The Story Story - A Voyage Through the Islands of Connection and Engagement for Writers, Speakers, Professionals and Visionaries - Intro and

This is unedited draft material, but it spells out the premise and the setting for my latest book.

Introduction

The reason for The Story Story is simple: Too many books explain why stories are powerful tools for engagement, and how to use storytelling techniques to forge stronger connections with colleagues, clients, friends, and family members. But these books are about stories. As insightful as some of them may be, few of them are stories unto themselves—an oversight this book aims to remedy.

The Story Story reads like a novel. The narrative—a Socratic dialogue of sorts—describes a group of diverse characters who encounter an unlikely teacher in a remote and beautiful wilderness. Together, they look into the sea, out into space, and deep within themselves to discover what stories are, why they’re important, and how they work.

The Story Story is a non-fiction book wrapped in a fiction book (a literary anomaly that will surely have the librarians out marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks!). You’ll encounter practical storytelling advice and techniques, explore the thinking and feeling behind stories, learn how stories flow through your psyche like blood through your veins, and find inspiration to rewrite the stories of your life and business. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy a few smiles along the way.

If you’re a writer or speaker, you’ll find ideas in this book you can use. If your language is business or marketing or science, you may be surprised to find that your stories follow the same rules as those of your literary colleagues. The same is true if you’re a visual, musical, or technological storyteller—or even a cook or a dancer. Though our individual stories are as unique as fingerprints, those magic swirls are found at the ends of fingers that share a common purpose—to touch and be touched.

And that’s enough of that. On with the story!

1. The Happiness Congress

The Happiness Congress was off to a less than ideal start.

The setting was inspiring enough. The tiny island of Moraine Cay in the northernmost islands of the Bahamas offered a pristine white beach any postcard would covet. If those sands had ever been walked on before, the wind and tide had long since erased any footprints. On the seaward horizon, waves from the deep Atlantic Ocean driven by a brisk northeasterly wind exploded against the barrier reef in dramatic coronas of spray. Beneath that spectacle, the clear, shallow waters of the Little Bahama Bank glowed as a band of vivid turquoise and aquamarine patches between the shore and the reef. At the seaward edge of the island, a band of coral extended like an encircling arm around a shallow, seagrass-bottomed anchorage where a lone sailboat bobbed gently. The pines of Little Abaco Island nine miles away—the “mainland”—and the radio tower at Foxtown rose at the far side of the glittering blue Sea of Abaco.

Small twin-engine planes from the South Florida coast had carried this year’s Happiness Congress participants over freighters and cruise ships in the Gulf Stream; across a surreal tapestry of submarine colors and shapes dotted with green, sand-rimmed islands; over a latticework of shoals and shallows on the backside of Abaco; and down onto a tiny airstrip in the pines—to a surprising and different world that lay less than an hour from American traffic and skyscrapers.

Three overpriced minivan taxis—three!—piloted by dark men chattering in marginally understandable Caribbean patois carried the seven-member group a quarter-mile down the S.C. Bootle highway to the ferry dock where Charlie Albury waited with his outboard-powered launch.

Mr. Albury was kind and encouraging as he answered questions in his Bahamian lilt about their tropical surroundings. He apologized for the spray as they set out against the wind across the Sea of Abaco, and he helped carry their bags down the dock to the beach when they’d reached their destination.

Charlie had sounded confident when he’d assured his passengers that Mr. King, their mentor and teacher for the ten-day retreat, would be along within an hour or so. He’d suggested they walk around the quarter-mile-long island, enjoy the beach, perhaps take a swim, and explore their surroundings until he got back. Everything about the trip up to that point had screamed, “joyful island adventure!”

But that was four hours ago. The sun was nearly burning the tops of the Abaco pines across the bay, and an incongruously chill February wind had stolen the romance from the setting.

Moraine Cay was not without shelter. A yellow and white wooden villa with a screened wraparound porch stood not far off the beach. It was all quite charming except for the locked doors and the oversized “NO TRESPASSING” signs, subtitled “Seriously! This Means You!”

As the light faded, the Happiness Congress discussed whether the extent of “trespassing” included the invasion of the screened porch on the side of the house opposite the wind, especially if stranded visitors needed shelter from the elements. Micky Tomm argued that the goal of the owners of the house and the sign was to prevent intrusion and damage—which would only be a minor problem if they broke a screen and spent the night on the porch; they could always leave some money behind to cover repairs. Audrey argued that it was the owners’ prerogative to define the terms and boundaries—not the visitors’ prerogative to interpret them; the sign offered no caveats or exceptions.

Several of the castaways were able to raise a signal on their cellphones, but nobody quite knew who to call or what to say the problem was. They had food enough—snack food but at least it was food—to get through the night, nobody was sick or injured, and they had all been delivered to exactly where they’d asked to be. The phone at the Happiness Congress office back in Orlando, Florida rang continuously through to voicemail. The prospects of anyone sending a boat out on a windy night to navigate around the coral heads and rescue them seemed remote. And where would they go once they got back to the mainland? Hopes for a comfortable evening rested on the elusive Mr. King turning up soon with the keys to the house and a compelling excuse.

