How Stories Transform The Teller

Donald Davis, the American storyteller and author, has shared numerous stories during his lifetime, but there is a real-life story from his childhood that he considers as one that shaped his approach to life. In fact, as he looks back at his life, he feels this story has been instrumental in influencing his career in the field of storytelling.

This story goes back about 60 years, when Donald was growing up in Waynesville, North Carolina. His father’s name was Joe Davis. There were three others in the neighbourhood with the same name. Each Joe Davis came up with a unique identifier for himself so that people could tell one from the other. Donald’s father who worked at the first National Bank in the community decided to call himself Banker Joe.

When Donald was 13 years old, one day his mother was on her way to the Lady Fair beauty parlour. She didn’t want to take him along, so she dropped him off at the bank with his dad. At the bank his dad kept him busy with tasks like using the adding machine at the bank to add all the phone numbers in the directory. Once Donald was done adding all the numbers and his father had wrapped up his work, he took a final look around to ensure everything was in place before he locks the door of the bank.

As Banker Joe turned to lock the door, Mr Pitt McCarroll across the street was just locking the front door of Michaels furniture. They saw each other and Banker Joe greeted him by saying, “Hello Pitt, have a good night”.

Mr. McCarroll looked across and responded, “Well, Cripple Joe, you have a good night too”.

Donald and his dad walked to their car and began driving back home.?

Donald turned to his dad and said, “I didn’t like what he said to you. That man called you Cripple Joe. He was supposed to call you Banker Joe”.

His dad pulled the car into the parking space, turned off the ignition and said, “Let me tell you a little story”.

Donald already knew the beginning of the story. His father was number 8 of 13 children.

His family lived on the farm and when his dad was five years old, one day he was out at the barn, watching his father and older brothers splitting wooden logs to put a new roof over their house.

As a five year old, his father was fascinated watching the process. He wanted to help them but he was strictly forbidden from coming anywhere near the sharp axe. While his grandmother called the family for a meal, little Joe saw his father and brothers walking away from the wooden logs and the axe. He thought this was his chance to try his hands at chopping wooden logs.?

He picked up the axe and began chopping everything he could see around. Things were going well for little Joe till his mother called out for him. He realised that he better get to the dinner table before he gets caught. In a hurry, he tried to swing the axe back into the log but? the blade of the axe landed on his kneecap, right in the centre of his leg.

The nearest hospital was miles away and while the family got Joe to the hospital, the doctors had to remove the kneecap. Joe was left with the crippled leg and a deep scar.

By the time he was in high school, Joe began to realise he was going to have to find a way to make a living in a way that didn't involve working on the farm. He got to know of an institution called Kings Business College where he could get trained to find himself a suitable job.?

Soon after graduation he headed to Kings Business College with all his savings. But all his savings put together could only pay for one term. He begged the college to let him stay and learn as much as he could till the money ran out.

Before that term was over the management of the college came back and told him to go home and not waste the rest of his money. They explained that in less than one term he had learned all of the business bookkeeping, typing and shorthand that they normally teach in two years.??

So he got back home without even the piece of paper to show that he had ever been to college but with skills that got him his job as the first professional business manager at a wholesale grocery store.

The next year his father died, leaving him with younger siblings to take care of. For the next 20 years he worked tirelessly to support his siblings and his mother. So by the time he was 40, Joe had forgotten two things – getting married and spending money on himself.

He was 41 when an old man who had started a little bank in Waynesville decided to sell it and Joe entered the deal. This was also the phase when he met the love of his life and got married. And this is how Cripple Joe became Banker Joe.

As Donald sat listening to his dad in their car, it had gotten dark outside. With his eyes gleaming in the dark, his dad said, “Son, don’t you get it? Don’t you get it that if I hadn’t gotten to be Cripple Joe, I would have never gotten to be Banker Joe?”

“If I had never gotten to be Cripple Joe, I would be ploughing with mules on the farm”.

“You must learn that it is never tragic when something people think is bad happens to you because if you can learn to use it right, it buys you a ticket to a place you would never have gone otherwise”, he said as he wrapped up his story.

After that day, it was okay with Donald if people called his dad Banker Joe but what he really liked was when people knew his dad’s whole story well enough to look at him and say, “Hello Cripple Joe.”

?That's the story Donald had heard once when he was 13 and years passed without him really thinking about it but of course he never forgot the story. About 30 years later he was already a storyteller and beginning to work with people on their stories when he visited his father who was then in his late 80s.?

All of a sudden for some reason that story came back and Donald said to his dad, “How did you get to be able to tell your story the way you told it to me? Had you ever told anyone your story like that before?”

His dad looked at him and? said, “Only about 200 times”.

And Donald got to hear a little story that he had almost missed.

His dad said that when?at age five he came back home from the hospital with the cripple leg, his mother sat him down at the kitchen table and she said, “Joe now it’s time for you to tell the story”.

?Joe said that he didn't want to tell the story because telling the story wouldn't change anything. He was cripple.

She looked at him and said, “You're not telling the story to change what happened. You are telling the story to change you.”

She made him tell his story over and over again and every time he told it, she gave him a different agenda.??

She would say, “Now Joe, this time tell the story and tell what you learned by living through that experience.”

?And then another time,? “Now tell the story and talk about what you think your daddy and I learned from living through that experience”.

?And eventually it was, “Tell the story and tell what you think the doctors learned from living through that experience”.

And Joe and his mother went on and on.?

One day she said, “Now Joe, if you don't tell this story enough when you're 50 years old and you look at your leg, you'll be 5 again, because when something happens to you,? it’s on top of you like a rock. If you never tell the story it’s on you forever. But when you tell the story you climb out from under that rock and eventually you sit up on top of it”.

One day she said, “Now Joe, today tell the story and tell what you get to do now that your brothers don't get to do?”

Joe told the story and all of a sudden he was smiling because he realised that he gets to stay in the house and read while his brothers work on the farm. His mother had him tell that story until he was about 15 years old and he began to feel that chopping his leg was the best thing he had ever done in his life.??

He realised that his mother was right. The story doesn't change what happened but the story has the remarkable power to completely change our whole relationship to what happened.?

As a coach I too work with people and their stories. The experience of exploring one’s story can bring massive transformation. However, what is interesting is that just listening to stories or even reading them can create inner shifts. Perhaps, reading stories that are not our own creates a subtle balance of psychological distance from the story and the relatability of what is being explored in the story. It creates a safe space for us to unpack those parts of our own stories that we may not have explored yet. It was this insight that inspired me to curate a set of diverse personal stories in my book, The Tenth Story.?

I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude for all the love and support that I have received ever since I announced that the book is ready. Given that now we are just weeks away from the release of the book, I am feeling a mix of excitement as well as anxiety, and all the love and encouragement that is coming my way is really helping me stay calm. Thank you so much for supporting me.

I hope you have an amazing and joyful week ahead.