We live in a world obsessed with the before-and-after. Leaders highlight the starting point and the results. Companies showcase the vision and the outcome. Advisors present the problem and the solution. But when you strip a story down to just the setup and the finish line, you remove the part that actually creates connection: the middle.
The middle is where the tension lives. It’s where doubts creep in, where obstacles pile up, where progress feels uncertain. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and easy to gloss over. Yet it’s the most important part of the story—because it’s the part your audience relates to most.
People don’t connect to perfection. They connect to struggle.
Struggle Is the Bridge
When you tell a story that skips the middle, you’re essentially giving people a set of instructions: here’s what you should do, here’s what worked for me, here’s how you can succeed too. The problem is, people don’t buy into instructions. They buy into belief.
Belief comes from seeing someone like themselves face something difficult and find a way through. Struggle is the bridge between information and inspiration. Without it, your message may sound clear, but it won’t land. With it, you transform your story from a broadcast into a mirror.
Think about it. No one remembers a flawless presentation filled with charts. But they remember the moment a leader admitted they weren’t sure a plan would work—and then described what they did when everything almost fell apart. They remember because they’ve been there too.
Struggle is what makes your audience lean in. Not because they want to admire you, but because they want to recognize themselves.
Why the Middle Resonates
The middle of a story is magnetic because it feels real. It carries the weight of doubt, failure, or frustration—the very emotions people are carrying silently in their own lives and work. When you share that part of the journey, you validate their reality. You show them they’re not alone.
And here’s the key: you don’t need a perfect resolution. What matters is showing a believable path forward. A story that says, “This wasn’t easy. Here’s what went wrong. Here’s where I stumbled. But here’s how I started to move forward.” That’s enough to shift someone’s perspective.
Success on its own can feel distant, even unattainable. Struggle makes success believable. It takes the abstract and turns it into something practical. It doesn’t just say, you should change. It says, you can change—because others have walked this road too.
That’s why the middle isn’t a detour. It’s the heart of the story.
Listening Before You Tell
Here’s where most professionals miss the mark: they default to telling their story instead of listening for someone else’s.
The only way to know what middle will matter is to practice what we at ci2 call transformational listening. That means slowing down long enough to understand what’s beneath the surface for the person in front of you. What are they worried about? What obstacles are they facing? What hope feels just out of reach?
When you listen at that depth, you discover the struggles that actually define someone’s story. And when you then tell a story that mirrors those struggles, you don’t just grab attention—you build trust.
Without listening, your story risks being generic. With listening, your story feels like it was written for them. And that’s when it moves people.
Cutting Through the Noise
In today’s world, everyone is drowning in surface-level messages. Pings, emails, AI-generated reports, notifications, and polished updates come at us from every direction. Leaders feel pressure to keep pace, so they push out more communication faster. But more speed doesn’t equal more impact.
Amid that noise, what people crave isn’t another slick presentation. It’s a moment that feels human.
Struggle-driven stories create that pause. They interrupt the rhythm of the feed. They cut through the noise because they carry honesty, tension, and truth. And in a landscape where most communication is transactional, that moment of resonance is what differentiates you.
If you want to stand out, don’t just say more. Tell something meaningful.
Balancing Hard and Human Skills
There’s no question: technical skills are essential right now. Learning how to prompt AI effectively, leverage automation, and scale workflows is part of staying relevant. But those skills alone won’t inspire action.
The professionals who will thrive in the years ahead are those who can combine hard skills with human skills. They’ll know how to use technology to produce more efficiently—but also how to tell stories that resonate deeply. They’ll understand that AI can generate content, but it can’t build belief.
And belief is what actually drives commitment.
That’s why the middle matters. It’s the human element technology can’t replicate. It’s the part of your story that proves you understand what your audience is up against.
At Ci2, This Is What We Teach and Practice
At Ci2 Advisors, we’ve built our approach around a simple conviction: people don’t change because they’ve been given enough information. They change because they’ve been given a story they can see themselves in.
That means teaching leaders, advisors, and teams how to listen deeply enough to uncover what really matters to their audience. It means helping them craft stories that highlight the middle—the struggles, the doubts, the obstacles—so that their message resonates instead of just informs.
Because when you tell stories rooted in struggle, you don’t just deliver information. You invite people into transformation.
And that’s the kind of story that moves people.
