The Power of Storytelling: Identity, Culture & Leadership | Wendy Shearer

What if storytelling wasn’t just entertainment… but a bridge to identity, culture, and leadership? 

In this powerful episode of Diversity Conversations, we are joined by the extraordinary storyteller, oral historian, and author Wendy Shearer, who takes us on a deeply moving journey through cultural memory, resilience, and the transformative power of story. 

From her Guyanese heritage to her work preserving African and Caribbean folktales, Wendy shares how storytelling connects generations, strengthens identity, and creates spaces where people feel seen, heard, and valued. 

✨ In this conversation, we explore: 

•  The power of storytelling in leadership and human connection 
•  How identity and culture are shaped through stories 
•  The importance of preserving oral history 
•  Finding resilience, joy, and meaning through storytelling 
•  Why storytelling matters now more than ever 

This is more than a conversation… It’s an invitation to remember who you are.

 🌍 Whether you are a leader, educator, creative, or simply someone seeking deeper connection — this episode will stay with you. 

 📚 Connect with Wendy Shearer:
🌐 wendyshearer.co.uk
📸 Instagram --> wendycshearer

🎙️ Hosted by Eric Ellis & Tommie Lewis
 Diversity Conversations — where real-world leadership meets higher awareness.  

💬 Join the conversation: What stories have shaped who you are today? 

⏱️ CHAPTERS 

00:00 Welcome to Diversity Conversations
02:30 The Power of Self-Development & Mindset
07:30 Empathy in Action: A Real-Life Story
14:30 Introducing Wendy Shearer
16:30 Wendy’s Journey: From BBC Producer to Storyteller
22:00 Identity, Culture & Family Influence
30:00 Navigating Challenges, Racism & Resilience
38:00 Finding Joy Through Story & Community
43:00 What Is Storytelling? Wendy Explains Her Work
48:30 Live Storytelling Moment (Anansi & Mansa Musa)
54:30 Storytelling as Leadership & Human Connection
58:30 Wendy’s Message for the Next Generation
1:01:00 Final Reflections & How to Connect with Wendy 

storytelling, cultural memory, oral history, conscious leadership, authentic leadership, diversity conversations, identity and culture, African storytelling, Caribbean culture, personal transformation, self awareness, human connection, leadership development, inclusion and diversity, heritage storytelling, storytelling podcast, inspirational stories, cultural identity, resilience and growth, meaningful conversations 

 📅 New conversations every Saturday 9:30 AM EST
📩 Subscribe, share, and join us in moving diversity forward—one conversation at a time.

🌐 Watch more episodes on YouTube 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Diversity Conversations, where we engage in thought-provoking dialogue to identify leadership solutions to today's most challenging conflicts. Stream live each week, Saturday, 9 30 a.m. to 11 a.m., hosted by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategist and CEOs Eric Ellis and Tommy Lewis. Join us and add your voice to this engaging diversity conversation.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Good morning, Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, the United States, and the world. My name is Eric Ellison. I'm the president and CEO of Integrity Development Corporation.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

And I'm joined this morning by my good friend and brother, Tommy Lewis, president and CEO of Make It Plain Consulting. Good morning, Eric. Good morning, T. What's up, baby? What's up? Hey, nothing much, man. It's another beautiful day to be here with you. And today we have a special guest. Absolutely. But it's always great to be on Diversity Conversations, where we have conversations, Eric, about anything and anyone. Right. All the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

All the time, man. It's a blessing. It's a gift. And community, Tommy Lewis and Eric Ellis are getting better at golf. Ain't we, Tommy?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yes, we are trying to.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Man, we yeah, we better say that quietly because I got a tournament tomorrow. And anything could happen. As soon as you start feeling good, golf, the golf guides start visiting you. And they say, I think they feel they start to feel a certain way about their game.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yeah, the golf gods are they're they're they're bakers, if you all didn't know. So they always hand out that humble pop. Yes, they do. Right? Keep you nice and humble. You know, and in golf, just like any other, you know, conversation or any other pastime, uh, when you are interested in self-development, uh, enriching yourself and others, uh, it's it's a it's an internal game that you want to see what you envision. And so that can be business, that can be family related, it can be personal. If you can envision it, if you can see it, you actually want to be it or achieve it. And and golf is set up that uh good luck with that, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

