Jerome Jewell
Two wonderful forces conspired to encourage me to write “On The Balcony”.
First and foremost, I’ve had the honor of reading and becoming addicted to good storytelling all my life, it seems. My first significant book memory was “The Spirit of St. Louis” by Charles Lindbergh, where he tells a detailed story of the first solo transatlantic flight. I had to do a book report on it in the 4th grade (50+ years ago) and I remember not being able to put the book down at night. Ever since, I've found stories…the process of bringing facts to life by providing context…simply fascinating. Along the way, authors such as Tahir Shah, Rachel Naomi Remen, Thomas Friedman, Erma Bombeck have fueled my appetite.
The second major influence was my clients and seminar attendees. About 15 years ago, while delivering leadership development seminars to corporations, I began experimenting with ways to make the concepts more memorable…ways to make them “stick”. So I began telling short stories of how the concepts applied…describing the errors and asumptions we made on the path to lessons and how peoples’ lives were impactd by our failures and successes. My clients began asking follow-up questions, sometimes weeks later, not about the theory or concept, but about the STORY.
They asked questions such as:
- “Can you tell us more about what happened?”
- “How did people react initially?”
- “Were they frightened? enthusiastic?”
These kinds of questions show that people are doing more than listening. They are embracing a subject and placing themselves “there”.
Eventually, people starting asking me explicitly, “When are you going to write a book with these stories?”
“On The Balcony” is the result.
First and foremost, I’ve had the honor of reading and becoming addicted to good storytelling all my life, it seems. My first significant book memory was “The Spirit of St. Louis” by Charles Lindbergh, where he tells a detailed story of the first solo transatlantic flight. I had to do a book report on it in the 4th grade (50+ years ago) and I remember not being able to put the book down at night. Ever since, I've found stories…the process of bringing facts to life by providing context…simply fascinating. Along the way, authors such as Tahir Shah, Rachel Naomi Remen, Thomas Friedman, Erma Bombeck have fueled my appetite.
The second major influence was my clients and seminar attendees. About 15 years ago, while delivering leadership development seminars to corporations, I began experimenting with ways to make the concepts more memorable…ways to make them “stick”. So I began telling short stories of how the concepts applied…describing the errors and asumptions we made on the path to lessons and how peoples’ lives were impactd by our failures and successes. My clients began asking follow-up questions, sometimes weeks later, not about the theory or concept, but about the STORY.
They asked questions such as:
- “Can you tell us more about what happened?”
- “How did people react initially?”
- “Were they frightened? enthusiastic?”
These kinds of questions show that people are doing more than listening. They are embracing a subject and placing themselves “there”.
Eventually, people starting asking me explicitly, “When are you going to write a book with these stories?”
“On The Balcony” is the result.
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