfortable with how much it makes me uncomfortable. And at that time I was really struggling with that. Especially like being a storytelling strategist. And I just shared where I was. I just made a caption of just like, you know, I would always feel really self-conscious when I would teach about social media.
And then, you know, people instantly look up your Instagram and then see that you don’t have this huge following. So that didn’t make me valuable or didn’t make like what I had to share worthy. Right. And so. I remembered sharing that and I got such high engagement. And especially the comments, it really just sparked a conversation with business owners.
Like we were all talking with each other and, and I love that. And, and then to me, I’m like, this is, that’s what brings me joy. And just feel super aligned as a business owner where we can have more of those conversations. Like my favorite thing to do in the whole while whole wild, whole, wild world. Gosh, working on enunciation.
I talk so fast all the time, but, um. It’s really breaking bread and just having deep conversations with people and knowing who they are, how they operate in the world, their experiences and why, why they do what they do. And so that’s, and that’s like the root of my business, you know? I really want people to find those clients that align with them so that you, because you know, you already understand them and then you, you story and.
Your everyday life and what you’ve walked through is worth sharing. And it’s, it’s, it’s gonna, it’s impactful. And so I think a lot of the times we, we don’t give ourselves enough credit. And I think that’s why I do what I do, and that’s what storytelling is all about.
Julie: I love that, and I love having the deep moments with people.
I’ve always said, like, I just, I hate small talk, like I’m not good at it because I don’t enjoy it. I mean, maybe small talk to the extent like, oh, what are you binging? What are you reading? Like, mostly I just walk up to people and I’m like, hi, I’m Julie. What’s your trauma? And like, you know, like in a different nicer way.
A less invasive sometimes way, but like, yeah, like I wanna get to it. So how can business owners begin to notice those little moments worth sharing?
Akua: I think one of the biggest things. And I, if you listen to any of my interviews, you know, this like curiosity, you re like, that is such a thing. And I think right now, in the current season, I have been at n and Julie, we’ve talked about this, like I’ll be vulnerable.
Like I was severely, severely burnt out, um, you know, a couple months ago, like I’m still recovering from severe, severe burnout. And, and, and that season for me, I really had to practice what I preached of curiosity of like, all right, you ended up here, but how. And why and what are certain actions, not in a way of like blaming me, it’s just I have been in a season of truly understanding myself and why I operate the way I operate.
Like some of these little things where I’m like, why do I do that? And you know, I’ve just been leaning more into trying to understand these behaviors in order to change them. So when even, and I’m only sharing this story because when you’re really trying to figure out how can I find these moments, they truly are all around you.
You have to be op open to receiving them. Life is always teaching you lessons. Whether you see it or not, you know what I mean? In the every day. That’s the part you have to ask yourself is really taking that time to slow down, because that’s when you’ll start to really see things that. Pop up, like I lo, I love going for walks.
I put either, sometimes I have nothing playing and I just actually am like looking around and trying to be present and observe what’s happening around me. And I get some of my best stories from that where I’m like, Ooh, like let me hurry up and put this in my notes app, because I’ll be sitting there thinking, ’cause it sparks a memory.
It like doesn’t have to be what happened right here, right now. It could be something that happened even a couple days ago. A couple weeks ago. A couple years ago that pops up and you’re like, oh my gosh, this is so relevant. This is what I wanna share. And so I think that’s the biggest piece of slowing down and really leaning into what fills you up.
Because it’s really cool when you do that because you’ll see the ideas that come. And that’s where I get like a lot of my content inspiration is, and that’s what I have. Like we’ve talked about this, you know, like my storytelling bank, like that’s just like my library. That’s what I have where I add these stories in.
And so then when I’m ready to share content, it’s so much easier to put me back in that place where I’m able to like share my thoughts and my experiences.
Julie: Okay, so you’ve gone on the walk, you’ve added something to your notes, you’ve spotted that potential story. How do you then give it some structure and and purpose?
What is your, your system for extracting that value from personal moments without turning every single thing into a sales pitch?
