The World wants to hear your story. Tell your own story. If you don’t do it, other people will tell it for you.

Because to be your real self is to know how to tell your own story. According to Geoff Mead, ‘Story is our primary way of making sense of our experience, giving meaning and significance to our lives.’

‘We create (and re-create) our sense of self through the stories we tell ourselves; groups and communities are built upon the stories they share; our view of the world and what is possible and desirable are shaped by the ‘big stories’ of our times.’

‘Nothing changes unless the story changes because our inner world of feeling and imagination governs how we think and act. Changing our stories requires that we learn to let go of old stories as well as telling new ones.’

‘To be human is to tell stories.’

‘The shift from telling people about a story to showing them what happened in the story (through words and gestures) is a key turning point in becoming a good stroryteller.’

‘The details and feelings in a story that are necessary to cause the listener’s imagination to experience it as real arise when the storyteller him-or herself connects deeply enough with the recollected or imagined scene.’

‘Know thyself is then root system of the tree; Only Connect is the canopy; and Stand for something is the trunk. Unless we know who we are and what we stand for we cannot authentically stand for anything.’

‘Why we lead will shape how we lead.’

‘If our stories remain hidden from us we live them out unconsciously. If we tell them and engage with them creatively then we can gain new perspectives about ourselves and what drives us, and open up new possibilities for ourselves.’

‘When stories that we hold closely no longer serve us we need to re-story ourselves and to reinforce new self-stories by acting into our intentions, living congruently with the new stories as well as telling them.’

‘Connecting through stories is at least as much about listening to other people’s stories as it is about telling our own. Not being listened to has a powerful, visceral negative effect.’

‘When you stand for something, the leadership stories you tell do not need to be told brilliantly to have impact; the qualities of the teller count more than natural eloquence or technical proficiency as a storyteller.’

Source:

Geoff Mead (2014). Telling the Story: The Heart and Soul of Successful Leadership