The Storybranding Group

In the stage production of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Tinker Bell is brought back to life when the audience claps enough to show her they believe in fairies. The iconic scene had so much impact it inspired social scientists to frame up the Tinkerbell effect—a concept describing things that can only exist because people believe in them.  

This effect is the stock in trade of anyone who identifies strongly with the Magician story type.  Every Magician asks others to believe in something that can’t be seen or experienced in the present moment, to accept that an intangible vision can indeed be realized—and to see that change is not only possible but necessary.  

Alfa Demmellash is a great example of the Magician at work.  She’s co-founder of Rising Tide, a New Jersey non-profit with a mission to transform lives and communities through entrepreneurship. The organization helps seemingly unlikely entrepreneurs in underserved places develop business strategies and get access to capital for their business dreams.  She sees possibilities in places where other people usually don’t.

Demmellash describes her work in very Magician terms. For her, it’s about helping people with limited resources and educational opportunities communicate their very real visions; align their internal passions with external needs; be very intentional about what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with so that business ecosystems start to form.

Connecting the dots for business good

There’s an even bigger vision behind all this—no less than transforming the way business actually works.  She wants to connect the broken dots between why economies and marketplaces exist and the human and planetary wellbeing she thinks they should be serving.  For her, that involves rethinking competition, collaboration, and innovation in ways that integrate and channel those things towards good.

These big ideas spring from some surprising sources. Demmellash is the daughter of an Ethiopian refugee mother who started an entrepreneurial sewing business of her own once she arrived in the United States. Demmellash joined her here 10 years later, finding the life of a mother she’d always imagined “like a fairy/magical goddess with a castle of her own” to be rather different than the hard-working reality of a Boston waitress who sewed gowns for extra money.  Her own path and vision started forming right then.   

Understanding the Magician’s gift

This is my ninth post in a 12-part series about resilience and the unique gifts each story type brings to the table.  A resilient Magician is someone who’s deeply motivated by the opportunity to effect change and transformation (usually shaped by a unique vision they hold for themselves, their workplaces, or the communities). Intuitive and open to synchronicities, Magicians see and feel things that others often don’t.  They’re usually able to reframe ideas, concepts, and situations in ways that help others understand them better and eventually buy in as well.

Non-resilient Magicians can be overtaken by feelings of disempowerment, though—especially when their visions and dreams start to feel out of reach or if too many obstacles start to pile up in front of them.  They can also become very impatient with others who don’t get quickly onboard and may begin over-promising things that will be tough to deliver in order to gain more support.  Sometimes they lose confidence in themselves, allowing a voice of doubt to overtake their natural intuition. 

The path back to resilience for a Magician involves activating another inherent trait—flexibility—and using that strength to see and pivot towards possibility instead of hanging on too tightly to a highly fixed vision.  Magicians can displace disempowerment with more expansive thinking, and by changing the way they take in and frame what’s going on around them.

How do Alfa Demmellash and others like her do that? Truly resilient Magicians seems to focus on a few key approaches that elevate resilience, such as:  

• They keep on reconnecting the dots in the world around them, looking for new patterns of meaning to understand and act on (a major focus for Demmellash)
• They pivot when things around them change, even in seemingly intractable ways (like Demmellash in her evolving approach to the automation that’s displacing people in a variety of business settings)
• They stay open to new possibilities and ways of doing things (in the case of Demmellash, by staying open to what the new workplace looks like and how communities of collaboration will shift and evolve)
• They up-level their vision to stay focused on their ultimate intention and let go of the pieces that aren’t working out (for Demmellash, that looks like charting a course towards higher consciousness, co-creation, and human evolution)

Ultimately, Magicians learn to balance their need for enrollment and admiration with a healthier approach to engagement.  While the belief of others saved Tinker Bell, too much reliance on other people to prop them up can end up being dangerous terrain. Resilient Magicians learn to believe in themselves—and to get other people involved to share ideas and build on (or reshape) what they envision could take shape.   

