Before leaving office, Barack Obama met with the New York Times book critic, Michiko Kakutani and said, “Storytelling brings people together to have the courage to take action on behalf of their lives.”
Think of a favorite story… Whether it’s a novel, Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus, or Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz… We are hardwired to connect with the stories of others.
Every story needs a protagonist. In order to have the courage to take action on behalf of your life, I invite you to put yourself in as the protagonist.
Using Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, classic storytelling structure goes like this:
- Context: Girl from Kansas gets trapped in the Land of Oz.
- Goal: Dorothy wants to go home.
- Challenges & obstacles. Magical sleeping poppies. Flying monkeys. Wicked Witch of the West. Have at least three obstacles for massive engaging effect.
- Outcome. Was the goal achieved? New growth and development in the character? Victorious resolution? Dorothy realizes she had the power all the time to affect the change she wanted in her life (sound familiar?) and gets back home.
Intuitively you know the steps. Now that I’ve laid them out for you, how can you apply them to your life?
What if you think about your career and life in this regard? What if you set a new goal? You know there will be challenges ahead to overcome. Are you curious about how you will grow and change?
It’s a cliffhanger… I don’t know the answers to these questions, and neither do you… yet.
Think of this next phase in your life as a new chapter. What do you want to achieve? What is your goal?
You get to turn the page and write your own script.