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- #34: Stories are everything
#34: Stories are everything
Shem Opolot
August 25, 2023
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Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
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Happy Friday 🎉 I’ve been in America for a week now. A few things you should know:
My American accent, which lies dormant while I’m in Uganda, dusted itself off, straightened its garments, and jumped onto the playing field. It’s “watrrr” instead of “wota” until further notice
I was worried about reuniting with my son after being apart for 5 months, but when he saw me, he clung to me for hours and kept telling everyone: “ISSS DADDIII”
I have new friends
I’ve reconnected with old friends
I have close to 12 chapters worth of readings to complete before class on Monday, and that’s in one course unit
D.C. is expensive, but somehow, New York is more expensive
I had a group presentation on Wednesday (more on this later), and we won!
And so.much.more... This is going to be a fun ride. Stay tuned.
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Estimated read time: 6 minutes
💡 1 thing I've learned
Stories are everything
Gif by simon_superrabbit on Giphy
No sooner (when will you use such primary English conjunctions in real life? You’re welcome) had I joined my doctorate class’ maiden Zoom call than the program administrators split the class into groups. Battling a horrible time difference and fatigue during our group’s initial remote meetings, I didn’t bring my A-game, but I’d make up for it later.
A while back, my friend Benji asked his Twitter followers what skills they thought were most essential for young people to learn, and I replied “Storytelling” to Benji’s tweet on a then-functional Twitter app.
But why stories? Let me tell you a story…
Two men are sitting under a mango tree, using 5-foot straws to share malwa in a pot. Suddenly, a thunderstorm erupts, and before the two men can take cover in the nearby hut, lightning strikes one of the men, killing him instantly.
The survivor must recount the tale to the villagers for days, weeks, months, years…
Two years later, two other men indulge in the same malwa ritual under the same tree, and lightning strikes one of them, killing him on the spot.
The survivor must recount the tale to the villagers for days, weeks, months, years.
As the story of the tragedy spreads, people add their own ‘appeta’ to it: the deceased men spoke ill about the tree’s inability to completely shield them from the rain. The deceased was 10 feet tall, too close to the sky, and hence vulnerable to the elements. Something in the malwa they drank attracted the lightning. The tree was cursed.
The rumors saddled their horses and rode out to all corners of the village, changing colors and clothing at every corner.
Over time, the tree becomes a pariah, and no one sits under it. Malwa, as a drink, becomes taboo. Hundreds of years later, the village has a god of lightning revered for their swift retribution.
Stories form myths, myths form legends, legends form culture and religion, and culture and religion determine how we live.
So when I arrived in D.C. and finally met my team, I volunteered to make our presentation slides and weave a narrative into our intervention.
We didn’t win because our intervention was miles better than the rest. We won because we told a compelling story. After listening to 7 presentations over 4 hours, the judges could only remember ‘Daisy’, our lady in need. They could only remember the two D’s we coined to address Daisy’s challenges.
If you want to sell your product,
If you want to influence change at work,
If you want to change the world,
…learn how to tell a story.
🔌 Shameless plug
We’re officially in the “I can’t believe this is free” stage of TLDR Weekly. Now is the time to join the family of the informed and the humorous.
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🎁 My favorite things
A quote
On the rampant emotional immaturity of men vs. women, my friend said:
Women have facing-each-other friendships (talk and share) while men have side-by-side friendships (attend events together)
An article
Maintain a brag document
A video
The difference between interest and obsession
A picture
Since I’m in a new location, this might become a permanent fixture in the newsletter.
Many things happened this week, but this picture captures the entire theme
🚀 Pro tip
Create a countdown to your next event in 3, 2, 1…
To create a countdown to a date in the future, you need two functions: the DATE function and the TODAY function.
DATE creates a date from the year, month, and day you enter into it:
=DATE(year, month, day)
Let’s go with my birthday this year
TODAY returns the current date and will update automatically daily. TODAY is also one of the few functions that doesn’t take any arguments in the brackets.
=TODAY()
As you can see, I’m preparing this at the last minute 😅
To create a countdown to my birthday, I subtract the current date (using the TODAY function) from the future date (using the DATE function)
=DATE(2023,12,30) - TODAY()
There are 128 days until my birthday in December
With a little formatting thereafter, see if you can come up with this:
Done.
🧩 Where fun goes to flourish
The Friday Fix playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
5 + 5 + 5 = 550
Add ONE STRAIGHT LINE to the above to make the sum correct.
Answer below
Shem’s picks
💡 How to know what you really want
🎧 Listen: How to become closer to the people you care about
🎴 A mind-blowing fact about playing cards
Brain teaser answer
Answer: 5 4 5 + 5 = 550
Add a straight line to the first "+" to make it a "4".
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
🤝🏾 How I can help you
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Wanna advertise in The Friday Fix? Email me: [email protected]
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