Something Boring, For Once
I received an email from Betsy today:
Hi Louis!
I'm writing from the Nonprofit Center here at the Idaho Community Foundation regarding our upcoming Regional Impact Summit events coming up in March. We received your expression of interest in speaking at these events, and your contributions would be a great addition to the agenda. Below is the workshop title you originally submitted:
"The One Minute Leap: How to Speak Up When It Counts" and “Fortune Favors the Bold: A More Courageous Organization, A More Courageous You”
Do these sound like the topics you would still like to present, or are there other ideas you'd like to discuss?
I was tempted to just say I don’t do courage any more, or keynotes, but then I looked at the attachment. The members want to learn about storytelling. Hmmm. HMMMM! Besides the fact that I’ve been a writer and/or storyteller since Elston and I first penned that Jed and Stefia talking dog novel back in fifth grade, when we were supposed to be paying attention, this stuff is eminently teachable.
So I asked ChatGPT to come up with a list of one word descriptors to show how people think of themselves. Here it is:
Curious, driven, thoughtful, boring, stubborn, generous, impatient, observant, restless, loyal, anxious, creative, guarded, hopeful, skeptical, resilient, fearful, playful, defensive, ambitious, uncertain, empathetic, self-doubting, principled, distracted, courageous, hesitant, grounded, reactive, imaginative, inconsistent, optimistic, weary, flawed, learning.
Not a comprehensive list, but it covers a lot of the important bases. Let’s assume these are true about the people describing themselves. Want to know what each of those types of people have in common? They can all tell great stories, if they want to. Maybe they need somebody to show them how. Somebody like me, for instance. Yes, I can teach this stuff. Hey, not all writers are shy. Remember, I’ve been telling stories since Jed and Stefia, along with hogging stages every chance I get.
So I shot off a response to Betsy:
As it happens, I've made a shift away from traditional keynote speaking towards pure storytelling, but I think that might be an even better fit for your members. Imagine us going on a journey. The starting point is right here, where we are, with all our strengths and weaknesses. We begin with the word, and it can be any word. A thought, an idea, a question. Something fundamental, like "why were you born?" or "what's the guiding principle behind our mission?" Or even something personal, like "what's something you remember from when you were five years old?" I asked that question at Table Rock, with an audience of seniors, and one of the gentlemen replied that it was the last time he saw his older brother alive. World War II. He stopped me in my tracks. I was expecting pleasant memories. But it was a very powerful moment for all of us in that room, a reminder that the story doesn't always follow a predictable arc.
Why are your members interested in storytelling? I have my own ideas, but I'd like to know from you and them, if possible. Being a great storyteller helps you be more successful as a non-profit. But not every story is going to inspire your donors to reach for their checkbooks or convince a skeptical Congressperson to increase your budget.
I believe every one of us can benefit from learning what to say and how to say it. I call it "write first, talk later." It's teachable. And I think your members would thrive on it way more than sitting through yet another inspirational talk about courage and one-minute leaps. What do you think?
No response yet, but it’s only been a few minutes.
The bottom line? You can be any kind of person, even boring, and still be a great storyteller. I’ll give you an example. Let’s take something really boring, like a vegetable peeler. Is that what you call them? Whatever it is, let’s just call it that. What could be more boring?
As it happens, last weekend, I watched a YouTube video about roasting vegetables, another boring topic. The guy in the video, I don’t remember his name, but he had a different kind of vegetable peeler than I do. Instead of the blade being on the side of the handle, it was on top of the handle, sideways, like a paint roller. And he was zesting an orange with it, to mix in with carrots along with who knows what else. I figured, I gotta get one of those kind of vegetable peelers so I can roast carrots with orange zest, too. So that’s what I did. And the first time I used it, I nearly sliced off the tip of my finger. At least that’s what it looked like behind all the blood. Hard to tell for sure, because I had to tape a folded paper towel to the wound, not having any legitimate bandages anywhere in the house. I was sure I’d lost the tip of my finger, not because it hurt particularly badly, but because of the outpouring of blood for a really long time. When I looked at it the next day, it turned out not to be nearly that bad, but definitely a warning sign to not zest oranges that way, no matter who on YouTube thought it was a good idea.
There’s your example of how nothing is boring if you tell it the right way. Now go out and find something boring to write about.
