Stories we tell ourselves

and changing our rote responses

Aug 08, 2024

My post today is inspired by another wonderful School of the Possible Collaboratory session, where SoP founder & visionary Dave Gray orchestrates an experience with a guest “progressor” (our term of art akin to “professor”). This week, we welcomed Donna Lichaw, a highly respected author of The User’s Journey (an influential tome recently named an all-time top-10 software design book by BookAuthority) and more recently, The Leader’s Journey.

I read The Leader’s Journey a few months ago, as I sensed it might be helpful to inform my book-in-progress about how to build great solutions, since so much of that effort comes down to our ability to help lead creative work and manage execution while sustaining our souls in authentic ways. In this book, she shows how leaders can become true heroes in their organization by having a clear identity, leveraging their superpowers, knowing their kryptonite, and pursuing a mission. Her informed observations and guidance for success align well with my emphasis on maximizing our strengths in a given situation, even while remaining aware of our weaknesses. I recommend this book to everybody who works with others to get things done, whether or not you identify as a “leader” (since my view on that matter is that each of us has to lead ourselves).

Thinking in Stories

Currently, Donna is exploring and expanding upon a major insight gleaned from her executive coaching practice. Her clients these days are all individuals operating in the C-Suite at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Despite their external success, she’s observed that the number one obstacle experienced by all her clients is the stories they tell themselves.

When conflict or obstacles inevitably arise, we typically devise a narrative to explain it. Donna introduced a common human narrative arc of experience that begins with a stimulus, is followed by an action, and results in a reward.

We all experience this common flow in our lives, such as: “I saw this great t-shirt that made me laugh, so I bought it. Now whenever I wear it, I make some other people laugh too.”

Funny t-shirts that I might buy because they made me laugh and I’d like to make you laugh as well

The challenge is that the stories we tell ourselves in business contexts tend to be convoluted or opaque, and they often lack certain key factual details. Say for example that I’m having some difficulty operating smoothly with the head of another business unit. Here is how one such story unfolding in a business context might go: “I set up a 1:1 meeting with her, and she was fifteen minutes late. When she finally showed up, she didn’t have a good excuse. I felt disrespected. I think she must not like me. I’m going to avoid meeting with her from now on.”

Donna advises that we take a cold, hard look at each story like this that we’re telling ourselves. Crucially, we need to separate the facts from the feelings and from the fictions. In the story above, one fact is that this person arrived 15 minutes late to a meeting. Another fact is that she didn’t share a great excuse. One feeling was that of disrespect.

However, one fiction is the thought that her being late means she doesn’t like me. Do I have tangible and observable evidence for that determination? Instead of leaping to this conclusion based on a couple of facts and one feeling, what else might be going on here? Can I remain open to alternative possibilities, which might improve our interactions and help me better operate with this individual?

Unpacking our immediate responses

One of the more valuable things I’ve learned from studying Buddhism is the insight that every reaction we have to something is either positive, negative, or neutral. While this may sound simplistic, it has powerful ramifications once we find ways to observe it happening in our consciousness.

Being human, we are fundamentally wired to have feeling responses to the stimuli we encounter in our lives. Donna laughingly likened people to “amoebas” which makes the point vividly — when we’re poked by something sharp, the hurt generates a negative response and we pull back; when we’re presented with something tempting, the desired thing generates a positive response and we reach for it.

There’s an extremely tight loop in our consciousness between our positive/negative/or/neutral “feeling” response and our “thinking” response. I asked Donna about which truly comes first, and she reported that the scientific literature still debates which comes first, although it’s leaning towards first we think and then we feel.

Whether our minds think then feel or feel then think, the most important thing we can learn to do is unpack what’s happening in that loop before we take action.

Because if we don’t find a way to examine what we’re thinking and feeling, the actions we take toward a reward are extremely likely to be nothing more than a mindless habit loop, an old program we’re running without any debugging or optimizing.

Finding space within

If we can find space within the thinking-and-feeling loop, we create more possibilities for ourselves.

Can we find a moment to pause and recognize that something appealing has created a positive reaction and that we’re inclined to grasp after that thing? Then, can we ask ourselves whether that grasping is going to be the wisest action for this moment?

Can we create a conscious space in which we recognize that we’ve found something unpleasant and are inclined to push it away from us? Then, can we examine whether acting on our aversion is the most effective or kindest way we might respond?

In my story example above, the unpleasant feelings created by having this fellow executive show up extremely late to a 1:1 meeting might have me rewarding myself by avoiding setting up any more meetings with her, thus preventing possible future occurrences of those negative, disrespected feelings. However, when reflecting on the bigger picture, I might see that assiduously avoiding meeting with a key business counterpart would engender more troublesome issues over time.

One simple strategy Donna shared for assessing our stories is remaining curious. What changes if I say to myself, “Isn’t that interesting? I wonder why she was so late and didn’t have a good reason….” At this juncture, plausible theories are easy to imagine. (Like: she had a personal problem she didn’t want to share; she was deeply focused on something else and had suppressed calendar reminders; she had a technical malfunction that was too embarrassing to voice, &c.)

Now, I’m not suggesting that we become fiction writers ready to draft potential plot points for the people around us. However, we’re well served to recognize how easily we craft stories, especially about the difficult things we experience. Left unexamined, those stories might seem credible because of some of our negative beliefs and fears. Using the “fact vs feeling vs fiction” framework helps us separate reality from manufactured dramas. And remaining curious — and then ideally investigating further with the other party — will help us understand the root cause of a given conflict or obstacle.

Becoming aware of how our consciousness operates is incredibly valuable, since everything we experience unfolds in consciousness. Having mindful practices that open even the tinest bit of space between our reaction to a stimulus and our resulting action is rewarding beyond measure. Whether that space occurs right in the moment or later after some reflection, it’s a mental and emotional victory that helps us act more compassionately, more kindly, and more effectively in our lives and work.

If you’re curious about exploring mindful practices, contact me (with a comment, email reply, or DM along with your email address) and I will gift you with a free month of the brilliant Waking Up app from

Sam Harris

I’m super excited for the book that Donna is starting to write on this subject of the stories we tell ourselves since we’ve just touched the tip of this particular iceberg! Wondering, what are some of your strategies for better understanding the stories you tell yourself, and creating space to change your rote responses? Share away!

Lizz at Devise

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