Shannon Peel - Hero vs Victim Language in Storytelling

Shannon Peel is an expert at stories, and while her usual audience is made up of business owners looking to improve their marketing, her discussion of hero vs victim language in storytelling is so valuable to those learning about the stories in their family tree.  We started off talking about her deep roots in western Canada, delved into the "why" questions around emigration, and then found ourselves looking at the way we talk about our ancestors, women in particular.

Shannon Peel is the creative force behind the MarketAPeel Brand. She works from her home office overlooking life in Downtown Vancouver, BC Canada. She is passionate about stories and how to they connect people and exploring why people make the choices they make. People describe her as intelligent, quick witted, and creative, all things she takes pride in as she values intelligent thought and solution based productivity. MarketAPeel reflects her values and vision.

https://www.marketapeel.agency/speaker
LinkedIn: Shannon Peel
Facebook: @marketapeel
Twitter: @shannonpeel1
Instagram: @market_apeel

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This podcast is supported by Heather Murphy's TraceLine Success.  Get your free workbook, Success is Found in Your Roots, at heathercmurphy.com/successworkbook

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Transcript

Shannon Peel |  Hero vs Victim Language in Family History Storytelling
Ep. 68, Stories in Our Roots podcast

Heather: Hello, and welcome to another episode of stories in our roots. I am Heather Murphy. Today's conversation is with Shannon Peel. Now you might not think at first that someone who deals with marketing would be a fit for a show on genealogy. But let me tell you, we had a great conversation. Shannon is the owner of MarketAPeel brand. And she is passionate about stories and how they connect people and exploring why people made the choices that they did. 

Now she takes that knowledge of what she does with marketing. And we talk about one of the things, which she talks a lot about it outside of genealogy is the difference between hero language. And victim language. And I think it was really interesting to apply that, to how we talk about our ancestors and their stories. 

Are we looking for those stories to say, oh, woe is me. My family tree has all of this. Negative things in it. Or are we looking for the flip side of that? Are we looking to look for those hero stories? Whether they're big or small, just ordinary people can be stored heroes within our family tree. And I just thought this was a great conversation to think about our ancestors and a little bit different way. 

And to maybe question how we're telling the story of our ancestors, whether to others. Or even just within our own mind. Here's the interview with Shannon Peel. 

Hi Shannon. Thanks for joining me today on my podcast.

Shannon: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. This is great. Stories are my life.

Heather: Well, could you tell me a little bit more about your life and who you are?

Shannon: I'm Shannon Peel. I have a company called Market Appeal, and what I do is I help brands define their stories, tell them to the marketplace and get in front of their ideal audiences by offering them different stages of platforms.

Heather: Okay. And how did you start becoming interested in learning about your family and your family's story?

Shannon: Well from the get-go, I think that from the get-go, because I, well, I grew up in Western Canada, so very new area globally. most people knew where their families, my grandfather came from. The old country and or we are immigrants from somewhere. but my family history was older. like, right now I'm sitting in the house that my great-grandfather built.

It's never been owned by anyone except my family since it was built in 1906. So the house is over, over a hundred years old coming up. . Well, 17. Wow. Time does fly, doesn't it? And it's still standing. And you know, my other great-grandfather's house is just across the way over there, but we still own the cabin that he built in 1926.

And my summers out there, so we've always had family around and trying to figure out how we got where we are and why we're here. Why did I grow up in this small town of 2000? It's actually a city, you know, it's Canada's second smallest city, almost 2000 people.

But because my roots are so deep here, it became part of, you know, who we were growing up. We, there were stories that my dad growing up here, stories of my grandmother growing up here, stories of my grandfather growing up here, stories of my great-grandparents being here. And my aunt was really interested in genealogy and family history on my mom's side, you ,know, there's, there's that as well, because they had a really unique, they came from Romania and in the eighties growing up, Romania was behind the Iron Curtain.

