Why this makes me ridiculously happy

‘I’m wrestling with Wally’, my friend texts.

Then I remember it’s Children’s Book Week, one magical week when children get to dress up as their favourite fictional characters and celebrate books.

I have always loved books. I was that child who read under the covers after official lights out at home.

And one book changed the course of my life.

You might know, I’m an economist by training. Don’t panic, it gets better.

As a senior leader in corporate Australia, I was constantly baffled by one question: why doesn’t data persuade people?

On a long-haul flight, I picked up a copy of Stephen Denning’s The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. My economist’s brain recoiled at the title, but I was hungry for answers, so I kept reading.

Somewhere over the course of that flight, a light bulb went on in my head.
Why was storytelling missing from leadership training?

As a leader, I wanted to learn storytelling. The problem was that twenty-plus years ago, nobody was teaching business storytelling in Australia, or anywhere else I could find.

So, in 2005, in what I can only describe as a brave or mad idea, I co-founded Australia’s first storytelling company.

Most people thought we were nuts.

One expert cautioned, ‘This will never work. Nobody is going to pay for storytelling training.’

I get it. Back then, this was as radical as proposing to teach dolphins to play the ukulele.

And of course it was tough. We spent about 11 months just educating the market. But it was also exhilarating and the steepest learning curve of my life.

Since then, I’ve helped more than 500,000 leaders across 15-plus countries learn storytelling through keynotes and masterclasses.

And thank you.

If you’re reading this, have seen me speak or passed my name on, you’ve helped me keep doing work I love.

And imagine it all started because I picked up a book.

So yes, Book Week makes me ridiculously happy.