The Magic of Story

Imagine we are all on a ship, a great ship in the middle of a storm-tossed sea. (Call this storm coronavirus or white supremacy. Call it climate change or income inequality. Name your storm…)

Wouldn’t it be important for us to know how to sail that ship? Together?

Now, imagine that we are in a time of great transformation, where the future of everything that we care about is being re-written. 

Wouldn’t it be important for all of us to know how to become the authors of that story together?

We are in that time and we can become the authors of the future… Or we could surrender to fear and autocracy. Sometimes, it feels tempting! I know that I spent way too much time bingeing Netflix the day after the presidential debate. 

What are the stories you tell yourself?

Are they alive with possibility?

Or dead ones that suck the life out of you?

The magic of story can help us now. I say “magic” because stories are seductive and they are strategic and they are roadmaps for change, both on the inside and on the outside. Outside, because stories help us describe our future in a way that creates common action. (I learned that when I led the Heroes Narrative Project, check out my About Me page for more.) 

But stories also work on the inside – the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are and what we can accomplish either limit or expand our potential as leaders and as authors of our lives and our work. 

Brené Brown puts it this way,

“When we deny our stories, they define us.

When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.”

I coach progressive leaders, which means I get to work with amazing change-makers: People who are running non-profits, running for office, running the government departments that are now holding our world together. I know you are out there, fighting for our future and I know you believe, as I do, that we are at a crossroads. And I know this: the magic of owning your story can call you into your strength and integrity in a new way, while freeing you from the pain of and powerlessness of pretending to be someone you aren’t. 

That’s what this blog about: how you can use the magic of story to step into healthy authority –

for yourself, your team and for the world that we want to build now.