Some would say it’s part of an older oral tradition that keeps what’s important alive. Good stories engender our emotions or our memories, perhaps they challenge our beliefs or simply amuse us.
Why do we like stories?
Perhaps we want to be entertained or to be transported away from the present moment.?
Perhaps we like to feel we are not the only one and we share experiences, thoughts and beliefs with others who we can relate to?
Good Stories.
We generally like stories that make sense to us. Perhaps, as we read about the characters, we might recognise something in them that we notice in our friends or the people we meet?
Perhaps it’s some of the other details that the author has captured?
A place in the story feels familiar; maybe they describe a situation or a place that resonates with what we know and who we are?
Good stories, like dreams, may have twists and turns that surprise us and can give us the chance to see things from a new perspective.
Good stories can let us reconsider what we think is normal, challenging gently our view of how things are and just as importantly, how they work.
How things work / Personal Paradigms
You can read more about Personal Paradigms here. Our observations suggest all of us have an internal template that allows us to make sense of how the world works. The nature of this template is modified by each of us individually based on our influences , our experience and learning and it is our conclusion that the nature of your own template determines your success. Where you sit on each of the elements that comprise the model creates the characteristic of your own variant. These belief points can be changed and tiny changes create significant changes in your results.
In addition to the Misaligned Monkey book we are publishing a number of our stories. These are the ones that we came across or told on our courses. Each of these provides the opportunity to consider one or more element of your model of the world.Reading them slowly gives you a chance to both explore where you sit on the element (s) involved and to consider if this belief point is the one that really matches or supports your best interests.
You can see a brief description of them here