Have you ever wanted to change the world? I know when I was little this was something I always said I would do. It is hard when you grow up and realize that changing the world is not the simple thing that you thought it would be at age ten. It can feel like you can’t make a difference in the world. There are so many problems and so many people that seem to want to stop you from doing anything that actually matters. I realized this week that changing the world isn’t out of our reach, it just takes a good story.
We live our lives through the lens of stories. Each day you wake up and you tell yourself a story. You tell yourself, “It is going to be a great day and I am going to close a great deal.” Amazingly, you have a great day and the deal goes great! The next week you wake up after a fight with your wife and you tell yourself, “I am a jerk and it is going to be a bad day.” You get to work and you aren’t as nice as you usually are to your coworkers. You go to close a deal and it falls apart in your hands. When you go to bed that night, you have to decide how to form the story of the day.
When we give a speech or make a pitch, the goal is to take someone who is living their story and wrap them in another story. If we are able to bring them into the story we are telling, their world is forever changed!
Grownups think they can’t change the world, but a good storyteller does nothing short of changing people’s world. Whose world do you need to change? Is there someone in your company, your family, or your church that needs a paradigm shift? With a little work on your presentation, your story could change their world forever.
