In a podcast interview last week, I was asked how parents can help their children build their stories to become their best selves.

I was on vacation last week in a backcountry ski hut in British Columbia, Canada. A group of 10 of us was dropped off via helicopter with two ski guides, and a chef. For six days, I was offline digitally. We’d go ski touring, climbing up to the ridges surrounding the hut and skiing down.

The draft of my upcoming book is back from the editor, and I think we’re going to leave the following story out (gasp), not because it isn’t a good story but because sometimes we all have to make hard decisions about what goes in and what goes out.

“Thank you for calling XYZ Industries. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. Your expected wait time is 32 minutes.”

In my upcoming book, The Power of Story, I highlight the three qualities of powerful storytelling that build connection. I will tease them out here because you are my community, and I’d welcome your reactions to this as I finalize the book this month and send it off to the editor! (screams with glee and terror)

I arrived at the venue an hour before my workshop began. The podium was encased in a plexiglass cage. As I walked around distributing colorful markers on the tables, I aligned the butterflies in my stomach by thinking about how I was about to help the 20 or so leaders about to file into the room.

“Trust me.” My dad used to say this, and whenever he did, we all rolled our eyes in fear and perhaps a tinge of distrust. There is something that prefaces a situation with “trust me” that actually encourages us to think the opposite.

Lately, I’ve been curious about the universe, energy, and a world we don’t know about. I believe there is a lot beyond our perception, and how can we possibly understand what we don’t know or even perceive? Questions like “Does everything happen for a reason?” and “What happens when we die?” – no one knows for a fact.

Here we go! It feels like I’m rounding third base and beginning my slide into December 31st. The final sprint. I’ve been doing a lot of introspective work this year, none of which I’ve written about but I’ll wind down the year with some of my insights. The stories we tell others are very much […]

I am often asked how best to tell a story, and my response is usually that I’m less concerned about how you tell a story and more interested in what story you tell.