The art of storytelling: Discovering your inner human

Have you ever talked with someone and the conversation just seemed to hit differently? Hell, you might even feel this way about a podcast you listen to — I know I do.

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The essence of story:

Whatever this “phenomena” is (I don’t have a name for it), it’s often forced me to tear pieces of paper out of the closest possible notebook and scribble down every word I hear (even while driving in the dark of night). What can I say, I’m a sucker for great content.

Anyways, I think I yearn for these kinds of interactions because humans, at their core, are a storied people. From the time we are little, we love where stories can take us and who they allow us to be — whether they’re true or not.

Yes. Stories that good.

I remember falling in love with the art of storytelling while my 6th grade teacher would read The Lightning Thief aloud to us after recess (shout out to Mrs. Tippets). My mind would wander as she read, imagining what a world with Minotaur’s and gods might look like (There was also a considerable amount of doodling that took place). As the fates would have it, my love for stories never stopped, however, it did evolve.

My doodles were much better.

Owning your story:

As I matured and began to reconcile the world of my youth with the world as it truly is, I directed my imagination from the bizarre to the real. I became passionate about the human story and its condition. Playing off experiences of my own, both good and bad, I came to appreciate what makes us, us.

I’ve heard it put this way:

All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only the negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Finding my fit in the world:

One night, while I aimlessly scrolled on LinkedIn, hoping to find something that might catch my attention, I came across an ad for Cooperative Impact.

It read:

Alongside your peers and with the support of the Cooperative Impact community, you will immerse yourself in an underserved population to gain a deeper understanding of their needs in order to instruct the design and implementation of a program or solution that you deliver to the population, and perhaps scale to larger communities through a strategic partnership that you develop.

So, like the curious cat I am, I applied to the program.

Why your story has the power to affect others:

Still not sure if Cooperative Impact was right for me, I patiently awaited more information about the ins and outs of the course, and who its founder was. That’s when I got my first email from “Daniel.”

It sure was a lengthy email, but for me, it was the straw that converted this camels back. It went something like this:

In less than one year, I went from college dropout to finishing by degree, being hired by 10 university departments to share my story, run workshops, co-design curriculum, and reimagine higher education by transforming the university from the inside-out. Reflecting back on the culture lab as my “preincubation pipeline”, I notice how the learning ecosystem influenced my entrepreneurial intent in a unique way.

Something magical happened to me where I reconnected with my humanity, cultivated empathy, and began to evolve. The person I was prior to entering the last class was a different person than the one who completed the class two weeks later. I felt called to serve humanity. This transformation brought with it a specific entrepreneurial intent motivated by service, alignment, hope, and opportunity.

Social mobility was now possible as I began to experience it through empathetic entrepreneurial intent which influenced how I showed up in the world — my decision-making, my daily behavior, and the purpose behind the ventures I launch. It helped me to become human again.

Something about the way Daniel spoke, his story, his experience, spoke to me in that special kind of way I mentioned earlier. That’s when I knew I had to join this program.

Joining Cooperative Impact

When I finally joined my cohort, I was amazed (and relieved) to find a community of like-minded individuals that shared my same appreciation for the human story.

Over the course of the next 8 weeks, I learned how to not only appreciate the human story more fully, but how to identify and bring value-based solutions to its many unmet needs through a proven framework. The whole process was a masterclass on human-centered design and innovation, one that I won’t soon forget.

Looking back, Cooperative Impact filled a crucial gap that my university experience failed to address. I learned to see where opportunities exist, and how to build products or services that address them.

***Check out some of my process and assets, here and here.***

Above all, it showed me that I can do something about the state of the world we live in.

So, what will you go create?

What need will you address?

Who’s story will you be brave enough to tell?

Whether you’re ready or not, sign up, and come make the world a better place with us. Oh, and remember:

Do not internalize the industrial model. You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you’ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you’re learning to say it better.

— David Mamet

Best,

Braedon Leslie