storytelling
We are all engaged in two projects: living life, and telling stories about it. Our lives as lived are often chaotic, jumbled, aimless. They suggest no obvious purpose. Think of William James’s “blooming, buzzing confusion,” or what Joan Didion called “the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.” We make this chaos workable, as Didio... See more
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
“I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us unless it’s inside a frame.” - Abbas Kiarostami
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
Effective leaders ask questions rather than providing answers. The questions are key. Great leaders don’t tell people, they don’t direct people, and they don’t order people around. They facilitate great thinking through self-reflection. We talked about one ego-bypass question in an earlier chapter: “What would ‘great’ look like?” Here are a few oth
... See moreCy Wakeman • No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Workplace Drama, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results (How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Drama in the Workplace, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results)
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
...what attracts human attention is change. ...if the temperature around you changes, if the phone rings — that gets your attention. The way in which a story begins is a starting event that creates a moment of change.
Andy Raskin • The Greatest Sales Deck I ’ve Ever Seen
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
when one story dominates, it risks exterminating others or doesn’t do justice to the reality it presumes to narrate. Storytelling, like ecosystems, needs diversity to thrive. And since stories have a direct impact on reality — to the point that we often mistake one for the other — we need to tell stories that enliven, provide solace, and inspire co... See more
Emerge • Belonging and Butterflies in Times of Breakdown
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
Infrastructure might be built by hands but culture is built by tongues. The person who changes the cultural conversation is someone who is able to identify truth and describe it so others can not only understand but participate in the story as a conscious being themselves.
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
The people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true.
~Lakoff & Johnson
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.”
~ Roger Schank
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
Stories are a calm anchor amid the storm of uncertainty. And in uncertain in-between times, the stories we tell ourselves are powerful frameworks that help us work out who we are in the present moment and what we value. They lure us into becoming our aspirational selves.
Seth Goldenberg • Radical Curiosity: Questioning Commonly Held Beliefs to Imagine Flourishing Futures
Margaret Leigh added 6mo
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