471. Every Person Has a Story to Tell

“My father was a great storyteller. He loved more than anything to hear and listen to stories. Growing up in Ireland, there was a tradition of story and of being able to have that turn of phrase, that gift of conversation. I grew up in an environment that was very traditional, and a family that was small and close. Life was very much around the conversation. That was an important starting point for me in terms of where I ended up.”

“I think my first turning point was when I left Ireland and discovered a whole world out there.  In Ireland we talk about our having the Gift of Gab, the gift of conversation, but when I was growing up I always sensed that there were certain things you didn’t talk about.  Money, religion and sex were taboo, so you talked about everything else. But in Israel, that’s all people did talk about — money, religion and sex, that’s it!   The people in the Middle East tell you to your face exactly what they think. It was actually quite refreshing, really interesting. The culture I was born into was very much about conversation and creating a community, but I was just bowled over and also attracted by a place where people have an almost brutal honesty — but also would open their homes to you, to give you anything you needed.”

“As my clients find their own core story, and learn how to use that story in their work to ground them in their business and be fully present in that business, they work in closer touch with their true selves, which is to say, in touch with the essence of what they are doing.  When we discover that, everything seems to simply fall into place.”

1. Become aware of your own core story and how it shapes your life.

2. Remember: you can’t be a storyteller without being a listener first.

3. Notice your own inner stories and outer stories. Do they differ, and why?

4. Learn to listen deeply to how other people describe their own lives in stories.

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

I Need Your Love – Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead, by Byron Katie and Michael Katz

A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell