Let me ask you a question. Where do you find inspiration from? Movies, music, books, magazines, seminars, friends, family, co-workers? – Maybe from all of those places.
Let’s face it inspiration comes from stories that we hear from other people tell. How they beat the odds, achieved growth, or found a better way, it’s all in the story.
You know storytelling has been around for hundreds of years. From the beginning of time, storytelling has been the means by which cultures and societies have preserved and celebrated their memories, passed on their values and belief systems, entertained, instructed and reported. Long before there were written records, storytellers taught through the oral tradition. It was true in the bush, it’s true in the boardroom and it’s true everywhere in between.
In fact I think true leadership is the effective communication of the story. Our American culture seems to underestimate the power of storytelling. But think about how powerful a story can be when you’re in front of a client. Tom Peters says, stories are the red meat that meets our reasoning process. Stories give us permission to act, they are photographs of who we aspire to be, and they cause the most emotional responses. Stories are how we connect with people.