The Power of Story

by Jim Loehr

  In other words, it’s got all the ingredients of a really good story.

  That doesn’t mean that all new stories have the same feel to them. Just because it’s called your “New Story” doesn’t mean it’s all sweetness and light. For some people, their New Story is characterized by an uplifting, cheerleading tone, while still satisfying, the three rules of storytelling (The doors of the world are open to me, yet I keep tiptoeing in through the back. No more. I’m walking in through the front door.). For others, their New Story sounds more like a bracing rebuke of what their life will be if they don’t change, and change fast, although it still satisfies, the three rules of storytelling (I am good at blaming others. The fact that I have little time and energy to fully engage is a lame excuse and I know it deep down. I’ve always been an overachiever without time, but somehow I still need to “create” time to be with my friends and family.). For still others, their new story is part uplift (about the future), part sobriety (about leaving the negative parts of one’s current life behind). In short, the tone of your new story should be whatever it needs to be—just so long as it meets the three criteria for good storytelling, the only recipe that can possibly work.

  To accept seriously the challenge of writing your new story, you must write it while fully conscious. No sleepwalking through the process; no mailing it in. To craft your new story, you’ll need to confront the truth of your old story. You’ll need to hold tight to your ultimate purpose. You’ll need to suggest an urgency for finding a better way. You’ll need to dig deep. As Herminia Ibarra says in her book, Working Identity, making progress in storytelling means “listening more to inner, rather than outer, voices.”

  So you need to actually write your story. Why does this work so well? As Edward Hunter says in Brain-Washing in Red China, “Insincerity stands out in a diary; practically no one can successfully fake his true opinions over a prolonged period of time. The tone just doesn’t ring true, and any experienced [Party] man entrusted with reading it can soon detect the falsity in the notes jotted down…”

  It is here, in this written story, that you will discover (or, more likely, rediscover) your voice, the true and private voice, the intuitive voice. You will not only know it, but you’ll find a way to turn up the volume and become a master storyteller.

  Your new story is your blueprint for the future. It exists for you to chart new pathways for energy to flow in all those areas of your life you want to change. Your new story is a map of how you will change the dynamics of the energy you give to things. In this way, your new story helps to chart your destiny.

  We always have clients begin their new story with these three words:

  The truth is…

  Indeed, the majority of sentences in the new story begin with that phrase. This forces the writer always to confront Storytelling Rule 2: It must be truthful. Beginning your new story with these words commits you to strip away denial, rationalization, or mythical thinking and to confront the truth about where your Old Story has led you and continues to mislead you. You’re forced to connect the dots, to project, to get specific and clear-eyed about the brutal truth of what might happen if you continue on with the same story—taking poor care of yourself, disengaging from your family, going through the motions at work, cheating occasionally on your spouse, following “slightly” unethical business practices “occasionally.”

  In your New Story, describe how you’d likely feel if, say, you died young or, because of your disengagement, were divorced and lost your family. Confront whether the price you might pay is acceptable. Expose details you left out in your Old Story, or things you made up to support the faulty subplots you wrote there. Magnify the conflicts your Old Story very well might have created—diabetes and loss of vision, stroke and loss of speech, loss of self-respect and sense of personal integrity, maybe even unemployment or jail time from cooking the books—until you clearly see them and feel them. In your New Story, bring all the facts and evidence you can to support the conclusion that your Old Story does not represent the truth, that it’s faulty, that it will not work. That it simply cannot take you where you ultimately want to go.

  But that’s not all that goes into your New Story. It’s not just about exposing and breaking down what does not work. It’s very much about articulating what will work. Your New Story must suggest a general plan of action. (The specific plan of action is reserved for the Training Mission, which will be discussed in Part Two.) Your New Story must therefore articulate a belief about where you want to go; that is, it must be consumed by purpose.

  Let’s look at some fragments from New Stories that our clients have written.

  The truth is, my old sick story is causing me to hurt those I care about most. I present myself as an open, honest, caring person but this is only partly true. I can show more compassion and caring to those I don’t care that much about than those I care most about. My relationships with family, friends, and co-workers are dying because I’m either choking them or starving them. I’m hurting them and I’m hurting me. From now on, I’m going to trust my co-workers with my feelings. I am committed to spending more of my time with my wife and daughters. I will stop cutting them off, cutting them down, holding them at arm’s length. I will protect and honor them and their feelings. I will use my best energy to engage more on an emotional level…

  I don’t have kids or a spouse or really any responsibilities at home, as so many of my colleagues do, so I’ve allowed my work to become my family. I have no existence or identity apart from my work…I go in early, stay late, there’s nothing to stop me, so there are no boundaries in my personal and professional life. As a consequence I often feel I’m being taken advantage of—but the truth is that it’s my fault for never drawing boundaries.

  The truth is that work is not the problem; I am. I’ve ignored health and exercise for the past 3 yrs thinking I’m still young enough not to worry.