We didn't know anyone from Romania because no one from Romania was here in BC or Canada, like it was very few people that had left that part of the world. Uh, now I run into people all the time and it's great because I wanna know more about the country. And I think because I have those questions and those unique things in my life, that's how I ended up where I am today.

Heather: So what are some of those stories that you sought out to answer some of those questions that you say you had?

Shannon: Well, why did my great-grandfather leave Paris, Ontario for Enderby, BC? Where did Thomas Peel leave? Why did he leave Britain? When did he leave Britain? It was in, turns out that it was in the mid 18 hundreds, but where did he come from? Why did he leave Britain? What, what was the catalyst for leaving?

Why did they come here? Uh, that's always been really interesting to me. Whenever I meet someone from somewhere else, my first question is, why did you leave where you were, and why did you come here? And why did you choose Canada? Why did you choose BC? Why did you choose Vancouver? You know, what was so wrong with where you were and why?

Because Where we start out in life is dependent on our parents, the choices our parents, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents made. So I grew, was born in Enderby because of the choices people before me had. Where I end up, where my kids end up is 100% based on my choices. We are who our parents are. We grow up in this world that they create for us. 

And well, one of the things that I do when I sit down with a brand is the first thing I do is I talk about what are your values? And people pull little crappy things out of the air and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I wanna know the story behind your values.

By the time we're done, you know, they realize, oh, I've got some values that are multi-generational. I've gotten them because my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents taught it through the generations. And I like this value, or maybe I don't want this value in my life anymore. I mean, that's how we break, uh, the victim story, right?

Like we're seeing the victim story play out in the media right now with Harry and Megan's Netflix, right? But that's them playing out Diana's victim story in a way that Harry wishes his mama's story had gone. and that story creates reactions in people and keeps 'em stuck in the world that they're in because they're trying to replay something from past generations or, they're lost because they don't have that root system. You know, I'm very fortunate I have this big root system. Like I said, not very many people live in the house that their great-grandfather built when you're in Western Canada or Western US. I mean Europe, they probably do, but here they don't. It's, it's unique.

Heather: Yeah. And that's one of the things that I work with people on is. In order to understand yourself and why you do certain things, you need to understand those stories of those generations because you can see what happened to them and it opens your eyes to like, oh, well that is why I do this. Or just by seeing their story, it just clicks in your mind.

This is how I see the world, but I don't need to. And so it really does bring a self-awareness when you can look at those generations and understand yourself better because of that.

Shannon: Yeah. I mean, that's how we break abuse cycles. That's how we break victimization cycles, you know. If you want to be a better person you have to understand where you get the story from. The story that you tell yourself, the expectations that you have for your life, all of that stuff. Where does it come from?

It comes from our childhood. Why does it come from our childhood? Because our parents taught to us. Why are our parents teach it to us? Because their parents taught it to us. Why are we where we are at? Why did I choose to leave Enderby when my family's been here for over a hundred years? Because I came like in the 1890s, right? So why did I choose to leave? Why did my brother choose to leave? You know, every time I come home, I'm so interested in the history of this town because my family is such a part of this town. not many people have that.

Heather: And I like how you ask the why questions, and sometimes when you're researching your family, the documents don't tell you why. It does something inside your brain when you allow yourself to be curious and ask those why questions. And then you get different perspectives and then your perspectives and what you assume about your ancestors shines a light on the way you think and can be really informative to opening your eyes about you didn't realize you, you thought a certain way because you didn't realize you had a certain bias or certain prejudices, and then it comes up when you're asking these why questions about generations before you.

Shannon: Exactly. And you find stories. You do find stories. I mean, I, during the pandemic, I tapped into am uh, Ancestry.com just to check it out. And other people had come before me, because otherwise it would've taken me forever. So I was able to plug into my ancestry for right up through, for in some branches up into the 1500s.

