what's your story for the weekend?

It's Friday afternoon, and an exchange of emails has me thinking in particular ways about the stories we tell ourselves. This weekend, my own stories will be musical. I'll be listening to my son's jazz band, and to a concert performed in part by a singer I first met when she was about ten years old.

Sarah began by helping her mom and I lead the singing for our church school. Margaret and I were not musically accomplished but we had the one most important quality in church school music leaders: we believed the music could be fun and bring the kids closer to each other and closer to God. We believed this in the absence of any evidence or any particular talent. Sarah went to a Christian school and knew good songs to sing, so she helped us lead.

At the time, I did not think of Sarah as a singer - I knew she competed as a Scottish dancer. One thing led to another, and Sarah dreamed her dreams and graduated in music theatre and played a lead role on Broadway (and in Toronto, until the show she was in closed early). Sometimes she comes back to church and sings to bring us closer to God - with her voice and with her story. Tomorrow evening she will sing, and soon she will move to London to try her luck in music theatre there.

My son listens to jazz greats and punk/alternative/ska bands. He plays saxophone and acts and wants to study chemistry, he thinks. He moves without effort or irony between the past and the future, relaxed and ready.

When I move the camera a little, the focus shifts from their stories to my story. And I notice how passion and belief leak from the corners of boxes and spread themselves improbably in the world. I notice that I am now just one degree away from singing on Broadway, and it's not even a big degree. I have had my place in the choir next to someone whose voice soars and inspires. I have communicated a love for freedom within form, so that my son can improvise in a way that would have terrified me. My story has spread out without wearing thin.

Hold something you love within your story this weekend. You never know who will pick up a thread of your story and weave it into something wonderful.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The hypnotic contract

Under what conditions would you allow someone else to tell you what to think?   If you have watched a stage hypnotist, you have seen what looks like one person exercising remarkable control over the thoughts and actions of another. It is fascinating, in part, because we have all seen it happen in real life. Suddenly someone we know seems to be relying on someone else to do the thinking.  Even if the influence is good, it is a little frightening. The secret is that there are no magic words.  In order to lead someone into hypnosis, that person has to be willing to go there. Often the people you see on stage are more than willing. For whatever reasons, they are enthusiastic about giving up self control and allowing someone else to take charge. They know that there are limits to what can happen on stage and they are only agreeing to give up control within those limits. What you see in hypnosis is an agreement between two people. Like all agreements between human beings, it stretches as far...
Read more

Good with people

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "good with people?" When a wine is good with steak, it means that both the steak and the wine taste better when enjoyed together. If you are 'good with people' that could mean that both you and they perform better when you work together. "Good with people" should not be confused with charm or grace. Many famous leaders have, in the absence of any obvious charm or eloquence, managed to get people to produce at high levels. Some introverts fail to be influential; some extraverts fail to be effective. The most useful criteria for "good with people" is the performance that results when an individual is working with others: does the sum exceed the total of the parts? Or would they all have been better working from separate cubicles? We are entering the season of networking: it's a perfect time to observe the difference between the people who are working the room and the people who are making the room w...
Read more

The fine line between observations, suggestions and commands

I have been watching Tony Robbins this week in the documentary called " I Am Not Your Guru ." You can read a nicely ambivalent review in the Financial Times here.   I think the ambivalence is built into the process, which might be surprising given the loud celebration that characterizes the Date with Destiny in the film. For those of us whose work has evolved from NLP, there are lessons to be learned from modelling the most famous and successful practitioner of NLP (Robbins has far surpassed all the founders by all measures of success). Because he does so much so well, Robbins lets us see how fine the line is between observing and suggesting. Let me explain. Robbins frames his "interventions" both with the exercises and performances we do not see in the film and with his invitations. The film opens with an intervention with a young man who says he is suicidal; it is only later that we see Robbins say he is looking for someone who is suicidal to work with. Since...
Read more