  My job is not who I am and it is not my highest priority. My family loves me and wants me—my time—not the money I earn. I am underachieving at my job because I have not been taking care of myself and because I forgot what I was working for. I need to create more energy, and focus that energy on improving my relationship with my family and friends. This new focus will make me more effective at work.

  The truth is, no one has forced me to work the hours I do…I can accomplish as much if I only engage. Same with my workout regimen. From this day forward, my workouts will have more intensity. My meals will be better planned and I will show my wife, children, and direct reports how much I care. Sarcasm is out. Genuine praise will be substituted.

  The luckiest day of my life was the day I met Nancy. She’s been a great lover, partner in everything I do, gave me and helped raise 2 of the greatest sons in the world. These are just a few of the things that she’s given me that I want to once again feel like I deserve. She’s my best friend, my business partner, and my soulmate. I will make the time so that together we can enjoy the life that we always talked about could be ours, and still can be.

  While I’ve had a role in leading the business, truth be told, if I had trusted my people more and stepped back, provided better coaching and let people run the business, I’d be better off. So would the folks I work with. So would the business. If I don’t change the pace I’ve been going, NOW, I’ll be dead at 60.

  Who am I trying to be perfect for? Despite the hours I spend at work, I must be more engaged with my family when home. After all, why am I working? I will keep weekends free whenever possible to spend time with them. Alex will only be here one more year before leaving for college so I’d better not wait to implement my changes…what more of a wakeup call do I need?

  I’m a controlling person. What I may view as control for the good of those I care for is really counterproductive…Control assumes my way is the right way. That isn’t true. I need to let others have a say and be open to other ideas. Compassion doesn’t mean taking care of people the way YOU see fit. Listen, with a desire to
understand!! Stop kidding yourself!! Don’t suffocate others!

  I continue to think the reason I haven’t advanced as expected is that I’m a woman in a male-dominated environment. The truth is, however, that I haven’t produced on several projects, and on one project particularly important for my advancement, I just dropped the ball. Then I found myself thinking that if it had happened to one of my male counterparts it would have been okay. But when I really face the truth, that’s probably my own wishful thinking, not reality.

  The truth is, I’m in too much of a hurry to get nowhere…The truth is, I blame everyone else for me being too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed. I ask for help, yet when offered, I don’t take it.

  The truth is, I am not immortal or invincible. If I do not learn to maintain my physical being, my life will probably be significantly shorter and out of balance again. I treat myself with less respect than I do my car or my tools. I will develop a training program and change my eating habits to make the most of my life and maximize my time on earth. I owe it to my family and myself.

  Time to take a shot at writing your New Story:

  New Story

  After your New Story is written, ask yourself the following questions:

  Does it take me where I want to go?

  Is it grounded in reality?

  Does it lead to action that stimulates genuine hope?

  If the answer to all three questions is yes, then you’re ready to move on to the second and final part of the program, which discusses the most vital life force of all, the one without which our stories and very lives do not happen, a force which we spectacularly ignore, misdirect, and downright abuse.

  Physical energy.

  Part Two

  New Stories

  History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

  —Winston Churchill

  Seven

  IT’S NOT ABOUT TIME

  WHAT MR. ROGERS TEACHES US

  In the workshops I often show a celebrated clip from an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the great public television children’s show from years ago, created by and starring Fred Rogers. Even in the late 1960s, when the show first appeared and American culture, for all its upheaval, seemed far quieter, slower-paced, less media-saturated, and less immediate-gratification-oriented than it would become, Mr. Rogers stood apart for his quiet, soothing manner and soulfulness, entertaining young children while at the same time teaching them about qualities like self-confidence, overcoming, belonging, and feeling special. Given our present-day warp-speed youth culture of quick camera cuts, fast food, and instant messages, it’s hard to imagine a show like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (which ceased production in 2001) or a man like Fred Rogers (who died in 2003) appealing to today’s kids.

  Or might he just be the perfect balm for all of us?

  The segment I play for the workshop is from the mid-70s. Rogers, who often had guests on the show, hosted Jeff Erlanger, a wheelchair-bound ten-year-old, whose disability resulted from the removal of a tumor from his spinal column in infancy. Rogers converses with Jeff about his “fancy chair,” focusing on him with compassion and gentleness. But, while admirable, his compassion is not what makes the segment special; after all, most people, one hopes, would exhibit such compassion. No, what makes the segment extraordinary—and the reason I show it—is the stunning, laser-like quality of Mr. Rogers’ focused energy. He is interested intensely, singularly, in everything the little boy has to say, in what he’s thinking and feeling, in who he is at his core. Want to see a human being fully engaged in what he’s doing? Just watch Mr. Rogers in this clip (or in countless others).

