It was another long travel day yesterday (you’ll see a theme here) and another opportunity to listen to podcasts and books while driving. It turns out the podcasts that are a good cure for insomnia are not best suited for those long straight drives in northern British Columbia on the way to the Northwest Territories, so I looked for something more upbeat. I found myself listening to a popular Mel Robbins podcast.
Now I spent a lot of time researching longevity, nutrition, endurance, all of those things usually in scientific podcast that can be quite boring at times, so I was astonished at how Mel Robbin‘s guest William Li (also a scientist) was able to turn the need for weight loss into something everybody wanted to do instead of something that involve deprivation. Let me explain.
Certainly there are foods to avoid, and he talks about these (pop (all that sugar), bottled water (all those microplastics), artificial sweeteners and emulsifiers (your poor microbiota!). But more than this, he focuses on the foods you need to be healthy, and how wonderfully we can cook them. He had me wanting to stop to buy pomegranates, tomatoes and canned fish! Using stories, thinking about his audience, he was able to make dieting and weigh loss (really visceral fat loss) seem fun!
In his book Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari explains how the power of information doesn’t revolve around truth, it revolves around community, and how stories bring people together.
Yuval Noah Harari: ‘We are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them.’
When I think about how to use stories in powerful ways in education, I think back to a presentation from Warren Hoshizaki during my superintendent qualifications (SOQPs) back in 2012. He talked about becoming the Director of Education in District School Board of Niagara, and I listened because he was from Rainy River, right in my own back yard at the time. He talked about how to pull people together around a story or a belief or a narrative of what’s possible, and I recall how he was able to integrate the journeys and pathways of all students into one belief – The Sky’s the Limit.
He didn’t just try to tell the story, he used the power of music to gather people around that story and tie them together as part of a culture that believed in possibility.
Featured Image by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
References:
I’m Dr. William Li. Years ago, when I first set out on my journey to study food as medicine, I realized what I was up against. The food industry did not care about health, and the health industry did not care about food. I am a medical scientist, and my mission is to bridge both of those worlds to help people everywhere become healthier while enjoying — and not being afraid of — their food.