Akua: Absolutely. And also too, I always like to say this, not every story needs to be shared, like, you know what I mean? That is fair. It’s fair. I think it’s really difficult ’cause people are like, well I don’t know what story to share in this side.
It’s like you don’t have to share every single one. What matters most is when you have that story and I always listen to, to like how I feel. Do I get excited or like, ooh, like this is spicy. Like I really want to share that. And the instant, the next thing I always think of is. How is this gonna serve my audience?
What is the purpose of it? Because like I said, not every story needs to be told, and not every story is, is relevant. Like, I always still put things in my storytelling library. ’cause if it’s not relevant to my audience today, it could be relevant later on. You know what I mean? And so a lot of the times it is just like, I, I feel it like this is, could be a really good story, but why, why is it a good story?
Like what? What does it matter to my target audience? Because I might care about it, but I have to make them care. If I can’t connect it to my target audience, that already tells me that’s a no and that’s okay. Like I said it, that specific story today may not, but you may have another. It ano, all of a sudden you might have an idea of like, oh my gosh, I now know how I can connect it to my audience.
Like you always just like, and so that’s for me. If I can’t connect it to my audience and I can’t give them a clear action, then I won’t share it. Those are like my, kind of like my criteria, like why, like what’s the purpose of the story? Why do I actually wanna share it? How is this going to benefit my target audience?
Like what value am I gonna provide to them? And then what’s the call to action that I can take? And I can’t answer those three. I just don’t share it.
Julie: Are there any prompts or questions that you recommend to shape a story into content?
Akua: Hmm, that’s a good idea. That’s a really good question. I think for me, I always, what I do before, ’cause I always have like a, a, a framework, like a caption framework or whatever, if you’re creating content or even to like creating reels, whatever.
But even before that, like when I, and I answered those three questions, but even before then, I asked questions of even to pull stuff out of me. I’m like, okay, aah. Really simple. How are you feeling today? What happened today? Like, what did you do today? Is there anything that you did that made you feel really good or like, I think sometimes for me, and, and not all business owners are like this, so I understand that.
But for me, like I, I am more feelings driven and so for me, I’m like, I write a lot. I journal a lot. And you also don’t have to be that in order to be a really good storyteller, it’s a muscle that you’re constantly exercising. So like even just doing voice notes, you can put that in chat GPT and let it transcribe for you and save it.
You know what I mean? Like whatever works for you, like processing, whatever. And then I’ll have like the most random stuff that come up. So even certain things, like I said, I’m like, what did I do today? Or What did I do this week? How was I feeling this week? Did I have any conversations that were impactful?
Who did I connect with that brought me joy? What activities did I do that brought me joy? Was there a hard lesson that I learned with a client? Like you see, I’m just like throwing stuff out there, you know? Or like what was a major win that I had with a client or, I think for me, I’d like to go as deeper as possible.
So like for me, even with my clients, I’m like, okay, yeah, we had a win. But like how has that impacted your life? How has this major win given you? The transformation that you’re looking for and not just like, oh yeah, I gained X, Y, Z, but like, oh yeah, I was able to gain more time or save more money. That’s great.
But what did you like because of that? What were you able to do? Like, oh, I was able to have that freedom to spend time with the people that I loved, or, you know, I was able to have the funds to be able to, uh, take care of a sick parent or, you know, whatever that may, that’s like the, the deeper reason. So it’s like, can you pull out some of those pieces?
As you’re processing through, and then again, connect it to your audience and provide them value. Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally does. Kind of, that’s how I operate, you know what I mean? Like even just some of those prompts, like I said, just start with like, what am I curious about? What did I do today?
Is there anything that brought me joy? Is there something that I’m still processing through? Um, and this can all be in your business. Like what in your business brought you joy or like what are you processing through or trying to figure out in your business or like, what’s a client that you loved working with, or what was a hard lesson that you learned from a client that you guys didn’t align or you know, how are you balancing.
Motherhood and being a business owner, or how are you showing up? I’m not
Julie: going very poorly.
Akua: I love you. I love you. You’re like, let me, let me tell you immediately, girl, it’s not going well. You like I do. I have a story for you is what you’re already.
