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And I made up my title.
Story Strategist wasn’t a thing until I made it a thing, or should I say, until I decided to step into my power and just be who I am in the fullest sense.
How I got here? The TL:DR version?
• Toronto. London. Montreal. North Bay. Toronto. Halifax.
• Radio. Television. On Mic. On Camera.
• Blogging. Tech Start-up. Digital Content. Personal Story Branding.
• Six-Figure Content Company. Six-Figure Story Strategy Agency.
• Two baby girls. A husband. Pets. The chaos of daily life.
• Clients who want to be called forward into their Story.
• Black coffee. Ocean. Probably a Witch.
about
Hi! I’m Erin Trafford.
I’m a born journalist. I tried for a while to not start my Story this way. But it just keeps creeping in as my Secret Sauce.
Journalism, storytelling, speaking truth to power, uncovering and leveraging emotional tension - it’s vocational for me. It’s not just something I do to make money.
It’s fundamentally part of who I am. (In fact, because as referenced above, I’m Probably a Witch, I’ll tell you that my Human Design as a Sacral Generator validates my knack for telling other people’s stories. It’s literally written in my Soul’s DNA).
I started in newsrooms in Toronto in the late-90s.
Climbed the greasy pole of patriarchal media industry bullshit for about half my life.
I nearly lost myself hustled, building a career as a storyteller on the radio, and on tv. I was friggin’ GOOD at it.
But if I’m being honest, I always had a whisper-scream in the back of my head saying ‘Erin, there’s more. You have a bigness in you.’
So like any good, rule-following, woman climbing a corporate ladder - I ignored it. FOR YEARS.
And as I willfully ignored my calling, I became increasingly uncomfortable. It manifested as malaise, general don’t give AF. In some cases, it was illness, distress, anger.
Beneath my anchor-perfect haircut and my shiny smile, my tell-it-with-conviction news voice and my amazing collection of stiletto heels, there was a wobble in my Soul.
The full Story?
In 2012, off the corner of my kitchen table, I started a secret blog. An act of radical rebellion against self hatred and in the name of self love (though, I didn’t see it that way at the time).
That blog grew and grew. Landing me dozens of huge contracts with massive national and international brand clients. And, because I was so good at seeing and understanding what other people needed from their Stories and content, I was getting paid top dollar.
When that ‘little blog’ started generating a pay cheque bigger than the one for my TV anchor job, I basically Jerry Maguired my way out of the news business. I took my brilliance and left.
From there, I danced around what my business would be. If I wasn’t a journalist, then what the hell was I?
it was time to fill my own cup.
Was I being called to help women learn how to build and monetize their blogs and Instagram accounts?
For a time, I was. In fact, I did that and it was hugely successful.
Was I being called to help entrepreneurs understand how to leverage content with ease so they could connect to and with new clients online?
For a time, I was. In fact, that’s still a large part of what I do - but there was still something key missing.
The wobble persisted.
Nothing felt truly connected. Everything felt like ‘work’. I felt like a bunch of different pieces that didn’t fit together.
Some people call that a multi-hyphenate professional. You know where you ‘do this’ and you ‘also do that’ and ‘that’ and ‘a little bit of this’ and you’re never sure who you are supposed to be when.
I was like a tur-duck-en or like a Frankenstein or like one of those cheesy Infomercials ‘but wait! She also does this!’
Not only was it soul wobbling, it was exhausting.
I didn’t want to just ‘do blogs’, I didn’t want to just ‘do content’. I certainly didn’t want to go back to working for the man.
I wanted to use my gifts of holding space, making women feel safe and seen, capturing and articulating Stories and connecting them to money-making businesses to impact the world.
*CUE IDENTITY CRISIS AND IT WASN'T CUTE*
(Spoiler: not a journo, not a blogger, not a content marketer)
I hired astrologers, Human Design consultants, a business coach, a mindset coach and they all helped … but what steadied the wobble were the moments I experienced giving birth to my second daughter.
By 2020, I found myself running two successful, growing companies in a pandemic, while pregnant.
My pregnancy was normal. Too easy, some would say. My labour was also normal. Until I pushed. My baby was born blue, not breathing, for all medical intents - she wasn’t alive.
Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the trauma. I don’t know. But as my infant Marigold decided if she’d stay with me in this life, that wobbly whisper scream bellowed at me.
what the heck was that?
Barely conscious, I prayed. I later learned I was bleeding out and near death.
As the doctors revived my baby, my husband later told me all I was uttering under my breath was “This is not my Story.”
In that extremely traumatic moment, I connected to what I knew was true. I stood my ground and I told a new Story.
Moments later, I heard her cry.
The wobble was gone.
Weeks later, I stepped into my calling as a Story Strategist.
So do you have to go through a traumatic experience to release your wobble? To find your Story? No. You most certainly do not. (Will I recommend you bring tissues to our sessions? Probably.)
“Rewrite this moment, Erin. It’s up to you.”
Our Stories are the seat of our power. They are sacred. They are essential. And they are ours to own and command.
Part of my Story is guiding you to telling your Story.
I’m all at once a journalist and a digital content marketer and a business strategist. The sum of those things is what gives me the power to counsel, consult and mentor entrepreneurs to truly step into their next level.
I help you root down, deep, into that whisper-scream in your heart. Together we touch it, we honour it, we stop trying to suppress and control it.
I help you harness that Story you’ve got burning inside of you and then we connect it to your calling and your business.
We can choose to suppress our Stories, to control them, to put them in little boxes masquerading as achievements that ‘should make us happy’ or we can choose to step into them and command them and magnetize our dreams.
Your always tell-it-like-it-is Story Strategist friend,
Erin
