Shaping Your Life's Narrative: Neuroscience and the Art of Masterful Storytelling

Welcome back, masterful listeners. This is a very special episode. We're going to be diving into the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others, and the stories that are both conscious and unconscious. You know, often we keep saying things over and over and over again without even realizing it. And what does that do? It literally recreates the thing that we're talking about over and over and over again. And yet, often the things that we're saying, the stories that we're telling, they're not actually the things that we want to keep creating. And as I always say here at the world's first super ad listening school, we

have to be very mindful of what we are aware of first, what we are listening to. How are we listening to ourselves, to the things we're saying to ourselves, to the questions that we're asking ourselves, because it's only through awareness that we can shift anything. And I'm going to invite you, as always, to listen masterfully today. And what does that mean? It means that I invite you to get rid of any distractions. This is not a show to listen to in the background, unless maybe you're re-listening to it and you're trying to just kind of train your subconscious mind over and over again. That's cool. But

if this is the first time you're listening to this episode or to this show, put everything else aside, give yourself the gift for the next hour or so to practice masterful listening. Meaning, first, check in. Do you want to listen to a podcast episode having to do with rewriting your own stories? We all have this asshole living in our head, whether we know it or not. Our brains are wired towards negativity. We, as human beings, often focus on what's wrong and what we're lacking versus on what's right and what we're building. And it is incredible how taking a moment to just become aware of what I

am saying? What am I asking? And what am I getting from that? And could I say something new, ask a different type of question, and literally rewrite the story of my life? And the thing is, you can do that, and I'm gonna help you do that. Many years ago, I came up with what I call the five-story activity. I'm gonna go ahead and link it. It's a LinkedIn article, and it's going to basically give you a rundown of what we're talking about today. And so feel free in this episode, take some notes because I will literally be guiding you through an activity. And I'm going to

share how doing this activity internally has truly shifted my story as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. Because let me tell you, it is not easy to run your own business. There's a lot of incredible parts of it. You know, I make my own schedule, I work when I want.

You know, I got to meet people every day. There were positives and there were things I did not like. And ultimately, I decided to craft a story of my life where I was my own boss. But that has not been easy. It has come with its own set of challenges. And I had to really look at myself and what I was telling myself about this entrepreneurial journey and the impact that that was having. And then I considered what it would look like to shift some of my stories. So I'm going to share that journey. I'm going to share the activity. I'm also going to take certain

moments today to pause and invite you to stop the show and do some introspection, do some writing. You can do it when I invite you to, or you can do it after. But I highly encourage you to take some action, right? I always say that my intention for this show is yes, I want it to be entertaining and I want you to become a better listener, but I also want you to start doing things more masterfully. Because you've been learning how to listen better, it will shift your actions. This isn't theory, pardon me. It's uh it's a tool for how to truly rewire your brain and

recreate your life so that it's rad, it's epic, it's whatever you want it to be. We each get to design our life. We don't always feel like we're in control, but I am telling you storytelling, listening to ourselves, to the world in a new way will profoundly change everything. I've seen it in thousands of clients, I've seen it in myself. So we're gonna dive in. So, A, check in. Do you really want to do this right now? Second, listen to my words, listen to my instructions, pay attention to yourself if you get distracted. Bring yourself back. This is a meditation, this is an opportunity to come

back over and over and over again from the distractions that you will inevitably have during this episode. We all get distracted, but we get to come back, come back, come back. And don't think too much about yourself while you're listening to me. But when I invite you to think about yourself, please do that. Give yourself the gift of presence and of masterful listening. And before we dive in, I'd like to remind the audience that this season, season three, is sponsored by Rad Hats for Rad Humans. So if you're curious about rad hats and getting a hat made for you with a mantra that will support you

in your life and support mental health, go ahead and check out the link in the description of this episode. All right. So I'm gonna introduce this five-story activity. Now, the inspiration behind it is I had a client many years ago, and we were working on essentially trying to figure out what he really wanted in his life and what was blocking him from getting what he really wanted. And the truth is, most of the time the blockers that we have do have to do with the stories that we have, the beliefs that we have, the thoughts that we have about ourselves and about the world. Sometimes it

