Dad, can you tell me just one more story?

Have you ever witnessed a musician warm up before a show? You can hear them off stage practicing their range with "Do re me fa so la ti do." If you went to an elementary school anywhere you've heard that before. You [hopefully] already know how an athlete prepares for a game but there's one profession you probably don't know how, and unfortunately, it's yours. 

Here's a few questions I use during my pre-game warm ups: 

1. If you could choose one sporting event in all of history, what would it be? 
2. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
3. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow what's your last meal going to be? 

For me it's a gigantic plate of chips and cheese with two ice cold Pepsi’s straight out of the can. No wait, that's not how I would describe it. It's a heaping plate of thin cantina style tortilla chips. Not just any cantina chips, these are the chips that come in a white box from the Mexican grocery store. The kind of chips that can't make it home from the store without being opened and sampled from the front seat of the car. I would apply layer after layer of thick cheddar cheese. You know, the best kind of cheese. That real all-American Wisconsin processed cheddar in a resealable bag. It's important that there's enough cheese to plug me up for eternity. Therefore, I would just open the bag, dump out the cheese and chuck that bag straight in the dumpster. This is the kind of chips and cheese recipe that's one of those guilty pleasures. The kind of guilty pleasure you wish that you could eat until you were full just because you've always wanted to know how much it would take. 

On the job I relate almost every situation, challenge, and every solution to a story. Maybe it's a story about Dwight Schrute outselling the company's new e-commerce website, sometimes it's Herb Brooks giving the speech before the United States beat the Russians in Lake Placid. Maybe it's a personal story about my Grandfather buying me a limited-edition Wayne Gretzky hockey stick. The kind of story where a clerk mistakenly scans in the stick for $7 instead of the $99 it was supposed to bring in. That's exactly what happened and Gramps quickly turning to me with a casual notion, "hey Derks, go grab a couple more of those sticks." 

On the outside and on paper we all have fancy titles that associate themselves with us but strip mine away and all I really do is tell stories. Stories like this one....

Two young boys once went fishing with their dad on a perfect July day on a lake somewhere in Minnesota. The trio fished from sun up to sun down and didn't catch a single fish. It wasn't the bait, or the equipment but these boys were doomed before they even hit the water. The problem? They forgot their Babe Winkleman Fishing Sunglasses. You probably didn't know this but with Babe's fishing glasses a fisherman can see through the water and know exactly where the fish are? That is according to the father in this story (and a few incredible infomercials). So, on the way home the father's two young sons were elated to find out they were on their way to the store at that very moment to get their very own pair. As the father and his two sons sat three across in his small pickup, the father talked of a grand adventure back to the lake for a triumphant return someday. These two young sons could not wait to go fishing again someday soon with their dad. 

I tell stories for a living and all day, every day I talk to people. I talk to people on the phone, I talk to people online, and in meetings. I talk to people through my actions, through videos, through my service work and every day when I talk to people I am preparing for my real job because I'm often telling someone a story. 

You see the story about the Babe's fishing glasses didn't end with a triumphant fishing trip. In fact, it's the exact opposite and those two boys are still waiting on their fishing glasses. At the end of our story the father who was driving and full of enthusiasm ran a stop sign just before a major highway intersection. The small pickup truck they were traveling in was blind-sided by another truck traveling must faster than they were. Their small pick-up truck must have flipped 14 times before coming to a complete stop in the ditch off to the side of the highway. That little truck was no match for larger full-size truck that broadsided it. As the two boys got out of the truck unharmed with nearly a scratch on them they began to panic. Screaming and looking all over for one another it's as if it was simultaneous that when they noticed each other they both locked in on their father lying in the tall grass, unconscious and clinging to life. As the father's two young boys rolled him over onto his back they shook him attempting to wake him up. Only to realize in just a few short hours that the story about fishing glasses was the last conversation they would ever have with their father. Joe Laliberte died at the young age of 30. Those two young boys were my brother and I. I was only eight years old, my brother was six. That moment always replays in slow motion for me while that story is frozen in time. 

Every Tuesday I ask my team random questions like the three listed above. Questions that warm us up to get through a day of conversations. Through a day of telling stories to random people on a variety of different platforms. Not because I'm the Director of Brand Engagement, but rather because I'm a father of two kids who want to hear about my day as much as I want to hear about theirs. Because at the end of the day it's always "daddy, will you tell me a story?" Knowing how badly I wish my father could tell me one last story I always say yes. 

They're stories about buying an expensive hockey stick with my grandfather. Stories about my father carrying a kid up an icy hill who just broke his arm while sledding. They're stories about going to a Christmas tree farm and not having anyone to tie the tree to our car after we cut it down. Stories about my grandfather bringing his beagle into the hockey arena for a game regardless of how loud it barked at everything. Or the time my father taught me to skate, or the time my grandfather nearly sunk the pontoon boat. Happy stories, funny stories, triumphant stories, stories that teach a lesson, stories that inspire and then of course there are sad stories. Stories like the time my father took my brother and I fishing on the last day of his life. 

I know it appears that I may be in sales, or I may be in marketing but I'm a story teller by trade. Each day I'm just warming up to tell my kids about some grand adventure I experienced just as my grandfather and just as my father did for me. I'm a story teller. Nothing more, and nothing less and as a father, I guess you could say I took over the family business. 

“Daddy, can you come here and tell me a story?” Yes, daddy will be right there.

So what's your story?

This is a story about telling stories, for story tellers. I wrote it for my wife who loves Jack Pearson about as much if not more than she loves me. Jack Pearson was the ultimate family man.