Monday memo #51
Collect stories.
The Monday memo is food for thought to fuel your week.
Greetings fellow travelers!
Today I want to talk about stories. You may not think of yourself as a storyteller, but I bet you tell stories all the time.
Something you saw on the way to work this morning. Something you heard on the news. A funny thing that happened the other day. Something your boss did — what a jerk! That memory from a family holiday that always makes you laugh.
Stories have a very simple framework: A person finds themself in a situation. What do they do or not do? Why? What happened?
The reason stories are so powerful is that we are always people in the midst of situations — we can’t escape that — and we can’t predict the kinds of situations we will encounter. Stories allow us to vicariously experience what other people have been through, and learn from those experiences. Often, they provide life lessons, examples that help you think about how you might act if you find yourself in a similar situation. Sometimes they are simply entertaining. But stories are the fundamental fabric of social reality, the building blocks we use to construct our mental worlds.
Stories are such a fundamental and pervasive aspect of being human that we tend not to notice them, even though we are surrounded by them and immersed in them all the time. Stories are the way we make sense of the world, figure out who we are, what’s going on, and find our place in the larger scheme of things.
Exercise.
Here’s your exercise for the week. Tune your mind to notice when you or someone you know is telling a story. Ask if it’s okay to record the story on your phone. If it’s you telling the story, why would anyone object? And if it’s someone else — well, I’ve asked this question many times, and sometimes people say no, but most of the time they are flattered that you think their story is worth recording.
My last book, Liminal Thinking, was almost completely made up of stories collected in this way. This was the first time I wrote a book this way, and it felt more personal and conversational than my previous books.
Stories show how people see the world and what they believe is possible for them, what they consider good and bad behavior, what matters, how they will tend to act given certain kinds of situations, and much, much, more.
If you make a habit of collecting stories, you’ll discover all kinds of interesting things. Maybe you will even write a book!
This week, try to collect a few stories. See what you learn about yourself and your world.
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