S3 Ep. 183 Illuminating Complexities: The Magic of Storytelling

Speaker 1: Hello there, welcome to the World Cafe podcast. This podcast has been designed with created content that centers on the power of words. Can we really do anything without speaking? Can we really do anything without the agency of words? Yes, that is what this podcast is all about, and I am your host , amakri Isuboye, your neighborhood word trader. I believe in the power of words , for it is the unit of creation . I trade in words to profit my world. Hello there, welcome to the Word Cafe podcast. All right, before we start, yes, I have to do this. Good morning, good afternoon afternoon, good evening, good everything. How are you all doing? What's it like at your end? Beautiful, yep, thank god for life. We're good, I'm good where I am , are taking each step, you know , one day at a time, and so glad that you're there listening and I'm here talking and we're having this wonderful conversation. So I'm going to tell you what happened. Something happened before I came on. I set up like, yes, I had to share this with you. I set up like to do my recording and share thoughts with you. Everything was okay and I was talking and I didn't know that my microphone was off, so I did 20 minutes, almost 20 plus minutes sharing thoughts, and all of that not knowing that the audio was nowhere to be found and I just like, oh my goodness. So I had to start all over again and you will know why I'm sharing this story with you. I wanted to get discouraged, but I said no, you're there and I have to do this. So here I am again, I'm going to do this and I hope I get my thoughts back. I am again, I'm going to do this and I hope I get my thoughts back. I hope so, because what I want to talk about is why are we drawn to stories? Imagine the story I just told you. Now, you know a disaster, quote end quote something that just happened. And what am I learning from it? Do I give up? Do I go on? Resilience, yes. So why are we drawn to stories? You know, I've come to realize and observe. You know, in my observation I realized that no matter how complex a subject is, no matter how complex a subject is, the minute you bring that subject into the realm of dimension or foundation or whatever you want to call it, of storytelling, somehow it is demystified, the mystery just disappears and people you know are drawn to it. People understand what you're talking about. You might decide to talk about I mean, complex subjects like quantum mechanics. You know, in physics, you can decide to talk about organic chemistry. When you talk about the covalent and covalent and single bonds and what have you at the aromatics and all of that, you might even begin. You might decide to talk about further marks and all of that you might even begin. You might decide to talk about father max and all of that. But when you bring all of this subject into a dimension of storytelling, all of those complexities just disappears. Why? Because somehow people come to appreciate life when we tell stories. Because, you know, we bring it, we bring it down to this subject of beginning and the end . Basically that's what stories are like. You have a beginning, you have an end. In between, you know, you just fill it up with all of the, you know things that happen and all of that, and you have the villain and you have the protagonist and all of that. But something is so beautiful about storytelling. I describe it like the sun. We, you know, somehow, all of us on the surface of the earth, we're drawn to the sun. The green plants for photosynthesis, you know, to, to , to, to, to, to, to, to manufacture glucose and what have you. We are also drawn to it. Yes, you know, we use the sun for so many things, so many things on the air, so we are drawn to the sun. So I view storytelling in that manner. You know, somewhat, all of us, we are drawn to the energy that storytelling provides. You know, the other day my daughter walked up to me and was like Daddy, tell me a story. And I was like and she was really particular here Tell me a story, the story of your childhood and all that. My children always do that particularly, or more especially my daughter and she. She just went on and on and on and on and I said but I've told you this. She said, yes, I want to hear it. I want to hear them again. And it's like you want to hear them again. And the other day I saw her telling her mom I overheard her rather telling her mom can you call grandpa? I need to talk with grandpa. You know, grandpa is pretty old , he has a lot of stories to tell and all of that. And she was. You could see her face come alive, I mean this smile on her face very broad, and it's like. I was like come on what's up, but I could see from where I was standing. There's something. There's this energy, there's this strength, there's this. Should I say, you know, have understanding, or she's coming to like understand how the world works from her own perspective, you know, putting things together. More or less she's learning yes , that's the best way to put it. She's learning and all of that. So that is the power behind storytelling. Now I'm going to share this piece with you. I read it. It was written by a wonderful, brilliant mind, dr Austin Tam George, you know, and a brilliant mind. I came upon this write-up under his profile on LinkedIn and I want to take an excerpt from it so that we'll continue on the you know our discourse. He said embrace your history, history and story, or history and story. What I say? They are not inseparable, they're Siamese twins, they're together. Wherever there is a history, you will see, you know a story. And wherever there is a story, there is history, you know, and all of that. So that is it. So a nation's history is often complex, you know, than a spotless string of bedtime stories. Uh-huh, as a nation evolves, so will its history. A nation may experience moments of war or national shame, as well as periods of great triumph . This means that history is a many-sided coin and it is better for a nation to embrace this many-sidedness as it tells its stories. No nation needs to pathologize history, despite the imperfections of their history. He's referring to Americans. Now, you know, americans seem to like, seem to be unofficial historians of their country. They seem to have stories behind. You know their canals, their bridges and trees. You know all of that. And they have stories about war , resilience and the pursuit of justice. On a flight from Boston to Detroit, a lady told me that she and her colleagues were pursuing a lifetime commitment to identify and retell as many repressed American stories as possible. Whoa, the world is a narrated entity and storytelling is an integral part of national myth-making, part of