As many of you know, Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) is preoccupied with the pursuit of a little thing called happiness. He studies it, he gives presentations about it, and he successfully incorporates it into Zappos’ best practices for corporate culture. Since I met Tony, Alfred Lin and Brian Kalma at SXSW 2009, I’ve had the privilege of working with Zappos on various visual-thinking-related projects. The latest, what you see above, was a design project to create images for Tony’s forthcoming book, ‘Delivering Happiness.’ The specific graphics above won’t appear in the book – the project had to be handed to another illustrator because I was on my own sadistic book deadline – but they were used as a creative catalyst for the images that will be published. I’ve processed the emotional letdown by shaking my fist at God. I think I’ll be fine – especially after I read a good book on happiness.

So I’m reading a book called Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence, by Roger C. Schank, as a part of my research for Duarte Design. This is my 2nd book on the power of storytelling and the reality of that power is starting to dawn on me. According to Schank, the virtual entirety of our intelligence is based on our ability to process, synthesize and repurpose the stories we hear throughout our lives. At first I thought that was a pretty bold statement, but it becomes more compelling when you read about what he refers to as “index construction and retrieval” for memories. (It’s that idea that inspired the visual above.) Long story short, when we hear new information, we are constantly comparing it to an internal index – something we’ve already filed away in our memories based on our experiences. And generally speaking, if that new information doesn’t map to our own experiences we tend to dismiss it. But the beauty of telling a good story is that there can be enough “indices” contained within that story to trigger a relational experience with people who may believe they have nothing in common. So the moral of this story (for me) is that we can bring commonalities to the surface by sharing our stories. So, while we may not share backgrounds, religions, beliefs or status, we all share something that can be triggered by a story, because the emotions that underly experience are universal. And THAT, my friend, is powerful stuff indeed.