Following or Finding a Path 2
Leaders Choose the Stories They Live
As we grow up, we hear stories about ourselves: how we learned to walk, how we learned to talk, how we behaved, how we treated our siblings and friends. The stories predate the ability of our brains to remember the events. So we rely on the people telling them.
In incremental ways that grow larger over time, the stories people tell and the stories we tell ourselves become the definition of the person we see in the mirror. And when we’re in doubt about who that is, we’ve learned to look outside — to the stories — to describe the person we are inside. … if we just listen, pay attention long enough, the people and the stories will tell us who we are and why we’re here.
How many stories in your head are told from someone else’s point of view?
How many stories in your head are told by a weaker, smaller, less experienced version of you?
How many stories in your head are untrue?
Leaders live up to their best truth.
Leaders choose which stories we live.
What Is the Best True Story You Could Tell about You?
Leadership is taking responsibility for who we are now and who we will be. If we want to know our uniqueness and own it, we have to evaluate the stories we’ve been living and believing to decide what we know is true. We need to think deeply on the stories we’ve been telling about ourselves.
Leaders know their uniqueness and own it. We don’t need to invent a new tale. We need to recognize the true story of who we are as the leader we’ve decided to be.
Our cells are genetically programmed to do some things better than others. Our brain needs to pay attention to what our cells know. We can see the answers throughout our history and in our experience. Here’s how to do that …
- Collect the stories about yourself — true stories of your life.
- Identify and share the stories that make you stronger. You’ll know them because you like what they say about you.
- Stop telling and believing in the stories that hold you back. File them as historically true but irrelevant.
- Recognize your values by seeing them in the true stories of your life you choose.
- Use your values to keep your true story true and valuable for everyone you serve.
Reflect on the stories you tell about yourself and decide which are those that truthfully represent the best value and values in you. Decide which stories truly define you and which ones can be left behind as now meaningless. Claim the true story that is your uniqueness, your skills and your abilities, your image, your traits, and your potential.
When you do that, you’ll take command of who you are now. That’s when you’ll begin to see your fit and purpose — how you individually meet a need or solve a problem in a way that no other person can. You’ll attract people who share those values. You’ll find it easier to talk about what you do, because you’ll know that your life stands a proof.
You’re the only one qualified to identify your true story — you are the person who has been living it every minute of it. Take the idea seriously. Listen to what you know about yourself.
What is the best true story you could tell about you?
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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