Story is (almost) everything.
We live in a time of wonders and tumult. Of shifting cultural landscapes and consciousness. We are witnessing on the daily spectacular successes of science, technology and spirit and heartbreaking degradations to our collective ecology, deepening rifts in our social fabric and failures in leadership and integrity in both politics and industry. It is a wild time where it’s ever more difficult to know who to believe or what to believe in.
It seems we’re all just making shit up. And believe it or not, this is good news!
Because at the same time, we are beginning to awaken to the inkling that we may be on to something. We are glimpsing the light coming through the cracks hinting at a bigger reality behind the crumbling constructs we’ve come to know and love. And that light is this: We can, in fact, make shit up.
Okay, not excrement exactly. (Though there seems to be plenty of that.) But that we have at our disposal and service the capacity to create that may be as powerful as our wildest imagination. Consciousness is such that humans can reach across the membrane between what is real and what is not and, with sufficient conviction, pull on the infinite and make it so. We can quite effectively turn our thoughts into things. Bridges, roads, communication devices, gadgets, rocket ships, communities, relationships and everything you’ve woven into the tapestry of your civilized life is the result of a thought coming into form.
So what are you making up? What story are you telling?
As a professional artist and Disney Animator during the 2nd Golden Age of Animation I am delighted to see the infusion into corporate thought the work of people like Simon Sinek delving into the “why” or Carol Dweck and the importance of mindset in the workplace. Perhaps much of this is a blossoming of the work of Joanna Macy where she describes our time as being part of The Great Turning, a period of change where old paradigms give way to a New Story. At Disney telling stories was the water we swam in and artists have been perfecting practices for storytelling for centuries. Maybe millennia.
Because telling stories is how we humans practice believing. And believing in something is the prerequisite for it coming into form. Chances are you may have been taught the opposite. But I am here to assure you the deeper truth is that believing comes before seeing. Belief is seeing a future fulfilled. It is feeling, imagining, visualizing, describing the finished product as perfectly as possible in mind and heart before its realization. This is storytelling. And this is a practice of belief.
A compelling story is a multi-dimensional data delivery device. It freights an enormous amount of information on many levels. A good story can change how we see the world. It may be the most profound tool for creation humans possess.
But it’s not enough to just tell a good story. Knowing why you are here or having a positive mindset are valuable attributes to a created life, but they are not enough if we don’t understand the scaffolding that keeps them in place.
What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Do you know what your story is? Or what it will become?
These are important questions to answer not just for you, but for your team, your company and for the world.
What you have created for yourself today is a result of the stories you told yesterday. Tomorrow’s reality will be born of today’s stories. So let’s take a closer look at the simplest constructs of a story, shall we?
Your story (or the story of your company, community or country for that matter) is simply the tale of your being and doing. Of who you are and what you do. However, Being and Doing have become so intertwined as to have become indistinguishable to most people. We’re so caught in the doing of things we’ve forgotten the mechanism that got us here.
Do you know the difference between your being and what you do? In Barnet Bain’s beautiful book, “The Book of Doing and Being” he examines this distinction to great effect. “As a creator,” he says, “it is imperative that you become skillful at creating an expanded image.” This expanded self image is understanding both who you are and what you do. Because when you understand the mechanism that causes a story, you can create what Maya Zuckerman calls a regenerative narrative. In other words, a story that tells itself.
And the truth is, it’s really quite simple and you’re already in the middle of it. It goes like this: Your story is the tale of deeds which are a result of your choices. Your choices are made from your values. When you tell a story of being and doing, your values will emerge like ripe fruit on a tree. I used to give clients a list of hundreds of value words and asked them to choose the ones they liked. We would land on six to ten beautiful words and these would be their values. But were they really? Or were they really more like pretty words and hopeful desires?
Once we started telling their story, we no longer needed a long list. Their values were evident in the story of who they were and what they did. To be clear: a value is the important regard that something is held to deserve. It is at the core of all overt acts. A value is a reflection of what we fundamentally hold to be true and of great worth. Values are the scaffolding to your story supporting it with an invisible moral structure.
But values are only part of the mechanism. A value is a state of being. It needs to be in motion for the circuit to be complete. This is where principles come in.
Do you know what your principles are? You have them. You couldn’t have gotten this far without them. But making them known makes all the difference.
A principle is a value set in motion. A principle can be your words to live by so that you may take principled actions. (See the list below of values becoming principles) When an individual or group develops sound principles, their actions support the story they are telling and provide the moral compass for choice in the face of rapid change, risk or simply holding to a long term vision.
The failures we see in our current leadership both in politics and industry are not because people are acting without principles. It is because we no longer make our principles conspicuous. Every act that seems out of integrity is only because the principles of the actor are hidden from us. It’s time we made our principles more overt.
Why? Because this is how we learn how to play nice with each other. This is how we tell a collective story both in our communities and in our companies. In sports, the abilities and skills of the players are obvious and this lets the team know how to use the individual to the benefit of the whole. At Disney, our skills and abilities were also conspicuous. We knew who could draw hands or horses or pretty girls or leading men because the result was up on the big screen. How do you know in your office who is the best coder? The most empathic? The best at conflict resolution? Supportive of office equality?
Crafting your principles completes the circuit for generating a story that you can rely on. You tell a story of being and doing then this makes your values evident and your values in motion become your principles which lead to principled choices which are deeds that support your story. QED.
Look, if we’re going to make shit up, let’s tell a story worthy of the majesty of our power and potential to create magnificence. Let’s tell a new story worthy of our highest values and let’s make our principles known, to ourselves and the world. You are the lead character in the epic story of your life. Make it a good one.
Values → Principles
Kindness → Be kind
Community → Together we rise
Positivity → Onward and upward
Focus → Follow the yellow brick road
Empathy → Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Faith → Thy will be done
Curiosity → Leave no stone unturned
Integrity → Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose
Dave Zaboski is a classically trained artist, animator and now a kind of accidental consultant helping individuals and companies cultivate a culture of creativity, collaboration and mastery. He has created children’s books, concept art for film and television, shown his fine art internationally, been the expedition artist in search of a lost temple in the Andes and painted for the Dalai Lama. Dave lives with his wife, Robin, daughter, Grace and a small menagerie on a ranchette in Southern California.
