Chocolate. Karaoke. Star Trek. Travel. Puppies. These are some of my favourite things. But my most favourite are stories.
Stories entered my DNA as a kid. They were what saved me from lonely lunched with no friends when my family moved states and I was shoved into a new school mid-year, mid-puberty, mid-awkward-phase. They allowed me to escape to another world of adventure, of empathy, perspective, and heroes who strived against the bullies, and again and again, picked themselves. Stories showed me how to adapt, to care, to trust myself. They understood me on a level I barely understood myself. I was such a voracious reader I started writing my own books when I was 12 because my favourite authors just couldn’t keep up.
Stories were how I survived boredom. Boredom was how I ended up a Star Trek nerd. Every afternoon when I got home from school, my mother commandeered the TV to fuel her Star Trek addiction. The choice was be bored or be obsessed. You could say I was brain-washed a Trekkie and I have no regrets! That’s the only reason I can think of for how I ended up choosing to study Astrophysics. Two years in and something happened that I never in a million years expected. I hated it.
What I didn’t realise at the time was the reason I was so drawn to Star Trek wasn’t the science, it was the adventure. I want to create stories that connected people. Fictional preferably, with a hint of magic, a dash of quirky, and a sneaky side of truth.
It was when I took the conscious decision to step off the beaten path that things changed for me. In creating my own opportunities, I made a place where I belonged, and where thousands of others realised they belonged.
The success that I've had is due largely to the power of story. Of how stories allow you to be understood for you, and to connect beyond yourself. I’ve won awards, presented hundreds of hours of storytelling workshops internationally, published 6 books, edited and/or published dozens of authors, I am a global entrepreneur of an app that helps you explore and connect to a city and the stories of its people, and I’m part of a 6 person team that brands a handful of high-flying femmpreneurs every year.
So I say to you pick yourself, don’t wait for others to pick you. But also pick doing it together, rather than doing it alone.
