Dan Portnoy’s The Non-Profit Narrative: How Telling Stories Can Change the World is free for download to your Kindle device until Thursday (May 10) 12 a.m.
You can download it from this link.
In the book, Portnoy Media Group chief storyteller Dan Portnoy shows how non-profits thrive by telling great stories. You can also read a preview chapter of the book.
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
Reinvention Summit 2 is history, but I’m continuing to recap, synthesize, and expand on its 20 excellent sessions.
I would like to think that my husband and I have followed the advice of Robert Tercek, described as “one of the world’s most prolific creators of interactive content,” to make a “choice … to become the author of your own destiny, rather than playing a role scripted by someone else.”
Robert, one of the best-received and most inspiring presenters at Reinvention Summit 2, talked about the pivotal moment “that every creative person faces, whether they are entrepreneurs starting a new business or creative artists starting a new project.”
In a lengthy — but fascinating — preamble, Robert said we all function within the narratives set forth by, yes, buildings, towns, and the things we consume. Hence, we are often in a trance and neglect to make the choices that would unleash our creativity.
Robert’s emphasis on place was resonant for me since the choice my husband and I made was so tied into place. We had a perfectly good life in Florida. The weather was nice — if hot and humid — most of the year. Interesting flora and fauna surrounded us. Randall was tenured at a university, for goodness sake. We could have easily functioned within the narrative that place dictated for us.
But around the middle of the first decade of the millennium, we realized our marriage was on autopilot. We were moving trance-like through our jobs. We had creative spurts, but inspiration was lacking.
At the end of 2007, I decided to take a year-long sabbatical to decide what to do next. Shortly afterwards, Randall felt he had to make a choice between his online business and his teaching career. And then, on a complete fluke, the universe beckoned us to Eastern Washington. The move wasn’t job-related. It was, however, the jolt we need to break our trance and turn off the autopilot. We made a choice.
Here, we are inspired daily by the beauty, wonder, and tranquility of the place. I am indeed far more creative here than I’ve ever been, including my summer crafts activities.
Robert Tercek is about not only creativity, but change-the-world creativity. He’s Chairman of the Board of Creative Visions Foundation, which supports creative activists who seek innovative solutions to local and global issues. He gave three example projects in his Reinvention session, including this one described on the Creative Visions site.
As I thought about the choice Randall and I had made to author our own destinies, I questioned whether we’d taken that extra leap into change-the-world territory. But maybe we have. Our work producing content for Quintessential Careers educates and empowers people to find meaningful jobs and careers. Our work as tree farmers makes us good stewards of the earth.
It’s a start.
Robert Tercek wrote a blog post after he’d recorded his session with Reinvention Summit but before attendees experienced the session. The post gives a good flavor of his message.
By the way, it wasn’t until his session, one of the last of the summit, that I realized that I consistently feature Robert here on A Storied Career because of this post, which I regularly bump to my front page.
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
Hey, remember the other day in my recap of Bo Eason’s #story12 session, in which I heartily agreed with his premise that “whoever is the best in the field gives the most of themselves” and “the more you give, the more you get paid and the more influence you have”? I did a little search here on A Storied Career and was not surprised to discover that I’ve used the words “generous” and “generosity” with regard to story practitioners 50 times.
John Capecci and Timothy Cage are just two more in the cavalcade of generous story practitioners.
If I were you, I would be a bit broken up if I missed John’s and Tim presentation at #story12 about how ordinary people become extraordinary advocates (although, as I’ve mentioned, it’s really not too late to register since registrants can access recordings of the sessions and all there other handouts and goodies upon registration). I would hate to have missed them because they were super presenters — easygoing, relaxed, conversational, and nicely tag teaming off each other. And they had terrific slides.
The session featured content that comes from their new book, Living Proof (see its TWO subtitles in the graphic at left below).
In their #story12 session, John and Tim talked about some of the book’s major premises. They assert that anyone seeking to tell an effective story for advocacy needs to strike a balance between the Raw Story and the Canned Story. You can see the slide describing the characteristics of each here.
An effective advocacy story, unlike the Raw or Canned Story, has five qualities, John and Tim, note. Here’s where their generosity comes in. If you missed their session, you can still download their Checklist: The 5 Qualities of Effective Advocacy Stories from their site. The qualities are that the story is focused, positively charged, crafted, framed, and practiced (more explanation on the checklist).
The other free downloads on the site have less to do with crafting stories than with telling stories to the media and are listed at the bottom of this post.
BUT, you can check out a pretty a pretty healthy chunk of Living Proof in a sample (click on the “Read a Sample” graphic on the home page). The first six chapters are about how to develop effective advocacy stories, while the last several (plus a large appendix) are about delivering those stories in presentations and media interviews.
You can also get special access to additional Prep Sheets and exercises to use with Living Proof— by joining the authors’ mailing list, which also signs you up to receive their quarterly newsletter with more information about making a difference with the stories you tell, news of other advocates and spokespersons and notices of Living Proof Advocacy Trainings near you.
