All week, I’m a communications consultant for businesses and nonprofit organizations. Then, every Sunday morning, I tutor twelve-year-olds for the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony that’s called bar mitzvah for boys or bat mitzvah for girls.

At a certain point—it happens to almost all of them—they lose confidence. “I always mispronounce that word,” one tells me. “I’ll never get that tune right!” another says. And the irony is that they are so close, right at that moment. All they need is to know they can do it.

So I tell them the story of my bar mitzvah.  Read that story at http://www.trippbraden.com/2014/07/22/writing-memos-telling-stories/.

What about your organization? Are you writing memos when you should be telling stories?