Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

Lately a few of us have been sharing stories and gaining more from the process than most people realize. Stories are how we learn,” Bill Mooney and David Holt wrote in The Story Teller’s Guide.  Everybody loves stories told by interesting, fun, together people.  “People are hungry for stories. It’s part of our very being,” Studs Terkel said. Do you agree?

NPR recognized a market for personal stories and invited their listeners to share their best beliefs in a story to submit anecdotes for airtime.

Story tellers draw from their intrapersonal intelligence, much like coffee draws aroma and taste from  fresh roasted beans. And one way to draw on more intelligence is to write stories, and to write with you in mind. Start by writing a yarn just for you. Here’s one idea that worked well in writing classes I’ve taught.

Walk back through time, and give one piece of advice from your teenage self to the current you. Call the teenager by your middle name and write a story about what you’ll do with your teenager advice. How might that advice help you out in some way or another with a problem you face at the moment? Are you off and running yet?  
And what happens during the process of writing personal stories, anyway?

It depends on why your write and what you want from the process. Dr. Julie Connelly, Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine,  publishes stories that reflect her interest in medicine and humanities. Her stories take readers inside people’s relationships with their doctor. Imagine the same thing happening between you, customers and supervisors….

“At times the surface of the situation is explored as the specific details of a particular situation, the context including the “characters,” and the point-of-view of the observer are all taken into account.”  It’s as if Dr. Connelly is writing her way into insider eye-openers about patient doctor relations. Can you see intrapersonal growth in this process?

“At other times, writing may expose the depths of a situation.” As a writer, the doctor’s  writing process and stories help her  to see more truth of medical situations she needs to solve, without interruptions from the stressful aspects of her work. Do you see problems where you work that stories could help to solve?

Whatever your purpose, story writing, unlike conversations with others, for instance, gives you a full-sized mirror to become and reflect more of who you’d like others to see in you. That’s because narrative shows meanings inside hidden secrets, and allows you to work out complex incidents through fictitious names, well disguised settings, and characters that help you improve self-knowledge. 

Share a personal story  and you tie delightful bonds to the larger world of your personal and professional self. Some people like my aunt Grace and writer Shirley Ann Parker, share amazing stories through letters.

At times your story and the process of writing it, will hand you the comfort of exchanging universal experiences with others in your field. At other times, stories illumine the uniqueness of working through details that differ from others directly around you. What’s your best story?