Julie: I wanna see, I wanna try to play a little game and I’ve never done something like this where I’ve, like me, besides the sister Mebo, where I like really put people on the spot like this. So this could go amazingly and I start incorporating it all the time. Or we could both do so badly that, well, I’ll still publish this episode.
It’s so badly that like we’re just embarrassed. I don’t know. I don’t get embarrassed that easily, so probably not. But what I want us to try to do is each of us share like a really quick, maybe like 32nd like moment from like life or business or something, and then the other person tries to reframe it as content, like with a clear like takeaway or lesson.
I’m gonna share an example, which was like, oh, my kids spilled milk on my laptop, which was total chaos. Oh. But that reminded me of the importance of redundancy in systems like so
Akua: redundancy in systems. I really like the way they done that. What’s my
Julie: voice when I quote myself? Um, oh God. Okay, now I am embarrassed.
Um, I’m sorry. Who let us be on mics together? I nothing. I’m gonna, let me do my, I’ll do my story first and see if you can come up with any content for it. And I haven’t thought of a way to frame any content into this. I just think it’s a really silly story and it’s my like, only short story. I have very few short ones.
All right, here we
Akua: go.
Julie: So, about 15 years ago, I lived in an apartment, um, and I had to walk maybe the equivalent of like a city block to get from like my door to where the actual cars were parked. My mom came over one day and she was leaving at about two in the afternoon, like on a weekday, like sun is shining and we’re walking out and I just pull my door closed behind me.
’cause I was walking over to the parking lot and she goes, are you not gonna lock your door? And I was like, no. And she goes, Julie, home invasions are on the rise. It was just the most ridiculous statement and my friends and I all still repeat it like 15 years later ’cause I told everyone about it. So all the time we’ll be like, guys home invasions are on the rise.
I don’t know if that could ever be content.
Akua: First of all, I, I love your mom. Wait. Oh wait. Do I give you content ideas because I already kind of had one? Yeah. It may not, you may not have to share this story, that story specifically as a content. However, I was able to garner a topic idea from it that you can just.
Talk as a caption and you know when a lot of times we think of like when we start our businesses and how family members are usually the biggest op, they’re like, but you can tell it comes from a place of care and love. That’s that similar situation. It’s the same like feeling
Julie: a hundred percent. One of my favorite, like my mom getting my career wrong was, this was again about 15 years ago when I worked for both the Dallas Mavericks and I was a wedding planner.
I had like my own business on the side and my mom was at a doctor’s appointment and was telling. The guy that I was a wedding planner and worked for the Dallas Mavericks and he left that appointment thinking that I was the exclusive wedding planner, like for the of the NDA Dallas. And I was like, that is, no, not even a little good.
But I love it
Akua: the way I would’ve been like, yeah, I lovers to try to get more clients, be like, yes, I absolutely am. Um, you know, and but I love that though ’cause I really wanna. Point that out is when you think of that. Okay. Like we just used this story and maybe we technically didn’t use it, but what we did, we leveraged it to get a whole type of content topic.
Now you don’t have to share that story to explain like, okay. About how like, family members is hard when like they don’t see the vision and understand your business, but the feeling is the same one, totally different situation. And right, like where like your mom’s, like home invasions are on the rise and like how many times our parents are always doing that where it’s like chill out.
You know what I mean? But you know they’re doing it because they’re coming from a place of care and then because they love you and they wanna keep you safe. How many times with business owners when like you tell your, like your family, like, I’m about to take this leap to start this business. It’s the same feeling, the same emotion, two totally different situations.
That’s what storytelling does, right? Like that’s why it’s so powerful is because
Julie: I can’t believe you freaking tied that together. Yeah. Like everything is tied.
Akua: Like, I already was like, oh yeah, I can create a great caption. Like, not necessarily using that story, but let’s talk about like when we first decided to launch a business and how people were just like, I’m not sure and this and that.
You know? And they want, it’s because they wanna keep you safe. And we, we project a lot. So we, as human beings, you also have to kind of look at like how we as human beings act and move in the world. And so, and that’s why I love stories, because you get to see that. You get to see it in real time every day.
