According to Ulrich Kellerer, a simple act like storytelling in a reading group can help.
Kellerer has seen first-hand how reading to and exchanging stories with the elderly can enhance health, happiness, and longevity. After frequent visits to see his mother in the nursing home, he discovered the loneliness and depression problem that challenged many of the residents, despite the facility’s quality care. To brighten the scene, Ulrich began a reading group where he shared the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, Mark Twain, and other attention-grabbing short stories. These visits became the most anticipated event on the nursing home’s calendar as they brought charm, entertainment, physical assistance, and encouragement to a small audience who averaged 83 years of age.
Ulrich not only read stories to the group, he encouraged them to open their hearts and share their own personal stories – which he discovered were extraordinary and needed to be told. He later compiled them into a book One Moment Can Change Your Life, Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary People. In this series Kellerer reveals how other people can find THEIR special role in helping others, making a difference, and savoring special moments that will be remembered for a lifetime.
“Depression has a profound negative impact on physical and mental health but sharing stories brings people together. It promotes health and longevity because connecting over the shared human experience gives a sense of well-being.”
In An Interview/Article, Ulrich Can Share:
- How to sharing stories can help fight the depression epidemic and increase longevity.
- How people can use the art of story sharing in their own lives to ward off depression.
- How to reconnect with our elderly whose wisdom and vision can help us live much better lives.
- Why volunteering, contributing to the community and helping others (even strangers!) can improve your marriage, career, health, or bank account.
Kellerer is on a mission to fight the depression epidemic and promote health and longevity through the simple act of sharing stories and he has advice for people on how they can help!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ulrich Kellerer
Ulrich Kellerer’s decades of success in the fashion industry seemed destined from his earliest days living on a farm south of Munich, Germany – but it’s his current emergence as a talented storyteller, book writer and inspirational speaker that is giving his life a deeper meaning and purpose. After years of helping others look amazing, these endeavors are allowing him to have an impact on people he could never meet if he hadn’t ventured beyond the world of fall/spring collections and runways.
Ulrich concludes that his ultimate goal is to share his message that everyone should do something to make the world a better place. “I’m so blessed with a loving wife and business partner in Inge and good friends,” he says, “and embarking on these creative endeavors, I have met so many incredible people I would never have met in the fashion industry. Rather than talking over and over about the next collection in London, Paris or Milan, I’m talking about things of greater significance to me, and hopefully many others.”