Challenge and Selection

It has been more than six months since COVID impacted our lives. I can very proudly say that I utilized  this time (and am still utilizing it) in the very best way possible. I took out time to introspect and found  that although I’m good at talking to people, the way I tell them stories needs improvement. I realized  that sometimes when I was in a group, some people were apathetic towards what I was saying. I did not  know what to speak and how to speak in the most interesting manner. I did not pay much heed to the  listener’s needs. Hence, this introspection made me choose the Storytelling tool for this assignment.

Application

Described below are some of the ways in which I used the storytelling tool to improve myself:

1. Observe and listen: What kind of people are you with? What do they like/not like talking about? I  learned that all people do not find the same things interesting. I have a lot of friends from different  backgrounds. Once I was telling a group of friends about this new pen which I bought for my father,  which can write properly in zero gravity, on glass, on rocks, and even underwater. The group did not find  this interesting. The next day I told another group about this and they found this pen to be the coolest  thing ever! I learned that all the things you know are not meant to be shared with all the people you  know.

2. Learning mindset: As we were told in this course, “What are the things we do not know?” is one of  the most important questions to ask ourselves. A learning mindset helped me cultivate new hobbies,  one of them being reading books. I’ve become comfortable with topics I never was, and this helped me  increase my knowledge and made me a more interesting person. I’ve even become better at articulating  myself.

3. Empathy: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . .  until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

- To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

In the past few months, I have been working a lot on being an empathetic person. Once one of my  friends called me to discuss a problem. I listened to his problem and told him to ignore such a trivial  matter. But then, after disconnecting the phone, I thought about it. I realized that I am not the one who  gets to decide if his problem is trivial or material. I called him again just to apologize for calling his  problem trivial and now tried understanding his problem. I believe that after this incident, I became a  more empathetic person.

4. The element of surprise: While talking to people, I have started saying things like “And you won’t  believe what happened next”, “Now I’m going to tell you the most interesting part of the story”. This  made sure that the listener is now paying their 100% attention, even if they weren’t earlier. The listener  is fully invested in my story now. After all, who doesn’t like the element of surprise?

I wish the examples I gave were related to my professional life. But it has been only 6 months since I  started my job and I never got the chance to interact with my colleagues properly due to the COVID  situation.

Insight and Approach

After I completed this course, I realized that I had already been working on my storytelling skills, even  before I started taking this course. Learning that storytelling is such an important tool in Design Thinking  made me realize that even when multiple people might have the same things to say, the only way they  can stand out is by the way they tell stories, and that can make a huge difference. In the examples I gave  in the previous section, I believe I identified my audience, prioritized the listener’s needs and was able  to take them along on my journey.

Say, in the future, I have to pitch my business idea to somebody. If I’m not able to tell them about it in  the most interesting manner, they won’t find the idea attractive, no matter how good it is actually. This  is where the ideas of storytelling and design thinking come into the picture.

I concluded that storytelling is a skill that everybody should have, irrespective of their background. Now  that I’m working towards my storytelling skills, I believe I’m working towards becoming a better and a  smarter person!

