How To Tell More Stories

In the 1st grade, I attended Allen Stevenson, a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It was an all boys school, and the kind of place with teachers who had been there for decades, and a Headmaster who literally embodied the school. One of my first memories from Allen Stevenson was story time, when once a week, the esteemed headmaster, Mr. Cole, would come into the 1st grade classroom and tell a story.

He was an affable gent, about exactly what you would want out of a headmaster when you are in the 1st grade. Already an old man, with the kind of spectacles that allowed his kind eyes to shine through, he was never not dressed in a blazer and gray slacks. He moved about the halls with a deliberation that revealed his own happiness at running a rather tight ship.

He was a master story teller. He would join us during story time, easing us into our mid day treat by greeting everyone while simultaneously getting us excited by wheeling over and erasing an enormous chalkboard. He would shortly launch into a story, complete with drawings, different colored chalks and  funny, charming asides. By the time he was finished, the class would be silent, sleeping or completely entranced in the fantastical narrative he had woven for us.

This man knew how to tell stories.

I, on the other hand, have no idea how to write this post. All I know is that I am writing. Its true that I want to learn how to tell more stories. I’ve never been much of a storyteller. I’m a much better liar than story teller and yes there is a difference. I’m really more of a story listener, a story critic, a story complainer. I like stories though, and I believe in the power of storytelling to transform our lives, whether its for the briefest flash of a moment (what’s now being called a “hot second”) or for the rest of our lives.

I’ve tried my hand at writing stories. I can’t do it, at least not yet. Poetry is more up my alley.

It’s Story Time Again

Is there a more enchanting phrase in our language than “Story Time?” It evokes the most innocent and pure of memories, moments at home or in school when we were completely safe, close to our parents or educators, the lights dimmed, our bodies warm and ready to rest. Possibly there was a snack involved.

After a long time in the wilderness of impersonal communications, our culture is resetting its bearings. One of the clearest ways this is occurring is our focus on story telling. You hear it all the time in the marketing, branding and advertising worlds. But its rare that the buzzwords of those industries punch through into the remainder of our culture.

But punch through they are.

So How Do You Tell More Stories?

First of all, mine your memories. I set the stage earlier in this post by recounting my memories as they relate to story time. There is a reason that one can refer to our brains as memory banks…it is incumbent upon us to mine those memories, to borrow from the bank, as it were, to find the stories that impacted us. The story of Mr. Cole and his chalkboard adventures is a rich memory for me, and allowed me to explain what I mean when I talk about telling stories.

We have the stories inside of us already. We know what part of us best connects with those around us, whether they are friends or loved ones, family or even clients or potential customers. But before we can ask to connect and converse with them, we’ve got to have that internal dialog that allows us to connect with the storytelling part of ourselves. We’ve got to drill down to those hardwired synapses that contain our stories. Until we connect we our own story telling preferences, we can’t even begin to try to connect with others.

Tagged as: The Power of Storytelling