Don't know if I am a compelling storyteller, but I sure like to try.
I like storytelling because it's a way of letting people let go of them selves (insecurities, opinions, things they 'already know') and open a door into listening to something else.
I have a story from my mentor at my first job about organizing tasks and time management like weeding a garden:
Start by weeding in one place. Every day, start in the same place. The second day, you'll finish that area super-quick because you did it before, and weed a wider area. When you get to the point where you are weeding the same size area every day, and not expanding - that's when you have a garden that is the size you can maintain in your available time.
So often we design big grand plans, and the reality is a growing stockpile of unfinished business.
Sometimes I get carried away with telling other people's stories, and have to be reined in.
Sometimes I wonder whether one day, my most interesting stories will have me in them.
Some of my favorites are conversion stories - those moments that define a transition between before and after. How cool would it be if you could help other people have an
experience that changed their life, and turned them into a powerful force for good in the world? (Even more so than they were already.)
Humor, or irony, is worth finding; to laugh at self-defeating habits would be on page 1 of my 'Live to Grow Old' human-being manual. Few things are as awful or impressive after they've been ridiculous.
I think the process of making appropriate and life-giving choices evolves through an immense series of very small insights, humility, and lifelong learning. In order to understand the 'right' choice, you have to understand what the situation calls for.
Stories let us learn from other people's mistakes, and shape our visions into a shareable future.
- Erica W
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