The BOLD (In Days of Old)
Once Upon A Time…
There is a reason that we tell children stories. A story delivers the message in a palatable chunk rich with relatable characters, familiar conflict, and satisfying resolution. The story may be clad in the fantastical, taking place in an impossible land but it runs on an engine of the every day. The story is the spoon full of sugar that helps the lesson embed. (Did you see what I did there—now you’re humming the song from the movie based on the book of a childhood story).
Perhaps, though, we tell stories not to teach children to understand stories but to tap into the way our brains prefer to organize information. We tell stories because we understand story.
As adults, our stories may no longer be populated with talking animals and wicked wizards, but they are still the best delivery vehicle to embed a lesson. Telling the right story in the right way maximizes your impact.
The Whisper (Story Moves the World…or at Least Your Audience)
Our life is lived in stories. We understand the world in stories. Memory is formed into little balls of amber, trapping details and filtering the light, which we string together to understand who we are, where we’ve been and what we think is important. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are, therefore, critical.
We know that memory is not reliable. We form and reform our memories, adding and subtracting as we make sense of the raw data of experience. This is why eyewitness testimony should not be the primary basis of a criminal case. This is why history is written by the winners.
If our memory is not reliable, what purpose does it serve? What is the point of telling stories?
Stories encapsulate meaning. The way we remember an event reveals the values we hold and the meaning we derive from experience. This is important and potentially powerful. My friend Gayle Turner says that we live in to the stories that we tell. It is important, then, to nurture and curate the stories which inspire and empower us. We are not lying to ourselves. We are reminding ourselves about what really matters so that in a future event, we can live into that.
Stories inspire (or deflate) action. Tell yourself a story of a past triumph and you remember that you can succeed against considerable odds. Tell yourself a story of an embarrassing failure and you can undermine your hope and deplete your energy. Tell yourself about that same defeat in a story of lessons learned and you arm yourself with the power of your own resilient capacity to grow.
Stories build (or disrupt) connection. The stories we choose to tell have an impact on the people around us and to our relationship with them. The embedded meaning, the revealed values and the glimpse of our worldview that a story affords offer your audience the opportunity to move toward you or to shift away. Tell the story that makes them resonate and tell it in a way that makes them lean in.
Telling a good story at just the right time in just the right way builds a bridge with your audience—even if that audience is your own mind. When you tell a story, make sure that it leads in the direction you want to go.
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