Listen Like a Storyteller: A Guidebook on Attention and Finding Truth in the Narrative Age

By David Sewell McCann

The modern world is made of stories, and the best storytellers now decide where to look, who to follow, and what is important. Whether we wish to raise resilient children or transform an entire community, listening like a storyteller is a fundamental skill now distilled into a simple practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982225551

David Sewell McCann

Since 2011, David has written and told over twelve hundred original children’s stories for Sparkle Stories. Out of his experience as an elementary school teacher and parent of two lively boys, he developed a method of intuitive, transformative storytelling, which he now shares with others through keynote speeches, workshops, podcasts, and online courses. He lives with his family in Austin, Texas.

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Copyright © 2019 David Sewell McCann.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-2554-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2556-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2555-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906908

Balboa Press rev. date:  05/22/2019

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Chapter 1     See How Everything is Made of Stories

Chapter 2     Choose to Story

Chapter 3     Assess Narrative Density

Chapter 4     Listen for The Gold

Chapter 5     Pause and Then Pause

Chapter 6     Always Tell The Truth

Chapter 7     Talk to Rocks

Chapter 8     Start Casting Spells

Chapter 9     Feel The Power of Four

Chapter 10   Pay Attention to Everything

Chapter 11   Open Your Heart and Notice Affection

Chapter 12   Approach The Story

Chapter 13   Allow The Story to be Told

Chapter 14   Identify The Four Kinds of Listeners

Chapter 15   Practice Instead of Prepare

Chapter 16   Story Your Life

Conclusion

About the Author

DEDICATION

To the Classes of 2014 and 2021, who taught me what I needed to know. And to Lisabeth, Angus, and Finn, who taught me how to do it.

PREFACE

Master stories are the narratives that form our identities. They make up who we think we are.

People have master stories, places have master stories, chapters of history have master stories—even everyday objects have master stories. Master stories are often the result of countless golden threads—little stories we tell and hear—weaving together into a common chord, a common theme: a resonance that is familiar and consistent.

I have spun over a thousand stories and consumed a hundredfold more, but there are two narratives that are fundamental markers of my identity as a storyteller. One is a creation story I’ve been tinkering with for three decades called The House of Faz. Will that ever be finished? At this point, that seems like the wrong question.

The other narrative is this one. This book. Listen like a Storyteller has had several titles, several audiences, and made several bold promises—but the four simple steps of storying—attention, affection, approach and allowance—have always been there. They are in every lecture and every workshop and dressed up in every article and podcast. Are they mine? Again, wrong question. But they are in the middle of what I have to say to you.

So as you proceed, I encourage you to start using them. I hope you can open your attention to notice curious images and descriptions. Let your affection guide you to the skills most beneficial to your life. Approach this book as if it were troubadour singing with a very thick but lovely accent—and then allow the exercises to work on you. It will take some time, as all things do, but perhaps this narrative—this book—can become a part of your master story too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Lisabeth, not only as my partner for twenty-plus years, or as mother of our two inspired sons, or as CEO of Sparkle Stories, which has been my employer for over a decade, but also as the fierce yet patient advocate of my personal call to teach, to write, and then to teach again.

Thank you to Ann Boyd and Katherine Catmull for their editorial expertise, to Per Eisenman for helping develop the four A’s, to the men of Wolverines Troop 787 for their encouragement, to my parents William (Bill for short) and Susan for instilling in me an enduring sense of adventure, and to the brave elementary school students who tested, tried, and believed in me enough to call me their class teacher.

INTRODUCTION

The summer before my senior year of high school, my family moved to Peru, a small town in the north country of New York State. I was new to Peru Central High School and I had managed to quickly get myself into several sticky predicaments. I did not want to move, obviously. Things were going well in my old high school: I was class president, on the varsity soccer and track team, the lead in the school musical, editor of the school yearbook, and on and on—and now my parents were moving my brother and me to this tiny town by the Canadian border. This was not fair. I was angry, and so I decided to make some waves.

I became a rebel. I dressed strangely, behaved strangely, and made some bold choices—one of which was to ask the most attractive girl in the school (in my opinion) to be my date to a Supertramp concert.

She said yes and it was fun, and when I returned, I got word that her boyfriend Bill wanted to fight me. Bill was on the football team. I had just joined the soccer team. The date for the fight was scheduled and my friends on the soccer team decided to accompany me. They were advocating for a rumble down in the quarry—football team verses soccer team. It was out of hand.

As I am not a fighter—at all—I chose to independently approach Bill to see if there was another way to work this out. He admitted that the two of them had indeed broken up and he was upset. Bill, it turned out, was actually just a nice guy with a broken heart.

I thought this sticky predicament was over—until gym class. Another football player, a defensive end named Rob, still wanted the fight to happen. He decided on his own that the fight could happen immediately in gym class, only it would be me against him. He let me know this by shoving me into the bleachers during basketball warm-up.

That was when I discovered a number of the skills in this book and used them very quickly and effectively on Rob. I don’t know how I knew to do these things, but I was grateful the wisdom found me in that moment.

The first thing that happened was I got quiet and paid attention. I noticed that the gym teacher—also the football coach—had walked out of the gym. This meant I would have no adult intervention and that, most likely, the gym teacher was in favor of me getting whupped. The second thing was that though Rob was joined by a few other football players in the gym class, their faces told me that they were not interested in a fight. In fact, they seemed like they wanted Rob to stop doing what he was doing. The third thing I noticed was that there were other kids in the class who did not like Rob—clearly did not like him—and might intervene if needed. This was all good information.

And then I noticed the expression on Rob’s face. He was big, yes. Mean, yes. Strong, yes. But he was afraid. Seeing his fear and having assessed the environment, I somehow knew what to do.

I got up, walked over, stood face to face with him, and told him the truth. I allowed my entire body to become calm, and then spoke quietly so only he could hear my voice. I said, You might hit me, but I won’t hit back. I’m not going to fight you, Rob. But I’m also not afraid of you.

As I tell this story now, I wish I had some snappier lines to retell, but the truth is, it needed to be a straightforward message. I gave him room to follow through with his intentions but let him know he would not come out of it looking good. Most of all, I was calm and clear and I could immediately see that my words had inspired a transformation. They had begun to work on him.

Moments later he called me a name under his breath and then shouted to the others that it was time to play some basketball. We were done. He never bothered me again. In fact, we worked together on a film project later in the year.

This may sound like a typical high school story, and it is—but it had a huge impact on me. I marveled for quite a while at how effective this quiet little story was. I watched Rob transform before my eyes, and I got what I wanted. So … what exactly happened?

I began to experiment and found that paying attention in this way—listening like a storyteller—gave me invaluable information. And then I found that aligning my words with my feelings made me powerful and effective. I tried using these skills and this power selfishly to get what I wanted and I found that, generally … I did get what I wanted. I then experimented with using these skills and this power in service to others—and over the years found that this was far more satisfying than focusing on my own desires. The skills have gotten me jobs, boosted relationships, won me awards, and brought so much abundance to my life. It has been my golden goose—and now I wish to share this goose with you.

This book will teach you sixteen very simple yet powerful skills. If used properly, they will bring true transformation: you will change, and the people who listen to you will change, as if under the effect of a wizard’s spell. You will become a true storyteller, and anyone who hears you will be under your spell. I am not using the word spell metaphorically—storytellers literally cast magic spells on their listeners: they hold them in a trance-like state and then feed them narratives