I began my book “How to Listen Like a Storyteller” with this story. I likened conscious storytelling to magic spells and introduced each chapter with a biographical anecdote.
I don’t remember much of my childhood. This is not because I had a difficult childhood or that there was something quietly traumatic afoot, in fact it was the opposite. My childhood was pretty great.
That said, my memories are pretty spotty. Instead of a general picture of my childhood, I can recall extremely narrow, vivid moments. I remember the sights, smells, feelings and the most subtle details. This story is ultimately about one moment: the moment I stopped a bully with a few words.
I consciously cast my first true magic spell in gym class during my senior year of high school.
There were other accidental spells I cast before that day, but I don’t count them because I did not know what I was doing. This event was intentional.
I was new to Peru Central High School in the north country of New York State. My family had moved to Peru over the summer, and I had managed to quickly get myself into several sticky predicaments. I did not want to move to Peru, obviously. Things were going well in my old high school: I was class president, on the varsity soccer and track team, the lead in the school musical, editor of the school yearbook, and on and on—and now my parents were moving my brother and me to this tiny town by the Canadian border. This was not fair. I was angry, and so I decided to make some waves.
I became a rebel. I dressed strangely, behaved strangely, and made some bold choices—one of which was to ask the most attractive girl in the school (in my opinion) to be my date to a Supertramp concert.
She said yes and it was fun, and when I returned, I got word that her boyfriend Bill wanted to fight me.
Bill was on the football team. I had just joined the soccer team. The date for the fight was scheduled and my friends on the soccer team decided to accompany me. They were advocating for a “rumble” down in the quarry—football team verses soccer team. It was out of hand.
As I am not a fighter—at all—I chose to independently approach Bill to see if there was another way to work this out. He admitted that the two of them had indeed broken up and he was upset. Bill, it turned out, was actually just a nice guy with a broken heart.
I thought this sticky predicament was over—until gym class. Another football player, a defensive end named Rob, still wanted the fight to happen. He decided on his own that the fight could happen immediately in gym class, only it would be me against him. He let me know this by shoving me into the bleachers during basketball warm-up.
That was when I discovered a number of the storytelling skills I now teach, and I used them very quickly and effectively on Rob. I don’t know how I knew to do these things, but I was grateful the wisdom found me in that moment.
The first thing that happened was I got quiet and paid attention.
I noticed that the gym teacher—also the football coach—had walked out of the gym. This meant I would have no adult intervention and that, most likely, the gym teacher was in favor of me getting whupped. The second thing was that though Rob was joined by a few other football players in the gym class, their faces told me that they were not interested in a fight. In fact, they seemed like they wanted Rob to stop doing what he was doing. The third thing I noticed was that there were other kids in the class who did not like Rob—clearly did not like him—and might intervene if needed. This was all good information.
And then I noticed the expression on Rob’s face. He was big, yes. Mean, yes. Strong, yes. But he was afraid. Seeing his fear and having assessed the environment, I somehow knew what to do.
I got up, walked over, stood face to face with him, and cast my magic spell. I allowed my entire body to become calm, and then spoke quietly so only he could hear my voice. I said, “You might hit me, but I won’t hit back. I’m not going to fight you, Rob. But I’m also not afraid of you.
”
As I tell this story now, I wish I had a more lyrical story to retell, but the truth is, my message to Rob needed to be simple and straightforward. I gave him room to follow through with his intentions but let him know he would not come out of it looking good. Most of all, I was calm and clear and I could immediately see that my words had inspired a transformation. They had begun to work on him.
Moments later he called me a name under his breath and then shouted to the others that it was time to play some basketball. We were done. He never bothered me again. In fact, we worked together on a few school projects later in the year.