The Story I Didn’t Know I was Writing
The Story I Didn’t Know I Was Writing
by David Shrum
Where I am today is in a much different place than I ever thought I’d be. The idea that I would be sitting behind a laptop, typing out my thoughts—things I’ve learned and noticed over the years—still surprises me. Sharing powerful insights from clients that change lives? That feels completely foreign to who I thought I would be and what I imagined I’d be doing.
With hindsight, I’m able to see the story being written—but it still makes me pause. What would be possible if we each were more aware of the story being written in our lives? What if we gave ourselves the time to become more in tune with that story? I believe we’d begin to take more ownership of the plot unfolding around us.
Abdicating the Pen
Ownership of my story was something I abdicated in many chapters of my life. I believed the events happening around me were set in stone. That the world was made of facts and evidence—and that I was merely a casual observer of them.
I believed I was a rational being, and that my telling of the story was the correct one. I believed I was taking ownership of the fact that I’m human—someone who has hurt people and at times made intentional decisions that pulled me away from who I said I wanted to be. I believed I was owning my success, too.
I had done the work:
Became an EMT and Firefighter in 2009
Earned my Paramedic certification in 2011
Worked in my hometown for nearly 5 years
Became a Registered Nurse
Took on the role of Director at an EMS agency in Central Ohio
Was part of a team that accomplished big things and changed the trajectory of that agency over my near 7-year tenure
Got married to a wonderful woman who surprises me every day
Became a father to three amazing children
So where was the problem?
It wasn’t what was happening around me that was the issue.
It was what I was experiencing within me that was so crippling.
Cracks in the Story
I was experiencing doubt, anxiety, guilt—that my past and present weren’t what I wanted them to be. I felt stuck in my work, despite the wins. I felt underappreciated and was constantly looking for ways to escape the day-to-day. Things that were once hobbies became habits… and then dependencies.
Things that once brought me joy, brought me frustration—and reinforced all of the stories I was believing.
I wasn’t surprised by the way I was experiencing life. This is just the way life is, I told myself.
A Shift Begins
Then I reconnected with a former coach named Karen.
I had first met her in 2016, and then brought her into the EMS agency in 2019 for an assessment and to help implement much-needed processes. At the time, she was already an amazing practitioner of Gallup’s StrengthsFinder, and over the years, we kept in touch as her work continued to evolve and deepen.
In 2024, I reached out again to learn more about what she was up to. She told me she had recently enrolled in a program to become a certified executive coach through the Meta Performance Institute. A few weeks later, she emailed me to make an introduction to Joseph King Barkley.
From there, my world was flipped upside down.
That tends to happen when you start working with and around powerful coaches.
A New Understanding of Ownership
As I went through the process of becoming a Meta Performance Coach, I learned an unbelievable amount.
One of the biggest shifts?
Understanding that ownership wasn’t just about what I had accomplished—or where I had dropped the ball.
It was about owning the experience I was having.
Even more: it was about recognizing that the experience an individual or team is having is one that they are creating. That’s a powerful concept—but I wrestled with how to apply it. That’s when I was introduced to the The Three Laws of Performance by Dave Logan and Steve Zaffron, which became foundational for me and my work.
The Three Laws of Performance
Law #1: Our performance is based on how the world occurs to us.
This helped me feel less crazy.
It made sense. If the world occurs to me as one in which I’m underappreciated as a leader, then of course I’ll perform accordingly. In places where I feel like a vital part of the team, I’ll show up with energy and belief.
But that raised another question: Why does the world occur to me the way it does?
Law #2: Our occurrences are formed by language and story.
This hit deep.
The power of story has been around me my entire life. I grew up in a Christian home, so I had an elementary understanding of narrative. But I never fully appreciated just how much our story and the stories around us shape the way the world occurs to us and therefore how we act.
Jesus of Nazareth understood this. He taught in parables. He told stories that helped shape the worldview of his 1st century Jewish disciples and the parables continue to shape millions of lives today. He revealed new ways of understanding and viewing the world—ways that aligned with a deeper truth, purpose, and identity.
Christ understood the power of story—he is the “Word made flesh”—specifically, the power of God’s story.
We see this in our politics, too. Two or three parties constantly reframing their actions as noble, while crafting stories that villainize their opponents. And then what happens? The constituents adopt the same story. They begin to speak and act like the “other side” is evil or backwards. But when individuals from those opposing views have real, human conversations, they’re often surprised: “We have way more in common than I thought.”
Why? Because when you remove someone from their story, and give them space to be unjudgmentally wrong about it, they often become more willing to adopt a new one—one that makes space for others’ humanity.
Creating an environment for hearing a new story begins to shed light on how the things we believe, and these are often the very things that keep us heading down the same trail we’ve been heading for decades. Once the light of a new story breaks through, we often start to notice all of the trail paths around us. And that leads us to the third law.
Law #3: Generative language can change how people and events occur to us—
and therefore, change our performance.
When people are given the opportunity to explore new language—language aligned with a thrilling vision for their life—it not only can reshape how past events occurred, it can radically shift how they step into their future.
This isn’t hocus pocus. This is real work.
Work that takes time.
Work that takes commitment.
Work that can change everything.
Doing the Work
For me, the work meant slowing down and examining the stories and language that were forming my experiences. These stories are like filters or lenses—and everything in our life passes through them.
What gets produced on the other side of that lens is what we call “occurrence.” And based on that occurrence, we behave accordingly.
The beautiful thing? The lenses can be changed, they can be swapped out. Believe me, it’s not always easy and it takes real effort. You may find that there are times you choose to place the old set of lenses back on and you have to dive back in and do more work to ensure you have the right lenses on. But we do have a choice. A choice to examine our lenses and see if they are producing the occurrences and therefore outcomes we desire, and if they are not, we are given the choice to try on a new lens and assess the fruits of our labor.
When we adopt a new story we can not only find peace for the past, but a resource for who we need to be today, to prepare us for our thrilling adventure for tomorrow.
Choosing the Filter
The power of this is simple and profound:
I get to align my current experience with who I want to become.
I get to choose a lens that pulls me into an adventure I want to live.
I get to co-create my life, not just witness it.
I get to own my experience.
And I get to press on every day toward the race set before me.
If you’ve felt stuck, numb, or out of sync with your own story, know that you can change the lens. You can write a new chapter. You can choose a new language that aligns with a thrilling vision for your life.