In the session, John and Tim offered an awesome exercise for mapping your story, as shown on the graphic below. You are asked to identify the sequence of events that provided the shift in your life from then to now. What was the revelation, the epiphany?
More free downloads:
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
NFL player … turned playwright … turned story evangelist? Really? Reinvention Summit 2 was my first introduction to Bo Eason, whose one-man play, Runt of the Litter, is a semiautobiographical account of Eason’s life and career as a safety for the Houston Oilers in the 1980s.
Eason’s session provided a glimpse of his teachings and beliefs about the power of telling your personal story, and happily, we don’t have to be satisfied with a glimpse, thanks to the rich list of resources that an attendee shared; they appear at the bottom of this post.
But here’s an overview:
Eason says he got to be the best by following his own story. He describes the pivotal moment that set him on his path to being the best and determined what his story would be. As a boy, he was denied his fondest dream of playing Little League with his brother. Indeed, for a brief moment, he felt life was over if he couldn’t play with his brother. But the next moment, he made up his mind, “That’s never happening again. I have a better story.”
Something happens where your heart is cut out, and you decide it’s never happening again, Eason says.
“Most of us don’t think our stories are dramatic,” Eason says. On the contrary “to live in this world is dramatic beyond belief,” he insists. It is, in fact, “out of bounds to say you don’t have a good story.” Eason believes we should be able to say of our stories: “I love my story more than your love your story. I’m more generous with my story than you are with your story.”
As storytellers, Eason asserts, we need to train ourselves to have courage and resolve. Resolute courage, in fact. Of our listeners, we must think: “Let them deal with MY humanity.”
We make a decision, he says, to fight, go to the mat for beliefs. We need to “fall in love with the pain.”
Host Michael Margolis illuminates: “We collect experiences to have stories to tell. The things we think people don’t want to hear are the source of our greatest power.” Eason adds: “Surrender is the golden goose, the key to the kingdom; all roads lead from your story, which is your wound.” We need to ask ourselves, “What is the thing I’ve always been trying to heal or fix?”
Eason wound up with three messages he wanted to convey about our stories. I’ve included my comments on these [in brackets]:
Eason closes by discussing the “lost art of giving all of yourself all of the time.” He says: “You are not your feelings; you are your commitments. Your commitments override any feelings or fear you have.” We must be committed to having an impact, making a difference, he says. Below are examples of how Eason is having an impact and making a difference.
Summit participant Kimberly Burnham shared her favorite Bo Eason resources:
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
Acknowledging that “storytelling is a language for reinvention,” Reinvention Summit 2 founder Michael Margolis at yesterday’s kickoff session invited attendees to set their intentions for the summit.
You don’t necessarily have to be part of the summit tribe, however, to set intentions for reinvention. While the first question on the slide at right refers to the summit (RS2), one could adapt the question as: “Why do you want to reinvent yourself?” The other two questions, of course, are not specific to the summit.
Michael also set forth the summit team’s intentions, as shown on the slide at left. It was in response to the second point that Michael suggested storytelling can be a language for reinvention.
Cultural creatives and change-makers, Michael asserted, can lead the way in confusing and overwhelming times. The culture even cries out for these outsiders — Michael went so far as to call them/us “heretics” — to lead the way, help everyone make sense of a fragmented ethos. A quote by Carolyn Casey shown on the slide at the bottom of this post especially resonated with the “tribe” — as well as with folks I shared it with on Facebook.
As with the first summit in 2010, the tribe — participants from all over the globe — is the heart and soul of the summit. Warm, congenial, playful conversation from 2010 alumni and new names flowed abundantly and constantly throughout the first day’s sessions. Some of the comments from the first session included:
In response to the three intention questions posed in the session, members said:
What intention will you set for reinvention? How would you answer the three questions?
By the way, if you are wishing you were in on this reinvention process and summit even though it has already started, I see no reason why you can’t jump in now or even later in the week. Most of the sessions are prerecorded anyway — but the chat is live. And recordings (audio and video) are available for all sessions. So, no matter when you register this week, you can access all the material, including worksheets and other bonus materials.
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
You’ll find little of what follows that hasn’t already appeared in this space. The following is the text of a speech I gave last week in Toastmasters. My assignment was to explain an abstract concept. I chose “the spirituality of imperfection,” which I’ve written about here a number of times. I wove a bit of my personal story into it, something I’ve also written about here. A new addition had to do with Toastmasters itself and how it is a safe place to tell personal stories. You can also see a video of me delivering the speech in the extended entry.
By the way, one of the books I’ve most enjoyed over the last year is Life Itself, Roger Ebert’s memoir. Roger tells his personal story of his alcoholism in this terrific blog post.
My name is Kathy, and I’m an alcoholic.