  And it’s just as obvious that Jeff feels and responds to this full engagement, too. (Young children tend naturally to be fully engaged in what they’re doing—though, sadly, with the proliferation in their lives of new technologies, media, and extracurricular overscheduling, their focus is fragmenting at a younger and younger age.) Here is a boy who seems—as most any other child would—shy about being in front of unfamiliar people, and perhaps (or perhaps not) feels it more so because of his handicap. He looks nervous, unsure of himself. Yet thanks to Mr. Rogers’ engagement—it’s so immersive you could almost drown in it—the boy soon joins in with him to sing “It’s You I Like.” As they sing together, the boy’s voice grows stronger, more confident. Finally, he can’t help himself and a giant smile lights up his face.

  Now I can’t tell you what impact the segment had on kids who watched the show when it first aired. I can tell you that when the lights go up after I’ve shown it, at least three-quarters of the room—surprise—are a mess. I understand that a lot of that emotion has to do with the scene’s poignancy, and yet I am convinced that the depth of the audience’s response has less to do with the boy than it does with the man. That’s right. I think Mr. Rogers’ extraordinary gift for engagement—for how he can make the small space, the eighteen to twenty-four inches, between him and the little boy as sacred as a shrine—is what is most notable. You can practically see the area around them glowing. Watching the segment—even for me, and I’ve seen it a hundred times—is to watch living proof of the hypothesis that If all you had to give was your total energy, you could accomplish historic things.

  Who in your life do you give that kind of attention to? At least some of the time? Who gets that eighteen inches of close-up intensity? What gets you to focus with that level of commitment, of reverence for the moment? Is there someone or something in your life so sacred that nothing and no one—not ringing phones, not errands, not ballgames in progress, not the news crawl at the bottom of the screen or the one always running through your head, not money or career concerns, not insignificant noises or images whizzing by—could possibly break your concentration? When I lecture and converse about the “power of full engagement,” I mean listening, seeing, and feeling with full force, experiencing with full force, yet that’s a kind of focus we so rarely give to things now. Why is that? What’s the story we tell ourselves that prevents this from happening? Is our lack of full engagement just a stage in our life that will pass someday? Or is the story that life in the twenty-first century is too complicated? Or has it always been like this? Do we assert that technology is the culprit? Or do we blame the competitiveness of an increasingly global marketplace? Is our story that multi-tasking is necessary as never before? Hey, time is money. Time is slipping away. We’re not getting any younger. Anyway, is our somewhat diluted attention really all that big a deal? Are we really losing that much by not engaging fully?

  Absolutely. Because it’s not about time. It never was and never is.

  It’s about energy.

  Every year I see companies buy into this idea—that it’s about energy, not time—in the hope that it will increase performance and productivity. Every year I see companies marvel at how the idea delivers that and so much more—greater employee engagement, retention and initiative, better health. Better morale. A better place to work. Perish the thought: more excitement, even joy.

  Let’s for a moment look at our national pastime: multi-tasking. The essence of multi-tasking is exactly the opposite of the essence of Fred Rogers. With Rogers-like engagement, extraordinary depth is achieved; with the one-foot-in, one-foot-out level of engagement characteristic of multi-tasking, a startling number of things, all relatively inconsequential, get achieved in a short time. (It bears noting also that one’s memory of, and joy in, accomplishing the multiple tasks that make up multi-tasking can never, cumulatively, compete with the memory of and joy in fully engaging in one thing alone.) Here’s the dirty secret, though: The difference in depth between full engagement and multi-tasking is not incremental. It’s binary. Either you’re fully engaged or you’re not. It’s really that simple, yet we tell ourselves it’s otherwise to keep the painful truth at bay. If a tennis pro preparing to return a 140-mph serve has two thoughts going, and one of them does not have to do with returning that serve, do you know what his chances are of returning it well? I d
o. Zero. Not 10%, not 5%. The same goes for hitting a golf ball, or doing push-ups the right way, or enjoying a glass of wine, or reading a good book. A distracted artist will not produce anything of real worth. An entrepreneur with scattered thoughts will not come up with solutions superior to the competition’s. Indeed, multi-taskers are fortunate even to rise to a modicum of competence. Can’t you always tell when you’re on the phone with someone who’s simultaneously watching TV or answering e-mail? Does your interaction with that person ever come within a thousand miles of what you’d call a satisfying conversation?

  Multi-tasking is the enemy of extraordinariness. Human beings, sorry to say, can focus fully on only one thing at a time. When employees multi-task, they are not fully engaged in anything, and partially disengaged in everything. The potential for profoundly positive impact is compromised. Multi-tasking would be okay—is okay—at certain times but very few people seem to know when that time is. If you must, then multi-task when it doesn’t matter. Fully engage when it does.

  Not long ago I suggested to a client, president of a large manufacturing company, that he stop multi-tasking—not merely because it brought him no joy or even a sense of accomplishment, but because he would actually get more done.

  From his look, you’d think I’d just said that meeting his revenue projections wasn’t the be-all, end-all.