Storytelling

Episode 83: Your Strengths are Your Stories

Lisa was promoted and knew she would work hard to be a great manager. She had enough experiences, good and bad, to know what she didn’t want to do. But she had an immediate challenge in one of her employees, and had almost decided to find a way to let her go, to fire her. Something about having that kind of power, the ability to make a decision that would at least temporarily have a big impact on a person’s life, made her question her decision, thank goodness.

Episode 82: Baking Bread is More than Flour, Water, and Yeast

Rocky Connell, raised in Glasgow, Montana, which is as close to the Canadian border as you can get - and at the western edge of North Dakota, had a very unusual first job "milking" bulls for his father's veterinary business.

Episode 81: Your "Ah Ha" Moments are Your Career and Life Pivot Points

Dr. Carla Cooke might be what you’d call a late bloomer. Her stories about her late teens and early 20s aren’t about a driven, ambitious young woman. She worked hard in whatever job she had, but that often wasn’t enough to break through barriers. It took a painful experience with racism for her to realize her first calling to counseling and psychology. She knew there was more to that behavior than what she could see, and her compassion for every being was on full display.

Episode 80: Some Stories Take Time to Make Sense

If you know him now, you'd describe him as a quintessential hippy artist; but Chip Clawsen was six when he connected deeply with the story his mother read to him, The Sands of Iwo Jima. It was at that tender young age that he decided he'd one day be a marine - a hero.

Episode 79: Some of Your Stories are Totally False

"Just be happy! It's a beautiful day!"

Those words spoken by a family member were completely lost on a teenaged Courtney Ackerman facing depression and anxiety. Not only were they lost, they caused some damage to the relationship.

Depression wasn't just an illness for Courtney, it was also a source of curiosity.

Episode 78: When You're on the Inside Looking Out

Jordan Gross was one of those kids in school who always seemed to have it together. He was an athlete, an academic achiever, played an instrument, and was a boy people wanted to be around. He had plenty of friends, and though he knew he was fortunate in his upbringing and genetics, he always had a feeling there was something else that he was missing.

Episode 77: You Can Find Joy and Satisfaction in Whatever You Do

During our conversation, I mentioned a post Thom published a few years ago about needles from one of his knitting machines that got lost in the cracks of the hardwood floor beneath them.