When your voice is ready to travel.
There’s a moment when your work starts asking more of your voice. An invitation to speak. A seat at a new table. A podcast, a panel, a book idea, a business of your own.
Story Advisory is where we prepare for that, together. We begin with narrative coaching, discovering what’s true for you and the stories only you can tell.
Then I bring in what I learned in twenty-five years beside CEOs: how to tell a compelling story, how a room listens, and how to sound like yourself when it matters most.
Is this for you?
Story Advisory is for you if…
You’re stepping onto a stage, a panel or a podcast, and want to arrive as yourself with personal stories shaped and ready to tell.
You’re moving into a new role or new territory, and want people to understand what you bring.
You’re building something of your own and want to speak about it with clarity.
You have ideas you would love to share more widely, in talks, in writing or online and are not sure where to begin.
You would like a thinking partner who brings both depth and craft.
You sense your public voice could sound even more like you.
In our sessions
What we might do together
There’s no script and no fixed order. Where we go depends on what you bring, and on the room you’re preparing for.
Discovering your themes
Through narrative coaching we uncover the ideas you care about most, the ones you could speak about with real energy, and the ones you’d rather keep for yourself.
Themes for the Room
Between sessions I shape what we find into a living document of your themes, your words and your stories, and we refine it together.
Finding your stories
Every idea needs a story or two. We find the moments from your own life and work that bring your ideas to life.
Serious play
We try your words out loud: a role play, a mock introduction, the question you’d love to answer well. The room, before you walk into it.
Shaping the moment
A keynote, a panel answer, a bio, a first post. When a real moment arrives, we prepare for it together.
The writer’s craft
Where to begin a story, what to leave out, how to land the ending. The quiet things writers and speechwriters know, yours to keep.
Working together
Where would you like to begin?
Free · 30 minutes
A first conversation
A relaxed chat about where your voice is heading and what you would love from our work, so we can both feel whether it’s right.
Six sessions
The Story Advisory programme
Six one-to-one sessions over around two months, with your Themes for the Room built and refined between them. Language you can keep using, in every room after this one.
As you need them
Moment by moment
Once your themes are in place, single sessions whenever a moment arrives: a talk, an interview, a new role, an important conversation.
Sessions are held online in English, wherever you are in the world. I’m happy to talk through fees in our first conversation. If you would like to support several women in your organisation, I’d love to hear from you too.
About me
Hello, I’m Mary-Brennan.
For twenty-five years I advised C-suite leaders across Central Europe on how to communicate. I always sat in the room with them first, and built every strategy, speech and article from their own words.
I’m also a narrative coach, trained with David Drake, and a novelist. Story Advisory is where those three parts of my life meet.
What I love most is the moment a woman hears her own idea repeated back to her in her own words, and realises it has power.
Questions
Wondering if this is for you?
Do I need a big title for this?
Not at all. Story Advisory is for any woman whose voice is about to travel further, whatever her role.
Will you write my speech?
We find your words together, and I can help you shape them. My hope is that you leave with language you can keep using on your own.
How is this different from Narrative Coaching?
Narrative Coaching is about finding your story. Story Advisory carries it outward, into the rooms where you’ll share it. Explore Narrative Coaching