Stuck for a story

Today I am struggling a bit. A sinus infection and a blocked good ear makes it hard to focus, and I am going away to see my son, daughter-in-law and my grandsons this weekend. I need to write this early because it will be emailed about the time I am on a plane coming home.

“You could just take a break for a week.”

“Yeah, I could, but…”

I was stuck. So I employed one of my getting unstuck writing strategies. I read someone else’s story. John Kuzava, is a LinkedIn connection. John is retired like me, though I think he still entertains fantasies about doing the kind of organizational change work that I used to do.

And like me, John fills his time by writing. A lot of his writing causes me to think deeply. He posted an article “The Stories… That Survive”, talking about shared stories in a family that remains intact, in a family fractured by divorce, and in our national story here in these “United” States. I would encourage you all to read it.

John’s article caused me to think about my stories and my life.

I come from a family of storytellers

My biggest shared family legacy is storytelling. We all want the listener to know not just that the traffic was murderous on the way home from the grocery store, but to experience what it was like “sweating in the car with the air conditioner on the fritz, knowing that the ice cream was melting, steaming when some idiot in back of me starts leaning on his horn, like I could actually go anywhere.” The story is what is important.

Both my mother and my father told stories. Though my mother was the Irish one (“Scots-Irish, dear”), Nan told stories based in fact but dripping with feeling. “My father never talked to me much, but I remember one time when I brought home a paper that I’d done well on in school. He put it up on the wall in the boarding house restaurant we ran for all the customers to see when they came in after dropping off their loads at the cotton gin across the street. He never said anything, but lots of those people commented to me.”

Ray, my father, on the other hand, told stories that might have started in fact, but quickly escalated to the level of Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan.

“My father Harry and his father-in-law John Forsyth bought 175 acres down by Big Cypress, on Alligator Alley. There was nothing but trees at the edge of this swamp and they set about clearing those trees. But it was hard work and that sun was hot. And the mosquitoes were BIG, big as eagles they was. One of them eagle-sized mosquitoes chased Harry behind a big ole palm tree and when that mosquito dove at him, Harry ducked sideways and that bug’s proboscis went right through that tree and John quickly bradded it over. Well, that mosquito, he was mad and he thrashed around so, he pulled that palm tree right outta the ground by its roots. Then with that tree stuck to him he thrashed around and around and around till he had cleared that whole 175 acres.”

I’ve come to learn that my grandfather and his father-in-law did buy property together near Fort Meyers, Florida, off the road, now part of Interstate 75, which crosses what is now Big Cypress National Preserve. That section of I-75 is still called Alligator Alley. They did clear most of it with some hired help. Ray and John lost that homestead during the Depression for less than ten dollars in delinquent taxes. “Nobody had cash,” Nan explained. “We survived in the printing business because we took scrip. We printed for the dairy and the butcher and the movie theatre, got scrip from all of them and traded scrip for groceries and the rest. But you can’t pay real estate taxes with scrip, so that land is gone.”

When my kids were little, I started a tradition of the “pass-on story.” One of us would start a story, spend a few minutes creating a situation or a character, and then pass it on to the next person who would continue until we all fell laughing or asleep. Now my daughter has carried on the tradition with her girls. As I said, storytelling’s in our blood.

Where do my stories come from?

I started this blog with the idea that I would share what I had learned from my seventy-plus years on the planet, what I’ve seen and heard from family and friends, and reading. I put this blog up in February 2022, Some readers said you should write a book. Yes, they really did.

My first draft was overlong. “A lot of pages, Alan,” said one editor, basically saying, “I won’t even look at this unless you cut it down.” Another editor, my wife, was gentler. “There’s stuff in here about consulting, stuff in here about leading change, and there’s these little heartwarming stories from your life. You might be talking to different readers.”

So one book became three, Traveling the Consulting Road, Change Leader? Who Me? and the soon to be published Wisdom from Unusual Places.

The audiences are different, new consultants and candidates, those new to leading change initiatives, and whoever reads memoir stories and personal essays. I’m still trying to work out that last audience, which is why Wisdom from Unusual Places  is still “coming soon.”

Shared stories

As John Kuzava makes clear, shared stories of a family, or a nation lasts as long as the context of the family or nation remains the same.

Shamans used myths to explain the world: How was the world created? What is my rightful place in the universe? How does a good person behave that is different from how a bad person behaves? Companies have origin stories too, and some of the best leaders I met shared stories to create a sense of belonging.

I use my stories to illustrate business points, to share what I learned in consulting, or in leading change, continuous improvement, innovation, how teams work and sometimes just something to do or not to do. My stated hope is that some might learn from what I was often too obtuse to see. As I said on page one of this blog “A wise man learns from his mistakes; a wiser man learns from others.”

My next book is about my life lessons in working, loving and living. I’m not sure who it is for. Maybe my children will read it, but maybe not. Maybe my grandchildren or some great grandchild I have yet to meet or may never meet. Or maybe, as happened with my previous books, some will write in reviews and emails that these books helped them. That’s enough for me.

Are you a storyteller, too? What are your stories for?