Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September. I am reflecting today on I have been privileged to travel the world and see how people work in different countries.

Six years ago Jeff Raymond, James Dockery and myself taught our very first Storytellers Abroad Multimedia Workshop in Lisbon, Portugal.

As much as we taught we also were learning. We learned from the students about what they needed to be ready for the workshop. We learned we had assumed some really basics and quickly realized we needed to spell out everything we could in writing.

Before the workshop participants leave from the US to go to an overseas location their computers are checked out to be sure Adobe Premiere Pro will work on their laptop. We check to be sure there is enough free space on the hard drive to handle the work for the week ahead on the workshop.

For most every participant this is their first story where they are responsible for the entire process. Doing research, interviewing the subject, editing the video, finding music and once it is completed also helping to market it to their audience.

The instructors have years of experience doing this for businesses and nonprofits as well. We walk along side them step-by-step to help them in each step. We are coaching them. It is similar to a coach in sports. We are there on the sidelines helping them and letting them play the sport.

We have created a spreadsheet we put up in the classroom so that everyone can see not just where they are in the process, but each other as well. We learned that to keep people from falling through the cracks we were going to have to be very intentional.

Here are three instructors with a workshop participant helping them with the storyline. There were problems that happened in the process and all of us were trying to help salvage a story.

Most participants think we are teaching them how to use the software, their cameras, audio and other tools of the trade. We are teaching all this, but the one thing that is the priority over everything is the storyline and them understanding how to tell this to the audience. Why should they care?

Each time we picked a new location, so many of the former workshop participants would sign up for another workshop.

On that first workshop for a person it wasn’t uncommon for them to be in tears. The learning curve was so difficult they thought. What was really happening for most of them was a mixture of things happening all at once.

The cross cultural experience had so many frustrated. It wasn’t just the language but the different World Views that these people in the foreign country had on any topic.

While working on my own story I will never forget each farmer I asked what this Coffee Cooperative did for them they all said they now had more money.

After a while I realized I had to ask one more question, which opened up my eyes and my audience as to what more money meant to them. What can you buy that you couldn’t do before. Edmundo Ballinas Santiago told me on one of my trips to Salvador Urbina, in Chiapas, Mexico that had it not been for the cooperative, when his wife got cancer he would have had to choose between selling the farm to save his wife or keep the farm and lose his wife.

Here are a few lessons I have learned since teaching others how to do storytelling. First you will meet people who will open up your worldview and help you to broaden your horizons.

One of the best things I love is being invited into other people’s kitchens. I wanted to be sure the students saw a typical kitchen in Nicaragua in this village. They needed to see there was no a pantry of food. There was not a spice rack. They didn’t have a refrigerator with things to prepare.

Without much of material things they were some of the happiest people I have encountered.

The best thing about traveling and doing storytelling is that the world helps open your eyes, heart and mind up to people who are different and make you look at your own life with fresh eyes.

If you are interested in Storytelling and would like to have a coach work with you as you learn the craft. Contact me. Maybe you can join our next Storytellers Abroad workshop. Maybe we can do something here in the states. Give me a call and we can find a way that works for you.