could be tricky and hard to realize, oh, I've actually been sabotaging myself. I haven't been setting myself up for success. And yet when I keep getting things I don't want, I'm kind of mad or upset or confused. But really, what are you asking yourself? What are you saying to yourself? How are you guiding your life? Because your thoughts and your beliefs and your stories truly change the way your days go. So the point of this activity is we are going to look inward and we're gonna get clear and do this for real. Like get real with yourself. You might not like the stories that you're telling

yourself, but the first step is see them and then rewrite them. And it's not honestly that hard. It's just the awareness to even do this. And this is courageous, this is brave. To look inward and to take responsibility for rewriting this book of our life is really actually profound because you are the writer and the editor. Okay, so I'm gonna help you do that. So here's the way this activity goes. I'm gonna invite you to, in just a moment, once I describe it, you can pause and do this or just start thinking about it and then do this after. I want you to think of five

really short and simple stories that you've been telling yourself daily. And once you have them, I'm gonna ask you to write them down. The way to make this really effective is to make them really short, like a sentence or two. And I'm gonna give you five examples. Then once you have your five sentences or five stories written down, I'm gonna ask you to imagine that this is who you are. This is what you believe about yourself. And then I want you to write a day in the life of the person who believes these stories, meaning from the moment you wake up to the moment you go

to bed, what does a day look like for this person? When do you wake up? What's your mood when you wake up? What kind of bed are you sleeping in? Where are you? How do you feel? What do you do? How does your day go? How are you interacting with people? What work are you doing? How are you feeling about yourself when you go to the office or look in the mirror or get dressed? Get really, really, really, really, really crystal clear on all the details of what this one day looks like. And then put that aside. Next, you're gonna go back to these five stories

and you're gonna rewrite them. And we'll go through what that looks like. Once you've rewritten them, you have five new stories. And I want you to then imagine, imagine the person who believes these new five rewritten stories, and then write a day in their life from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed. How are they feeling? What are they doing? Same exact thing, get really, really clear, and then you're gonna have two days side by side, two days that are possible to have. One is based on five beliefs and stories, and another one is based on five beliefs and stories. And

then you get to choose which day do you want to live? Because in order to live a different kind of day, you have to start believing different things, saying different things. And, you know, from a neuroscience perspective, it's really fascinating. Our brain has neural pathways. Imagine this as highways in your mind. There's something called neuroplasticity. What that basically means is we can literally restructure our brain and the highways that exist. We can create new roads, we can take new paths. And in order for a new path to be created, you have to take a different path. You have to keep going in a different direction. And

then a road will form. And then you can choose to go down that road. Most of us are on autopilot, kind of like when we're driving, right? If you've been driving for many years, you get in the car, you start it, you back up, you go straight. You know what you're doing. You're not even thinking about it. If there's a certain route you've been taking to work, you're probably going to just keep taking that route. That's just what you've been doing. But there might be another route. There might be another route that actually gets you to the destination sooner, or there might be another route that

maybe takes a little longer, but it's just way more beautiful. I always prefer the scenic route as if possible. However, sometimes if I'm, you know, having a little less time, I might take the route that I know. The key is not doing things on autopilot, especially not doing things on autopilot that are not leading you to the life that you want to lead. Okay. So let me give you examples of five stories that I've had throughout my life and then how I rewrote them. And then I'm going to give you a kind of bigger example, a little story about my entrepreneurial journey and how I've been

rewriting it for the past decade and how it's really shifted my experience of the work I do, my feeling around the work I do. It's it's honestly been really incredible to see how A, I've now worked for myself for over a decade. I got to the point in my business where I had made more than I'd ever made in corporate. That was really special. There was a year where I made my first six figures and I was like, wow. And then the next year I didn't again. You know, when I'm doing what I do, it's risky. I do have a high risk tolerance, but even that

took some rewriting. Okay. So let me give you these five stories that I've literally been telling myself for a lot of my life. And as I share them, take a moment and reflect again for you. What are you telling yourself? What have you been telling yourself? At any point here, feel free to pause. If you get really inspired and you really start thinking about you and get distracted by what I'm saying, just pause, take some notes, and then come back. The first thing that I've been telling myself for as long as I can remember is if I lost 10 more pounds, then I'd be beautiful. If

I lost 10 more pounds, then I'd be beautiful. The second one is, man, I wish I made more money. If I just made more money, then life would be easier. The third one is the world is so fucked up and unfair. The world is just super fucked up and unfair. The fourth is I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. I can't do this.