But I'll tell you this, uh uh community, and I almost said family. That's actually what I mean, family. You all are like Tommy and I is uh our family. And I would say that in golf with Tommy and I, it's a beautiful opportunity to be in the midst of watching someone who is along a journey of self-development and improvement. And so it's rare that you ever get to see people on that journey trying to get better at something. And so for me, I'm watching Tommy because we play, and I've certainly watched the progression of his swing knowledge and just really seen the performance of that. But I there was one particular shot that Tommy made, it was a putt, when he literally said out loud what he was committing his mind and body to doing. And I heard him say it out loud as a reminder to himself that this is what I'm gonna do. And then I saw him perform that exact skill and I saw the exhilaration that happens as a result of that. But it wasn't just uh his exhilaration. See, community, what we're suggesting to you is that you're around the kind of people that can be just as happy for you as you are for yourself. And so I was just thrilled because I watched him do something, I watched him say something, and I watched him deliver on that, and I was as happy uh for him as he was for himself.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, I appreciate that, Eric, and and ditto to you. Ditto to you. Want to start with you, Eric. How was your week?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Tommy, I had a good week, man. Uh, you know, there are a couple things that I would suggest about my week, Tommy, is number one, that whenever there is negative energy in the media, I try to find a way to turn it into positive energy. And so I put up a couple posts this week. One was because I started seeing the next sort of iteration of political charlatans that are preparing to uh pull the wool over the public's eyes. And so instead of thinking about that, I put up a post that said, just don't be a gullible voter. And I identified seven things that can make us potentially a target uh for politicians who are trying to harm us. And so I shared that on social media as a positive way of trying to help the electorate be more uh prepared. The other thing that I did, Tommy, is I, you know, there's been a lot of talk about AI. Uh for me, there has been a baby inventor in me, inside of me for a long time. And man, that little guy's been there, you know, a cobbler in the little inventing booth, but had no real technical skills to be able to draw it out. So now I'm grateful, Tommy, to be living during the time of AI where the things that you have in your mind that AI can help you craft those and put those forth in a way that they actually can be manufactured. And so I'm excited, man. I've just been walking around saying to myself, I'm an inventor, you know, and uh and thrilled to death about it, and literally has somebody already who wants to potentially invest in my invention. Okay, and so uh I'm just I'm grateful, Tommy, and and community, what I want to say to you, Tommy and I talk a lot about experience joy now. No matter what is happening in your life, there are so many things that you can be excited about and proud of and enthusiastic about. Don't let the enemy or anything out here in this world discourage you from finding little wins and things that you can be excited about. Tell me, how was your week?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Eric, my week was uh was great. I was busy doing a lot of administrative work for one, but uh also I had the opportunity to present to a group of 60 or 70 job seekers. These were individuals who are interested in working in the trades in different fields of electrician, uh plumbing, uh heating, ventilation, air conditioning, et cetera, et cetera. And we were presenting to this group, and there was another gentleman, uh, one gentleman at the end who you know kind of approached me and my two female colleagues, and he uh approached us with some animation. He was not happy. He his energy was such that one of my female colleagues immediately took two or three steps back. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Right you probably took two or three steps forward, didn't you? I sure did. I know you did. I took three steps forward.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

I know you did. And uh, and so as I took my steps forward, I had sensed that no, he wasn't angry, he was frustrated. Okay, so he started to tell his story uh that he had uh you know he had did he he was incarcerated for some time and he has had been released about two years ago, and since his release, back into being a civilian, he has aggressively pursued employment with no avail.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah, we know that story.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

And he doubled down and he tripled down, quadrupled down on this why me, uh, why can't I? I see other folks who had the same conditions get employed, etc. etc. And so he became more and more animated. Right, and I saw right through all of the frailing hand and the the brow, the harsh talk, I saw through all of that and I spoke to a spirit. I think I said, brother, call me directly, right? Not about this project that we're talking about, but call me. I want to know more about your story. That's what I said now. In most cases, I wouldn't do that, but I saw him, Eric. Yeah, I saw his aura, his demonstrative behavior very similar to what was happening in my home with the person that I was challenged with. I saw it. Yeah, and so yesterday I had a conversation with him, it lasted about 15, maybe 20 minutes, and I just listened. I didn't add any input as far as advice, right? I didn't do any of that. Right, I just listened and then I told him, here's what I am going to do. Right. And I'm going to reach out to my network, identify some second chance organizations who specialize in working with talent like yourself, not people like you, right? Who do you mean? People like me. No, no, talent like yourself. And um, once I make that connection, I would then step back from this. So I gave him a timeline. It was a growth opportunity for me. His tone was, you know, yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Right, I appreciate it. Wow. Which was very different than when we first met him. Right. But I saw that. Right. Right. And um and then I followed up with a a conversation with my two female colleagues to say, you know, let's take a look at this and uh situation. So wanted to share that.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Hey, Tommy, and and I don't want to just blow by that either. We've got a great storyteller that will join us here in just a minute or two. But Tommy, I want to I want to congratulate you for being willing to, being able to see through the frustration to be able to empathize with the person. Uh, Tommy and I teach a lot about empathy. Uh, I have one chart that says that there are three levels of empathy. There's the surface level of empathy where you're really just listening to what people have to say, you're acknowledging what they're saying and seeking to understand it. Uh, there's then practical empathy when you are dialing into it and you're trying to problem solve with them. And that's what you did. You not only listened to him, but you went to the next level. You tried to problem solve with him as well. And then the third level of empathy is transformational empathy when we see something as a pattern that we're now trying to address it across an entire population or entire organization. So thank you for uh for that and for who you are. Because, Tommy, we've run into a world out there that uh isn't moved by our pain and our hurt and our experiences. And so that's the common experience. And he was finally just done with it and just saying, Man, I'm gonna scream a little louder because what he's saying in many ways is y'all, I'm trying not to go back.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

And y'all told me to try to do this the right way, but nobody's listening to me, nobody's responding to me. So I've got to crank it up because there are a couple of options for me, and I'm trying to take the best one.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head because he had already graduated from the program that we were speaking to. Right. And he had learned from his advisor, who's still there teaching, that there was an opportunity for this potential employer and or project to present to the group. And so he came uh as an alumni.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

He was one of very few. There's like two or three alumni, right, but the rest were current classmates. And uh, and and so as I share with him in our private conversation, I said, uh, you know, how how long have you been you know released from incarceration? Two years. So okay. Uh and and has anyone in the program that you're in now or just graduated from, have they helped you? He said, yes, there's been a handful that's been truthful, whatever. And they said, stay the course. And then I I did add that uh that's good advice, but I would imagine that you're probably looking for a job now, right? And not in six months or a year. He said, absolutely, and say, Well, I'm unable to provide the job that you're looking for now, but allow me to connect you with the network. And so that's that's what we do in having these different or diverse conversations.

