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Stop Telling People What You Care About. Show Them Where It Came From.
Every Tuesday, The Productive Disruptive delivers storytelling science, message makeovers, cultural commentary, and a little rebellious hope for anyone still stubborn enough to believe communication can change the world.
Dorian Johnson
April 28, 2026
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“I’m a maternal health advocate.”
That sentence tells me the lane, and as a Public Health professional, I get it.
But it doesn’t tell the call. And for folks outside the field, that call matters.
Today, I heard Tatyana Ali talk about her birth experience.
Yes, Tatyana Ali. Best known as Ashley Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
I have not been able to shake that story.
She described having a birth plan that was not honored.
She described a moment where her baby was pushed back into her body after she had already touched his hair.
She named the fear, the violation, the disbelief, and the rage of realizing that something so dangerous is so common for Black and Indigenous women.
That hits differently than “I care about maternal health.”
This is something that can be understood by those outside of this work.
It’s pretty outrageous.
It’s also an origin point of making sense of why maternal advocacy is so important.
Enter: Story of Self.
Marshall Ganz describes public narrative as a leadership practice that translates values into action.
In his framework, the Story of Self answers a specific question: why were you called to this work?
For a brief sec, forget the organization that champions this.
Forget the statistics(just briefly).
Why did this become yours to carry, study, challenge, organize around, write about, speak on, or refuse to ignore?
Somewhere along the way, consciously or not, you made a choice.
And it makes for powerful stories.
We often start with the label, maternal health advocate.
They tell us what role you play. They do not always tell what shaped you.
A Story of Self is a selected moment that helps people understand the values underneath your work.
Ganz breaks story down into a simple but powerful structure: challenge, choice, and outcome.
A challenge interrupts the expected path. A choice reveals what matters. An outcome teaches the moral of the story. That is where people begin to “get you”
“I advocate for maternal health because too many women are walking into birth rooms with a plan, a voice, and a body that should be protected, only to be neglected and put in danger.
That is a story door. It makes the value concrete.
People are moved by moments that help them understand why the work became necessary.
Ganz argues that values inspire action through emotion.
I gotta agree.
🧠 Story Science Side Note: Marshall Ganz argues that public narrative helps translate values into action because values are experienced emotionally.
📝 Message Makeover:
Before:
“I’m passionate about adolescent health.”
After:
“I care about adolescent health because too many young people are inheriting digital pressure, climate emotions, social disconnection, and getting treated like the problem instead of people who need to be poured into.”
🛠️ The PHacilitator’s Corner:
Build your Story of Self!
Pick one issue you care about.
Then answer these four questions:
What moment made this issue real for me?
What value was being threatened in that moment?
What choice did that moment invite me to make?
What do I want others to understand because of it?
Then write one sentence using this formula to make it easy.
I care about ______ because I remember ______, and that moment taught me ______.
Because before people join the mission that may be abstract, give them something concrete to feel first.
It’s finally spring weather!
I heard Tatyana’s story on her guest appearance on Pod Meets World(Boy Meets World’s rewatch podcast). It was very early on in the episode if you’re interested.
