Let The Change Be YOU: Every Litter Bit Helps
November 19, 2009
“From a spiritual point of view, a leader is only a reflection of the consciousness of the people. Therefore, that leader will only be as strong and powerful as the people he serves. Bad leaders are meant to rouse us to take action. When we see something we don’t like in our leadership, it is to show us what is what we need to recognize and transform within ourselves.” Yehuda Berg, The Power to Change Everything
We are on the verge of a revolution. Not the militaristic kind but it is definitely time for a change. It is time to stand up and speak out. We need to stop complaining, stop moaning and get into positive action. No one is going to do it for us. It is up to us to lead the way.
There used to be a category of people called Leaders. Linguistically speaking, if there is a leader there must be a follower. But today we don’t have time to waste following others. Each of us in our own way need to be leading our own personal revolution.
What needs to change in you, your world, your household, your body or your neighborhood? If it needs to be done then guess who’s the one to do it? That’s right it’s YOU.
How many times do you go out the door, see some trash and walk on by? But then you come home, see that your neighbor dropped his cigarette butt on the sidewalk in front of your house and you get pissed.
I know I do because that’s exactly what my neighbor does and it really makes me mad. But I also noticed that I could feel very justified for being mad at him and blame him for the trash on my street. But the truth is, it’s up to me to change that, not him. This is what I mean by a personal revolution. I am choosing to be the change that I want to see.
So instead of knocking on his door and asking him to pick the butt up, I went inside, got my little baggie and picked it up myself. But then I realized that I couldn’t stop there. I went across the street and picked up a few more and now every time I’m out for a walk with Miss Sweetie, I pick up as many as I can. It’s up to me.
The only way to create a universal revolution is to create a personal one. And that’s not easy. It is not fun. It’s not fame producing. It doesn’t earn you any bread and butter. The only thing it does for you is to let you know deep inside that you are doing what it takes to create a better world. That’s it. That’s all you get out of it. If that’s not enough then this world is not going to change.
In picking up my neighbors cigarette butts I am not going to win an award or get written up in the paper. In fact no one really cares. But on a more universal level, if I can do those things that need to be done, without try to get a personal reward then I can sleep well at night. In other words, be at peace in my soul.
The gift is that my neighbors nasty cigarette butt made me realize that I need to go beyond the scope of my own personal pitiful annoyances and make the difference that I can, right here on my own street.
What about you? Where do you need to lead the way to your own personal revolution? What are you complaining about that you are leaving up to someone else to change? Think about it. It’s not pretty. If you truly find the honest nugget of what you need to change, you will get a kind of queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like, “Ugh I know I need to be doing that but I don’t really want to.” That’s the one to go for.
I don’t honestly enjoy picking up cigarette butts, especially from my unconscious neighbor who could so easily put them in the trash! I annoys me and I’d rather be doing something else with my time, but I have to get beyond that annoyance and think about my other neighbors, the neighborhood and the world. Would our world be better if I picked it up rather than just complained? The answer is yes - Every litter bit helps!
Remember that saying? It’s true. Every tiny action, every tiny thought, every miniscule change that you personally make will be imprinted on the universe forever. And I’m not just getting meta-physical with you, it is scientifically true. Although the mystics have always been far ahead of the scientists in this regard, they are now catching up. Even science says that this is a good idea.
Change in one part affects change in all the others.
So today let the change be YOU. Don’t wait for President Obama or your neighbor or your neighborhood, today be the leader that you wish was leading our world.
Stop complaining and start acting. Well I gotta go. If I’m going to walk my talk I better get outside right now with my little baggie and start my morning pick up! Let me know how you are leading the way for a better world, starting now.
Yours in stories that change the world,
Annie
Corey’s Story Journey: Corey’s On Fire
November 4, 2009
Annie’s Note: For those of you not yet familiar with Corey Blake’s work – one of his projects was to help Robert Rentera write and tell his story in a wonderful book called, “From the Barrio To The Boardroom.. This book is making a huge impact in areas of social change that formerly seemed impossible.
From Corey: This morning I was working on a blog post that Katie had sent me about Barrio and was adding my two cents to it when I felt the emotional stir of what we are building. Then I dove into some pages that she had prepared from our last call and suddenly felt the hairs stand up on my arms. I needed to talk about Barrio today.
So when Annie, Katie and I got on our weekly call, Annie bought us a virtual round of coffees and teas and we dove right in. I am compelled to start this story with one of the last lines from Annie on the call, “I appreciate how totally fucking passionate you are to be out there doing the impossible…”
Today I just ripped. Not only about Barrio, but about what our work stands for to me. Robert and I each have our own agendas with the book of course — it’s incredibly personal. My secret agenda is that I want teachers all around this country and the world to start using storytelling in their work with kids.
My main focus around creating the Barrio curriculum was to create a program that inspired these kids to use Robert’s story as a launching pad for them telling their own. Story is powerful. Story is what makes us stand out in a crowd. What makes us three dimensional.
