How to become a storyteller without losing teeth

“Dad, how do I know life isn’t a dream and I’ll wake up one day being somebody else?”

I’ve just stepped into my house when Alice, my 9-year old, drops this on me. 

“Well, baby… you’re onto something there. Maybe life is a dream. Maybe we’re all characters in a video game someone is playing. There’s just no way to know, really.” 

She seems more interested than freaked out, so I tell her about how there’s a lot we can’t know, like if we see colours the same way. 

“Maybe your blue is my red, you know?”

“Like if you’re colourblind, you mean?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

She nods and goes quiet. 

Later I realise that maybe there is a way to know when you’re dreaming: I’ve heard people say you can’t read any words or numbers in a dream, but I'm not sure if that’s true. 

What I do know is that, in many of my dreams, I’m either rushing around because I’m late with a school assignment, or my teeth are falling out. 

I haven’t been in school for decades, don’t plan on going back, and I still got all my teeth, so I guess my life is not a dream. 

*

At dinner that night, I stick some leftover barbecue in the air-fryer for the kids. 

Once it’s ready, I see there was one piece of meat stuck under the little shelf-grill thingy, so I pull that out and pick up the straggler. 

It looks extra crunchy, so I toss it in my mouth and bite down. 

That’s when I hear a noise like glass breaking, and something feels off. 

I reach into my mouth, and what I pull out is…

A tooth. 

😳

1 + 1 =  3? 

This isn’t how my stories usually come together; normally  

• Something happens and, once I turn it over, I can figure out what the meaning is or

• I have no idea what the meaning is until much later (often months or even years) 

But every now and then, this is how it goes: one moment is followed by another, and all of a sudden I have a completely new way of looking at them together. 

I can still tell a story about my daughter wondering about life, or how we talk to each other.

I can still tell a story about breaking a tooth, though I have no real idea what that would be about now. 

But sometimes, a story that joins two or more moments becomes larger than the sum of its parts. 

That’s why you need to keep track of your moments. 

No need to get fancy: 

Open a note on your phone, call it “Moments,” “Stories,” “Stuff that happened,” or anything else you like. 

Anytime something makes you laugh, makes you mad, makes you happy or sad, write down the date, write down what happened, and that’s it. You can figure out what it means later. 

As an example, here's my entry from the same day, earlier this week:

Becoming a storyteller can be that simple. 

It shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth 🤘

-Francisco 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

Thanks for reading! Reply any time.