Everybody has a Story!

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie Pretty Woman was that of a man walking down the street asking each person he saw and nobody in particular, "What's your dream?" Something about the way he says it, though, makes you wonder, "What's my dream?" I don't know if everybody has a dream, but I know everybody has a story!

CBS reporter Steve Hartmen believed that too, and in 1998 he set out to prove it. To find a story, Hartman would toss a dart over his shoulder at a map of the United States, and then travel with his cameraman, Les Rose, to wherever the dart landed. Upon arrival, he would find a phone booth with a phonebook, and then, after choosing a name at random, would call that person, hoping to tell their "story." He produced more than 100 episodes of the award-winning series, and his adventures took him around the country. And while each episode was a testament to Hartman's talent as a storyteller, he first had to have a story to tell. An that came from the people he met. Each episode I saw was fascinating; Steve Hartman proved everybody has a story!


Everybody's got a story! What's your story?

The Story Sherpa . . . Really? What's with that?

Hi! Welcome to Story Sherpa, the blog created to examine Story and stories! This funny name is fairly easy to explain. In the reading I have done about mountain climbing in the Himalayas, the guys who did all the heavy lifting were the Sherpas. Reading accounts from Edmund Hillary's climb to Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Sherpas helped explorers reach heights of which they had only dreamed.

I hope to use this blog as a forum to examine stories and the power of story in our lives and businesses. I want to help you find and tell your story, a story with purpose. I don't know exactly the shape it will take, but I look forward to the conversation and to building a community that seeks to find and polish their own stories.

Besides, everybody loves a story, right?