This summer she went to surf camp anyway. She got in, she got on the board, and she stood up for the first time. Her dad had a microphone with him, because he is that kind of dad, so when she came out of the water he interviewed her on the sand about the whole experience.
She told him she was going to win the next competition. He asked how much money that was. She said $1,566, with the specificity only a five year old can manage. He asked what she would buy with it.
A really giant dollhouse.
Most people would watch that video and think: cute kid, good dad. Then keep scrolling, and the story would die inside the reel.
I watched it and heard a buyer with 25% down and no income to carry the payment.
Why Most Content Stops at the Literal Version
Most people are excellent at being literal and mediocre at telling stories.
A post about a kid at the beach is filed as a post about a kid at the beach. It goes in the personal bucket. It performs fine, people leave heart emojis, and then it is over. One story, one platform, one use, done.
Meanwhile the same person is sitting at their laptop on Sunday night trying to think of something to post, convinced they have nothing to say.
They have plenty to say. What they are missing is the habit of asking what a story is really about, which is a different question from what happened in it.
I say this constantly: there is a backstory to every origin story. The surface event is rarely the interesting part. The interesting part is the pattern underneath it, the one your reader will recognize from their own week.
What Is the Story Inside the Story?
The story inside the story is the second, parallel meaning sitting underneath a surface event. The surf video was literally about a kid overcoming fear. Underneath it was a buyer with a strong down payment and no capacity to carry the monthly payment, which is the exact conversation a mortgage advisor has every week. Same shape, different scale. Finding that second layer turns a personal moment into a business asset.
Your reader is tuned to one station, and it broadcasts what is in it for me. They will not sit through your process, your credentials, or your program to get to the useful part. A story is how the useful part gets past that filter. The treehouse is the vehicle and the lesson is the cargo.
How I Found the Story Inside Frankie’s Story
Here is the sequence, because the method matters more than the outcome.
1. I asked for the backstory. I texted John Farrell, Frankie’s dad and a mortgage advisor in Southern California, and asked what was going on behind the scenes. Most stories get better the second time you hear them.
2. I noticed the irony. The first thing his daughter wanted to do with money she had not won yet was buy a house. Of course she did. It is all she has ever heard her dad talk about. That is a lender’s kid being a lender’s kid, and it was the door into the whole thing.
3. I made it concrete. This is the step people skip. I went to homedepot.com and priced an actual giant dollhouse. Two story outdoor treehouse with a slide, right around $6,000. The pinnacle of a five year old’s dream, with a real price tag attached to it.
4. I ran the numbers like a lender. Say she wins $1,500. Against a $6,000 property, that is 25% down, which is a genuinely strong position. Then the ratios. She is five. Her monthly allowance is $20. Her down payment gets her to pre-approval and the math still does not math.
5. I found the parallel. That is exactly what happens with real buyers every week. Gift funds, down payment assistance, enough saved to get in the door, and then the monthly payment falls apart. Deals die in the debt ratios far more often than in the down payment.
Step three is the one worth stealing. A vague version of this story is a cute anecdote. A priced treehouse and a $20 allowance make it a case study your reader can feel, because the numbers behave exactly like the numbers in their own deals.
Why the Same Story Needs a Second Home
Once you have found the second story, the question becomes where it goes.
The reel had already done its job on Instagram. Short, informal, general audience, warm. So we took the same story and wrote a newsletter to John’s realtor partners: the surf camp, the treehouse, the ratios, and then the turn. This is the kind of education every client you send me gets. I am not going to slap a pre-approval on someone and send them on their merry way.
Look at what moved between those two pieces.
Short form to long form. Social media to email. A general audience to a focused one. The message stayed the same, simple and human, and by the last paragraph every realtor reading it wants Frankie to win that competition and get her dream house. That is connection doing work no case study could do on its own.
Daniel Priestley talks about building a marketing playground: your content spread across enough platforms, formats, and lengths that people can meet you wherever they already are, at whatever depth they are ready for. Some of your audience reads long form. Some are scrolling at a stoplight. The playground gives them multiple ways into the same story and the same brand.
There is a second benefit that matters more than most people realize. You do not own the algorithm on Instagram or LinkedIn. Those platforms can change the rules tomorrow and have, repeatedly. Every time you move someone off a feed and into your inbox, they get further into your world and further from a system you do not control.
The Part That Only Worked Because the Foundation Existed
Here is the part I want to be honest about, because it is easy to make this look like a magic trick.
The email lands on one line: getting into the wrong house is worse than not getting into a house at all.
That line was not invented for the treehouse. It came out of John’s brand book, which we built together months earlier. It is his core conviction, documented, in his words, sitting in a file before any of this happened.
So when the surf video showed up, we were not starting from a blank page and asking what he believes. We already knew. The story just gave an existing conviction a new way into an inbox.
People reach for the tool first and then wonder why the output sounds like a stranger wearing their name. Story finding is a skill you can practice. The consistency underneath it comes from having written down what you believe, before you needed it.
How Do You Find the Story Inside Your Own Story?
Start with something that already happened to you, then run four questions on it: What is this actually about, beneath the literal event? Who else does this describe? What is the concrete detail, price, or number that makes the parallel real? Where does the longer version live, and who specifically is it for? Most people stop after the first post. The second version is where the business work happens.
Try it this week with the most personal thing you posted in the last month, the one with nothing to do with your business.
Ask what it is about. Then go make it concrete the way the treehouse got concrete: price the thing, run the number, find the detail that turns a nice moment into something your reader recognizes from their own week. Then write the longer version for the people on your list, with the parallel made obvious and the lesson attached.
Nothing about this requires you to be a natural storyteller. It requires you to stop reading your own life literally.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “there is a backstory to every origin story” mean?
It means the surface event you are tempted to post is rarely the most useful part of the story. Underneath the visible moment is a pattern, a decision, or a tension that your audience will recognize from their own experience. The backstory is what makes a personal post relevant to someone who has never met you.
How do you repurpose one story across multiple platforms?
Change the format, the platform, and the audience while keeping the message identical. A short informal video for a general social audience becomes a longer educational email for a specific segment, like referral partners. Daniel Priestley calls this building a marketing playground. The goal is multiple entry points into the same brand, at different depths.
Why does it matter whether people follow you on social media or read your email?
You do not own social platforms and cannot control their algorithms or their reach. An email list is an asset you own outright. Moving people from a feed into an inbox deepens the relationship and protects it from a platform change you had no say in.
Do you need a brand book before doing this?
No, but it is the difference between one good post and a repeatable system. A documented brand foundation means your convictions, voice, and positioning are written down before you need them, so any story you find can be connected to something you already believe rather than something you invent on deadline.
Want the source material? I have John’s original reel and the exact email we wrote from it if you want to see how one story moved from a beach in Newport to a referral partner’s inbox.
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