So it's really interesting, but it also shine a light on some lies that have been going through our family. So things that you don't know about? I mean, I was blessed with, uh, my aunt sent me letters that my great-aunt, my great, great-aunt. written to my great-grandmother in the 1920s, and I got to know this person and how absolutely insane they were, and how selfish and, uh, manipulative they were.

Which is interesting because, you know, there's certain things that you don't really realize about yourself until you start reading, oh, oops, you know, I'm a little bit more like that person than I wanna be. Um, but then I'm reading, I'm like, oh, wait a minute. That picture that I saw when we opened up the house that said, lady Sir Robert and Lady Peele, maybe that's what she did.

She put that story into our story because I can't go back any further than, like in this one tree. The one tree that, the one branch that I really am curious about, Thomas Peele, I can see left, was born in Glasgow, married Jane Ann, and came to Canada in 1850s early 1850s, late 1840s. , I can't find out who his parents were. I can't find anything that says who he was and where he came from. I can find her parents, but that's it. The other thing I found really interesting was women worked more than we think they did.

Heather: Mm-hmm.

Shannon: And the stories that our society tells us about the 1800s and the, you know, we get those stories of nobility of the upper class, those women marrying and then, you know, their whole job was to marry and produce heirs. That's a very small percentage of the population. The story of the 1800s is in the fish mongers wife. Is in the factory worker, the woman, the kids that worked in the factories, or the husband that worked in the factories. There was a whole change in women working in the 1800s that we don't talk about. When they went from being in the agriculture to the industrial, the first industrial wave. 

By then the middle class started getting, the women started working in the middle class during World War I and World War ii, and then in, you know, the 1950s there was this big push by advertising and society to put women back into the house. So the television shows, the advertising that was being done at that time was to shame women into going back into the kitchen. It's just interesting when you look at where, who did what and what those documents say. 

I mean, I learned that my great, so on my dad's side, we have this picture and I still don't know. I mean, I, I just think this lady's crazy, so who knows. But we have a picture somewhere that I saw that says, and this rumor that we are in some way related to Sir Robert Peel who created the police force.

Then on my mother's side, her great, anyway, one of the great. grandfather was a Bobby or a peeler or a police officer in London, and he married a woman who was a cook for Queen Victoria. So on one side I've got, I might or may not, I have no idea. Someone that is maybe a cousin or something like twice removed, who dined with Queen Victoria. And on the other side I have someone who made meals for Queen Victoria. So you find these little things that you never knew and these little stories that you can then tell yourself, oh, maybe life wasn't what we think it was, what the history books tell us it was.

Heather: Yeah. And one of the things that I've been looking at as I look at the women is they might not have had their occupation listed on the census that they did something, but so many of them used whatever skills they had to better their life, whether it was taking and mending or selling cheese or Housing people in their homes.

There's so many ways that they did contribute. Or even like one of my great-grandmothers, she was always looking for work for her husband so that he could get better. Like there's all these ways, plus all the social influences that they had, all the groups that they were part of, they might not have got paid to do those things, but they were using what they had to make their life for their families and their communities better, and it didn't have to necessarily fall under the umbrella of a job.

Shannon: Well, you bring up a really good point because you know women, the women's movement, and when we talk about equality for women, we use victim language in that women were victimized. We didn't have this, we didn't have that. And that has affected our ability to actually be equal. Because instead of celebrating the strength of women at the time, the resourcefulness of women, the ability to survive and the ability to you know, make a home, and be proud of that and that contribution to society. Because we're not telling those stories. We're only telling those stories of the woman that got beat and couldn't leave her husband or the rules and laws that women were affected by. We aren't celebrating what equality is. Because equality does not mean we're like men. And then unfortunately that has been the whole thing of feminism, is that we can be like men, we can have the same job as men.

We can be paid like men. We, we are not men. Someone asked me once when I was giving a speech, one of the questions, she came in, well, how can I, as a woman, get buy-in for my male employees? How can I get my male employees to listen to me as a woman? And I went, you date, don't you?

How do you get guys that you date to do what you want? Use what we have as females, as women, be women. Be a woman in your work. You'll get a lot further. 