 So, here’s what our resilience chart looks like now with the addition of Magician:

Type	Non-resilient state	Resilience-building attribute or gift	Resilience-building focus	Related values
Ruler	Insecurity	Confidence	Progress	Responsibility, Role Modeling, Influence
Everyperson	Voicelessness	Empathy	Solidarity	Community, Justice, Fairness
Caregiver	Overwhelm	Compassion	Human potential	Service, Kindness, Development
Innocent	Disillusionment	Optimism	Hope	Ideals, Faith, Values in Action
Hero	Exhaustion	Mastery	Achievement	Action, Drive, Making a Difference
Creator	Lifelessness	Imagination	Re-invention	Invention, Ideation, Expression
Explorer	Restriction	Growth mindset	Meaning	Discovery, Individualism, Experience
Lover	Disconnection	Relationship building	Passion	Aliveness, Appreciation, Commitment
Sage	Doubt	Perspective	Curiosity	Insight, Clarity, Wisdom
Magician	Disempowerment	Flexibility	Possibility	Vision, Intuition, Intention

Activating the Magician resilience quotient

So how can you be a more resilient Magician—and/or activate the gifts of Magician as you become a more resilient professional?  

Magicians need space and time for dreaming, for visioning, for connecting the dots, and for keeping the big picture top of mind.  If you haven’t actually articulated a vision for yourself, your team, or your business—get a process for that going right now.  Once developed, stay in touch with it daily in tangible ways.  

When it comes to specific circumstances or situations where you feel yourself veering towards disempowerment, ask yourself the following questions:    

• What else is possible here?
• What haven’t I seen?
• How can I reframe what’s going on?
• What do I need to change or transform in myself?
• What’s my intention here, and are my actions and attitudes actually supporting that?
• Where do I need to be more flexible, and how would I benefit from that?

And remember—if you believe, clap your hands!   

Cindy Atlee is a Creator type (with a Magician-flecked attitude) who loves to help professionals, teams, and organizations understand and express who they really are in the world.  She’s the co-author of the Professional Strengths, Values & Story Survey (take the free version here: https://www.storybranding.com/take-the-svss-survey/).  

 

SPOILER ALERT: If you don’t want to know what happens in the Netflix documentary “My Octopus Teacher,” watch it before you read!

Can igniting your curiosity feel like saving your life—or maybe salvaging your authentic purpose in the world?  Craig Foster thinks so.  His documentary, My Octopus Teacher, literally glows with the beauty and insight that emerged after unleashing his inquisitive nature in, well, nature itself.

A burned-out filmmaker at the start of the documentary, Foster was filled with doubt about himself and his future.  While he doesn’t share the details of his exhaustion, Foster seems like someone who’s used to having answers.  Clearly without them now, he’s instinctively drawn to follow the example of African trackers he featured in another documentary some 20 years ago—trackers who succeeded by keenly observing the intricate details of their terrain so they came to know and understand its many clues.

It’s a classic Sage response to the world, one that shows up in the relationship Foster forms with an octopus living in the South African kelp forest he swims with each day.  The lightning bolt for rebuilding his resilience and renewing his passion comes when he realizes there’s something profound for him to learn from the octopus.

Foster acts on an essential impulse inside him to observe something in a way that allows him to actually know it–and to learn kinesthetically by experiencing the animal in the environment where she lives.  His resilience is restored when she teaches him what he needs to know for moving past doubt. 

This is my eighth post in a twelve-part series about resilience, and how the unique gifts of each story type make building it more than a one-size-fits-all proposition.  I’ve been writing about the distinct ways an individual or group can lean into their most natural and effective way to bounce back from adversity, and better adapt to the frequently changing world around them.  

This post is about the Sage story type, whose resilience journey often involves a shift from doubt and grasping for answers to embracing the kind of curiosity that allows wisdom to emerge.  

Understanding the Sage’s Gift

A resilient Sage is someone who’s motivated by studying, observing, investigating, synthesizing, and ultimately deriving real insight and wisdom by doing so. Sages are fascinated by intriguing questions, puzzles, and mysteries.  They want to understand and clarify what’s going on around them and share what they’ve learned with others.   