national myth myth making. I beg your pardon. A nation that preserves its public memory may likely escape the mistakes of its past. I mean brilliant writer, straight to the point. That's what stories are all about. Imagine you telling a story about, or listening to a story about, your nation, your neighborhood, that corner of the earth that you occupy and you come to. You know, sometimes it sounds impossible or unbelievable. I beg your pardon when you hear stories about minds like albert einstein. Minds like, uh, nicola tesla yeah, minds like I'm talking about in in our recent past. You know. Minds like uh, henry ford. Minds like, uh, yes, uh, he, I mean our, our heroes. Minds like uh olusegu, a passenger he's still around anyway. You know minds like dr namdi azikiway, amadu bello I'm thinking about nigeria. Now, you know you. You come to like did these people really walk the earth? Did they really come through this path? But when you hear stories about them, things that they did, you know the challenges they faced and how they surmounted these challenges. You know the little boy or the little girl in you just want to reach for the stars, if not beyond, just want to reach for the stars, if not beyond. Because it's like you mean, people like this walk the earth and they did you know stops like this and like this and like that. So these stories we hear bring out the best of humanity. It brings out the best in humanity and I mean I think that's why we are drawn to stories, just like my little girl, my children will always say daddy, tell us a story. And it's like each time I tell the story, within their mind they are weaving. It's like there's this, there's this loom, you know, going round around, spinning, and they are weaving their reality, the colors, the combinations coming together, infinite possibilities , more or less, and they are just listening and it's like the stories don't change, as it were. When I mean change, I'm telling the same story, but they are seeing different angles than what they saw the last time from what I narrated. And it's like you see this energy. Yes, we are drawn to stories in that manner. So the other day I was discussing with my wife, you know, processing this thought. I said can you imagine if an organization will have a position like chief story? Yes, you tell the story of the organization, where the organization is coming from, her challenges, things she's gone through, how the organization surmounted these challenges, you know, and becoming what the organization is. Imagine the people that have passed through the organizations . Imagine if the organization also have been around for like say, 100 plus years, a century, and and you begin to think of the history you know, within the organization, not just the processes now, not just the machines, not just the artifacts and other, but the human, not just the artifacts but the human element, and you have somebody who curates the stories, chronicles them in such a way that you share it with the organization and with the members of the organization to inspire them. She smiled and looked at me and said Well, yeah, that works. No-transcript Stories don't just come empty. They are communicated via words. You know, we speak. When we tell stories, we open up our mouth and you know that energy flows out of us. We are speaking spirits, as humans. Yes, we are speaking spirits. So when we make contact with such I mean words, such energy, such vibrancy, it gives us this limitless mind, like I can do this too. That is what stories are. They should be treasured. They should be, you know, treasured, held. Yes, no matter how complex a subject matter is, when you bring it into the realm of storytelling, the mystery is demystified, that energy is released. It doesn't just dissipate, it is and you see the faces of the listeners, it's like they sit around a fireball. They are drawn to the story because the story releases this energy to them, which infuses this insight that gives them a foresight, because they have seen from hindsight that stories inspire, have seen from hindsight that stories inspire. Yes, that is what stories are meant for. Honestly, that is what stories are meant for. So when you're going for that task you want to take on that responsibility, you want to take on that role. Can you do some story, I mean research, to know the story behind that? Okay, maybe you're the first person to like approach it, but can you look at the stories, something close to or something within that frame that you can glean from yes, yes, the power behind stories? We are drawn to stories because there's so much energy within the walls of stories, so much energy, so much energy. And storytelling is another way of transferring yes, transferring not just responsibilities, now treasures from one timeline to another. Yes, from one timeline to another. Because, like I said a while ago , we tell stories by speaking and, as you know, words for me are the unit of creation. So we pass creation from one generation to another via the instrument of storytelling. So you craft it, you put it together, you move it. It could be orally, you know, you transfer it orally, or you sit down and you put it down in, you know, you write it down, and somehow, when people pick up that story, images are formed. Because there's one thing about words the minute a word hit your hearing, the next thing you see is an image. Or the minute you see an image, the next thing that comes thoughts. They begin to fly. You begin to process them. That is what storytelling carries and I think, if we embrace it, I wish worked Story telling can raise. And I think, if we embrace it, I wish an organization would look for me and say we want you to come be our chief story teller. Well, you could share this with your boss. You could share this with that. You know, you never can tell. I love stories and I love stories that inspire. Yes, you know how we say it on the show. This is the space where we come in to lean on one another's experience, to forge a positive path Till I come your way again. Bye for now. Awesome time it has been with you on the World Cafe Podcast today. Thank you for being there. You can catch me up on my social media handles Twitter, facebook, linkedin and Instagram , all at Amakri Isoboye. Also, you can get copies of my books A Cocktail of Words, the Color of Words by HRR Notebook and Hawkers Focus on God on Amazon and Roving Heights online bookstores. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel at the same address at Amakri Isowei. I'd love to hear from you and how this podcast has impacted you. You can leave me a message at my email address, amakrigaribaldi at gmailcom. That is A-M-A-C-H-R-E-E-E-G-A-R-I-B-A-L-D-I . Yes, till I come your way again . Bye for now.