SPEAKER_05 12:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Bottom line, Eric, is to listen and to have a conversation, have a dialogue without judgment, without shaming or blaming or victimizing the person. And so that's why it's important for us to have folks like our guest today. And before uh you you bring the guest up, if you don't mind, Eric, I'd like to remind our community to like and subscribe so that we can surface on your socials and you can join us uh every Saturday morning in some places in the world, Saturday afternoon, or even evening in other places across this globe. You can join us every Saturday diversity conversations.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Awesome. And so we have as a guest uh Wendy Shearer. She is a storyteller, an author, an oral historian. And so we're gonna ask Lydia to bring uh Wendy to the stage so that uh our community can uh meet this brilliant, beautiful sister, a powerful sister, uh storyteller, uh, author, historian. Uh Wendy, good morning, good afternoon, uh, where you are, I believe, uh, if you wouldn't mind, just by beginning by telling people where you are uh coming to us from and just a little bit about uh sort of the people and experiences that have brought you to who you are today.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Hello, Tommy, hello Eric, and hello everyone that's watching. First, let me just say thank you for having me on the show. It's an absolute pleasure to be here today. I'm speaking from North London in the UK. I live near Alexandra Palace, and it is indeed the afternoon here. It's a sunny afternoon, which is beautiful. I can see all the greenery outside of my window, so it's great. Thanks for that introduction as well. Sometimes I forget myself, um, all of the different roles that I play because we're often just concentrating on the day-to-day, and I am now doing storytelling and writing, and um, but it's not it's very far removed from where I began in a sense. So my background is actually in television broadcasting. I was uh children's producer for many years and digital media for the BBC. However, it only dawned on me very recently that as a child and as an adolescent, I had actually wanted to be an archaeologist. I really loved ancient history. So all through school, I studied classical civilization of my first degree. I took that subject as a first degree, and so it's the study of ancient Greek and Roman arts and history and philosophy, and I completely absorbed that. However, I got to the point where I just I think I didn't really know what to do with it. I didn't know how to become an archaeologist, I wasn't guided in any way. My dad certainly wasn't encouraging it, he wanted me to be a lawyer, and um, so I was treading this path of loving history and ancient stories. I also, as a hobby uh and and as a subject at school, I did drama and theatre studies. So I think in the end I branched off into production and creating stories for young people in that sense. And I did that for very many years and uh was in that corporate space and worked in the States for a little while as well for PBS, and that's where I started out. Um that's a you know very hilarious story. I I was trying so hard to get into production, I was getting nowhere in the UK, and I just thought, why don't I just apply around the world?

SPEAKER_03 16:22

There you go. If it's not working here, I'll go all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, somebody's gonna hire me. The world's a big place, and you know, I was I was doing work experience and I was um, you know, um in the space, but I wasn't getting the roles that I felt qualified to do. And work experience in the UK at that time, you know, we're talking over 25 years ago. I I felt that I was just making teas and coffees, and you know, you do all that stuff at the beginning, but I wasn't really grasping or learning or expanding in any way. So I thought, right, I'm gonna apply to the States. And so I ended up in West Virginia working town in Morgantown, um PBS, and um that was fantastic training, it was an internship, and I spent I spent ages there, months over a year and a half, and got a chance to visit my family in the States for the first time too, whilst I was there. So that was that was my background, and I spent quite a few years um at the BBC until um I felt that I wanted to make a more of an impact with the work that I was doing, and I didn't feel that that was happening on the shows that I was working on, and I felt this nudge and this calling towards sharing stories from my backgrounds and heritage. My family are from Guyana. Big up to all the Guineans that might be watching today.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

