Once upon a time

You might remember the time that your mam and dad were telling you fairytales before you went to sleep. These bed-time stories were not only for fun, they could also inspire and teach us things about good and bad. Story-telling can entertain, inspire and motivate others no matter at what age. So how can we use it in our professional life?

Politicians using spin doctors, people who are writing stories to be used during election campaigns. The catholic church does have the bible for inspiration of sermons. The newspapers do have the journalist looking for stories. And all of us are also having the ability to share and write down stories and publish it for example in a blog like this. Even though there are several ways to get the stories they have all one thing in common: storytelling is often not only to entertain. Think about sharing information, giving a motivational speech, etc.

For me stories that are being told stay longer with me than only a couple of sentences on its own that I need to remember. At university I wrote down the stories behind the court cases to make them real and remember, rather than only writing down the facts. And during business live I searched for interesting video’s or visited seminars to hear stories from others that were inspiring me and that I could share.

Last year at Nyenrode I attended a lecture from Bob Chapman, number 3 CEO of the world, about truly human leadership. Chapman explained that leadership is the stewardship of the live entrusted to you and did a great job to add all kind of examples to this statement. For example: a father walked down to the aisle with his daughter who is going to marry. He will tell the groom “she is yours”, but in real life he wants to scream “make damn sure you’ll take good care of here and if not, I know where to find you…”.

Astrid Schutte writes in her book about three types of stories: the vision story, the explanation story and the personal story. With these type of stories, you can be set for the future. That being said, her book shows that there is more and more need for the personal story.

The personal story is the one that can inspire the most. As Joseph Campbell said: If somebody talks from the head, he will get a rationalistic answer. If somebody does talk from the heart, he will evoke emotions. But you can only achieve real information if somebody does tell their own story.

I do believe we experience many things in live to create our own stories, but same time you can ask yourself how to get this done when you don’t have journalist or a spin doctor that helps you with writing down the stories. You might wonder yourself how to get the information and inspiration for your own stories. Reading, networking and being curious helps a lot. But if you want to explore more possibilities where I can help you check out my motivational services.