As a leader, coach or mentor, our role is to help others find their voice and tell their story.

Of course we want to improve our abilities to do this for our people, so I reached out to a professional sports broadcaster and storyteller, Jen Mueller, to learn how she has honed her craft.

Today’s guest is one of those amazing storytellers. I’m grateful for the opportunity to sit down with Jen Mueller and learn more about her extraordinary talent of empowering others to own their voice.

Jen is well known for her sidelines reporting and post-game interviews with the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Mariners.

Jen frequently interviews athletes right after they made the game winning play and when they’ve made a mistake to lose a game.

And she doesn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions, not only because that’s her job, but because the athletes and coaches want the opportunity to answer those questions. 

Off the field, Jen is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and content creator, sharing valuable insights from her experiences in sports and beyond.

In this episode, Jen answers the following questions:
- How do you help someone to tell their story?
- How do you get someone to tell their story?
- What does it mean to have your own voice?
- What does it mean to own your own story?

My favorite quote from the episode: “Open-end questions create confusion.”

In coaching and consulting, we’re told to ask open-ended questions, so hearing this perspective was really valuable. The context of a coaching or consulting conversation is much different than a news interview, but I had not thought about open-ended questions like this before.

What I know to be true about the episode: Jen is a pro. I love how well thought-out and planful her strategies and tactics are, and how she bakes in contingency and flexibility into her frameworks to reflect the rapidly-changing nature of sports.

What I learned from the episode: Jen shared two great frameworks. The first is about the relationship-building power of saying “Hello” and how simple it is as a precursor to a deepening of trust. The second framework is how she identifies and nurtures questions through the day, the week, and a season.

Resources mentioned in the episode:
-  Jen’s company: Talk Sporty To Me

Keywords
#OwnYouVoice #Storytelling #SportsBroadcaster #Empathy #Curiosity #Connection

Music in this episode by Ian Kastner.

"What Do You Know To Be True?" is a series of conversations where I speak with interesting people about their special talent or superhero power and the meaningful impact it has on others. The intention is to learn more about their experience with their superhero power, so that we can learn something about the special talent in each of us which allows us to connect more deeply with our purpose and achieve our potential.

For more info about the podcast or to check out more episodes, go to: https://whatdoyouknowtobetrue.com/ 

"What Do You Know To Be True?" is hosted by Roger Kastner, is a production of Three Blue Pens, and is recorded on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. To discover the ancestral lands of the indigenous people whose land you may be on, go to: https://native-land.ca/