This is a love story; helping people bring their stories to life

I believe that everyone has a story and that the best person to tell your story is you. The good news is that storytelling is largely a process and what I will be sharing with you in my blogs is the science of storytelling. My ultimate goal is that you will be able to use this content to create your own stories and use them to connect with people in ways you never have imagined.

So let me share with you a story of how did I discovered my passion for storytelling. Like all good stories it began when I met a girl…

Back in 2008 I was running my own production company when I decided to attend a conference being held in Fiji. While there I met a woman, fell madly in love, and decided then and there that this was the woman I was going to marry. There were only 2 problems: The first was that she didn’t immediately share my level of enthusiasm, and the second was that I lived in Australia and she lived on the other side of the world in Norway.

As I said this is a love story and love makes you do crazy things. So I streamlined my business, packed up my possessions and moved to Bergen which I imagined was an idyllic seaside village. However, what I later discovered was that Bergen is actually the wettest city in Europe with an average of 250 days of rain a year. The saying in Bergen is that “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing”.

I found myself in a country where I couldn’t speak the language, couldn’t go outside for long periods of time and had no idea what I would do for work. At this stage I had worked in some form of production or storytelling for over 15 years including advertising, television news, documentary and feature film. Despite this I hadn’t yet found the one thing I loved to do.

What I began to realise is that everything I had done to this point centred around storytelling, and what I was really passionate about was bringing stories to life. It was then that I decided that I would work with people and organisations to help them bring their stories to life. I would become a story consultant.

On a trip back to Sydney I met with some clients and shared my idea. While most found the concept interesting there was a consistent problem, no one actually knew what a story consultant was – and neither did I.

Then something happened. My brother asked for my help with his PHD. He said “Most PHD’s are only read by 2 people, your supervisor and your mother. I want to do something different, I want this PHD to live. Tell me what I should do.” And then he dropped this huge bound document in front of me.

To say this was a daunting question is an understatement. Not only was this 10 years of practice, 5 years of research and 200,000 odd words, it was also my brothers’ life’s work and he was entrusting it to me.

What I did was apply my key storytelling principles and created seven short stories that were told in the form of metaphors. We then brought the stories to life through voice over and hand drawn animation.

We launched these animations in 2010 and the response has been nothing short of astounding. They have been viewed and used by thousands of leaders around the world and have even been featured in the Harvard Business Review.

Since then I have worked with hundreds of leaders all over the world, and what I have discovered is that no matter where you are from or what you do, everyone has a story. Stories are the way we connect and they have the power to move people.

The good news is that storytelling is largely a process and what I will be sharing with you in my blogs is the science of storytelling. What I will give you are the storytelling tools that you can use to bring your stories to life.

So I can now say I have discovered my passion for story and understand how I can share that passion. The fact that I fell madly in love and could help my brother along the way is a bonus.