I offered a parable that went viral in this college –and soon appeared in a major urban newspaper located in a city near this college. I described a village that was located in the shadow of a large damn. The damn held a large quantity of water; however, none of the water could be used by the residents of this village to either quench their thirst or irrigate their plants. The water had to be used for cleaning the streets of the village.

Standing in the “shadow of the damn”, the villagers with parched throats witnessed the withering of their crops. What was to be done. They soon began to notice that some of the street-cleaning water began to splash up into their face and wet their lips. Other water seemed to flow from the overwatered streets into trenches that led to the fields. Soon, there was a large amount of water splashing from the streets unto the villagers’ faces and from the streets to the trenches. Living in the shadow of the damn, the villagers now found refreshment and food> However, they wondered why this foolish policy remained in place regarding the restrictive use of water to clean their streets. And they found that too much water was still being wasted in efforts to divert water from the streets to their mouths and fields Who after all owned the damn and who could change the policy?

This parable appealed to the literary sensibilities of many faculty at this college. More importantly, it provided some direction for the faculty to take corrective action. Rather than sitting back and grumbling about the “stupid” use of faculty development funds and finding ways to divert funds from professional development to the padding their inadequate salary, the faculty (and especially the program director) went to the foundation and asked for a review and modification of the program’s focus. They took action while living in the shadow of the damn.

Conclusions

As a coach we can assist our client in not only retaining what they wish to remember, but also in constructing a narrative about their life and work that is both MEMORABLE and INSPIRING. It is at this point that our clients are most likely to consider (consciously or unconsciously) a major shift in their governing self-schema. We provide new visual images, new language, new MAPS—and new narratives.

Most of we poor souls do not have infinite memories as do Luria’s patient and Teddy Nadler. Instead, we must explore the powerful, constructive power that we (who do not have infinite memory) find in the consolidation that occurs when we retain something in long-term memory. When we find and acknowledge this constructive power then we come to another important realization: a profound reconstruction of reality accompanies the consolidation. We are selective in what we retain and have a choice regarding the category or schema to which we assign particular memories. We are in the business of interpreting what we have stored in memory as these memories relate to our constructed life narrative.

As coaches, we can influence this “business” on behalf of our client’s own welfare. We can help our clients construct their personal, life narrative and use this narrative to guide their future actions. (Drake, 2017). Most importantly, as coaches we can encourage and assist our client in the construction of a narrative that is positive in nature and that builds on the appreciation of their own distinctive strengths and their own history of success (Bergquist and Mura, 2011).

One final item. Do you remember the phone number?