And another one that's recently been super present is I don't know how to support those who I love who are struggling without hurting myself. I don't know how to support those that I love and struggling without hurting myself. So these stories, these beliefs have really shaped my life. Because I always felt like in just 10 more pounds I'd be beautiful. I've kind of never felt as beautiful as I'd like to feel. There's always something wrong. Wishing that I made more money always made me feel like there was a lack, like there wasn't enough. And only if I had more would I be happy, would I be

fulfilled. Believing and saying that the world is horrible and unfair honestly has made me really sad and angry and kind of apathetic and kind of made me kind of feel like, well, what's the point? Everything is so messed up. What can I even do? Or at times it's made me be like, oh my God, I gotta heal the world and fix the world. And how am I gonna do that? That's also been very overwhelming. The uh the I'm not blank enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not thin enough, I'm not anything enough. That's just always made me feel just crappy. It's made

me not take chances, it's made me not try things, it's made me give up a lot of times where perhaps that wasn't the best thing I could have been doing. And then the, you know, I can't take good care of myself while supporting others. I mean, that's made me really tired. I think that's made me feel less uh able to take care of myself. Almost like I can't take care of myself and take care of someone that I really care about who's struggling. That's just like a really um God, what's the most authentic feeling that that makes that that brings up in me? It just feels

powerless and it it just um it doesn't honestly fuel my work. It just makes me less productive, it makes me less motivated. So that's been really hard. So those are the five stories that I've shared with you that I've been saying for a long time. And based on those five stories, again, I've lived a certain type of existence. It hasn't all been bad, but it hasn't been exactly the life that I like would be so excited to live, so proud to live. So yeah, that's just like if I was reading a book of my life, I wouldn't think it was like such an interesting, awesome story.

So, how do I change it? Well, let me give you examples of how I rewrote these five stories, and then hopefully you will do the same thing. So, for the first one, if I lost 10 more pounds, then I'd be beautiful. I rewrote that as my body is perfect, healthy, and getting more so every day. It's really important not to be what I call toxically positive. Okay. So when you're rewriting a story, you don't have to go from like, if I lost 10 pounds, then I'd be beautiful, to I'm the most beautiful, amazing, sexiest person that ever lived, right? You don't have to jump completely to

the opposite. But honestly, when I rewrote that story into my body is perfect, it's healthy, and it's getting better and better. Like that's real because I am working on it and that's fine. It's awesome to work on your body. It's awesome to want to lose weight or gain weight or lose muscle or gain muscle or whatever. But to feel like something is wrong with you, unless you're a certain weight or look a certain way, or maybe at a certain healthy point, that is just not useful. It's not helpful, it just puts us down. So my new story became my body is perfect, healthy, and getting more

so every day. For the second one, I wish I made more money. I rewrote it as I have enough and more is coming. There's plenty to go around. I have enough, more is coming, and there is plenty to go around. Because there is plenty to go around. It doesn't seem to be distributed super fairly in our world. But the point is, when I kept saying I wish I had more, I'm like just recreating, wishing that I have more, wanting more. I'm not getting more, I'm getting more of wanting. See what I'm saying? A lot of people are manifesting all wrong. They're like, oh, I want this.

All that gets you is wanting more of the thing. If you had the thing, you wouldn't want it. So I have enough, and more is coming, is kind of similar, but so much more powerful, expansive. You do have enough, most likely. And more is coming. Do you see what do you see how this is working? This is a good time to pause and maybe start writing down some of your own sentence stories. If you've paused, welcome back. If not, let's keep going. Third one: the world is horrible and unfair. It's like hard not to feel that sometimes, right? Here's why I rewrote that one. I wrote,

the world has so many problems, and I can help. The world has so many problems, and I can help. That to me felt like it acknowledged the fact that yes, the world is problematic and I can help. Now, how I help is up to me. There's a lot of different creative ways to do that. And when I write my day, I might incorporate some way that I help the world. I always say that I think we can make much more of a difference in the world, not by trying to save the whole world, but by doing something nice within our own community. Um, the more we

