Hero Stories

Who doesn’t like a close game, comebacks, and last-second heroics?But it wasn’t the 49ers that mastered the two-minute drive to win so many football games. It was Joe Montana. It wasn’t the Bulls; it was Jordan.We love last second wins, but we may love the hero to whom we give credit for last-second wins even more. They get propped up, celebrated, worshiped.It is never the individual, but the team, that wins the game. It’s never the one play, or the one series, or the last minute that wins a game, either. It’s the week of practice, the season of training, the year of preparation that shaped all of the players that arrived at that moment to execute that series that included that final play that won the game.We celebrate just one, however.But what if we celebrated all the others. All the work. All the stories that wove together to climax in this one victorious moment.We love the hero story because we want to be the hero, and that desire is deeply anchored in our imagined future.Who will work to deliver the stories of the whole team, of all the constituent parts, and the details that have been forgotten? Those stories will deeply resonate with people’s lived experience (and not just their imagine future).Hero stories feel good. But they’re not the only way to connect.The forgotten detail.The big picture.The team or community or group.These are all ways to connect.Maybe even better.