What are you paying attention to? The night before each game, Coach Dabo Swinney, Head Coach for the Clemson Tigers’ football team, takes his team to the movies. I’m not referring to reviewing game films. No. They go to the cinema. After returning home, he holds a team meeting, drawing attention to a particular theme, lesson, line or scene to help the players rise to the challenges they’ll face in the next day’s game.
According to the Wall Street Journal, before the Boston College game, the team watched The Martian. During the team meeting, Coach Swinney zeroed in on the astronaut’s struggles to survive on Mars; specifically Matt Damon’s character’s attempts to grow food. Coach Swinney’s take away phrase? “Bloom where you’re planted.”
Coach Swinney is not alone in recognizing the value of stories. As early as the fifth century B.C., the Greek philosopher and musicologist Damon observed, “Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.”
Today, research has confirmed what we’ve intuitively known over the centuries—our brains are hard-wired to love stories of struggle, tragedy, perseverance and redemption. “Personal stories describing people who overcome hardship and tragedy make us stronger, smarter, more resilient and, ultimately, more successful,” concluded Carolyn Kilmer after spending two years researching the ins and outs of storytelling and its impact on wide-ranging situations, from education and business, to culture and politics. A dear friend of mine told me how she personally relied on the Nancy Drew series to help her learn to successfully navigate adolescence. Since she didn’t have the best role models in her family, as she encountered difficult situations, she asked herself, “I wonder what would Nancy do?”
This formula is evident in all the classical Greek, Roman and Nordic myths. When C.S. Lewis, best known as a Christian apologist and novelist, was an academic medievalist and literary critic, examined the Christian story of Jesus’ sufferings, death and resurrection, he was amazed at the parallels to the Ancient mythologies. He later referred to Christian faith as the “Myth that is also true.” His is the ultimate story from which we can derive meaning and purpose.
Gaining insight from your life stories. Consider how your life is also a story. None of us have “and they all lived happily ever after” stories. We have stories of hope as well as struggle, victory and accomplishments as well as failures.
Do you understand your story? And can you communicate it well? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. According to a Gallup poll, most people are primarily focused on their weaknesses and have far less clarity on their strengths and core motivations. (And if you would like help making sense of your stories and how the accomplishments you love reveal your core motivations, please contact me. I would love to talk with you to share what the MCORE assessment tool uncovers.)