Heather: Do you have, any thoughts about why we tend to gravitate towards that victim mentality as we tell ourselves these stories as opposed to the hero?

Shannon: Well, we're seeing it right now. a huge example of it right now in the Megan and Harry story. Thanks to Netflix, right? They, you know, you got Megan, who all poor little me, you know, was victimized by the British press and the British people. And the British monarchy, and you have Harry replaying out this victimization of his mother in a way that he would've wanted someone to stand up and protect his mom.

He's standing up and protecting Megan, but at the same time, he's using victim language. He's using a victim story. And what that does is it elicits sympathy and pity and shock. It causes people to have a re a reaction, whether it is negative, you know, a lot of the British presses, you know, pushing back and saying, that's not true. This is a lie. Uh, we've got proof. So there that becomes a story because it becomes an us versus them story, this victimization of us versus them. Women, we were the victim of men. Men or them. No, we have to fight in order to get the same rights that they do. And it doesn't look at the solutions, it looks at the problems. And those problems create in us an emotional response of anger, of pity, of sadness, of whoa. Whereas if we took the hero story and took the pride in what women were and really look at what are women's strengths, what are the feminine energy, if you, we look at feminine and masculine instead of men and women and say, okay, you know what?

We should value the feminine energy, whether it's in a man or a woman, but this is the feminine piece, the nurturing, the caring, the whatever we think is feminine, and the masculine, the dominant, the, uncaring, the attack. I know women who are very masculine in the way that they do business, in the way that they act, and because that's just who they are.

It's not that they've become this way in order to get the same rights as men, it's just that's to there and we should say, okay, that's great. I mean, I've got two grandmothers. One born in 1912. One born in 1926. One born in 1912 was a model, a journalist, a business owner, and she was a career woman before that word was even thought up.

My other grandmother was a homemaker. She got married, had kids, stayed in the home. You know, my grandfather went out and my grandfather's word was law. But my other grandmother, it was her word that was law. My grandfather just kind of followed her around. Two very different women. Does one have more value because she was working and she was more domineering in the house than the other one who was more passive and nurturing and more of a family? No, they're both equally valuable. And those are the stories that we can look at in history and look at in our own history to understand I am both my grandmothers, but that's why my life has turned out the way that it has.

Because I wanted the career woman. Everyone comes saying, you're just like your grandmother. Because I wanted that career. I didn't want kids. I wanted to go out into the world and make an impact. But then I had kids and one grandmother that my career grandmother was already had passed when I was 19, but I still have my other grandmother.

And I learned that, you know, as a, as a mother and a nurturer, I was more like her. I was more, oh, I gotta stay home more. I gotta find, I found ways to make money. I found jobs that were remote. I found ways to raise my kids around my, my income. Does that make me less or whole? 

When I'm interviewing for a job, yeah, the person on the other side of the table says that I'm less because I put my kid before my career for a period of time. Okay. That's their opinion. But does that really make me less? No. Cuz I learned a lot of skills in what I did. Because I ran a daycare for a number of, you know, responsible for eleven kids, six families. Then I went and, you know, and at the same time I was volunteering, responsible for 800 families and organizing all these events. And you know what, it's just cuz I was home did not mean that I was less, in fact, I was more. I was doing more. I was using more skills. But the world, the male world, the business world is set up very differently.

Am my less of a person because I don't fit in that corporate world? No, I'm just different. I am an entrepreneur. I am someone who doesn't play well with others in the corporate restrain. I'm too creative. I'm too, you know, I like having the freedom that you don't have in a corporate world. Does it make me less? No, it just makes me different. Do we all need to be together and diversify? you know, there's a lot to be said for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but I think we really need you to start redefining these things because it doesn't mean that we're the same.

Heather: Yeah. And I think one of the things we can get stuck in is defining our lives by the opportunities that generations past had. You had to choose whether you're gonna take care of your family or go to work, but now there are so many opportunities that you can blend those worlds. You can stay at home and work at the same time from your home.

