This article is reprinted with permission from Siddhartha Banerjee’s LinkedIn page. Siddhartha is a Creative Head @ _VOIS (Vodafone Group) ★ IDEO certified Design Thinker ★ Int’l Speaker ★ NYU, HFI & IDF certified UI-UX Specialist

The Story of Story

If you are reading this article, then I’m guessing that you must have faced an audience before. On a stage. In a boardroom. Or just, you vs. you in front of a mirror. Did you hear a drum-roll constantly playing inside your head while the spotlight was on you? Or did you feel that butterfly that was desperately trying to get out? You are not alone. Honestly speaking, till a few years back, even after hundreds of presentations, I used to experience a state of numbness every time someone said, “The stage is yours”.

So what happened suddenly? What changed? No, I didn’t meet Gandalf or The Wizard of Oz. I met Jacques Prévert and the beggar. And this is how the story goes…

One day Jacques Prévert — a French poet, was walking down the street when he saw a blind homeless man begging. The sign read: “I am blind, please help.” However, his donation cup was empty. Mr. Prévert, instead of putting some money in the man’s cup, took the man’s sign and rewrote it.

A few days later, Mr. Prévert met the same beggar. This time, the homeless man’s cup was overflowing with money. So what had Mr. Prévert written on the man’s sign? “Spring is coming, but I won’t see it.”

Instead of just conveying an information i.e. I am blind and asking for an action i.e. please help, the sign now told a story.