If I were at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s what I would say. I haven’t had a drink in 29 years, but I am still an alcoholic because if I ever took a drink again, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I was inspired to tell a bit of my story after [a member] mentioned during Table Topics that he is in recovery. [Member’s name] told me that he was planning to start a 12-step group here at this church because he feels it’s important to tell his story so he can help others. Later, [another member] spoke about her experience with a 12-step program.
Thus, my peer Toastmasters and honored guests, I want to share with you how important stories are for sharing our common humanity and imperfections.
A few years ago, I was drawn to this book, The Spirituality of Imperfection, partly because of my own experience with addiction and partly because of my passion for storytelling and the book’s subtitle, “Storytelling and the Search for Meaning.” The book explains why personal storytelling is at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs.
“In the mirror of another’s story,” the book says, “we can discover our tragedy and our comedy — and therefore our very human-ness.”
My tragedy was that I spent 10 years of my life drinking — from age 18 to age 28. I did many things I’m not proud of, including blacking out and waking up with no memory of what happened in the preceding hours. Back then, I could not imagine participating in a social event without the lubrication of alcohol. A cousin once told me, “You don’t bother to have a personality unless you’re drunk.”
After I quit, dealing with my shyness in social situations was extremely difficult, and is to this day. But I would never go back because my life is unimaginably better without alcohol.
Let me share with you a passage from The Spirituality of Imperfection that explains how sharing stories helps others:
The stories that sustain a spirituality of imperfection are wisdom stories. They follow a temporal format, describing “what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.” Such stories, however, can do more: The sequential format makes it possible for other people’s stories to become part of “my” story. Sometimes, for example, hearing another person’s story can occasion profound change.
This format, the books says, of describing of “what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now” shapes a language of recovery that acts as the key that opens the door to experiences that are spirituality.
It may not be easy to understand how this story-sharing is spiritual. The Spirituality of Imperfection notes that the great spiritual leaders told stories that invited identification. If you look at the parables of Jesus, for example, they are all stories that his followers could identify with, could see themselves in — The Sower and the Seeds, The Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan. As The Spirituality of Imperfection states, great spiritual leaders have understood that “the best way to help me find my story is to tell me your story.”
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
To my current theme of year-end review and new-year goals, I’m adapting some ideas from an article by Ernest R. Stair in the January 2012 issue of Toastmaster magazine (to read the full article, you’ll need to return to the link later in January — unless you’re a Toastmasters member).
Stair’s thesis is that you can’t get a real sense of achievements if you look at them through the perspectives of others. An example of a particular telling question that reveals the wrong way to look at achievements (and a question I can see myself asking) is: “How will my job title sound at a high-school reunion?”
Instead, Stair suggests a set of the “right” questions to ask. I’m adapting them here, not as questions, but as prompts to apply to the year we’ve nearly completed:
Thinking about the year just completed, give one or more storied examples of:
Your responses to these prompts, says Stair, “succeed in highlighting the true you, as you rise to great heights turning ordinary moments of your everyday life into events of extraordinary significance.”
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
My colleague Darrell Gurney has conducted an annual process for more than eight years in which he “powerfully wrap[s] up the passing year before going on to design my coming year.”
He offers his exercise to subscribers and friends at the end of each year.
While the end of the year is typically time for goal-setting for the next year, Darrell believes the process needs another component:
At this time in December, everyone gets on the bandwagon of designing goals for the coming year. But I believe that taking on more challenges without acknowledging and appreciating from whence we have come lacks the HUGE spark of energy that we can get from that kind of self-inventory.
You can get Darrell’s MILESTONES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS worksheet by submitting your first name and email address.
I recommend you take the exercise a step further and, wherever possible, craft your responses to the prompts in story form. Doing so will help you remember them better and help you express them in your professional life — say, in job interviews or meetings with your boss in which you make a pitch for a raise or promotion.
The prompts cover such areas as accomplishments, motivations, obstacles, surprises, mistakes, disappointments, and more.
Darrell’s even offering a four-part series of tele-calls to guide folks through the Milestones and Memorable Moments and goal-setting process over four Wednesdays:
4 Consecutive Wednesdays
Dec. 21 through Jan. 11
5-6pm PST
Dial-in: 218-936-7999
Access Code: 840504#
If you’d prefer not to give your name and email to get the worksheet, you can access a Web version here.
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
Today is World Aids Day.
In this short (2:49) video, HIV-positive people tell hopeful stories. It’s from the Clinton Foundation, whose Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) initiative has changed the way PMTCT programs are managed, resulting in a 40 percent drop in transmission rates across six focus countries from 2008-2010.
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
I think I’ve posted most of the entries in the Story of Stuff series; yesterday, I started seeing The Story of Broke being shared. When I went to view it on YouTube, I noted that it many critical comments were posted. I’m sure at least some of them are from folks who disagree politically with the video’s message; I don’t know enough about economics to question the facts presented.
Notice I said facts. I don’t think the Story of Broke actually tells a story. What do you think?
Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.
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The following are sections of A Storied Career where I maintain regularly updated running lists of various items of interest to followers of storytelling:
Links below are to Q&A interviews with story practitioners.
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