There's, I mean, with the global economy, you can do almost anything compared to just selling cheese to the, the people down the street. 

Shannon: exactly. 

Heather: but we're still stuck in that mindset that we have to choose. We have to fit in one box or the other, and that if we blend them, then something's wrong. But we need to change those stories that we've inherited because we don't live in the same world.

Shannon: Well, I think what it comes down to when it comes to work, like I was saying, if you're gonna be in the corporate world, yeah, you have to go into the corporate world and you have to, it's structured based on 1950 way of it's the corporate world is structured based on army. , it's, you know, the CEO's actual, the, actually the general and everything.

I mean, it's very structured based on an army way of doing things. but the thing is, is if you're going to be in that corporate world, there is a ladder, there is a process, and that process, is already ingrained and everybody pays their dues and everybody goes up.

And our, the X Generation is in the middle of that right now because, you know those people that, that didn't fit in corporate were out here. A lot of people that got to a certain level in their career where then pushed out of corporate as corporations have restructured. So it's a really different way of having to learn how to work.

And we're having to go back to the way they did it in the 18 hundreds, in the 17 hundreds, where women who had limited access to the masculine set up of society had to figure out how to make money. And some of them were really good at it and others weren't.

 we've got stories of women throughout history who stood out, who were the most powerful, who were the richest, who got out from under the yoke of men. But we don't really talk about that. We just talk about, you know, oh, you know, women as a general. 

But we made choices. Hero language, hero stories. We focus on the choices that we make, not the choices that were made for us. And if we would just learn that the women before us, maybe that's what they wanted, maybe that was the choice that they made, because they became mothers and at the time they would have 6, 7, 8 kids.

They would be having kids into their, they were almost 40, and they enjoyed taking care of their kids. The ones that didn't, they there was other choices for them to make and there were business women at the time. Well, you need to look for those stories, but those stories have been lost. They've been lost in the history and that's the sad part.

Heather: And I think sometimes we're trained to look for those big stories so that we overlook those lesser stories or those stories that had more of a local impact than this big, huge thing that was different than everyone else. And I think we're missing out if we don't really look at those stories that aren't glittering in gold.

Shannon: Well, I mean, back in the day, most women didn't even know how to read or write. So we've got some diarists that show us what life was like, but we've lost so much because we didn't value the story of the working person, the story of the lower middle class person. We only value the stories of those in power and those that were more controversial than the norm.

Heather: So at the beginning of our conversation, you talked about looking forward and looking back. as you are living your life and your story, how do you want it to impact those future generations?

Shannon: Every generation has a torch that's passed on to the next to, to the next generation. we all grew up with the, in, especially in Canada, the home of the poppies and throw up the torch and take the torch. every generation has that, you know, I mean, I was brought up in the eighties when women were just getting back into the workforce and we were told, Hey, you can have it all, you can be a working mom, you can have a career, and you can have a, and you can have parent kids and your husband will help out.

Of They forgot to tell the boys that they were supposed to help. so, you know, the ex generation women, we were overwhelmed because we didn't know how to have a career and bring up kids at the same time cuz you really couldn't take your kids with you to work.

Now we're seeing more men be, take care of kids and I think that's great and that's, you know, how we're gonna go through the future is understanding that the value system has changed. You learn from your father, but then you can make that decision and go, you know what? I don't wanna be like my dad, or I don't wanna be like my mom, or I do wanna be like my mom, or I do wanna be like my dad, or I wanna be this part and that part.

You're able to make these choices now. You're able to choose who you wanna be, but you gotta make a conscious choice. And then you have to consciously understand your behavior and whether or not you're eliciting the behavior that you want, or you're falling back into the learned behaviors from your childhood.

And we have a choice that we can make it different. We can make life better for everyone. 

Heather: Well, thank you so much for talking with me and sharing. I really like the way our conversation went.