For example, last week, we were presenting our curriculum to a group of 50 social workers and I asked them to tell me what they did for a living. Most of them were too afraid to try. A few of them gave me longwinded, uninspiring answers. Then one woman said, “I put bandaids on bullet wounds.”
WOW. Suddenly, everyone in that room turned and recognized this as a woman who was passionate about what she was doing. A woman who was trying. A woman who recognized the disparity between how they were trying to solve the problem (bullet wounds) with their solution (bandaids).
With those few words, that woman was suddenly understood by her peers who would otherwise not have even seen she was there. Isn’t life like that most of the time? Don’t most of us feel invisible throughout our day? Story makes us visible. And good story motivates people to do something. To introduce themselves to us. To say, “I don’t know why, but I think we are supposed to talk.”
Imagine how different life would be if at a young age our stories had been pulled from us? Imagine how less judgmental our peers might have been of us. How much more visible we would have felt. Imagine if we could have articulated what we stood for when we were in high school or earlier. Life changes when you know who you are.
Life changes even more when others see who you are. Through story comes understanding. Through understanding confidence is built. Through confidence we make better choices. It’s called character. And every story starts with one.
Annie’s Notes: It is so exciting to see Corey on fire with his project and to know the true power of story to change lives and change the world. Bravo Corey and Robert, for impacting so may people through story.
Lead the Way With Story: Creating Trust & Credibility
October 25, 2009
Storytelling, definition by Annie Hart
An effective and congruent communication that embodies your commitment, your beliefs, your values and your vision.
This is part of a series on the use of storytelling in leadership. Leaders need to inspire and motivate others. They need to help people get along, collaborate and go where they haven’t been before. Nothing does this more effectively than the power of story.
Although the word story means many things to me, for the purposes of leadership, I’m going to give it the above definition, so that it will show you exactly how you create connection through story. To illustrate this effectively, I need to tell you a story.
Several years ago I was giving a presentation to a small family business that was not my typical client. One of the owners was a private client of mine who really benefited from my work and she wanted me to do some consulting for them. But I was pretty sure that the rest of the company wouldn’t see me as a natural fit and might not want to hire me.
So what did I do? The first step to building a connection is to get inside someone else’s story to find out how they think, believe and act. To do this I asked myself the question, What goes on inside of their world? This is how you discover the daily problems, frustrations and mindsets of whomever you want to communicate with.
The key to this is to do it from the mindset of sharing and the intention to build connection. When you begin by relating to our common human problems, then we start on the same page.
In business the number one priority is often the famous ‘bottom line’. But the key to a sustainable business is actually not the bottom line at all. People are the most important commodity of any successful venture.
As a leader, relationships should be of prime importance. If not then everything else will go downhill. The bottom line of is not and can never be number one,. Taking care of people comes first.
So by the time I went to give my presentation, I had already put myself in the mindset of the people that I was speaking to. I walked into a group of people that looked harried, distracted and uninterested, but I was prepared for this. So I started by telling them their own story.
I introduced myself briefly and then told them that I would be right back, and I walked out of the room. I returned minutes later, rushing in with a briefcase spilling papers and frantically talking on a cell phone.
I began my presentation all over again, but this time I was speaking at breakneck speed. “Hi I’m Annie Hart and I’m here to….” But imagine this with words flying at 500 miles an hour!
When I looked up they were speechless. Maybe dumbfounded is a better word. I paused and looked at them carefully. I asked, “What was that like for you?’
“That’s exactly like our daily lives!” they said. They couldn’t believe that I got them. I said, “How did it feel to experience me that way?” They unanimously said, “It was awful, very stressful and anxiety producing.” Exactly. Exactly like their daily lives.
This dramatic enactment of their everyday way of being, opened up a discussion of trust and openness, whereas just moments before they had considered me a complete stranger. So how did they accept me so quickly?
I used the power of story, THEIR STORY, to speak their language.
The key to rapport and building connection is to think about others. Ask yourself, what do they need? What are they going through? What are their daily lives like?
It’s not how can I get them to do what I want? It’s how can I understand who they are? This is one of the key skills a leader can have.
Each of you in your own way is a leader. Start today to think how you can get inside the story of others, so that people will want to follow you where ever you go.
And if you’re wondering if I got hired? The answer is yes, and continued to tell stories and build rapport for an entire year. Storytelling is a key to building trust and credibility through creating connection.
So Why Tell Stories, rather than just blather on in plain ordinary language?
August 11, 2009
So why should we tell stories rather than speak in plain old ordinary language? For many reasons. First of all because telling stories is more fun and we should always have fun when we’re speaking.
This post is dedicated to my new friend Jeannette Paladino, Writer in Chief at “Write, Speak, Sell.” Jeannette is a leader in helping business people to create clear and powerful communication. We share the love of storytelling and its power to communicate, so Jeannette asked me to write on the topic for her blog.
Storytelling is the oldest and most powerful form of communication on the planet. It completely bypasses the rational conscious mind and goes directly into our unconscious, which is the meaning maker of our mind.
