What Can Leaders Learn from Dave Isay of StoryCorps?

What Can Leaders Learn from Dave Isay of StoryCorps?

What’s the best way to connect with your family, friends, clients and community? In the age of social business and technology disruption, what tools do you need to stand out from the crowd?

What if I told you the most powerful way to connect with others is through stories, not only sharing them, but listening as well. This strategy has been around for thousands of years and works even better today.

There is something mystical about a great story. It connects the generations and allows us to reconnect with memories and feelings we haven’t felt for years. A great story connects with you through emotions and traditions of the most important people in our lives. Since today is St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it might be interesting to connect you with an incredible storyteller, Dave Isay of StoryCorps.

When asked what he does for a living, Dave says that he’s a storyteller.  You may recognize his name if you enjoy TED Talks. He is the winner of the 10^th TED Prize for 2015. I know many of you readers love the TED Talks. I know this because I receive Links from you on a regular basis. There isn’t a day that goes by that one of my friends or clients don’t share a TED Talk on their timelines.  These conversations are changing the way we learn, grow, and appreciate other people. Many of these talks have been shared millions of times over the past decade.

Many of my closest friends and clients love to attend and share these talks. Tonight you get a chance to see who the people at TED think is their most interesting story for 2015. Even better, you can attend their award ceremony online live. How cool is that. Just follow this link tonight at 5:00 PST.

This year’s winner of the TED Prize is Dave Isay of StoryCorps, a Brooklyn, NY nonprofit.   The prize was given to StoryCorps because they have created a process to help capture the oral histories of our times and past generations by arranging to have two people share their story. They capture this information then share it with the world.  They have had over 100,000 people share their stories in this unique format. This project captures our history in a way that future generations can learn from the collective wisdom of these men and women.

These stories are available on the StoryCorps website. The information is can also be heard on NPR. The audio files will also be stored at the Library of Congress forever.

What makes StoryCorps different from many other storytelling processes is the emphasis placed on having a trained facilitator to support the two people through the process. When you listen to the interviews, you can tell how well heard the person sharing the story is. As Dave would say, it’s about creating a deeper connection with the other person than we traditionally find in an interview setting. Dave believes, “Listening to someone else closely is one of the most valuable gifts we can give to another human being. “ This listening helps us create connections that ultimately help us all recognize our shared humanity.

If you are looking for a great opportunity to hear from one of the great storytellers of our time, you should attend this online presentation Wednesday. On Thursday you can see the awards presentation at the same link on their page that will allow you to see several additional TED Presentations and then Dave will share his wish. After Thursday the program will be available with a for $25.00.

Dave will be sharing his wish for the coming years and we will share it online tonight. It will also be posted on the TED site in the next several days. So if you love stories, and I know many of you do, this is an incredible opportunity. I will be sharing with you his wish for the coming year late next week.

See you here with a new blog here on this Friday from Kaylene.