Beyond the Hero’s Journey: Why We Need Collective Storytelling Now

film stills of actors in the movie the martian and project hail mary

Recently, I wrote an article about why I don’t teach the Hero’s Journey; you can read it here. It got people talking. Not because people disagreed, but because people said they had a similar critique of the Hero’s Journey. In particular, as the default of what a story is in terms of point of view, form…

Why I Don’t Teach the Hero’s Journey

Why I don't teach the hero's journey in business storytelling — and why a framework built around one white male Western perspective was never universal.

Emotions: The Feature That Powers Our Operating System

Friend and futurist Simon Waller invited me to explore the future of acting on his podcast, The Future with Friends. It led me to a surprising place. The conversation evolved into a discussion about the importance of emotion in navigating life as a human being. It led me to reflect on how emotion shapes communication. Not as something that drives us irrationally as a holdover from our distant past, but as the feature that has allowed humanity to outpace other species and thrive in increasingly complex societies.

Sticky Power: Become an Everyday Storyteller

In the world of storytelling, we glorify narratives of the extraordinary - epic adventures, heroic feats, and life-altering events that seem to lie outside our everyday existence. However, the true power of storytelling resides in the simplicity of the every day, in the stories of the relatable and familiar. These stories shape our perspectives, influence…

Generative Story Thinking: Mystery, Metaphor and Foreshadowing

Learn how generative story thinking uses mystery, metaphor and foreshadowing to create meaning and why it's the most important skill in the age of AI.