Listen deeply; storytellers are listeners first.

principle — attributed to Colin Cowie

Cowie's framing of his job is that it is the storyteller's responsibility to listen deeply. To be a good storyteller, you have to be a good listener. The principle inverts the common assumption that storytellers are good at speaking. The actual craft is in the listening that precedes the telling. The story the host tells should be the client's story, told back through the host's instruments. A host who has not listened cannot tell a story that lands; the host who has listened can tell one that feels inevitable. The discipline generalizes for any role whose value depends on serving someone else's narrative: brand strategy, journalism, biography, design.

For event producers, brand storytellers, and creative directors thinking about their craft. The principle is most useful as a self-check when the producer has been emphasizing their own creative signature at the client's expense.

listening, storytelling, deep-listening, responsibility