I spent the last two days at a Storytelling Summit led by the NYU Stern Leadership Accelerator, and it was one of my favorite MBA experiences thus far.

We were a mixed group of full-time, part-time, and executive MBAs in a ~vibey~ SoHo loft for 8 hours each day. We did a few icebreakers, learned storytelling frameworks and styles (Pixar, Steve Jobs, etc), and workshopped our writing and delivery skills. All this was to work towards writing one flagship story we could be proud of.

A pivotal moment for me was hearing our guest speaker, Neeharika, tell a few stories. One was of her experience with a product launch gone wrong at TikTok. The way she described the experience was not just a narration, she was able to invoke emotions from my own similar experiences. Listening to her, I re-lived my own trauma from a problematic launch, and it helped me empathize with her (as the character). Another story was about her moving to a new apartment after getting a new job. She had decided it was time for her to toss out her old pans for a brand new, quality set. She paused over the trash, struggling to let them go -- they were her mom's old pans, handed down to her when she left home. Tossing them was symbolic of her crossing the threshold into adulthood, letting go of the last reach of her parents' care and becoming a self-sustaining person. I have lived in a new apartment every year since I graduated from UCSB (7 years ago!). My mom had similarly given me a set of old pots and pans, ones I recognize in the memories of my childhood, when I moved into my first apartment in Seattle. I have since carried those through all my apartments -- except here in NY, they're now in a box in my parent's garage, ready to join my sister when she is ready to move out.

Her story resonated with me so deeply, because I never considered it to be a story. I've always thought of my life as unremarkably average and thus unnoteworthy. But I ought to give it more credit. There can be beauty in the mundane. Anything can be a story and every story is worth telling, because you never know who may resonate with it and who may need to hear it.

With this revelation, I intend to be more intentional about storytelling. One that I stumbled upon during a rapid fire activity was a reflection on acing my Accounting final -- how I had always taken to my Dad's side with my interest in computers and engineering, and with this I felt a connection to my mothers side, where my mom, aunt and grandfather are all accountants. My flagship story was about my experience doing the STP, and how it was rebellion against my hardened beliefs about my physical limitations. They'll be posted on the blog once fleshed out.