They decided to hunt for driftwood. If enough could be found to make a suitable fire, they might stay warm on the beach. Barring that, Plan B would be to camp on the porch.

Weathered planks and branches were procured along with a few coconuts and a piece of blue seaglass. The scavenging operation was beginning to look as if it might produce sufficient fuel for a good-sized fire when Vincent, a young man who had arrived with a backpack and a guitar, asked if anyone had matches or a lighter. That scuttled plans for fire-building and dropped morale another notch.

Then Micky Tomm pointed out at the anchorage. A lone, lanky, sandy-haired figure clambered over the side of the schooner into a dinghy and began to row toward the dock.

A few minutes later, a shirtless man with bronzed skin wearing a pair of zebra print exercise pants—his smile missing one front tooth—stared up from his small boat at the Happiness Congress’s welcoming committee on the rickety pier. “Howdy,” he said slowly, “I’m Strider. I have a hot grouper stew on the stove if anyone is interested—and I’m guessing you all will probably appreciate some warm bunks once the temperature drops tonight.”

“You’re not Mr. King, are you?” asked Micky Tomm.

Strider laughed. “Nope. Just Strider.”

The castaways searched one another’s eyes.

Strider read their hesitation. “This isn’t the Untied States,” he assured. “Nobody’s going to hold you up or push you under. And it’s what—seven against one? You can spend the night on the beach if you want, but you’ll sleep better aboard the Metaphor.”

“You guys can do what you want,” suggested Audrey to her colleagues as she handed her bag down to the mysterious boatman and began to descend the ladder between his stabilizing arms, “but a hot stew and a warm bunk sound a lot better to me than freezing on a beach all night and feeling like a dumbass in the morning.”

Strider advised her to keep her weight low and centered until she was seated safely in the stern. “Anyone else? I can carry two at a time, plus bags.”

A half-hour and several trips later, the Happiness Congress and way too much luggage had been ferried out to the anchorage, over the rope railing, and onto the wooden deck of The Metaphor. Down below, the travelers arranged themselves on settees on either side of the main cabin. The promised fish stew and a few bottles of wine quickly restored their spirits.

“Before we get to introductions,” Strider intoned, “will someone enlighten me as to how you ended up stranded on an island in the middle of the Bahamian wilderness? It’s not often that…”

Micky Tomm volunteered an explanation. “We come from all walks of life—I’m a pharmaceutical company executive; we have a musician and a teacher, a scientist, a writer, a scientist, and a few others in our group. We’re all here for the Happiness Congress; we’ve taken time off to spend ten days talking about and studying the nature of happiness.”

Strider could hardly conceal his cynicism, but he decided not to antagonize his guests. “So you guys paid some serious money—I assume—to get marooned on an island in the Bahamas so you could study…?”

“Getting stranded wasn’t part of the plan,” assured Walter, a tall man propped up in the forward corner of the settee. He absentmindedly fingered his empty plastic wineglass. “We were expecting ten day’s accommodations and a well-respected teacher as part of the deal. Now I’m embarrassed to admit we all paid $5000 in tuition plus travel expenses for this little adventure to nowhere.”

Strider twisted his chin and closed his eyes. After a long moment, he spoke. “Well … you’re certainly not nowhere. In fact, if there ever was a somewhere, you’re smack dab in the middle of it. But there’s no way you can know that yet.

“I have a suggestion—on offer to make—and if my instincts are right, you’re all going to take me up on it. Why don’t you spend the next ten days sailing on the Metaphor with me? I can’t think of a better way to study happiness, and if anyone wants to jump ship, we’ll be here in the Abacos—only a quick ferry hop and a short, overpriced taxi ride from the airport.

“What about money?” asked Walter.

“Buy the groceries and be good company,” said Strider. “I’m not here to prey on your misfortune. I’m going to go topside and check the anchor lines. You folks discuss it. I’ll drop anyone who wants to bail out at the Green Turtle Cay ferry dock tomorrow.” Strider rose, offered a gentle bow to his guests, and ascended the companionway ladder.

Deliberations among the Happiness Congress were short. Strider seemed pleasant enough if a bit quirky. And if he was going to murder or rob them, he would have done so already. At sixty-two feet, the sailboat offered ample room and comfortable quarters. Ten days in the Bahamas aboard a classic wooden schooner certainly beat retreating to the airport and slogging home defeated.

Strider returned to the cabin. “Anyone leaving tomorrow?” he grinned.

“We’re all in,” said Audrey. “But why were you so sure we’d accept your invitation? We don’t know anything about you. And I’m not convinced you don’t think we’re a bunch of Bozos for dropping five grand on a ten-day workshop to study happiness.”

“I’m not convinced I don’t, either,” joked Strider, “I can’t think of a bigger oxymoron than “Happiness Congress,” but there’s one thing I know for sure: You are all invested in your stories … and stories are what happiness and the rest of the essential absurdities are all about.”