That's wonderful. A quick question when you uh made your voyage from the UK to Morgantown, West Virginia, two questions. One, uh, did you make that trek, that decision by yourself? So were you alone in that, or did you have significant others or family? And then two, how did West Virginia receive you?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yes, I have been asked that question a lot. It was a great question, it was a very interesting question. And yes, my family, my parents, my grandmother who raised raised me a lot of the time, they were supporting me, however, they didn't quite understand the decision. And uh at the time I was 21, so I was fresh out of university, and they understood. I think I just had this drive in me, um, and they understood that I I just was going to keep going as far as I could go. So um when the application, when I had an interview over the phone and it occurred that I was gonna go over there, the first thing my dad said was, My cousins are in New York, I've got cousins in Atlanta, and he just hooked me up with all the family, and even though it wasn't in the same state, I felt very much held by all of the family that were in America that knew that where I was gonna be and checked in with me every week and things like that. So I never felt alone. However, the decision was very much not understood by any of my friends. So they very much thought, how could you go to that state? What's gonna happen to you out there in the Appalachian Mountains where they hunt turkeys and there's there are no black people and all those kind of questions. And um I guess it was just a sense of adventure at the time, and the the folks that were hiring me were very welcoming. And when I got there as well, it was in the dead of winter, waist deep snow, which I'd never experienced, um, filming outside at times. Everyone was very curious about me, um, and were very open. It was my first introduction to Americans being very, very direct in the UK. We're not quite so direct. Everyone's very diplomatic and hide the true meanings of their questions. We're in the States, it was very direct. They were expecting a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, and instead they got what was that called? It's really cool, thin, slim. My nickname was Slim at the time. It's cool, slim, black chick, and um, which startled me because no one's called. But they were very welcoming.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Right. Indeed. Well, let me ask you this. Uh I I love this blast of energy that comes from you, positive energy. Uh, talk to us about your family and growing up, and what were some of the principles that you learned that have uh shaped your philosophies, your own values today?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

It's a good question, yes. Um so growing up, my my dad was very he was a very serious man. And I think he had a really challenging time here in the UK. He arrived in his late 20s, so he's an adult, and my mum arrived when she was 12. So she felt very much more at home in the UK. And so my dad, I felt, was always preparing me for racism and the hardest situation the minute I would leave the house. And as a young child, that was for me, I didn't quite understand a lot of that. I didn't understand some of the things that he was preparing me for until I entered the workplace and and and um further education and so forth. Um, so for instance, he would read histories to me for like not really a bedtime story, but it was before bed. He would read roots, my mum and my grand would tell me um folk tales, and sometimes they would read them as well. I inherited this beautiful collection of stories from them. My dad was determined, I think, to instill in me a sense of culture and identity, which clearly is lacking in the British uh curriculum and system. And I think he just really wanted me to have a sense of where I came from and um and for that to support me. So that was very much shaping the fabric of my life. I don't think I was fully aware of it at the time, but um looking back, I realized that you know that's what he was preparing me for, and um, and then they decided quite young, and when I was quite young at primary school to send me to an independent school or private school, um which was very challenging in the 80s. I was one of I was one black child out of a hundred children, and so I was in a space where you were trained and geared for leadership and excelling, however, institutionally at the time the teachers very much had very low expectations of me. And so I think that developed in me a sense of resilience and and drive and ambition, but I don't think I had a sense of value in myself because I didn't feel valued, I didn't think I had a sense of worthiness, but I definitely had the skills that I'm going to set my sights on something, and even if you don't believe in me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna overcome those hurdles because I had no choice but but to do that at the time.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

I have a friend that is one of the most brilliant financial minds I know. And at times I've seen her just carry around anger. And I said to her that I understand that in some ways it's justified because she's been in so many different organizations where she's been the most talented uh financial mind, and yet men who didn't know what she knew, who she was actually educating, were being thrust ahead. And many of them even moved on to become CEOs and everything else. So uh how did you navigate your own frustrations in that environment? Were you able to experience success in a way that educated people, or did you feel like you were constantly climbing up a mountain and rarely being seen?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Well, that is an interesting question, and probably a bit of both. I'm sure at times I experienced all of that. Um, I do have vivid memories of just before you leave school. Uh, we do what's called A levels here, and I think at that point I was probably 17, so I was very much aware of being marked and judged in a different the expectations were different for me, excuse me. And so what I would do is do even more work, I suppose, work even harder because I was determined to be to receive what I felt I was due. And so I navigated that in that sense. However, you do feel that you're just different from everybody else, and you you can't quite understand. I didn't really question why, I didn't really understand why I needed, I felt the need to do that, but I was determined to try harder. I felt that you that there was gonna, I was gonna leave no one any opportunity but to give me what I felt I was I was due, whether it, you know, if that was an A, whatever it was, was gonna be. And um so by the time I think I entered the corporate space, I realized what my father was trying, I think, to teach me, which was to be comfortable in situations where people might not see my value, and to be comfortable in situations where I might be a minority and still be able to navigate that with pride and belief in myself. And so I felt at times that it was a very lonely space. I remember being quite a young producer, one of three black female producers in in the television space at the time at one point, and and thinking, oh, you know what, you know, this is this is really hard. There's that there aren't many people to to speak to about certain circumstances or support you in a particular way, and um and feeling like you're living a dual life, perhaps, because you know what you I I felt that I knew I needed to do in order to succeed. And at that time, I believed it was to work you know harder than everybody else, or longer than everybody else, and you know, which I now know is not it's not that's not how I conduct myself now, but that's how I navigated that at the time.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

I'm gonna ask one other question, I'm gonna turn it over to Tommy. So, what you're speaking about is we talk about racism, sexism, ah that can feel like a heavy weight all the time. And I think that if we hyper focused on that as a reality, we might not be able to get up each day. So, where did you find humor and joy and joy in the midst of crazy situations that people may not value? Can you share with us examples of how you found an ability to still laugh, find joy, be happy in the midst of challenging situations?

