Are you ready to start working on your personal-professional story? It’s the story you develop to introduce yourself in a professional setting. Only this story isn’t just built on your CV, it’s designed to incorporate the rest of your life as well. Read my blog post about the structure for an introduction. The first thing […]
Every fall, I need a new babysitter. Since my babysitters tend to be busy and hard-working, I usually need a couple. I find them by posting a request on my expat Facebook group. My post gets anywhere from half a dozen two dozen responses every time. After I’ve eliminated anyone who doesn’t meet my basic […]
I wrote this article on a writing retreat I took a couple of weeks ago. It was my first writing retreat and I used some new technology. I wrote the first draft of this blog post in a hotel room, talking to my computer ! I felt like a fool, at least as foolish as you […]
Every workshop I give starts with a story. You’d expect as much. But every workshop I give starts with a personal story, one that often includes my family members and that tells people both who I am and what story can do. For me, there’s no other way to go. When I give a workshop […]
I’m anti-pitching. Apples have become my metaphor for pitching. When you develop a pitch, it’s like buying a basket of apples. You pick out the best apples of the season. You polish them individually. You even ask a couple of friends to taste your apples and tell you if they like how they taste. Then […]
Everyone’s on social media and some people seem to mix the personal and the professional fairly willy-nilly. It’s not just Hollywood stars showing us their kitchens but also entrepreneurs posting gifs of themselves dancing with their babies. The personal and the professional are more intertwined than ever these days. If you’re posting on social media […]
This week, I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity. My grand plan is to watch all the talks on the top 25 list in order to practice sketch noting and story analysis and Robinson’s was the first on the list. Robinson’s message is still an important one. Creativity matters. Children are […]
Today, I want to give you a tool for improving your stories. It’s a diagram to show you what your story should look like. I draw it on chalkboards and flip charts and white boards and paper everywhere! This diagram is the core of my approach to storytelling. I use it to plan my stories […]
If you’ve been to one of my workshops or met me in person at all, chances are I’ve lobbed a personal anecdote in your direction. It’s not that my life is so fascinating, but it’s the material I have to work with, so why not make the best of it? What am I likely to […]
Sometime last fall, I decided to use fairy tales in my storytelling workshops. It wasn’t one of those careful choices that one makes based on some kind considered decision-making process. It was something I threw out in a conversation because I found it entertaining to ask academics to talk about Little Red Riding Hood. My […]