Non-resilient Sages can get overwhelmed by doubt, though—in themselves, in how much they know, in whether or not they actually have the answers.  They can get stuck in a vicious cycle of ruminating and collecting more and more information.  They may never be satisfied enough to actually apply their knowledge, and can also get trapped in a singular viewpoint or defensive posture about their expertise. Sometimes, they even begin to live in a theoretical construct that isn’t connected to the real-world challenges or the emotional needs of themselves or those around them.   

Since Sages have the capacity for developing deep perspective and clarity, their path back to resilience often involves a shift in viewpoint. When doubt is replaced with curiosity, Sages can more readily relax into comfort with not knowing, a love of the question as much as the answer, and an openness to learning new truths.  That’s what happened for Craig Foster. 

Fueled by curiosity, he immersed himself in observation and study of the octopus—and Foster found that there was so much there to know and understand.  He visited her daily for more than a year, plunging into frigid waters for another “lesson.” He was particularly taken by her intelligence, and how her environment required her to be a constant learner as she continuously outwitted the predators around her.  He in turn wanted to know everything he could about her; what she thought, what she observed, what was on her mind as she responded.  

And because he became so immersed in her world, Foster ultimately felt much of the lived experience with her was helping him get to know himself.  He became both interested in knowing something new for science and something new for his own heart. He began to wonder if the relationship might be providing the octopus both stimulation and joy in return.  

Craig Foster literally learned his way back to himself and his life purpose from this octopus Sage.  And what did she teach him?  

• That he needed to observe, pay attention, become more “sensitized to the other(s)” around him
• That just as the octopus came from and returned to the sea, we’re all a part of something that makes us not visitors but participants on this planet even as we come and go
• That wild places are precious and that his energy revolved around knowing them and protecting them (which then led him to found the Sea Change Project as his next big step in life)

Ultimately, Foster learned enough to shift perspective about where he was going and open himself up to change.  That’s a uniquely Sage gift.  So let’s add Sage to the “gift of resilience” story type chart we’re building out in this series.  Here’s where we’re at:

Type	Non-resilient state	Resilience-building attribute or gift	Resilience-building focus	Related values
Ruler	Insecurity	Confidence	Progress	Responsibility, Role Modeling, Influence
Everyperson	Voicelessness	Empathy	Solidarity	Community, Justice, Fairness
Caregiver	Overwhelm	Compassion	Human potential	Service, Kindness, Development
Innocent	Disillusionment	Optimism	Hope	Ideals, Faith, Values in Action
Hero	Exhaustion	Mastery	Achievement	Action, Drive, Making a Difference
Creator	Lifelessness	Imagination	Re-invention	Invention, Ideation, Expression
Explorer	Restriction	Growth mindset	Meaning	Discovery, Individualism, Experience
Lover	Disconnection	Relationship building	Passion	Aliveness, Appreciation, Commitment
Sage	Doubt	Perspective	Curiosity	Insight, Clarity, Wisdom

 

Activating the Sage resilience quotient 

How can you learn from the octopus yourself, in an environment that likely seems nothing like that underwater kelp forest?  

Well, we live in a pretty wild world ourselves if you think about it. Predators don’t show up in quite the way they did for the octopus, although it’s not hard to make a metaphor for that.  Resilience in the sea and in the working world always has a survival component to it—and the possibility for the joy Craig Foster felt in coming to know the octopus.   

A resilient Sage needs time to reflect and observe—things that are often in short supply in our fast-paced working worlds.  If you’re drawn to the Sage story type, do whatever it takes to carve some time out for yourself, and consider these questions for building more of that resilience (remembering that these questions help groups with a collective Sage identity as well):

• What could you get curious about in a current situation where you feel stuck?
• What’s the gift in not knowing more than you do right now?
• If you had to stop taking in any new information and act on what you know at this time, how could you apply the insights you already have?
• What’s a new question you could ask to shift your perspective on something? 
• What would you love to learn more about and what kind of learning experience excites you most?  

And remember to love the questions as much as the answers!    

Cindy Atlee is a Creator type (often inspired by Sages!) who loves to help professionals, teams and organizations understand and express who they really are in the world.  She’s the co-author of the Professional Strengths, Values & Story Survey (take the free version here: https://www.storybranding.com/take-the-svss-survey/).