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I think definitely my family, my family and my friends, because I always remembered and still remember today, which is probably partly why I do what I do today, is that they would share very much their stories and what they had gone through and um and what they had overcome. And there was always humour in those stories, always humour in the dark times, and so we would I would share that with friends, and I would find lots of joy in um cultural activities. My dad was really big on, you know, taking us to the theatre and shows. If anybody was coming over that that um the New York Harlem dances, black theatre, anything, because it was quite rare in the 80s and 90s to see that. And so we spent a lot of time, I suppose, um finding ways to celebrate yourself um with others and your family and your friends, and um, and that definitely kept me kept me grounded. And so I suppose as well, I had youth on my side. So sometimes I would I would shrug a lot of those things off without realizing I was actually absorbing them and absorbing the the anger and the frustration, but I really I would I would shrug it off for quite some time until I got to a point where I thought I cannot shrug this off anymore.

unknown 28:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah, Wendy, I I find this conversation very interesting. Uh I started my business, Make It Plain Consulting, 30 years ago, after really studying a gentleman by the name of Jim Henson, who is the creator of Sesame Street. And I was always amazed that uh with him and his production company of creating uh children's stories, if you will, that would share life lessons and adults would listen to them, children would listen to them, but all of the creators and producers and writers for these children's stories were all adults. They were never the children that they were focusing on. And so I am curious, in your career working as a producer in in other capacities with children or for children, what what does the behind the scenes look like? Are are the adults acting like children? Uh that's why or or are the adults channeling their inner child? Yes, inner child, talk talk to us a little bit about what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

I think we all we're not necessarily acting like children, but we are using our imagination and the playfulness that many adults perhaps forget. Um, definitely uh working in um children's television uh in my twenties and and and thirties was the time I made some of my greatest friends, and we were all just determined to enjoy life, and um and it and it felt natural at that time. And so being given the opportunity to use your imagination and invite others to be able to do the same and bring playfulness into your work. I think that's what we we focused on and we were encouraged to do, and so it felt very it felt very natural to do that. And the presenters that you work with at the time, I could never manage them very easily. I think I was perhaps too childlike myself. I could definitely do that now as a as a mother, however, um I wasn't at the time, and so they would get up to all kinds of mischief, and and as a producer, you you you're meant to control everything that's going on, and yeah, that wasn't always that wasn't always the case. I don't think live television, I knew I wasn't really cut out for it. Um Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

I I'll ask, uh let's bring up, we got a comment from one of our uh someone in our community that asks, uh, are you grateful for your dad's preparation for the world as a black woman, or would you have rather navigated it yourself without that preparation?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh, what a great question. I am grateful now. I can look look at look at that with gratitude in these eyes as an adult. I think at the time when I was younger, I um found found it quite harsh at times. He was very strict. I didn't always understand the reason behind some of the decisions that he made, like sending me to that particular school, or um, but I realized as well that it took me until I was an adult to understand where he was coming from and his and his um journey um where he was working and um and what he wanted to protect and prepare me from was what perhaps he was experiencing himself. So I have a lot of appreciation for it. And and even though I might not have appreciated it at the time, I can see the growth in me and what it has, how it has shaped me today.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Excellent. And I'll say that the question is that thank you, Brooke, for that question. Uh, it is one that we have to be thoughtful in order to really embrace uh that our parents have a perspective that's valuable for uh for us, but we also are going, we're different people and we're gonna experience the world differently and have a different skill set, even to navigate the world than they they had. So to be able to say, I take this, you know, the fruit, spit out the seeds, that's uh that's a beautiful way of looking at that. You've got a number of different things professionally that you do. Can you uh introduce our community? And we want to welcome so many of our uh regular community members are here, Roger. Thank you. We're just glad to have you all join us. Uh just introduce our community to who Wendy is through at least the three things that you do well.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yes, absolutely. So I am a storyteller, I'm a performance storyteller, which essentially means I retell and perform traditional stories. I focus on African and Caribbean folk tales, myths, and legends. And part of that work is researching the stories, collecting the stories, rewriting them and adapting them myself, and then in a communal space, I will retell them in a live setting. And so that story will change each time with each telling because it's not completely memorized, it's I practice it and I rehearse it, but it's it's shaped according to the audience that I respond to whilst I'm telling the tale. And as an aura historian, I work with the heritage sector mainly, lots of uh cultural institutions interviewing elders, particularly the Windrush generation, and uh collecting their memories of what it was like to travel to the UK from their um island countries and their experiences of what it was like growing up and working here in the UK. And those stories are then archived if necessary, if that's part of the project, so that they can be made available to the public and available for many other generations to come. As an author, I decided a few years ago that it would be a really good idea to put all of my fantastic writing skills into back into action again and make it accessible, these stories to people, because obviously once you tell the tale, it's gone in the moment, which is the magic of storytelling. But I really thought that I would like to um just share these stories even wide more widely. So that's what led me to thinking that I'd like to um have these collections published, and uh so I was fortunate enough to work with a few publishers um that knew about my work as a storyteller, and um, and so I have a few collections for children and one collection for adults as well.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

