Last week, I had the chance to facilitate five classes about storytelling at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Over the course of three days, I worked with management students, teachers in training, and theater students. The classes ranged in size from over 100 students to eight, and each approached storytelling from a different perspective. I’d never had the chance to work with so many different groups in so short a time and used it as a bit of an experiment in personal storytelling.
I knew, both from experience and a myriad of talks like Brene Brown’s amazing discourse on the power of vulnerability, that an authentic story facilitates connection. And that this connection would lead to greater engagement from the students. No surprises there.
I decided to experiment with what version of my story to tell. I ended up sharing three completely different – but authentic – stories.
In the large management class, my story revolved around an episode that showed me the incredible power of a well-told story to inspire charitable giving. The story then followed the outline of the lecture, delineating my journey to discover what makes story so powerful, how to construct a strong story, and so on.
In the theater class, I focused on my struggles to balance my need for creative expression with my need to pay rent. I wanted the students to come away with the sense that finding authentic ways to express their creativity could, in the long run, be more important to their happiness than getting cast in a television show.
In the class for aspiring teachers, I focused on how I’d quit my job in 2012 and, through a series of misadventures, ended up teaching a 2nd grade Sunday school class. And how, in a rough moment with the class, story saved the day.
And, finally, in a small management seminar, I elected not to share anything about myself to see what would happen. The answer: not much. The students didn’t participate. The professor even apologized, saying that they were usually quite talkative.
In all of the other classes, the students were active, curious and engaged. The theater professor even said that she had never seen the group participate with such openness and vulnerability.
This was far from a scientific study, but still illuminated a few key lessons for me around how to share our personal stories:
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Our stories are dynamic. I’ve read more than a few books about how to uncover and craft your ‘personal narrative.’ The assumption underlying their approach and exercises is that we’re heading for some defined version of a Personal Story. This ignores the fact that we’re changing all the time and, as we do, so does our relationship to our story. Embracing the dynamic nature of personal narrative means that we can craft our story in the moment, customized to the audience and situation.
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You will never be able to tell the whole story. Our lives are made up of billions of data points. Trying to incorporate everything will lead to an unfocused and overlong morass. Instead, identify key themes and episodes, then craft the story around them, making sure to speak to your audience’s concerns or needs.
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Tailor your story to your audience. As we walked to the class for aspiring teachers, the professor told me that the class really wanted rules and checklists. She urged them to think more creatively, to find authentic ways of relating to students and creating a love of learning in the classroom. Knowing only this, I located the parts of my own story--the right data points--that would both resonate with the professor’s goals and with the students. The result: a great, active discussion about story and authenticity in teaching.
With these lessons in mind, crafting a personal story becomes less about defining and nailing down a structured narrative and more about identifying key themes and events, then empowering ourselves to construct stories appropriate to any given situation. This naturally brings up a few other questions:
- How do we identify key themes?
- What makes an event story worthy?
- What are the basic principles of constructing a strong, customized personal narrative?
I’ve been thinking about those quite a bit and we’ll go into each of them over the next few weeks. Until then, let me know if you have any questions or personal storytelling tips!
