Annette Simmons is unquestionably one of the best presenters I’ve ever experienced, so there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to hear her present as part of Day 2 the The Reinvention Summit: A Virtual Summit on the Future of Storytelling.

Annette’s session, entitled “Deep Roots: Looking Backwards in Order to Move Forward,” felt like one extended story, or a folksy conversation comprising smaller stories. And while Annette did virtually all the talking in this conversation, she’s the kind of conversationalist you could just sit listening to on your front porch all day long.

She had five points she wanted to make in her plea that when you reinvent yourself, you should not lose the parts of yourself that really matter:

• Don’t leave your mountain to chase someone else’s story.
• Reinvention stories don’t start from scratch.
• Lead does not turn into gold.
• Honor the past. Celebrate the future.
• Tap into the power of ritual.

Reinvention stories don’t start from scratch.
Annette began this conversation by recalling her return to the US from Australia, where she had been working. She felt she had lost her identity. “A cultural shift is harder when you come back home than when you enter a new culture,” she noted, “but if you have good coping mechanisms, you reexamine and decide what’s important. Annette recalled her confusion, noting that “the ‘confused part’ needs to validated.” A symbol, perhaps, of the cultural shift and confusion she experienced was the 1966 Mustang she not only brought over to Australia but had refitted with a right-side steering wheel. “No one had one in Australia,” Annette said of the car she had named “Thelma” after the film Thelma and Louise, “It was one hot car.” She got another ‘66 Mustang when she returned, but found the vehicle wasn’t as cool in the US.

Don’t leave your mountain to chase someone else’s story.
Annette paid homage to one of most famous storytellers in the US, Ray Hicks (top left photo), who lived in the mountains of Appalachia and died in 2003. Annette had first encountered him at the National Storytelling Festival. You can get a much better sense of Hicks and why has was so important to Annette on her Web site. He is part of Annette’s “Who I Am” story, and if you know Annette’s work, you know the “Who I Am” story is one of the six kinds of story she talks about.

Annette explained that Hicks told morality tales called “Jack Tales,” which “concern a poor mountain boy, an American cousin of the farm boy in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’ Jack outwits thieves, witches and ogres,” notes the obituary of Hicks on Annette’s site. “Fairy tales have serious wisdom in them,” Annette said. “They are powerful tools, not immediately evident from storytelling of last 30 years. It’s not smart to skip the roots.”

She cited Hindu stories, such as that of Vishnu the Destroyer (photo: left column, second from top; a couple of attendees to Annette’s session said that actually Shiva is the Destroyer, and Vishnu is the Maintainer), noting that “destroying is an important part” of reinvention. Reinvention of a sort — beginnings, middles, ends — comprises a significant part of many religions, Annette pointed out; for many of us, the most familiar example is the death and resurrection of Christianity.

Honor the past. Celebrate the future.
Annette noted that she has lived four lives and is in the middle of her fifth. She compared reinvention to metamorphosis, noting that the cocoon stage — “bug soup” — (photo: middle of left column) lasts a long time. “The old is gone, the new has yet to emerge, things are messy, and you aren’t as productive as you’d like to be,” she said. Companies undergoing reinvention should, she suggested, “eliminate blame and shame about the messy part.” Where folks tend to go wrong, she pointed out, is by failing to “orchestrate the death of the old story. Instead, “we ignore the old story.”

Lead does not turn into gold.
“If your reinvention story is based on turning lead into gold,” Annette cautioned, “you’re spending your time in alchemy (photo: left column, fourth from top) which [historically] took lots of time and money, but lead was never turned into gold.”

“Examine the deep meaning of analogies,” Annette said, “because they have something to tell us.” For example, we could not go forward from our belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction until we examined the past. She spoke of going back upriver to take another channel, noting that, “going backwards might bring the real eureka moment.”

Annette’s session was the day after Veteran’s Day, and she noted that we carry strong emotions about the military. She told the story of a friend whose father was a merchant marine, more of which had died in WWII than any other service branch. But they didn’t get benefits and weren’t recognized. Happily, though, when the father died, he was buried with full military honors. For Annette’s friend, “reinvention was enabled.”

As another example, Annette cited a Japanese soldier (photo: top of right column) separated from his unit on Guam and found 28 years later. Japan gave him a hero’s welcome, including a parade, and he met the emperor, Annette explained. “You may have an old, outdated product, but you honor it,” she said.

Tap into the power of ritual.
“Ritual is one of the best ways to create a reinvention,” Annette declared. She described the ritual she organized for a friend who was getting breast reduction. Annette supplied lemons and grapefruits (and possibly one other fruit that I missed), to party guests and then took photos of them holding the fruit at breast level and sporting happy and unhappy faces with each of the fruits. Annette also served a cake “with boobs.”

“You can facilitate the direction in which a group comes to a new story,” Annette offered. In an initiative called Photo Story (which is described in greater detail on Annette’s site), the goal was trying to change a community’s behavior regarding healthcare (photo: right column, second from top). Everyone in the community was handed a disposable camera, to take pictures of anything in their community. Later, community members voted on the photos using dot-shaped stickers. Dialogue ensued about the stories told by the 20 or so pictures that they choose to represent the community. The community members were looking at who they were as a community. “When you ask, ‘who are you?’, you invoke a conversation that goes backwards and forward,” Annette said. She described a process in which people move from saying, “someone should do something about it,” to saying, “We’re going to do something about it.”

Annette then described a time before her seminal book about business storytelling, The Story Factor, was published. The book “scared the beejesus out of me,” she recalled, “because I knew it was the best work I’d ever done.” To cope with her fear, she acquired a ring (photo: middle of right column) that gave her permission to be powerful, and she gathered other women to have a ritual (photo: right column, fourth from top).

Reinvention Summit organizer Michael Margolis wrapped up the session by asking Annette where her energy is currently. “I’ve learned to relax and not be undone,” Annette replied. I’m more healthful and youthful. I don’t get flustered. I listen better.”

Finally, she embraced her appreciative audience with the words: “Y’all are my tribe.”

Annette also announced that her brand-new Web site AnnetteSimmons.com had just gone live (and still has a few kinks to be worked out). I love the site, which improves on her former site under her company name, Group Process Consulting. Below is a graphic from the site’s main page. I appreciate the whimsical and typically Annette features of the site, such as Infrequently Answered Questions. Like so many storytelling practitioners, Annette generously gives away content. Huge letters on her main page invite visitors to “Build a community: Feel free to use this material.” Here’s her explanation:

I am happy to share anything that might help your group feel more connected and more responsible towards each other… because ultimately that will make the world a better place. I am grateful for what I make through books, speeches and training. It is enough.

I am deeply honored that A Storied Career is included among the handful of links Annette offers on her Recommended Sites page. The last photo in the right column is one I like of Annette taken from her new site.