This means that stories go in more easily and are more enduring than ordinary communication. If you want to have power in your message, you really need to tell a story.
And here is the good news. The story itself is not nearly as important as the way it is delivered. Believe it or not, that is really true. Yes it’s a good idea to have a compelling story when you can, but the communication is only in 7% in the words. You can tell a very bad story and make it compelling and you can tell a very great story and make it very bad!
The power of the story is in the delivery. If it is a written story than the power of your word is stronger but when I’m writing stories, I try to think of the words as ‘word images’. That is how you bring the power of story to life.
Words by themselves are completely boring. They are just like flat pieces of cardboard with no color on them. To make a mosaic out of them you need to create colorful images in your reader or listener’s minds eye.
So I went out on the street the other day and as stepped out the door, I smelled the taste of roses in my mind.
Now what does that mean? Absolutely nothing. But notice that it created clear images in your mind. Your brain needed to visualize the step, the door, the smell, the taste and roses, all in one short sentence. This is the same way a great story is created, from inside of the memory banks of your mind.
And you can make it up! Alot of my stories are told off the cuff. Don’t be afraid of that. Be more afraid of boring people to death with your plain old ordinary language. Yes seriously, imagine that people will start keeling over right in front of you if you don’t stop boring them with your words!
We need to tell stories for many reasons but the most important of which is that you don’t want to be boring with your words.
Jeannette and I both know that the power of effective communication is essential in the business world. If you can’t communicate clearly, people will misunderstand and have a hard time following you. So especially for leaders this is essential.
Thank you Jeannette for being out there in the world helping others to speak powerfully. In honor of you, here are my top three reasons to tell stories:
- tell stories so that people will listen to what you have to say
- tell stories so that your message will be lasting
- tell stories so that you don’t bore people with your words
Most of all tell stories because they are the most fun and enjoyable way to communicate on the planet. That’s it, enough said. Now go tell a story.
Break Out of the Box, Story of the Rogue Monkey
June 11, 2009
Be A Rogue Monkey
Have you ever felt like you really wanted to try something new but you were scared to break out of the box? Well take courage from this story about a Rogue monkey.
This story comes from a study I read years ago called Alpha Leadership. It is written by one of my mentors, Robert Dilts and two of his colleagues. It’s a great book on Leadership.
But rather than give you just the facts of the study, which I can’t remember the details of, I thought you might enjoy hearing it more as a story. So this is the story of a rogue monkey and how he broke out of the box.
There was a group of young monkeys who were brought to live in a cage at a laboratory in order to be studied by some humans. The monkeys didn’t really want to go live at the laboratory but there were lots of bananas inside of the cage so they decided to stay.
The humans had set it up so that there was a beautiful cluster of ripe yellow bananas right at the top of a set of stairs. Yummy! What monkey wouldn’t love some delicious ripe bananas?
- Yummy!
But what the poor unsupecting monkeys didn’t realize was that when they would go up to the top of the stairs to get the bananas, they would be shot with a stream of water. Ouch! That made them run right back down the stairs without any bananas in hand. Bummer!
The monkeys tried this one at a time and each time they were blasted with water. But at the same time, the researchers took a monkey out of the cage and replaced it with a new one. Of course the new monkey would see those yummy bananas at the top of the stairs and think, ‘Hey I’m going to get one!’ But the other monkeys would immediate communicate to it that it shouldn’t go. And without ever having seen or experienced the water itself, the monkey would take the good word of the other monkeys and not go up the stairs.
Now think for a moment of your own favorite food. Mine is pasta. Imagine it sitting waiting for you at the top of a staircase. You’d want to go for it right? Well so did the monkeys.
But one by one the researchers took an old monkey out of the cage and replaced it with a new one, until eventually they had an entire group of new monkeys.
Now here’s the funny thing. This entire group of new monkeys had never actually seen or experienced that shot of water themselves and yet none of them dared to go up the stairs towards the bananas! It was almost as if the imprint of that story was left in the air.
Until one day, they added a brand new monkey (drum roll please) and this monkey was not like other monkeys. No, this monkey was a Rogue Monkey and he dared to do things differently.
So when he confidently started to head up the ramp towards those yummy bananas and the other monkeys shrieked in horror, ”Nooo don’t go”, he went anyway. He didn’t take their good advice.
And guess what? The researchers had turned off the water. Mr Rogue was able to get a nice banana feast and he happily shared it with the other monkeys who were completely astounded! 
Sometimes you have to risk, even when everyone around you is telling you that it won’t work. You have to go anyway because you may be meant to go into uncharted territory or break new ground. Think of Christopher Columbus, Walt Disney and Charles Branson. They did crazy things and took risks. But it worked.
And you’re not just doing it for yourself. You are opening up the field for all of the other monkeys. Because after this monkey had his feast, all the others ate their full too. And that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t taken the risk.
Today, be a Rogue Monkey and risk going for those bananas at the top of the stairs. It will be worth the risk.
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