go back to a sense of community and supporting one another, I think the more the world does heal. So again, from the world is horrible and unfair to the world has so many problems and I can help. For the fourth one of I'm not good enough, I wrote, I am enough. And in fact, I'm great at speaking and storytelling. Or my superpower is that I'm so caring and I can make people feel loved. And my superhero name is Infinite Blaze. Make this fun. Going from I'm not good enough to, you know, I am enough, and here's what I'm great at, and here's what I'd like to

get better at. It goes from, ooh, there's something wrong with me, to actually everything's right with me, and here's what I do really well, and here's how I can build on that. Strength based growth and leadership works better. This isn't just like a woo concept to feel better and convince. Yourself of something, it actually is more effective. When we tap into whatever it is we're already doing better and well, it is more motivating. It makes us want to do more, it makes us want to try harder, it makes us love ourselves better. That is how you're gonna grow. Think about it. Do you do better work

when you're beating yourself up for not being good enough? Or when you're like, you know what, I'm struggling here, but this is what I'm really good at. I'm gonna keep doing that. And can I apply whatever I do in the times where I feel great at something to the times where I'm struggling with something? Because yes, you can. It's actually amazing. And for the last story of, you know, I can't take good care of myself while I'm supporting someone who I love who's in pain. I just rewrote this one today when I was meeting with my um therapist. I said, I can help who I love,

and by doing that, fuel my own growth. It's like, what if we could support others in a way that actually uplifted ourselves and didn't deplete ourselves? I think for a very long time I felt like if I help others, and this is more personally, not professionally. I feel like professionally as a coach, when I help others, it actually does fuel me. But personally, if I have someone in my life who's really sick or really struggling and I'm giving them a lot of time and attention, the empath in me gets really drained. I take on a lot of people's pain. So I even rewrote that story that

I had of like, how can I stay okay by helping? To how can me helping help me thrive? And I'm so interested in exploring that. That's like the newest rewrite that I had. And I'm gonna be doing my own homework and really coming up with ways that I can do that because I know there's a way that I can do both, and I really want to find it. So that is an example of my five stories that I've had through the years and how I've rewritten them. And let me just give you some benefits of good storytelling. I don't think I probably have to convince you,

but uh I've said this for a long time. If you're gonna tell a story, you might as well make it a good one. It is up to you. Better stories lead to a better life. Also, are you just tired of feeling like shit a lot of the time? Uh, yeah, me too. This will help with that. And here's what's awesome: you can rewrite your stories over and over and over and over and over again. Often I think people are afraid to like dream and write up something that feels super unrealistic because it's like, well, how will I do that? And well, what if I don't want

to do that at some point? That's okay. Uh, you can rewrite your story over and over and over and over again. There's always another chapter. The book of your life doesn't end. It's not like it has to have 10 chapters or 13 chapters or a thousand chapters. You can have as many chapters as you want. It's cool when people are multidimensional, when they go for something, and then they're like, oh, I'm gonna pivot. That's cool. You are the writer. Pivot your story if you want, or don't. Neuroplasticity. You literally can create new pathways in your head by telling better stories. You can make up anything you

want. Are you making up crappy stories about yourself? Or are you making up really cool stories about yourself? Either is literally true. Our brain cannot tell the difference between what is true and what is not true. Literally. Whatever you keep saying to yourself becomes the truth for you. Do you want the truth to be what is happening? If your life, by the way, is going super well, awesome. Then maybe elevate the stories a little more. But if it's not, you can rewrite it. I've done it time and time again. It's not necessarily easy, but it's also not that hard. It just takes some practice. Our thoughts

and beliefs make us sick. Literally. Physical illness comes when we're stressed and sad and depressed. I've seen this happen to me. I was so stressed the other night working on something that I just was so frustrated about. My leg was like bouncing like crazy. I was screaming. My I was like my body was having a reaction to my mind. Uh, and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not a great feeling. So I took a few deep breaths and I thought, how can I rewrite what's happening right now? Because this is just, I'm like drowning in this stress. And I said,

