Truth Bomb Tuesday: The stories we tell matter, but who is telling yours?
I’ve written a few times about the power that comes with being the author of your own story.
And I don’t just mean that you get to decide the way you live and the things you get to do.
I mean being the ‘sense-maker’ – the one who interprets your life’s experiences to build a conception of self out of.
If this idea is new to you, think of Kanye West – the famous American Hip Hop artist. The story goes that Kanye has a life sized-poster of himself in his living room, on stage, rocking out a stadium concert.
Why?
It’s probably not because he gets off on looking at pictures of himself. I mean, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s that.
Rather, he wants to tell a story about having the charisma and skills to rock out a stadium concert.
He tells that story so that when he is in front of 50,000 people, he feels at home. It feels like that’s where he’s supposed to be. He has created an idea of who he is, and that idea is consistent with rocking out a stadium concert.
This is something you need to be aware of if you are radically changing up your life. If you want to live a life of wealth, you need to make sure the story you are telling about yourself – your idea of who you are – is one that’s consistent with being wealthy.
If not, wealth won’t happen, or it won’t happen for long. Our stories define the lives we lead.
(Read that last sentence again, and make sure you have clocked the causation.)
Now, I’ve talked about this before.
But sometimes we see this story-telling technique used consciously – like the way Kanye does – and sometimes it gets deployed unconsciously.
We’ve probably all met someone that seemed to have no ability for self-reflection. No matter what happened, they always had some story or the other about why it wasn’t their fault. Why it was someone else’s fault, or just fate.
Whatever happened, they seem to always have a beautiful story ready to go about why they’re blameless and perfect.
And when you watch someone like this spinning one of these stories, you’re amazed to see that they really believe it.
They are genuinely NOT lying to you. They’re not just covering their arse. They genuinely believe the stories they are telling.
This is the shadow-side of the skill I outlined above.
When it’s used consciously, you can prepare yourself for your best and most full-power life.
But when you don’t have conscious control of it – when your sub-conscious has control of it – then it can be used to paper-over pain and deflect criticism and opportunities for growth.
It’s still a powerful tool, but it’s in the wrong hands.
It’s not being used to drive your own growth. Rather it is used to coddle your insecurities and avoid change.
So watch out for this this week.
Remember, the stories we tell matter.
Just got to be careful who gets to tell the story of you.
DB