Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is CEO of Big Buzz, an agency driving focused marketing efforts for executives and teams nationwide.
Humankind loves stories. We follow oral tradition. We subscribe to spiritual and political beliefs and nonbeliefs. We glom onto dramatic stories that fire our imaginations. Stories give us a sense of belonging, of being wanted and needed and heard. Stories connect us.
Until they don’t.
When I woke up this morning, my family told me a story that went like this: “The new puppy cries when you’re not here because you keep him all to yourself when you are here.” I chose to participate in this storyline by adding to it, overlaying my own moral code: “Well, I am the only one who takes care of the puppy. If you all took more care of him, he would want to spend more time with you.”
No one wins until someone changes the story.
I chose to change the story. By the time our family got together for lunch, I had done what I needed to do to let go of the argument. I showed up differently in the room, asking about everyone’s day, participating in making lunch together, laughing with them, asking how it went having the dog upstairs rather than down here in my office. I created a new story, one that positively affected my family. By the time we parted ways again, we were all ready to spread a bit more positivity to our corners of the world.
As marketers, we tell stories for a living. We gather voice-of-the-customer data, build brands, run ads and report results (all of them stories). Storytelling is such an ingrained talent for most of us that we often unknowingly create, tell and participate in stories. We have the unique power to change the narrative of an entire world, one conversation at a time.
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Let’s consider that most of what we perceive as reality is based on stories. Here are a few perpetuated throughout time.
The Story of a Power Greater Than Us
The basic story is that there is a God. Even atheism, disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of gods of any kind, is a form of this story. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis noted the fundamental similarities of various societies’ spiritual stories. Pantheists, for example, tell the story of an all-powerful entity — the universe. The Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths share the story that a god created the universe. These various groups have told the stories of their faiths for centuries, and people believe those stories to varying degrees. It is the repeating of the stories that fuels belief.
The Story of Political Philosophy
The basic story holds that civilization requires governing. Even anarchy, a state of disorder due to the absence of authority, is a form of this story. Since ancient times, humans have developed myriad versions of this story. Plato’s Republic categorizes them into what he saw as five areas of descending stability: monarchy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny.
The American people have recently been inundated by stories perpetuated for decades by Republicans and Democrats, increasingly polarizing of late. And yet the nonpartisan Washingtonian think tank Pew Research recently released a report indicating most Americans agree on a few basic issues:
• Ninety-one percent agree that government should play a major role in keeping the country safe from terrorism.
• Eighty-seven percent agree that government should play a major role in responding to natural disasters.
• Eighty-seven percent agree that government should play a major role in ensuring safe food and medicine.
• Seventy-two percent agree that the government does a very good or somewhat good job keeping the country safe from terrorism.
• Fifty-seven percent agree that Americans can always find ways to solve our problems and get what we want.
Repeating stories creates reality. What reality do you want to create? Here are just a few ways you can change the story of your reality, your career, your life and the world.
Mind the stories in which you participate.
Consume news from nonpartisan sources. Think twice before sharing bad news, even anecdotally. Remove social media apps from your phone and connect with family and friends via call or videoconference instead.
Clarify and share your own story.
Know your limitations and admit them to others by asking for help. Lower expectations of yourself to set more realistic expectations of others. Forgive yourself to become more forgiving. Get in touch with your own heritage to create genuine curiosity about and acceptance of others’ backgrounds.
Listen to new stories.
Call the uncle you have avoided for the last four presidential cycles because his views differ from yours. Listen for the similarities rather than the differences in his story of politics. Opposing stories always have fundamental commonalities. Be willing to find that common ground.
Write new stories in your work.
Put the people back into the story. End users are moms, dads, brothers and sisters. Target audiences are musicians, philosophers, educators and gardeners. Draw a more holistic picture of who you are serving and who your clients are trying to reach to deepen connections, increase impact and encourage joy.
Repeat the stories you want to be your reality.
Write down the values you hold dear in your home, your agency and your community. Talk about them. Make time regularly to share them at the dinner table, in the team huddle and at the city council. When we say our new stories out loud and articulate our dreams, we begin to recreate our worlds.
Be the story you want to have written.
In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.” Run for local office to change your community’s narrative. Change the conversation in your family. Speak your truth at work. Start small and see what grows.
What do you want to wake up to tomorrow? If this were all a dream, and you had the power to paint a new world, what world would you paint? What courageous action can you take today to change the story?
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Author: Wendy O’Donovan Phillips, Forbes Councils Member