TED Prize winner Story Corps: “Listening is a form of love.”
Are you an award fan? Meaning do you watch all the award shows that come on TV? Well, I do. I am fascinated by what gets nominated and chosen for a particular award in its field.
Recently, I was so impressed and excited when TED awarded the coveted TED prize to Story Corps because I deeply believe that stories are such a crucial part of building good relationships. Dave Isay, founder of Story Corp, said, “Everyone around you has a story the world needs to hear!” Yes!! I cheered as my heart smiled!!
The winner of the 2015 TED Prize echoes the message of my #ListenLearnLovebook with these words: “Listening is a form of love.” I am doubly excited!![Tweet “The winner of the 2015 TED Prize echoes the message of my #ListenLearnLovebook with these words: “Listening is a form of love.” I am doubly excited!!”]
Everyone has a story – it’s how we’re known. And that’s what lit me up inside when I heard about this award. Now, Story Corp have a new app, built with the TED prize- and loads of ideas how to use it! Even the NY Times is excited!
Story Corps is an organization that highlights the importance and power of story and gives a voice to experiences that shape us across generations. It’s incredibly powerful to see what they profile and how they share people’s stories that somehow grip us and draw us into the incredible highs (and sometimes lows) of a person’s story.
I guess I love that because it’s what I get paid to do. Listen to a person’s or a couple’s story and see what threads I can piece together to help them move forward in a part of their story. We all have one. Just like our opinions.
Sometimes our stories are our opinions! But I believe most people live completely unaware of how deeply their story the impacts their choices, opinions, thoughts, decisions, and most of all their relationships! Because if we did, we certainly would hold our tongue or do things a wee bit differently in order not to hurt someone, right?
Equally important, is listening to and learning the stories of our loved ones, friends and the people in our lives. [Tweet “Every relationship is the collision and merging of two unique stories to create a third, which ripples on.” Thrilled @storycorp @TEDprize win! “]
I believe a person’s story affects their marriage. This goes along with how we handle arguments or discussions – an angry wife who shuts down her husband can’t understand, let alone relate to him well when their stories of childhood experiences clash into the roles they think a marriage should function.
With parenting, I see the power of story played out in how we parent our teens, which often stems from our experiences as a teenager, often bringing tension in our relationships with our teen AND in our marriage.
We bring our stories – how we grew up, our experiences, joys hurts, and disappointments into all our relationships. Is it any wonder that we want to celebrate the good ones because we’ve all had some pretty nasty ones in our lives, right?
I’ve been labeled The Better Relationship Coach, because I try to help people create better relationships in 30 days or less! And part of that collaboration always includes understanding each others stories.
My new book, Listen, Learn, Love: How to Dramatically Improve Your Relationships in 30 Days or Less! addresses not only how to really grab hold of understanding a person’s story, but also how to apply what we learn, to bring rapid and long-lasting improvements in our relationships.
You see, it’s more than just TED giving an award to Story Corps . It’s more than TED acknowledging the power of story and their desire to help capture this power and use it for good! ”
It’s the fact that they acknowledged “We value you and we want to recognize you.”
Don’t we all want that?
That’s what we do when we listen to each others story and offer our listening, our learning them, and loving them in return.
That’s my life’s work but also my passion for you too. Won’t you join me in listening, learning, and loving someone’s story today?