Personal Narrative Process
The Personal Narrative Process is a proven method to creatively define your identity and embark on a purposeful path to Ingenious Living, the examined life worth living.
A Personal Narrative is a compelling story that communicates a genuine sense of your individual identity. It is a realistic portrayal of both who you are now and who you have been in the past. It is also a powerful way to imagine who you have the desire and potential to become.
Generating this kind of story requires a systematic process of self-observation, honest description, and creative reflection. This is why the Personal Narrative Process was developed.
Whether you are an executive or professional "in transition," a mother about to re-engage in the workforce, an emerging entrepreneur or a student embarking on a major writing project developing a clear self-identity as a function of your past, current relationships and future expectations contextualizes and adds fuel to your story.
Dennis began this narrative work in private engagements through his Success Narratives Booklets and now has partnered with Frank Lehner of Duquesne University's School of Leadership and Principal of Divanation LLC, a Women's Leadership Consultancy in Pittsburgh, PA to deliver a 157 page self guided PNP or Personal Narrative Process-the Settled Living Series.
Dennis' recent lecture engagement at the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Rochester stitched the following beliefs central to a person's narrative into participants' entrepreneurial enterprises:
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Six beliefs concerning individual identity and Personal Narrative are at the heart of Dennis' Lecture Series "Identity Based Entrepreneurship:"
- Individuals live in stories and when they creatively participate in these stories, they are productively and passionately engaged with their lives. This is why collecting and crafting your Personal Narrative is immediately relevant to everyday living. Your narrative tells the story of who you are. It articulates your individual identity as the intention behind all that you do, the motive for your strivings, and the value you place on your relationships, activities, and goals. While much in life is not of one's choosing, success and fulfillment are about the choices that one does make. By participating in the Personal Narrative Process, you are taking responsibility for your individual identity. Knowing and living your Personal Narrative gives you a perspective from which to make response-able choices.
- A full and fulfilling Personal Narrative must encompass both the continuity and change in a person's life. Your identity naturally grows, develops, and evolves as you go through life. If your identity doesn't change, you are not learning from your experience. On the other hand, if your identity is constantly changing, your life lacks direction and it's easy to lose perspective. Without continuity, there is no place from which to evaluate change. The Personal Narrative Process is particularly suited to capturing identity because it connects your past, present, and future into an integrated whole and thereby recognizes continuity even while it acknowledges change. Your Personal Narrative lets you see yourself (continuity) as you were, are, and may become (change).
- Individuals create Personal Narratives from a shared or unshared (as in the case of discrimination) stock of stories and beliefs common to our culture and era—a part of life that we do not choose. To imagine that you are free to make up any kind of story you want would be to ignore the realities we all face. Race, gender, social influence, and economic power permeate our beliefs and configure everyone's stories. Even though you are never the absolute or even the sole author of your story, critically reflecting on your beliefs leads to more conscious choices in your story including the choice of how to respond to gender roles, racial discrimination, and other ethical, political, and social dilemmas.
- The drama in a Personal Narrative comes from appreciating all of life's joys and its sadness. No one can be happy all the time. Our society's prescription to always be happy carries a dark side of unrealistic expectations and insinuates that if you are not happy there must be something wrong with you (an individual deficit, defect, disorder, or shortcoming!). A well-lived life contains a not always fair share of failure, sadness, and suffering, along with great potential for success, joy, and fulfillment. One of the things that make us human is that we tell stories in order to make sense of and find meaning in our joy and in our sadness.
- People want their Personal Narratives to be connected with something greater than themselves as individuals. Most of us long to participate in a project, a dream, or a vision that has real value and importance for the world around us. We want our stories, our Personal Narratives to be part of broader stories that root us in a bigger picture in which we have neighbors and friends. Think about your own involvement in a church, civic group, or community organization. Such involvement enriches life because we join with others in pursuit of shared ideals that benefit the common good. Community connections, especially those based on humane values and directed toward worthy goals, deepen our individual experience and add a soulful, spiritual dimension to our identities.
- Work is a big part of a Personal Narrative. People go to work to exercise skills they enjoy and to create an identity of which they can be proud. Work is, or ought to be, something that offers a significant degree of intrinsic gratification. At its best, work—whether building a better mousetrap or finding a cure for a dreadful disease—can be a satisfying project that involves important relationships and core values. People are motivated as much by meaning in their work as they are by money or status. Work belongs in our stories; a vibrant Personal Narrative is essential to finding and succeeding in work that you can take pride in and that contributes to a fulfilling identity.
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Email Dennis at askdennis@hotmail.com to arrange for a live chat or private phone meeting about this program.
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