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Telling Your Personal Story

Identifying Story Traps

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What is your personal story and how does it effect your life?

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Is your identity wrapped up in a story that no longer serves you or your organization?

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The workshops offered here explore the stories that we use to define our identity. The way we are at work, at home, and in community all are part of our story. What we have come to believe about ourselves and how we have come to believe who we are can be defined by what we believe to be true in the personal stories we tell.
A story trap is an aspect of a story that is believed to be true yet has no factual basis or it has been generated by opinion or outside influence.  A story trap can also be generated by what I call optional facts. These are facts that may be true to a specific situation but then are generalized to a wider view.

The first step in freeing ourselves from “Story Traps” is to explore the types and origins of these pitfalls. Once we have developed a level of awareness in this arena we can begin to unravel our stories and see clearly where the story serves us and where it does not. This is the process of de-constructing our story, converting our perspectives, and reconstructing our stories to ones that serve us.

We do not readily know the traps by which we live until we start consciously and intentionally telling our stories with a critical ear and a discriminating mind. Once we have begun to redefine ourselves in the context of a more positive story we can move toward realizing how we can use our personal stories to transform our lives.

These workshops are crafted for groups and organizations and are offered in three hour increments.

Individual training sessions and consultations are also available.

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Storytelling in Leadership:

Storytelling as a Training Strategy

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This is a general outline of the workshop Storytelling as a Training Strategy. The workshop is customized to the needs of the group or organization to which it is being presented. Customization and workshop length is determined by the selection of primary objectives from the list below. Other objectives may be developed based on organizational needs. The workshop is generally presented in three or six hour sessions.

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Primary Objectives:

1) How to be effective as a storyteller

2) How to make a story relevant

3) How to manage story length effectively

4) How and when to use stories

5) How to find or create stories

6) Developing and using metaphors and analogies

7) Source of ideas for stories

Applying what you have learned