Photo by Alyson Hurt via Flickr (Creative Commons)
I’m a connoisseur of storytelling.I can’t get enough of the genre. Whether its a personal narrative, or non-fictional piece, investigative storytelling, or fiction– I love it all.
As a communicator I study the method and mode of storytelling. I know that in order to be a better communicator I’ll need to become a better storyteller.
Here are 5 storytelling podcasts I love and recommend
This American Life – The granddaddy of them all. Each one-hour show is a series of segments (called acts) built around a central theme. This is a great entry point to the genre as it acts as an aggregator of others.
The Moth – The Moth is a storytelling non-profit which holds regular events in major cities around the country called, Story Slams. Participants tell a story live, without notes, before an audience. They take the best of the 15 minute stories and put them on their podcast.
Third Coast International Audio Festival – I’m a new fan of this one. Each segment is about an hour. It’s got an investigative reporting/documentary vibe to it. But they thread stories together in a way which fascinates me.
Storycorps – I can’t tell you how many times this project has brought me to tears. It’s all amatuer, typically a monologue or a family member interviewing another family member. Each segment is about 5 minutes.
60 Minutes audio edition – I don’t particularly enjoy the TV version of this show. But the audio version (literally, the same show with just audio) is fantastic! The reporting here is second-to-none, and what I learn from this style of storytelling is an economy of words.
What are your favorite podcasts for learning storytelling? (Preaching doesn’t count!)
Photo by René C. Nielsen via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Maybe people don’t like to do good because they haven’t gotten bored with being bad?
I had this thought while listening to an episode of This American Life called, Superpowers. In one of the stories a researcher spent months going to bars and asking patrons which superpower they would like to have and why.
Most people either answered that they would like to fly or that they would like to be invisible.
As the research continued, he discovered that while some people claimed they wanted to fly or to be invisible for the sake of doing good, in actuality… when they were totally honest… they wanted to use their superpower to do things that were naughty. And while flying sounded kind of fun, they really just wanted to be invisible so they could see people naked or steal stuff.
That’s when I started to wonder: “Maybe people with superpowers do good stuff in the world simply because they’ve gotten bored with being bad?”
Think about it. The question Barbara Walters always asks a celebrity doing good in the world is always along the same line of reasoning. “Bill, you are the richest man in the world. Why did are you giving it all away?”
And the answer is a meme. (Poor people like us, we love to hear the meme.) “Well Barbara, you can only own so many houses and meet so many famous people before you realize that there must be something else more meaningful in the world.”
Tiger Woods isn’t the first and he won’t be the last suddenly wealthy person to buy a yacht called Privacy and line up 10-20 women.
You don’t wake up thinking “I’m bored with this life, I need to commit to doing really good stuff from now on” until you hit rock bottom. You discover that only when your wife shows you a drawer full of Maserati keys. Or you wake up on your bathroom floor surrounded by a bowl of chocolate covered baby sea turtles you didn’t finish, Ben Affleck passed out next to you, a half a pound of cocaine, and a random baby in your closet.
The first thing you do with newfound wealth is never give back. It’s always consume, consume, consume. And the epiphany comes when you took it too far.
Back to my reality
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When I think about my own life, my own free time, and the people in my life… each day we are faced with a similar choice. With the time I have available, will I do something productive for society or will I do some consumptive?
Do I volunteer more hours serving the people of my church?
Do I go play golf?
Do I go on a kick-butt vacation?
Do I go on a mission trip?
Do I attend a charity fundraiser?
Do I buy a big plasma TV?
In the end, given the choice, I do some good in the world and I do some bad. (Not that those things above are horrible or anything. But you get the idea.) But if I’m honest about my motivation for doing either of the things above… it’s more often about mood than principle.
At the same time, as a leader, I’m often in a position of trying to motivate people to do something for good. And sometimes we are left scratching our heads and wondering, “Why aren’t people busy doing good?”
Maybe the answer is simple. Maybe they aren’t busy doing good because they haven’t gotten bored being bad?
