Maybe I was an insecure child growing up. Or maybe I was neurotic. Or maybe I was both.  But was I the only kid that worried about throwing a birthday party and no one showing up?

As a child I would decorate the backyard, mix fruit punch, and stare at my cake wishing, hoping, and praying people would attend. As the minutes ticked by I would grow more and more anxious with the fear that I would sit alone in my closet inhaling birthday cake by myself with a lamp shade on my head, drinking fruit punch and singing “Only the Lonely.”

On Saturday my childhood fear became my reality. I waited in an empty ballroom as minutes ticked by before a workshop I was going to teach on storytelling. My session was the last workshop of the workshops, on the last day of the conference, after the last lunch. Needless to say I was nervous no one would come. Blissdom‘s a technology and social media conference bustling with entrepreneurs and bloggers. This was not where I usually teach nor was the content what I usually share. From material, to location, to conference, to people, every.thing.was.new.

[Insert closet and cake eating scenario here.]

Ten minutes before the session starts, I ask the audio guy if we can put on some music. He plays elevator music. And then I die a slow painful death because people aren’t coming in and this Kenny G instrumental might as well be my funeral dirge. I have to run an audible! Game plan: I sprint to my  laptop, run an L-shape formation, toss my computer open to Justin Timberlake’s greatest contribution to music [touch down!], and casually walk over to the first person to enter the room: JON ACUFF.

Listen friends, Jon is quite possibly the nicest and sweetest guy I know. Not only is he hilarious, but he’s generous. He not only tweeted for people to attend the workshop, he actually attended the workshop. As in: he was the first person to arrive in the utterly empty hotel ballroom.

[Hand me the fruit punch, I’m drowning my sorrows in high fructose corn syrup.]

The picture below is a side-by-side photo of what the room looked like 15 minutes before the workshop and what the room looked like at start time. Yes, there are FOUR people in the entire room.

I shook hands, smiled at unfamiliar faces, and prayed that this was just a dream. I asked the assistant is we should delay the start because obviously people were stuck getting lunch. Obviously. I smiled and waited for her to respond while winking and shooting air guns with my hands like a used car salesman. Someone please stop me.

We had to start.

I began the session with a silent prayer in my head and approached the podium. The writing workshop dealt with storytelling and the narrative arc of writing. Character. Conflict. Redemption.

Here’s the part where I would LOVE to say that 10,000 rushed into the hotel ballroom all chanting my name, giving me flowers, and awarding me with a sash and crown. [I was in Texas, people! Let me dream.] But it didn’t quite pan out like that. Shall I say I was the Character and this was my Conflict? Yes, yes I shall.

As people slowly trickled in and we discussed how truly great characters develop–-their ability to face conflict, thinking of others before themselves, believing in their agency to change the world-–I slowly began to see a story unfold in the room. Honesty leads to change, change leads to pain, pain leads to transformation. 

In the stillness of the cavernous ballroom, stories began to unfold, truth shared, hearts opened. The tension of revisiting tragedies in our lives required us to wrestle through the weight and reality of our lives as characters.

To understand our story, we need to know our tragedies. As we learn them, we will catch a glimpse of how we currently manage tension.

There—in a ballroom with 70 people in Dallas, Texas—storytellers stepped into owning the painful parts of their story to experience the freedom in believing pain can have a purpose. Our stories can be one of redemption or reinvention… but the storyteller must allow the character to change.

I didn’t wear any lamps shades over my head and thankfully I didn’t run to any carbs. But we did a party. And if we were celebrating anything, it was the birth of freedom not only from our pain, but for our liberty.

For my new friends at Blissdom, thank you for bravely telling your story. Your bravery will allow others to walk in courage. Live good stories, be a good story.

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