“Why there are so many wars in the world? Many people tell you that people fight for the same reasons that other animals fight. It’s just natural. You fight over territory, you fight over food, the same way that chimpanzees and wolves and lions fight. This is just not true. Humans don’t fight over territory and food. They fight over imaginary stories in their minds. And this is true of other conflicts in the world. You look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia doesn’t lack territory. The last thing they need is more land. And so why do they fight? People fight over the stories in their mind. Like, I come, I work in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University, and you know, it’s one of the most fought over places in human history. It’s hard to understand why. It’s not such a great place. You know, I mean, it’s a very ordinary place. You walk around, it’s just, you know, you have stones, trees, cats, pigeons, and people. Just like any other place. There are no oil fields, there are no gold mines, nothing. But in their imagination, people think, oh, this is not a stone, this is a holy stone. This is not just any place. It’s full of angels, gods, saints, and prophets. And they fight over this.”
– Yuval Noah Harari
Maggie Clement is an amazing hypnotherapist, based in Portland, Maine. I spent many sessions with her when I was self-curing my “incurable” voice disorder, Spasmodic Dysphonia. During one session, she asked me how many negative thoughts a day I was having about my voice. It turned out it was hundreds, literally hundreds. That awareness changed everything for me and today my “incurable” voice disorder is gone.
“Tell yourself a better story,” Maggie said to me, and I have never forgotten those words.
Storytelling is the most underrated leadership skill of the 21st Century. Everything is a story we chose to believe in. The U.S. dollar, the Constitution, Christianity, democracy, the value of gold, human decency – all of it is a story we chose to believe in. Humanity needs a better story and that better story is in competition with past based stories of sectionalism, tribalism, nationalism, and fear. I’m hoping this short video by Yuval Noah Harari will encourage us all to stop and think about the stories we are choosing to believe in and, where appropriate, tell ourselves a better one.
Thank you for reading, watching, thinking, and acting! We must become the change we wish to see in this world.
Love and light to you!
— Kevin
