everyone and everything is a story

Everyone and everything is a story. Stories hide in everyone and everything. Look out for stories and understand what life really is about.

In 2010 I published the book “Everything is a story”. Because it is in Dutch I translated (and slightly adapted) the introduction into English. It sums it up fairly well.

Nothing is what it seems.

This book will leave you with more questions than answers. This is how I meant it to be. But I am convinced it will open up your eyes. School learned us that every question has an answer. Therefore they learned us how to put order in the chaos. They trained us to make a quick analysis. We see, hear, taste or feel something, make an interpretation of it and come to a conclusion. This conclusion isn’t necessarily the best option.

I had, when I was at university, a very good friend. We had spent four years together and we were a match. During breaks we would sit next to one another, have a coffee and chat. We knew each other very well. I often visited him at home and also loved his parents. One day he would burst out into tears and tell me that his father was not his father. I don’t have to go into further details, but I was perplexed. How could I know somebody so well but not be aware of something so important in his life ?

The event touched me deeply and it never left my mind. Since then, I will not easily judge people, because there definitely must be a reason why someone is acting this way or another. Every home has it’s cross. Everyone is entitled to her secret.

I collect stories.

From university I went straight to the company I still work for, VRT, the Belgian Flemish public broadcaster. That must have been 25 years ago. I started as an editor of talkshow programs and ended currently as director TV. If I would apply for another job, it would have been this television knowledge that I would have stressed.

25 years of television business. I must be passionate about the medium. I am ! But it was only recently — and believe me, it was a revelation to me — that I realised that it was not television I was dealing with. It was all about stories. Although television is a skill, with specific rules, it is not the essence. Picking the relevant stories and curating them, that is what my job is really all about. And it is my greatest concern to make authentic television. I want to show real people, with real stories and real emotions.

Since I made the change from television-maker to story-bringer, I look at the world differently. Now I look out for the real stories. For sure, you find stories on television, in books and magazines, but who really looks out, will find stories elsewhere as well. In fact, you will find them everywhere, because everyone and everything is a story.

Everyone is a story.

To start with myself : I am a story. In whatever I write, I tell something of myself. Even if you don’t know me, you will be able to make a picture of me. I will always be honest, so that the picture you get of me, is an honest one. And if ever we meet, then just tell me what you think of me.

I love to read biographies because they suck me into the story of that person. However, you don’t need to read about celebrities to be engaged in the story of someone else. Watch and listen more intensively to people (around you) and capture their story.

The stories of Madonna or princess Diana read live a novel. But do you every think about your story ? About the story of your friends and neighbours ? Whether we are ‘a princess of heart’ like Diana or a chameleon like Madonna, every day we write our story, consciously or unconsciously, implictely or explicitly.

Almost 7 billion people live on this earth. Each one of them is a (unique) story. A book with a beginning, a middle and an end. Some with several prints or revised editions.

I hope my message will tease you to collect stories, just the way I am discovering them. I wish you would live you story more consciously.

Everything is a story.

Not only people are stories. If you really look around, you will have to admit that everything is a story.

Why is Ikea so successful ? What do you feel when you watch the Mona Lisa in the eyes ? Is Jamie Oliver the best cook or a cooking missionary ? Why am I so attached to some piece of furniture ? … The answers to these questions really lead to the essence of the story ?

Take ‘nine eleven’. These two words only make you think of the World Trade Centre assault in New York. Of how the world looked like before and after September 11 2001. ‘nine eleven’ is a story. More than one story, as I will explain you later in this book.

Glasses and pens.

Stories are everywhere. Dailly tens, hundreds of stories pass our way, but we don’t see them. Either we don’t want see them or we don’t just capture them.

You don’t have to become member of some secret agency to have those stories touch you. It suffices to put on the right glasses or take take the right pen to be more actively involved.

I am a rational person by nature. I am good in making a sharp analysis and in taking the right decision afterwards. But over the years, my intuition became more dominant. In all the reports I “write” I leave all words and logic out and capture them by a picture. I make my point not with reason but with emotion. These pictures, moodboards, mind maps, word clouds, … have learned me to read and tell stories in a different way. The white on the paper tells me more that the print.

Since I collect stories, I consider it as my mission to convince everybody of the power of stories. I have no grade in story-stelling and I will never push it upon someone. But what I can do is offer you some glasses and pens. Up to you what you will do with them. Maybe you will find other glasses and pens elsewhere that will suit you better. That is good, as long as you start out watching for stories.

The power of stories.

I wrote this book with my right brain. Our left brain is driven by logic, whereas our right brain is lead by intuition.

Because I learned to think out of the box, I wrote an out of the box book.

This book will leave you with more questions than answers. Because you need to look out for the stories yourself. I hope I have put you on the right track.

If as a parent you want to challenge your child to colour his life. If as a student you wonder what to do with all of the knowledge you were taught. If as a manager you want to inspire. If you just want to live … you are a story and stories will cross your path. I have to repeat it : look out for the stories around you and you will better understand the world.

Originally published in “Alles is een verhaal”, Jean Philip De Tender, Lannoo, 2010, ISBN 978 90 209 9092 8