This morning I awoke with remnants of a dream lingering in my semi-awake state.
A darkness was spreading across the land.
It reminded me of the movie, The Neverending Story, I first watched decades ago. In the movie, which was released while I was still in high school, features “A boy who needs a friend finds a world that needs a hero in a land beyond imagination!”
The boy, Bastian, escapes threat of schoolyard bullies by escaping first into a bookstore then into the pages of a book.
I’ve had a few run-ins with bullies myself. Even more than that, though, I’ve often escaped the stresses of life by getting lost in a book or a movie.
A story is a great place to face danger.
I was reminded of both my dream and that escape while talking with a client this afternoon. We were talking about her story and how the subject of her story is sometimes seen as blasé. Boring.
For a story to capture our imagination, it needs the right amount of tension. Too much and you run away as if being chased by a creature in a Stephen King movie. Too little and you risk losing your audience for an appointment with shampoo.
“Sorry, I’d really love to, but I have to wash my hair.”
Now, your business probably doesn’t risk being annihilated by the Nothing – the force that spreads across Fantasia like a terrifying dust storm.
But you might encounter a sense of nothingness that might be equally terrifying. No products. No clients. No business. No money.
As I sat down to write this email, I felt the encroaching of nothingness swirl about me. What would I write? What if I can’t come up with anything worth saying?
By the end of the Neverending story, back in the “real world”, Bastian discovers that Fantasia depends as much on him as it does on the hero, Atreyu, in the land of fantasy.
Our fantasies and our realities don’t have a clear, impenetrable barrier between them. Our fantasies and our realities weave back and forth into one another.
As Michel de Montaigne said centuries ago, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”
Part of the battle of being in business is learning to manage the balance between risk and reward.
Whether or not you win that battle depends a great deal on how well you manage opposing forces. For my client I mentioned above, it’s helping her clients make better nutritional choices. Choose health over cravings.
As an accountant, the battle was between accuracy and error. As a story architect, it’s eloquence over awkwardness.
Often to win those battles you have to masterfully weave the forces of what could be with the reality of what is. To push back the threat of Nothingness with the force of action.
Like the Childlike Empress holding onto the last threads of hope in Fantasia, your clients are awaiting you to help them. They await you to find the words, take the action, rally the strength to help them push back the threats in their land.
Shine Brightly!