What Story Are You In?
What Story Are You In?
What’s your favorite book or film?
What makes that story so impactful? Is it the protagonist or the antagonist? The plot? Can you relate to it? Does it speak to your desire for adventure, acceptance, or love? Is it historical, fictional, or a blend of both? Maybe it’s a biography that captures the resilience of the human spirit.
Whatever it is, each story we love has been carefully crafted and diligently poured over, line by line, word by word. Every tear, laugh, triumph, and downfall is intentional. In film, every shot is meticulously planned. The score is precisely composed to provide the emotional backdrop, not just for the characters, but for us.
The world of the athlete occurs to me as very similar to that of the artist.
We gather into stadiums, arenas, or our child’s baseball game to witness what, exactly? I believe it’s to witness an intense drama; the culmination of different characters (athletes, coaches, teams) who have each invested painstaking time and attention into the story that’s about to unfold on the field. We watch each at-bat, each snap, each serve, waiting for the celebration in victory or the heartbreak of defeat.
The tone and tenor of a team’s journey isn’t only crafted in gameplay and practice, but in passionate speeches, press conferences, and season mantras. You’ll find these mantras in every weight room and tunnel—they become integral to the experience of each athlete, and in turn, to us. Whether on the page, the screen, or the field, these productions tell a story.
And we don’t just watch them, we feel them. We experience them.
So what does this have to do with performance—in our work, in our lives?
The masters of these crafts—athletes, authors, and artists—have learned that everything is about story. That may seem obvious in the realm of screenwriters and directors, but it’s just as true for athletes. And it’s just as true for you.
There’s something powerful about the written and spoken word. It opens doors to worlds we could never have imagined, and once we step inside, we’re immersed in the character’s reality. With great storytelling, we’re not just spectators—we become participants.
If you’ve ever been part of a book club, or watched a movie with a group of friends, I’m certain you’ve had the experience of walking away with different interpretations of what just unfolded in front of you. This divergence is sometimes intentional—a beautiful tool used by creatives that invites the audience or spectators to participate in the story.
In stadiums, we see this in the chants and cheers of the fans. In films, we see it in well-crafted ambiguity.
I remember going to see Christopher Nolan’s Inception while it was in theaters. As soon as the credits rolled, people were already debating: Did the top fall? Was he still in a dream? Was it all an inception?
Why do we see the same scenes and walk away with such different interpretations?
It’s because the phenomenon of participating in the crafting of the story doesn’t just happen in fiction. It happens in life when the stakes are high, the pressure is on, and reality is unscripted. And sometimes, it has devastating consequences.
When Story Becomes Reality
The Innocence Project found that between 1989 and 2020, 358 people were exonerated by DNA testing after being convicted and sentenced to death. Of those, 71% had been convicted based primarily on eyewitness testimony—much of which later proved flawed or inaccurate due to the limits of human perception and memory. The average time served by each individual? Fourteen years.
Why? Because eyewitnesses recall the story their brain participated in piecing together. Stress, trauma, poor visibility, racial bias, physical distance, and emotional shock all shape what the witness recalls. And ultimately, the only story a person can truthfully tell is the one they believe is true.
This is because our brains take in around 11 million bits of information per second, but our conscious mind can only process about 50 of them. The rest are filtered out. Much of those 11 million bits are simple sensory inputs: the feeling of breathing or the pressure points between your backside and the chair you’re sitting in. You don’t think about them, until you do.
But it’s not just the sensation of taking a deep breath or the feel of your phone in your hand that gets filtered out. We also filter things that make us uncomfortable or challenge our worldview. We filter out inputs that run counter to our prevailing narrative, our story.
Each of our minds is the director, sorting through those 11 million bits and selecting the 50 that make it to the big screen of consciousness. The rest? They’re tossed to the cutting room floor of the unconscious. (They’re not gone—they can be accessed with a well-crafted rhythm of work and rest, but that’s a conversation for another time.)
Choosing a New Story
The data on what becomes an occurrence is not just interesting—it’s revealing.
First, it reveals that our attention is finite.
Second, it reveals that we’re likely missing the exact things we need to level up in our work, homes, and spiritual lives.
So what determines the 50 bits our brain chooses?
I contend it’s our current story—specifically, the beliefs that form it. And our brains desperately try to reinforce the stories that help us feel good, look good, be right, or stay in control. In short: we seek comfort. But here’s the thing: comfort is the coffin of growth.
How do we shed light on the story that’s keeping us comfortably stuck?
Vision.
Spend time with a coach and envision a life that brings you to your knees in tears or lifts you into uncontrollable laughter. What is that call to adventure you’ve suppressed for a decade? Get it out. Go deep. Describe what your life would look like if you chased it fully.
Once you have a thrilling vision, build the hero. Who would he or she need to be to conquer all the dragons or space aliens (whatever your genre of choice is)? Let it sit.
Then ask: Why not more? Why not 2x or 10x?
These objections are the stories you’re living now? They’re narrowing your focus from 11 million bits of possibility down to 50 bits of limited comfort. And those 50 bits? You’re acting on them. Your life is being shaped by them.
But we don’t pick up a novel hoping the hero stays exactly the same. We don’t watch the game hoping the opposing team makes it easy. We want the challenge. The breakthrough. The transformation.
Absent growth, the story isn’t worth telling.
So if our aim is to align more fully with our calling, we have to confront the stories keeping us “comfortably stuck” and choose the one that empowers us to fulfill the calling set before us.
What will choosing this new story do? It will allow us to shift our focus and expand our awareness from those 50 bits we currently see, to the 11 million bits of possibility, truth, and resource all around us.
Then, we get to try out new commitments that align with who we’re called to be and begin to watch how that story unfolds.
Our great adventure.