And so lemme think of a story girl. So I got one for you. Oh gosh. This happened to me when I was a kid and now it explains why, like, I always make sure all of my clothes fit. So I was a really tiny child, really small, and I used to go to a Christian private school in New York. That’s where I’m, I’m was originally from the school uniforms.
We all had to wear matching uniforms and I was too small. I didn’t fit into any of them. So what, what did my mom do? She made a. Took like pins and stuff to get the skirt to fit. So I had been wearing these pins and stuff to get everything to fit. So one day I had to go up in front of the class. You should know where this is going.
And like, I had stockings on under the, the, the skirt I did, I had stockings on. But one day I was at the class and I had to go in front of the class and read and the epping skirt bell. Aw it bell. And now as an adult. I worked through that trauma in therapy and I now make sure all, like when I’m in a skirt, oh, I’m triple checking.
I was like, oh my God. Yeah, it fell. The skirt fell. Anyways, what can you, what can you pull from that?
Julie: Okay, so I frankly cheated. While you were saying that, I put myself on, did you put a chat and see? Yes. I, I put it on, I put myself on mute and I typed it into chat. GBT would, would it pull up the syst? It’s, it’s trying to relate it back to my podcast.
It says the system for making sure your clothes fit. When Aku A tells you she double checks that outfit fits. It’s not just style, it’s strategy.
Akua: Yeah.
Julie: I already have some ideas. Okay. Yeah, no, I got nothing. That’s okay. I’m terrible at
Akua: this. No, no, but this is what, like, let’s, but this is very fun. Let’s work through it together.
Right. Okay, so I just told you this really embarrassing moment of like, as a child when my skirt fell. And the kids like, obviously these kids, you would think like kids were like, oh my God, no, they were not. Some of the girls, some of the girls were really sweet to me and, but anyways, now let me not add any more to the story.
Let’s actually find some content ideas, because sometimes if you can’t think of anything, think of the feeling, right? Like feeling, is there a time that you’ve been really embarrassed with your, with the client? Or that’ll
Julie: resonate with everyone.
Akua: That’ll resonate with everybody of like when they’ve been embarrassed.
Remember at the Creative Educator Conference, because I love you
Julie: all, but your feelings are. Sadag,
Akua: but remember, um, oh my gosh, this just came to me at the, uh, creative Educator Conference and she’s amazing and she was doing the five minute Fuel. Oh, what is her name? Oh yeah, that was Tori. Tori and she, she’s
Julie: gonna be on a later episode.
Love. I was the person that was
Akua: like, love Tori. What? Yeah, but let’s talk about that. Right, because like she shared that moment.
Julie: Yeah.
Akua: And I’m sure she was feeling fear embarrassment, like, and what did she do? And she shared that recap on until, and she shared that recap. People don’t even know what we’re talking about, but we’ll let her share that story.
But what I’m saying to you is, is that if you were like, how can the story relate emotions? We all feel them. So if you’re like, you’re thinking about, like, you are like, okay, I don’t have anything to relate to it now. Still save it. ’cause you might be able to, but then I’m like, then think of the feeling of how you felt.
And like we as human beings all universally, like you said, feel the same. So then, okay, if like, think about a time in your business where you did feel embarrassed or where you felt. Ashamed and you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t know how to, and how did you work through that? Because we all like a good comeback story, honey.
And that’s what thing with like Tori too, like seeing like we all love a good comeback. So like, yeah, I was embarrassed and like the teacher helped me put my skirt up, but like the girls were all so nice to me and like it didn’t feel dumb. You know what I mean? Like stuff like that where. It’s okay. And then we move on again, right?
Like it shows up. Like as business owners, we’re going to have these times where we completely mess up or we completely embarrass ourselves. But that is the true journey and spirit of entrepreneurship. ’cause if you’re not maybe sometimes being cringey and embarrassing yourself, then you’re not growing as a business owner.
I just relay that back to my business.
Julie: I love it. Okay. Before we wrap up, I wanna know, what advice would you give to somebody that is afraid that their story is too small to matter?
Akua: A good thing I want people to really remember about themselves is. Because then if that is the case, that is a worthiness issue, like there’s a deeper reason as to why you feel that way, that your story is too small.
