A good story can dramatically change the course of any fundraiser, movement, or campaign.

The organizations, companies, and institutions that come out with the best stories can cut through the noise more effectively to ensure that their needs and concerns are seen and heard.

But good stories alone don’t lead to change.

If social or systemic change is the goal, we must ensure that we don’t get addicted to the praise that comes with being a story-teller.

We must also remember to empower everyone, including ourselves, to become story-doers.

Ht: Conversations with Marcus Eriksen

When you walk into a room full of friends you haven’t seen in a long time, they’re usually interested in hearing what you‘ve been up to.

On the other hand, walk into a room full of strangers; chances are, you’ll get a slightly different reception.

How interesting of a human you are, hasn’t changed – but how interested the audience is in what you have to say has.

That’s because people’s interests have nothing to do with you and are more a byproduct of their pre-existing priorities, values, and goals.

If you’re trying to spread an idea, the key is not to become more interesting but to find communities interested in what you have to say and spread the word from there.

Interesting is not the same as interested.

Whenever I need to put a script or presentation together, I spend days agonizing over how the narrative flows together.

Unlike an interview or panel, which are made from multiple short and tangentially related stories, a good script requires all the micro-stories to be interconnected and woven into a single cohesive tapestry.

The purpose of that tapestry: To leave people with one key takeaway.

Often, I make the mistake of cramming so many stories into the tapestry that it muddles the takeaway.

When in doubt, present to someone who doesn’t know you and ask them what the takeaway was. Bonus points if they remember it a week later.

The most straightforward summary of the creative process is the journey from thought to thing.

For many, that journey is magical, haphazard, and unpredictable, but that process must feel inevitable for the creative professional who wants to guarantee a thing – out of nothing more than a thought.

Rather than imagining the creative process like a game of darts, where mastery is a question of zero-sum accuracy and skill – it’s helpful to develop a process that can only improve with iteration.

Like a string wrapped around a pole located in a bullseye – we want our creative process to gradually tighten into the perfect position so long as we slowly and consistently walk in the same direction.

That process, coined by Dave Zaboski as the Universal laws of Creation, is to believe, iterate, collaborate, risk, and complete.

Yesterday, I took a 3-hour walking tour of Lisbon.

We roamed through a myriad of neighborhoods, visited landmarks, and learned about the various characters throughout history that shaped Lisbon into what it is today.

As we walked on ancient cobblestone through narrow alleyways – our tour guide excitedly revealed bite-sized factoids and stories, creating feelings of surprise, delight, and wonder.

By the end of the tour, my relationship with the city had changed. An invisible connection had formed, not because I remembered any details in particular, but because of the new emotions and feelings that had been created.

As Maya Angelou famously said: people won’t remember what you said or did. They will remember how you made them feel.”

To change a person’s relationship to something, don’t look for more facts. Find the feelings.

When platforms like Youtube and Facebook were still in their infancy, “Going Viral” was the goal of many creators, agencies, and brands.

In those days, if you had a catchy story that got picked up by an influential channel, platform, or news network, the social proof and reach generated from the coverage would make others want to cover you. That popularity would compound until, eventually, it became a hit (or miss).

The business model for many brands and creatives was to create a marketing home run that would generate a long-tail of clients that would discover you through that viral hit.

Today, with algorithms as our new gatekeepers – virality lives mostly in silos. Not only are the peaks lower, they no longer generate the same long-tail of interest as they used to. The goal, therefore, is to aim for base hits. Simple, repeatable, self-fundable projects that perform consistently and stay on brand.

Ht: Pye Jirsa

Making a meal requires more than just the right ingredients. It needs the right tools.

The more tools you add, the more meal options you have. And those options influence what nourishes your body. 

Crafting a good story is similar – except that our tools are the medium and distribution platform. 

Our choices of tools change the stories we tell. They also change the way we think about stories. The way we remember those stories. And maybe most important, the way others remember us. 

ht: Brian Swichkow

After a year of epic adventures, what do you remember?

Chances are, the events you remember best are the stories you told to others. The more you retell the story of an experience, the better you remember it.

Details you choose to include in the story will be etched into memory, while the omitted parts will fade away. Eventually, reality will disappear, and all that remains is the story.

Social media trains us to tell stories of our successes – the highlight reel that celebrates our best moments.

But those are the wrong stories to tell if we want to grow. Growth comes from experimentation, failure, and the lessons learned along the way. Repeat those stories instead.