Brooke has opened us up to something that we wanted to do. She said about those stories. What is one that has impacted you the most? And I asked you if you wouldn't mind sort of sharing uh just a small excerpt about a story. So maybe those two birds get hit by this one stone.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Oh, great question. Which one has impacted me the most? Oh my gosh, that's like asking to choose your favorite child. That's hilarious. Um yes, I I I tell a lot of stories about uh Caribbean mythical characters that are known to be protectors of our universe, stories that might have been passed down from Africans and taken over to the islands, stories like uh Mama Delot, who is protector of the rivers and the waters. And I love the stories about her because I feel they might have been linked to or inspired by Mami Water, who is an African spiritual goddess, also protector over the waters and the water creatures. And the image that I have of her is that she is this fierce female creature who rises from the water if we pollute the rivers, if we harm the water creatures, and she is half woman and half sea serpent. So her tail rises up from the sea and she will lash it down on a ship or any unsuspecting pirates, anyone that's doing what they shouldn't be doing in the waters and punish them in that way. So that story or stories about her. I remember my grandmother telling me about her, and I think they were partly warning stories as well, by not going too close to the water, and um and I think they're so relevant today, like many of these stories are that they might be hundreds of years old, but they stay with stay with us because they have lots of wisdom about looking after our planet and protecting protecting our land and our and our seas. So I love stories like that. And uh sorry, go ahead. I was just trying to remember the second part of the question.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Oh, you said you didn't remember the second part? Yeah, that's okay. Uh, but one of the things that I was thinking about as you were sharing that story, Tommy and I have both in our past done work around inclusion and trying to help people within institutions understand and value diversity. But one of the things uh that gets brought to mind is the power that storytelling can have to sort of neutralize uh the negativity that people may have around corporate education about a value. Uh, if you're telling stories from all different backgrounds, I think it's a powerful way to introduce young people and people of all ages. It kind of disarms you because it's not seeking to do anything, but uh sort of welcome you into a culture through people's stories. Have you seen that happen across diverse individuals and groups?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Absolutely. I think it's really what powers what I do because I'm in person with everyone and um all ages, so from babies right up to adults and in schools. And so being able to take part in a storytelling session means that you're we're all engaging together. So it's a collaborative social activity, it's not the same as a play or a show where you're just watching and listening to someone speaking to you didactically. So, in that sense, we're all riding this wave together, and when I'm telling stories, um, I'm preserving it's cultural preservation, so I try to fit in as much of that as I can as traditional storytelling um traditions, really, whether it's rituals, beliefs, food, clothing. Um, and so I get to see firsthand when children recognize themselves in the story. They might not recognize themselves individually, but children will come up to me and say something simple like, My family are from an Ashanti village too. Thank you for telling that story. Or I will say that a carrot have pounded some fufu and sprinkled some nutmeg, or and they just start cheering or clapping, and there is this sense of belonging and a sense of cultural identity that comes through from recognizing their history and their culture in a story, and then people that don't identify with that can turn to them and ask questions about it, and then they they explain and then they tell how what what what their history might be like, what their foods are like. So this conversation develops, which I think brings people closer together, all ages closer together, because there's this knowledge exchange, this culture exchange, whilst you're listening to the story and taking part in it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I've always thought that this was incredibly interesting because we know that we have the grios of our community, which are the caretakers of the the uh community, community historian, if you will. And then we have the storytellers. It's amazing to me that uh a story that may have a message of value that can connect to generations now and in the future, how for the most part, how intact a story is. So the storytellers are telling a story that can be 1,000 years old. And there's something about that that as I'm telling the story, and I have some dramatic interpretation of the story to bring people into the story, to have that those young people jump up and say, That's my life, right? And that's how uh uh my my grandmother or grandfather, uh uh you know, uh Baba, etc. Mama, how they have brought me into the family, and now I, as the receiver of the story, listen to the storyteller and say, You're like me, right? Can you, as we prepare you to possibly be able to share a snippet of a story, right? I just wanted to prepare our audience for a blessing in this. That uh I think again, storytelling is very important. My my father was a storyteller. Uh, much of his stories that he would share with me and my sisters uh were sometimes lectures that were couched in stories, right? Right? He'll start as a story and then three hours later, this is a lesson. We're in class. What's what's going on? No pads and everything. And we're trying to leave, and he's like testing us on the story. Like we're just clapping, we're entertained, right? Right. It was like, no, that's how good I am. And so a storyteller uh um that that tells the story, uh, it will bring up emotions, it will be self-reflective, it will be provocative, right? It would actually encourage folks to say, what is being said in the story and creating pause to be present in the moment uh of the story. And I think that in and I have a degree in Africana studies, so I I I believe in the psychology and sociology and historical background of people, not only on the continent, but also in the diaspora, that uh the storyteller was the gem of the community.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

