Tag Archive for: Philosophy

Using Narrative Structure to Improve Corporate Training

Gandalf the Grey from The Lord of the Rings stands on a stone path in the lush green hills of the Shire. Wearing his iconic pointed wizard hat and gray robes, he holds his wooden staff while overlooking the idyllic countryside. Sunlight breaks through clouds in the background, illuminating the pastoral landscape of rolling hills and distant fields that stretches toward the horizon. The scene captures Gandalf as the wise mentor figure at the beginning of the hero's journey.

The human brain sitting in your skull today didn’t evolve to process bullet points and data tables. It descended from ancestors who survived the harshest conditions on Earth without a single written manual. They passed critical knowledge from generation to generation through stories around fires, tales of where to find food, which plants could heal, and how to avoid danger.

As I often told my high school students: “The perfect brain for PowerPoint died in the Ice Age.”

Our neural architecture is wired for narrative. It’s why people will sit through a three-hour Marvel movie with a full bladder but struggle to stay awake through a ten-minute slide presentation. It’s why every major religious text consists primarily of stories rather than bulleted lists of commandments. And it’s why the most durable pieces of human knowledge are ancient tales that have survived millennia.

Yet somehow, when we design corporate training, we often ignore this fundamental truth about how humans learn.

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My Training Triforce

An edited image featuring Link from *The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* in the background, slightly blurred, standing in a dimly lit temple with his fairy companion, Navi. Overlaid in the foreground is the Triforce symbol, but with the central triangle replaced by a blue inverted triangle.

If I ever time travel back to sometime between 1999 and 2002 to tell myself to buy Apple stock, finding my past self will be really easy. I’ll be at school or within six feet of a Nintendo 64 with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sticking out of the top.

To this day, I remember the songs to summon Epona and warp to the Temple of Time.

Perhaps these pivotal childhood memories are making me see an apt analogy where there isn’t one, but stick with me (through 3,600 words), and I’ll talk a lot about what I think makes for great training experiences.

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Five Books That Changed My Thinking in 2024

A grand library interior with tall, ornate wooden bookshelves filled with neatly arranged books. The shelves are framed by decorative columns, and the ceiling features a series of curved wooden arches with metal accents, creating a symmetrical and majestic architectural design. Warm lighting enhances the richness of the wood and the historic ambiance of the space.

As a kid, I was never far from my children’s encyclopedia; I was a voracious reader and especially loved non-fiction. However, as an adult, I do most of my learning through audiobooks, podcasts, and YouTube. That is until a few years ago when I started rebuilding my reading habit by switching from scrolling social media to reading ebooks.

Even more recently, I have come full circle back to physical books. Mainly because I realized that reading on a phone just looks the same as scrolling social media and doesn’t help me model the reading habit I want my son to build. As a bonus, I got to experience these five books, which have significantly shaped my thinking. Perhaps one will resonate with you too.

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Year of Execution

An inviting pathway meanders through a lush forest at sunrise, with the early morning light casting a warm, golden glow over the verdant surroundings. The path symbolizes a journey of personal growth and the pursuit of goals, enveloped in the tranquility and beauty of nature, embodying optimism and inspiration for a new beginning.

Coincidentally, right at the start of the pandemic lockdowns in my area, I declared 2020 the Year of Healthy Habits. While there were plenty of health-related events going on at the time, not a ton of them were being generated by me.

I mostly spent the time trying not to freak myself out, supporting my wife, who was basically working 24/7 at our local hospital, and being (essentially) the sole caregiver to a kindergartener. So, the Year of Healthy Habits didn’t quite have the impact I had hoped.

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Cognitive Load Is Real – Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a prolific author in the marketing/business world. I have always enjoyed listening to interviews with him and have several of his audiobooks. I can’t believe that I have not been reading his blog.

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