"Tell me a story, dad, tell me a story!" My kids would beg before I put them to bed. One of my favorite times was a trip I took with my three kids from Michigan to Florida to visit their grandparents. The kids and I would tell stories the whole way there. I would tell stories of the farm, my brothers and sisters, my early school years, and we would make up stories together. And the time flew by.
Now I tell stories in this column, in my books and when I speak live before audiences. Stories are like Velcro for the mind. All I have to do is say: "Mustard" and my, now adult, kids and I break into laughter. Mustard is that little piece of a story that is Velcro-ed to our minds. The five of us sat around a dinner table eating freshly grilled hamburgers and the mustard bottle had a glob of dried mustard stopping up the squeeze bottle. One kid tried to squeeze a little onto his bun and nothing comes out, he hands it to me to "fix" and I squeeze. And I squeeze, and squeeze some more. The glob was stronger than the bottle itself and instead of dislodging the glob with my efforts, I dislodged the cap from the bottle itself ... explosively. There was an explosion of mustard around the table. In shocked silence we all looked at each other's mustard speckled faces and the now yellow-colored table. After a few seconds of the stunned silence we all broke out into waves of laughter, tears streaming down our cheeks, and unable to stifle it enough to eat without spewing what was in our mouths. Mustard.
Think about how often we use stories:
A cop asks, "What happened here?"
A date asks, "Tell me about yourself?"
A friend asks, "So, how's it going?"
A potential employer asks, "Tell me about a time when you used your leadership abilities?"
A parent asks, "Where have you been?"
Stories are the links in our lives that bind us together. The common thoughts we all relate to. In history all the teachers of any merit told stories and parables to get their point across and to make it stick. So ... tell me your story, let's get to know each other.