Right. And we're having an outcry right now, Wendy. Uh our community is saying, tell us a story, tell us a story.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Yes, tell us the story. Oh gosh, oh gosh. Well, I can't, I would, I would love to see. And you did um remind me as well that because my grandmother and my dad actually, they used to speak in Proverbs, all our family did. And I didn't know it was Proverbs at the time. You know, you were saying about the lectures, and I'd sit and you'd listen to this a lot, and you'd think, What, why am I getting this lecture? And and I didn't realize it was Proverbs, it's just the way they communicated. And it wasn't until I became a storyteller and found out that you know these proverbs, they are summaries of the story. And so the proverbs end the story or they might start with the proverb because they unlock these sacred, they're like sacred keys that unlock the wisdom in the story. And so all the time we, you know, we're we're around our elders who are lecturing us with these very funny proverbs that contain these fantastic lessons for us. So, yes, without further ado, um, as you can see, I talk way too much about you in the right community. I will um share with you the beginning of a story that um so more recently I have been weaving history with folklore and myth to create a whole story, and sometimes those stories are inspired by exhibitions that might be taking place, and so I'm commissioned to craft a story inspired by that particular exhibition. So it's a way for me to um bring the history and those challenging, but challenging, complex history and those sometimes uncomfortable conversations to light, but with myths and legends. So there's there's a lot of light and shade in the story. So this particular story is about Anancy, who I'm sure many of you have heard of and have heard some stories about him. Sometimes he gets a bad rap and he's relegated to the children's corner, and there are many incredible, extraordinary stories about Anancy as a symbol of resistance and determination. And so I have a story about him that I've crafted with the Emperor of Marley. So I'll just tell you the beginning of it. And as it is a storytelling session, you have to be involved wherever you are. I might not be able to hear you, but I will welcome you into the story. It is traditional to check that you're ready to hear a story before a storyteller gifts it to you. So if you'd like to hear my tale, wherever you are in the world, when I say crick, you say crack. And now I know you're ready to begin. So I'd like to invite you all to travel way back in time with me. We're going to the Middle Ages a long time ago, and just as far from here, to the Empire of Mali, which spanned across West Africa, separated from the rest of the world by the vastness of the Sahara Desert in the north, down through to the savannah woodlands in the south. Now, way back then, Mali was rich in natural resources: gold, precious stones, minerals, salt, and there were grasslands, rolling mountains just steeped in gold. And one man at that time ruled over it all. Mansa Musa was his name. His name was what?

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Mansa Musa.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Right. So each time you hear me say the word Mansa, which means emperor, I'd like you to reply with the name Musa. Mansa Musa ruled over Mali. And he is said to have been the wealthiest world man who ever lived. In fact, if he was alive today, they say he would still be considered the wealthiest man by modern standards. His palaces stretched for over 2,000 miles along the West African coast. His army consisted of over 100,000 men, guards carrying shields made from buffalo hide spears dipped in gold. And he was a very flamboyant man, Mansa. He wore wide, vibrantly colored pants, and when he traveled, he did not travel with just a few people. He had entourages of over 10,000 people and animals, dancers, storytellers, historians, leaping gazelles, stomping, herding elephants all beside him. Now one day, Mansa was sitting back outside in front of one of his palaces on one of his beautifully crafted black ebony thrones, two large elephant tusks curved, arched over his head. The sun blazed down upon him, and he was being fanned by palm leaves, shielded by a beautiful red silk umbrella embroidered in gold. And just as he sat outside listening to the orders and advice of the day, two guards dragged in Anancy and threw him at the king's feet. He has been found spying on the gold trade. Well, there we should leave the story for today.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

Now, at least I get this story right here today.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

That was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Absolutely amazing. Wow, want to hear more? You've got fans out there. Uh, you are awesome at your craft. Can you talk to us a little bit about sort of the structure of storytelling? Uh, Tommy, I loved uh that she literally designed into the story some interactive places to make sure, especially in this day and time where young people have such people in general have such a short attention span, making sure that they're not able to wander off. Uh, we don't wander off if we know we're gonna be asked something. And so that's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Absolutely. And that is really a key part of how I tell the stories, and it's a culturally rich storytelling technique and tradition, it's meant to be participatory. So I spend time thinking of ways to make it interactive and to involve all ages in the story and to embody parts of the story as well. So, if I was telling a story, for instance, um, about uh a lady called Queen Kaziah, who was known to have led the first coal workers' strike on the island of St. Thomas back in the late 19th century. And um, I wanted children to be able to understand or experience a little bit about what it might have been like to be working so hard under the blazing hot sun with buzzing mosquitoes all around you and no chance of a break. And so we would do chanting throughout the story, and then I'll ask them, would you like a break? And they say, Yes, yes. And I say, Well, no, we have no breaks, there's no time for breaks. We have to work all day, and so we carry on the chant together or the rhyme together and really kind of jump into the tail.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

Well, I've got an AI opportunity for you, uh, since I'm big into AI now and really enjoying this. But here's something that I think that uh you might be able to do with that. That's uh uh, you know, you've written you're an author, you've written a book, but to really put together a framework that uh young people might be able to enter in sort of the character, da-da-da, you know, and all the different things that they would want that character to be able to do. And for each of them culturally to be able to get this into AI and then AI create a story that they tell back to them. Because I just see that where we are right now is that we're struggling for truth. Uh, we're struggling to hear and capture people's honest and authentic stories. And so uh I love that you're an author, but I think that we've got to find creative ways to get young people uh sort of detached from this social media world that's harming them so much. And everybody uh values their own story sometimes. And if you could put together a structure that would allow people to input something and then hear back from themselves that story, I think that would be a way of you taking what you're doing even to another level.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

That sounds like a really good idea. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 53:43

