Our Story
Narrative Research Group was founded by Dr Dennis Rebelo for the purpose of sharing his love for narrative identity. Dr Rebelo has always been fascinated by the complexities of people and through his organizational development and formal doctoral research created the PEAK Storytelling Model to serve as a framework to understand one’s identity. Narrative Research Group provides tools and support to people and organizations to excavate, create and perform their narratives in an effort to show their value and worth at work and in life.
© 2021 Dr. Dennis Rebelo
The PEAK Storytelling Map
Shannon Rebelo
Executive Director
Shannon Rebelo is an educator with the heart of a counselor. Over her career she has worked to advocate and provide access to students in traditional classrooms, boardrooms and for global online learning communities. Most recently Shannon has been responsible for contextualizing the PeakStorytelling programming for NRG, along with the NRG Human Skills Academy learning programs and actively oversees credentialization for NRG Certified Coaches. Shannon currently resides in the Berkshires with her husband, Dr. Dennis Rebelo, and their three Australian Shepherds: Bruce, Sweetie & Chase.
Dr. Dennis Rebelo
Founder, Board Member
Dr. Dennis Rebelo is a professor, speaker, and career coach. He is the creator of the Peak Storytelling model, his research-based method for crafting the narrative of who you are and what drives you and why, utilized by former professional athletes turned nonprofit leaders as well as entrepreneurs, CEOs, guidance professionals, leadership development experts and advisors throughout the world. He is the creator of the AS3 systems for storytelling in business environments. The AS3 Communication system was licensed to a hyper-growth international company prior to being gifted to Narrative Research Group, Inc in 2022.
Meet the Board of Directors
Our Principles
1. YOU DETERMINE YOUR LIFE PATH: CHOICE IS CENTRAL TO LIFE-OUTCOMES.
2. WE LIVE IN THE WORLD; SOCIAL CONTEXT MATTERS.
We believe that context is the “soup of living”; it provides the flavor of life that can inform how a person orients and reorients their now and future life and work. By honoring the context of key life events, any individual can sense and become more effective in understanding their subjective interpretation of self-event connections and the meaning those moments provide in making sense of one’s life.
3. FINDING SELF-EVENT CONNECTIONS IS POWERFUL.
We create these moments by engaging in life or when life happens to us; either way, we are intimately connected to key moments and assign more value and meaning to some moments than others. Life moments remind a person of their competencies, motivations and what matters. Moments that matter more emerge from our consciousness when an individual is given time to reflect, connect and unpack details of meaningful moments. Time provides this opportunity. Process guides it. Everyone is capable of it.
4. WORK AND LIFE ARE NON-LINEAR, BUT YOUR STORY HAS A PATH.
We believe that key life moments are discoverable across the lanes-of-life and are not situated in a “work only lane” or a “recreation lane” or even a “family lane”; rather, the lanes in life simply are the places we can find key moments. The real synthesis in making a pathway that’s sense-making and self-affirming requires lane crossing as you find the key dots or moments of your life. It’s a subjective process. It’s self-driven. It’s a path not a line.
5. NARRATIVE IS MORE THAN STORY.
Stories represent a moment in time. A well-formed self-narrative connects the key moments or dots of one’s life “over” time. Narratives are sense-making, self-affirming and share self-knowledge with others in ways that align a person’s next chapter of life by making a valid future claim linking their evolving personal identity to a work type, lifestyle, using specific combinations of competencies to contribute to a community and the world. Narrative identity is a process; it requires integration of many stories en route to crafting a central cohesive sense-making characterization of an individual. Narrative identity developmental work is fun, creative, inspiring and fosters psychological wholeness, emotional settledness, and adds vigor to a person’s life.
