This Canadian For Barack Obama

During Barack’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, he spent the first part telling the audience about himself. He told his story. And he continues to tell his story wherever he goes on the campaign trail.

He does this because telling our personal story not only can motivate ourselves, but volunteers and the public that we encounter. Through this story we experience the values that call us to act, the urgency of our cause and why we need to act now.

Telling our story works in three ways…

1. The key to motivation is understanding that values inspire action through emotions.

   Emotions inform us of what we value in the ourselves, in others, and in the world and enable us to express their motivational content to others. In other words, because we experience them emotionally, our values are what actually do move us to act, not just think that we ought to act.
   
   

2. Some emotions inhibit action, but other emotions facilitate action.

   Action in inhibited by inertia, fear, self-doubt, isolation and apathy. Action is facilitated by urgency, hope, you-can-make-a-difference, solidarity, and anger.

3. Through narrative we can articulate our values by communicating their emotional as well as conceptual content in three ways: plot, character, and moral.

   A plot begins with an unexpected challenge that confronts a character with an urgent need to pay attention, to make a choice for which s/he is unprepared. The choice yields an outcome — and the outcome teaches a moral. Because we can empathetically identify with the character, we can "feel" the moral. We not only hear about someone’s courage, we can be inspired by it.

A "story of self" tells why we have been called to serve. The key focus is on choice points, moments in our lives when our values are formed when we have to choose in the face of great uncertainty.

A "story of us" communicates why our community, organization, movement, campaign has been called to its mission. Just as with a person, the key is choice points in the life of the community and/or those moments that express the values underlying the work your organization does.

The "story of Obama for America" is the path our candidate has followed - starting with his roots, and his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, through the South side of Chicago doing community organizing, through his tenure as president of Harvard Law Review, through the Illinois Senate and now as the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.

The "story of now" communicates the urgent challenge we are called upon to face in the coming months, the hope we can face it successfully, and the choices we must make to act now.

Attendees then reflected on their personal stories and worked together to best communicate this to others.

Original post by Amanda Scott and software by Elliott Back