Tall Tales – thoughts on stories and using them:

As a teacher I use stories all the time. Painting images of archetypes truly allows a concept or lesson to be picked up, played with and felt at an emotional level. Recently there seems to be a recurring theme in the conversations I have been engaged in. “We talk about authentic, do stories need to be true?” If you know why you are telling a story then you are always going to know the truth in it and to me this is the foundation of authenticity. I particularly like stories that challenge the status quo and commonly held norms. Even tall tales can have integrity, you merely need your audience to know that the message of the story is what is important. The disconnect occurs when something is passed off as real which isn’t and then we have to contemplate the story of the boy that cried wolf.

Some years ago I was working building trail, groups of five to twenty of us would go out into mountain parks and create and repair routes through the foothills of Colorado‘s Front Range. One of my colleagues was a young man named David. David had a penchant for stretching the truth, his motivation seemingly to create something incredulous out of a normal life. This was so much the case that he had earned the nickname, Liar Liar. One morning he came in claiming sickness, we tended to think it was the result of a late night. Following walking in to our site in extremely hot weather he proceeded to go and lie under the tarp we set up for shade at breaks. While the rest of us sweated, David snored and to say the least sympathy was the farthest thing from our minds. Just before lunch there was a scream from the tarp and David came out running, looking distraught and cursing about a snake. Now it should be noted that David the bull riding, sky diving, extreme fighter was terrified by snakes, even so we certainly were not inclined to believe his latest story of a large rattlesnake slithering over his chest while he slept.

Out of curiosity and armed with a suitable excuse to down tools we meandered over to the tarp to witness the site of his newest escapade. Imagine our surprise when we saw a big old snake curled up by the backpack which had obviously served as a pillow. David had told the truth; this was a shock, especially when the snake was the largest rattlesnake I have ever seen. It was a beautiful and unusual green color and sat at the end of it’s tail were 16 globes which made the most incredible sound when we tried to move it on with a lengthy stick.

The point of my story is that David’s intention in telling his story was entirely lost due to the previous pattern of his behavior. While he was digging for sympathy we were all laughing. Rather than believe his story we had believed he was going to tell us an untruth.

On another note we often disbelieve stories because of our perceptions of them. Fish tales are never true right? So here is a shameless plug for my wife, the woman some know as a prissy cheerleader and others a mom. Here is the result of 4 hours in the Kenai River while I was away working and that is no lie. This may tell you something about who the provider is in this household?

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Who gives you food for thought? How do they supply material for the messages you want to share?

All I really need to know I learned outside

Hi my name is Wil Rickards and this is the first blog in a series which I hope will be filled with ideas and activities that you will find useful on the journey of reaching your true potential and maybe finding a job.

Today I am going to introduce myself by explaining where most of my real learning has come from. Author Robert Fulghum wrote a popular book called, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten; all I can say is that I must have been a late bloomer because I did not figure life out quite so early. Yet, if I examine my own experiences, I believe what I found out for myself, often the hard way has stood me in the greatest stead.

My most effective classrooms were the mountains, rivers and seas of my teens and early twenties, here every action and reaction was relevant and feedback was usually instant.

• If I forgot my rain gear or spare layers I was left cold or wet
• If I could not be bothered to prepare for lunch I went hungry
• The less I had the more resourceful I became and the easier it was to move
• Hard work was often rewarded; I am left with lots of mental images of stunning views
• The people I shared most trust with are the ones I am still good friends with decades on down the road
• I learned trust by putting myself in situations where I had to trust and I gained a great deal from doing it
• The hardest objectives needed to be prepared and trained for the most and are the ones I still remember
• The more committing and dangerous an adventure the more carefully I chose a partner
• Enjoyment stemmed not only from the activity but in a large part from the company I kept and yet doing something alone was often more emotionally challenging and provided a different benefit
• Being part of a tribe gave me cultural identity, role models, mentors (both savant and otherwise) and quelled some of my impetuosity while still being a nursery for my confident aspirations
• I dreamed most peacefully when, I slept the sleep of the warrior, my arms still aching from the travail and my mind spent from the exertions of maintaining optimism and focus in the face of fear and adversity
• My performance improved most significantly when I set concrete, positive goals and shared the journey with a partner who wanted the same thing and was happy to help me push when life became difficult
• Being self aware and training my weaknesses while playing to my strengths paid the most dividends
• The meditation of being thoroughly in the moment brought the most development. This was most easily obtained when I had to focus and the consequences were real
• Mimicking natural processes was often the most efficient path to follow
• There was no point in getting upset with a situation, it just needed to be dealt with and it was especially rare that I could blame someone else while maintaining integrity; even if I wanted to

Surrounding myself in nature has provided me with these examples and the added benefit of grounding. Standing on top of a precipitous mountain, feeling the surge of a river dropping over a rapid or sitting amidst a vast ocean in a small boat has helped me to know how significant I really am. It has also filled me with joy and allowed me to recognize the value of my choices and the control I have over them.

So that is a little about me. Have you recognized I like transferable learning? Here are a few questions for you. How do you know what you know? Are you like me and need gentle reminders of your own truth? Does taking time out to think about the lessons you have learned in your past give you insight into how to deal with your today? Please do comment, I love reading people’s thoughts and ideas and next time I will share a gem for staying upbeat when life is wearing you down.

Originally posted in http://denver.jobing.com/Community_Blog.asp