Last night I was listening to the latest episode of This American Life about origin stories of new industries and companies. Many well known companies have a myth that they started in a garage. Even if it really isn’t true, people want to believe that their company was created by someone with a crazy idea who invested her last $2000 on an idea and got started in their garage. For some companies, like Hewlett-Packard and Apple, there is truth to it and the garage has become a corporate icon for innovation. In the case of Google, they have tried to capture that feeling so much that in 2006 they actually purchased the garage which housed their offices for a few months in the early days.
It made me think of the virtual garage in which YMX was built. A few friends sat around in an AIM chat room one night and envisioned a new place for youth workers to hang out. That night the idea went from light bulb to a URL and was a big moment. Just 2-3 weeks later I pulled an all-nighter when we opened the site and in 12 hours went from idea to profit. For me, that was an iconic experience I will look back on for the rest of my life.
It made me think of garage start-ups right now. I thought of Bob Carter who started The Pod Drop in his basement. In just three years he has taken his small iPod repair business from his basement to franchises. I thought of Derek Johnson who started Tatango. In just 2 years he has taken his idea of a group texting service from his parents basement to hundreds of thousands of customers. We don’t need to think of the garage story think it couldn’t happen today. Today’s economy has forced the brightest minds on the planet from the board room to the garage. Out of this recession will come the next great innovations that shape the next 30 years. The question isn’t if it will happen. The question is, “Will I take my idea and run with it or will I end up working for the person who took his idea and ran with it?”
More importantly it made me think about the fact thatfor most people– there is never a garage. There may be dreams of a time when you are passionate about a new idea– about thumbing your nose at the man and going on your own— but for lack of something [money, time, guts] it never happens. Most of us, even leaders of great organizations, never get to be a part of it in the beginning. The garage is merely a legend. We get hired some time well after the good ‘ole days of wheeling, dealing, and turning heads. If you got hired today by Apple or Hewlett-Packard you would never be allowed the freedom to truly innovate in a garage to try to make something happen as it’s simply too complicated now. You have to make payroll, you have to mitigate loss, you have to protect the brand, you have to guarantee the shareholders a return, etc. Certainly these jobs require leadership, but a type of leadership that knows how to innovate in mature ecosystems.
My challenge for you is simple. Whether you a leader for a government agency, school district, church, non-profit, or even a small business– my challenge is the same. Spend some time in the garage. Ask big questions. Thumb your nose at the status quo a little. (Even the status quo for excellence you created.)
Starter questions:
If we were to start a church today in this community, knowing what we know now, what would it look like? Where would we meet? What programs would solve the most systemic problems in our community? How could we manifest the Gospel best? What behavior would we thumb our noses at? Who would be the most crucial people to invest in? Who would we not care if we pissed off? Who is the most unreached people group in our town?
This doesn’t have to be about a church, does it? Make your own questions for what you are passionate about and go to the garage.
I love Ira Glass and his show, This American Life. The love affair goes back to early marriage days when Kristen and I would play “right or left” in the car Saturday mornings. Back in 1998-1999 gas was less than a dollar per gallon and I was off every Saturday morning.
We’d get up early, head out for a nice breakfast, then get in the car and start driving. Any time we’d come to an intersection I’d ask Kristen… “Right or left?” Sometimes we’d end up way up in Wisconsin, sometimes in Central Illinois, sometimes in Michigan or Indiana, or sometimes we’d just explore suburbs of Chicago. Anything that interested us was an excuse to stop and smell the roses. Those adventures in our early marriage were some of the happiest days of our lives.
And Ira Glass was a part of those rides. We love listening to NPR and right around lunch This American Life would capture our attention as we explored. When we left Chicago in 2001 we kind of lost track of the show. Then about a year ago I found out that the show was the #1 podcast on iTunes and happily subscribed.
I love the pace of the stories. I love the segments. I love the way he tells stories. I love his voice. All of This American Life is why I happily label it one of my favorite things.
I love Ira Glass and his show,