It is July. I wonder if summer was last week when we had the three hot days?

I am not sure it matters as Glastonbury was dry! When did that happen last? Did you go? Did you watch it on TV? Shaina Twain in a shocking pink cloak!

Then there is sport everywhere. Football may not be your passion, but Sunday left a great deal to be desired and we had better get ourselves focused for next Saturday. Wimbledon is in full swing – poor Andy Murray. Let’s hope the Murray brothers have fun in the doubles. Henley started this week. There was an important athletics meet in Manchester last weekend determining competitors for the Olympics. There were not enough hours in the day to catch it all. This is why I stick with terrestrial TV otherwise I would never get anything done.

Then there was the run up to the election. By the time you read this the results will be in and we will know who will lead us into the next five years.
It is a busy month.

What am I thinking about?

I have been caught up in many stories – why and how we tell them. It has been fascinating.

On 22 June I was privileged to be in the St. Alban Day procession down St. Albans High Street and then outside and inside the Abbey. You may not know about our first English martyr. The story is very sparse. In the third or fourth century in Roman Britain there was no freedom of religion. Alban gave a Christian priest on the run shelter and over the few days that they were together, was converted. When the authorities caught up with the priest Alban exchanged clothes with him; allowed him to escape and was executed in his place. In the story there are rivers drying up, miraculous springs, profusions of flowers and eyes popping out. The scenes in the story are retold at places down the High Street with the help of twelve feet high puppets it is a wonderful mixture of fact, fiction and spectacle. This story is all about commemoration, admiration and is a conversion strategy. It is hugely visual and massively inclusive as there are dozens of people dressed up for the bit parts, we all have banners and the fire brigade create the miraculous spring.

Then there have been politicians telling their stories with differing success. Their purpose has been to humanise themselves and show they relate to us. Without being political Rishi Sunak has portrayed himself as part of an NHS family (not sure that there was enough detail to make it effective); Keir Starmer has told us about his dad, the machine tool maker but I think his abiding story might have been having the phone cut off because of the unpaid bill (or maybe the story without words which was the photograph of he and his wife at the Taylor Swift concert); Ed Davey was probably the most effective when he told us about his years of caring for family members and shared his concerns about who would care for his son when he is no longer here. All of these were stories which might have touched us because we identified with them and convinced us of the person’s fitness to lead.

I was also involved in a family story. Out of nowhere someone contacted me about one of my in-laws and something that may or may not have happened in 1929. You will appreciate I was not around then! However I have been contributing my relevant memories of family stories. The story has all the juicy elements you would want: a woman lied to by her husband; a virile young athlete; a child whose biological father was not his “father”; a bare knuckle fighter; fortunes won and lost and people moving on to leave their past behind them. It is completely engaging, and these are not my family! Its purpose though is serious. It is about people finding their true roots and understanding their legacy.

So why is this so fascinating to me with my business head on?

We tell stories to build relationships with clients. I am constantly answering questions from potential clients about my business and life experience and for them to test the chemistry of who I am as they listen to me. I use stories all the time to help clients understand their choices or to analyse things that have not gone right. Business is about stories because stories are about emotions and we buy, learn and recommend because of the way things make us feel. We all remember mighty Maya Angelou quote

People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.

And how we make people feel drives how they act.

Are your stories making people feel in the way that makes them act as you wish?

If you want to explore these things in much more detail for your situation then please talk to me. We can talk about your business and what you want from it and your life. I love speaking with people, off the meter, to help them explore possibilities and whether/how to take them forward. I hope you will be one of them.

In the meantime, how will you tell your story today? And what will be the result?