I would add, Eric, as I was as I was listening to Wendy's uh beautiful talent and gift, it immediately took me back 35 years ago, where in our community, when I was studying Africana studies, I was very familiar with story reading or storytelling. So we had uh the women, the elders in their community, they're called Queen Mothers. So I want to shout out Queen Mother Carr, Queen Mother Kim Yamo. These are the storytellers, right? So I remember having uh at the age of 18, 19, 20, and beyond, having to sit at the heels and the feet of the storyteller. And I was sitting just a few moments ago at the feet of Queen Mother Wendy as she was sharing the story, bringing me in. Right. And uh for for those in our community, the larger community, who have uh limited direct experience with uh storytelling, the the tradition, I would advise to do it. This exact this directly connected me to my rites of passage, right? The rights of passage and storytelling is part of the rites of passage from childhood into adulthood, adulthood into your elderhood, right? And and then preparing for the transition where those stories then go back to childhood. It's it's a cycle, it's a cycle. And so those uh this is how storytelling was how we uh spoke with one another when there were outside forces saying that you all cannot communicate, you cannot hold your historical biography. The storytelling was here's our story, here's where you belong, and we're gonna engage one another and make it quote unquote entertaining. But it was teaching a lesson. I know and have studied Manzamusa, right? So when you when when he came up, I'm like, she's not lying, right? Right, to this day, would be the most wealthy. I'm so excited. This is a blessing to me, uh Queen Mother Wendy.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Right. I mean, amazing, amazing, amazing. So, what is your hope for this generation? Uh, you're seeing a lot of the craziness that's happening in the world, and yet you sit there with those beautiful dimples, uh, with that wonderful smile that speaks of the love that resides in your heart and that beautiful water painting behind you. What is your hope for uh this generation and for the world that we live in that's under so much calamity? And in the midst of that, you're like uh an oasis, uh a bright light. Uh, what is your hope for uh young people today and as it relates to storytelling, as it relates to oral history, uh as it relates to love?

SPEAKER_00 56:59

My hope, and I think I see this all the time when I'm storytelling with all ages, is that, and I tell everybody this as well, that once they've heard the stories, that they can make it their own and retell the stories. So I encourage young people to retell the story because we're all uncovering these parts of our history and parts of our ancestral souls and and collecting them and bringing them back and sharing them for all the other generations. And when I'm in a telling a story, sometimes it's 30 minutes, sometimes it's an hour, they are enthralled, they are joining in and they sit all ages, and so I know that, and they know that they don't have to be sitting on social media or the phones or whatever it is, getting distracted. And so I hope and I can see see the hope and the light in in other people's eyes. So I know that whilst all this craziness is going on, there is there is a lot that's being rebirthed and a lot that's growing, and we're just laying these roots that have been handed down to us from all of our ancestors and grappling with that so that we can carry on shining and learning more about ourselves. I think I'd leave everyone with a quote. One of my favorite writers and poets, Mayor Angelo, she said something like, Um, you can't really know where you're going until you know where you have been.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Right. I'll tell you that uh I don't know what we expected this morning, but my goodness, you have blown past all of that. Uh uh bring up Roger Miller's comment uh when the story paints a picture and you're in it, you really get it. I love that. Uh, the next uh quote says, uh, you are super inspiring, my dear Wendy. I love that as well. I'll tell you that. Uh what I am informed of is we need an army of Wendy's right now to help us find something else to do uh than listen to foolishness. Because right now it feels like uh that people will do whatever the law will allow. And they see that one of the most uh the easiest ways to get people's attention, because that's what they're there's a war over our attention. And so one of the easiest ways to get our attention is through negativity. But we have had an example here. You have literally put forth an example of how engaging the power of a story can be. So for anybody in our community that wants to learn more about you, what you do, you know, storytelling, how might they be able to reach out and contact or connect with you, Wendy?

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Yeah, of course. Um so my website is one way to get in contact with me, which is my name, my full name, Wendyshear.co.uk. I'm also on Instagram as my name, Wendy C Shearer. And I would also like to put a shout out to all of the other many, many storytellers that are in the you in the US and in the UK. I'm part of a network of fantastic storytellers that inspire me, that teach me, that correct me, that support me as well. And so wherever you are, you can you can plug into that. And um so I'm also the chair of the Society for Storytelling, which is a very small UK charity, and we volunteer, I volunteer with a few trustees and an and a few other volunteers to raise public awareness of the value of storytelling and um and support storytellers around around the country and the UK with events. So there's a lot, a lot happening and a lot that people can, if once you know about it, just kind of plug in and connect.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

Excellent. Tommy, you want to uh have a final word and close this out?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

Yeah, it's it's unfortunate that we are at our time. Right, I can't believe it. Because I'm I'm thinking storytelling, I'm thinking uh just very briefly. Uh, I remember uh listening to Bob Marley and and how um not only reggae and ska music in the Caribbean is well received and has been well received in the UK. And so uh let's let's expand our global perspective. And we've done it today, Eric. Absolutely. We have Wendy Shearer from the UK, North London is what she's repping, right? And she's coming to us, a beautiful spirit, beautiful person. Uh, we would like to invite our community to indeed uh follow and keep up with Queen Mother Wendy. With that being said, we want to thank our community as we always do and will always do in the future to come out and join us again and thank you for today and joining us in another episode of Diversity Conversations. Take care.