Do you feel small? Are you afraid to take up space? Are you afraid to be seen? Are you afraid that you are not going to have an impact? Because I was like to say this, and I every time listen to my words. You know, like you don’t have to have crazy shit that has to happen. You don’t have to have like this worldview of trauma or anything like that.
It’s just like. You are still making an impact in your every day, and there are people that count on you, that rely on you, that see that you are, that love you for who you are. And sometimes if you’re like, lean on to them and ask them what, what do, what do they see in you? And leverage what they see as a way to create some of your stories.
You know what I mean? Of like, how have you helped them and let them share that for you. That could be a really small, tangible way to help you get started. But like I said, even some of those prompts I shared earlier of just like process through and like, so you can really start to build that confidence because there’s a reason why you do what you do and why you decided to become a business owner and in the specific niche that you’re in.
And to think that you are so small where you’re not making an impact, you’re doing a huge disservice to yourself, but also the pe, the potential people that you could work with. Because there’s somebody that needs exactly what you have and is out there looking. And I think when we think of that we like, it really makes me realize that like my problems of like how I view myself and with my business is so small because I really wanna be able to find that person and serve them.
And so that’s something I think I would, I would like to say.
Julie: Ugh, Akua. Tell everyone where they can find you online and how they can work with you if they wanna start showing up and storytelling like themselves. Yes.
Akua: Um, you can find me on akua konadu.com, find me on Instagram at Can akua konadu send me a DM and
Julie: the quiz on your website?
Yes.
Akua: Yes. So I have my storytelling quiz, like, what’s your storytelling style? And I poured my heart and soul into that baby. I love it so much. It literally is like, once you learn your storytelling style, I give you very personalized. Exercise is very tangible tips for you to implement on how to lean into your gifts, like your specific gifts as a storyteller.
So definitely take the quiz ’cause I love it. What are you, Julie, by the way?
Julie: Oh, you know what? I would have to go look in my emails.
Akua: You give me either. I was gonna say, oh, there’s a third. Oh, I have all three of ’em except one and I can’t think of what it is right now. Of course. But I think you’re that one.
But I can’t think of, ’cause I have soulful, okay. I don’t wanna say like all the the personalities, but I know the one, and I can’t think of the name, but I know the other three. But I think you’re that one. And I’m like, I know like the description of it. But I can’t think in my mind like the actual name.
Julie: I can’t.
I’m gonna find it. Find it. ‘
Akua: cause now I’m really curious. Um, but yeah, that’s where you can find me. And then you can also find me on the Unbreakable Business Podcast where we lean into the untold stories of entrepreneurship powered by HoneyBook. So definitely check that out on YouTube, apple, Spotify. So yeah, that’s where you can find me.
Did you find what you are?
Julie: I did. I’m a magnetic storyteller. You are magnetic. Oh, I was off. Which made me feel incredibly beautiful and powerful. Yes. Hell yeah.
Akua: And honestly that makes sense. So now I’m excited. I definitely thought you were so something else, but now I like,
Julie: I don’t, maybe I need to retake it.
I did it. No, don’t retake it. I like,
Akua: well, I
Julie: took it like over a year. Oh, there may be it changed. Okay.
Akua: That’s true.
Julie: All right, everyone, we are gonna go ahead and shut this dish down. Uh, this week’s system shut down is a fast five, and it is on topic shockingly enough. Five unexpected places to find great stories, which we have already mentioned several of in this podcast.
Okay, number one, the notes. APT drafts you’ve never posted. Number two, old emails or dms from when you were just starting out. Three, your camera roll from 10 years ago. Four, your cringe folder, or memories that still make you wince, and five conversations with kids or other people who have zero context for what you do.
Akua: Those are some solid, solid places, Julie. I love that.
Julie: Thank you. All right, everyone. If today’s episode reminded you that your story matters, even the messy, mundane, or weird parts. Send this episode to a friend who needs that reminder. And if you love Toku Insights, go binge her content and tell her she’s the reason you’re finally showing up online.
See you next time on the system for everything.
