The social landscape is made of stories.

We tell stories to explain the world and our relationship to it. We tell stories about ourselves and others. We tell stories to understand our past and to decide where we will go in the future.

3 rules for navigating the storyscape:

1. Story-telling is Our Super Power

In his classic book Sapiens: a brief history of humankind Yuval Noah Harari shows how the social landscape is created through the uniquely human ability to tell stories.

With our story telling ability, we weave vast networks called nations, corporations, families, and religions that make up what Harari calls "inter-subjective reality" and what we are going to call the social landscape. We tell stories then communities organize around those stories. The people that make up those tribes participate in the social landscape.

We give life to the vision of every story we participate in, and that is our super power.

2. You Are the Hero of Your Story

Here is an inescapable fact: you are the protagonist-the main character, the hero-of your own story.

The story of your life unfolds as a navigation of social settings and social groups. You are on a journey to figure out where you fit in, where you can contribute, where other people need you. Nothing is as devastating as not being needed. Nothing is as discouraging as not having somewhere to belong.

You are here to courageously go out into the world and find your place.

3. Out of the Tyranny, Into the Desert, is the Path to the Promised Land

Stories feel like heaven or hell.

The wrong stories feel like you are trapped inside hell. The eternal choice is to continue living inside the comfortable tyranny or bravely venture out into the desert in search of the promised land. Stories keep us safe from the chaotic uncertainty of the desert. But both death and life are found there.

There is only one path to heaven in the social landscape: out of the tyranny, into the desert, is the path to the promised land.

3 Rules for Navigating the Storyscape

The social landscape is made of stories. We tell stories to explain the world and our relationship t

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