I have the privilege of doing peer-coaching with great storytellers, including world-famous storytellers (like Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Jay O’Callahan) and some who are better known in other fields (like my now-retired minister wife, Rev. Pam McGrath).
But my newest storytelling coach, now that Pam and I have moved to Atlanta, Georgia, is one of Pam’s grandsons, Ben. He is three years old.
Benjamin's Storytelling Curriculum
How could a three-year-old child coach me, a professional storytelling coach? Let me count the ways….But they mostly come down to achieving one of the highest states of storytelling: having a grand time.
For example, Benjamin loves to pretend to be a dinosaur and chase me as I pretend to be deathly afraid. He also loves to spend the night in his “treehouse room” (which Pam and I have tried to decorate like a treehouse, just to amplify the fun—see the snapshot).
But Benjamin mostly loves saying something (almost anything will do) in a playful way.
I especially notice how Benjamin teaches me when he comes over to spend the night. Of course, as our guest, he insists on being read to—and on choosing the book I read him. (His favorite themes are dinosaurs, race cars, and airplanes.)
His Key Requirement
But, as my coach, Ben never lets me get away with reading a story without, at some point, saying something to him in a very silly tone.
Why do I know that Ben (not me) is the teacher? For starters, Benjamin must know a hundred ways to say, “Really?” (One advantage of growing up around native Atlantans, of course, is the ability to stretch “really” over 3 or 4 syllables.)
His latest discovery is a dozen varied ways to say, “Probably!”
And those are just a tiny sampling of his vocabulary of playfulness.
What Can We All Learn From Benjamin?
You see, Benjamin cares what stories are about. But he cares just as much that they are spoken…
with a twinkle in the eye,
with complete lack of self-importance, and
without any signs of trying to impress anyone.
Telling to adults is different from reading to Ben, of course. Adults will put up with things like “serious tone” for its own sake, or with tellers saying things that they aren’t really feeling at the moment.
To be sure, adults will eventually grow tired of such insincerity, but they won’t likely react the way Ben acts when I’m not fully present: by climbing to the top bunk and imitating a bulldozer.
The Benjamin School of Coaching Storytellers
To be sure, there are lots of concepts for our coaches to keep in mind as we explore, shape, and try to communicate our treasured stories. Being clear on those concepts is important for the coach—as is being tuned in to the emotional and intellectual goals of the teller being coached.
But none of those things matter, in the end, unless the coach can also be a barometer of the teller’s sense of presence, engagement, and insistence on having a good time—in any of the infinite ways that a good time can reveal itself!
"It don't mean a thing?"
To paraphrase Duke Ellington’s 1932 hit song (“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing,”) the coach and the storyteller are both ultimately judged by:
“We ain’t showing up for you,
If you ain’t showing up, too!”
That’s the hardest coaching lesson to keep learning and re-learning.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of storytelling coaches to help us.
In fact, some of the best teachers of that lesson are so young that they aren’t allowed in the top bunk unless accompanied by an adult!