okay, I went from I freaking hate this client, this work, to okay, wow, I'm gonna do this in a way that feels good to me. I'm gonna do my best and I'm just letting it go. It's all good. Then I calm down. Also, notice that if you're telling yourself a story mentally, emotionally, that you can feel your body is resisting. And we know that our chest gets tight, we might be sweating, you know, you might start like moving anxiously. That's like your body trying to release that. Notice that and literally start speaking to yourself in some ways and watch your body shift. Breathing, masterfully listen to

your body and shift. It's like magic, it works and keep practicing this over and over and over. My entrepreneurial story, and I'm gonna make it kind of quick. I want to keep this episode not super long because I want you to listen and then do something with it. I really want you to take some action after today.

So I always wanted to work for myself. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew I was gonna be a coach. I remember doing, I was in a training when I was on my first sales team. I was like 21. And I remember doing this corporate sales training, and it was so freaking boring. Ugh, the facilitator was just not good. It was monotone, they just kept talking at us, the slide sucked, there was no participation, and I just thought, damn, I want to do this. I want to make learning fun, engaging. And that's what I do now. But how did I get there? I started

the journey when I was about 30. And, you know, first of all, everyone was saying it's really hard, you know, building a coaching practice. And by the way, it can be super, super, super hard. Um, so I just kept thinking, oh my God, this is gonna be hard. And I don't know if I'm gonna make enough money. And then wow, it's actually really lonely. Like working by yourself for yourself all the time can be really, really lonely. Also, it's so risky. Like, I'm not gonna get a paycheck. Maybe I should quit. I thought that a lot through the years. You know, when things were going great

and I had more clients coming in and money, and I was happy. It's like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. And then suddenly a month would come and like clients would die down, and I was like barely making enough. And I was like, maybe, maybe I really should quit. I mean, it's not a crazy idea to ask yourself that. But feeling like it was hard and lonely and risky and that there wouldn't be enough money, and maybe I should quit wasn't exactly motivating. So I rewrote some of those stories. And I didn't make up a bunch of BS and I didn't get toxically

positive. I just legitimately tuned in and thought, well, what else is this? And I wrote down, you know what? This is creative. I get to be creative with how I run my business. I don't need to run my business the way other coaches do or the way other consultants do. I can learn from those who I, you know, admire, but I can do it creatively. I'm an artist. What if I applied my creativity to my business? And then I thought, wow, it's kind of empowering. Like I have all this independence. I get to build by myself. I don't have to listen to anyone else who I

don't agree with. And that kind of addressed the loneliness. And I get to choose people, I get to reach out to people, I get to collaborate with people. And yeah, it's risky, but you know what? I've always had a really high risk tolerance, and big risk leads to big reward. And riskiness doesn't mean I'm reckless. And I like that I'm risky. I'm proud that I have a high risk tolerance, right? I've like owned that risky is good. And, you know, the maybe I should quit. Maybe this is not enough money. I started focusing on um, yeah, I had a year where I already made more than

I ever did in corporate. And my hourly rate that I charge for my work that I am super confident charging is higher than most doctors, lawyers that I know, meaning it's a lot per hour, but what did that take? It took me decades of education and training and prep. And just, I put so much into this work that I have spent an hour with someone, and that hour inspired them to completely change their life, make a ton more money, make some major relationship shifts. Like, what is massively changing your life worth to you? To someone, it could be worth $50,000, which I'm not saying I charge

at this point, but I might. It's not about money, it's about value. That was another thing I rewrote. Am I providing value? Because if I am, the money will come. And it has. And also I realized I don't need to be a billionaire. I don't. I used to have this dream of I want to have the first billion-dollar company and then give 99% of it away. And it hit me last year, I think, that I'm like, I'm pretty sure that anyone who's a billionaire is not a good person. There's no reason someone needs that much money. And I'm pretty sure no one actually gives most of

it away. Because if you gave 99% of a billion dollars away, you would still have $10 million. And that is more money I would than I would ever need because I've lived on literally almost nothing. Uh so yeah, I I decided to stop chasing a ton of money because I've been told to my whole life and realized how much do I actually need? And that amount is super realistic. I've already achieved that. So obviously I could do it again. And these rewritten stories have literally kept me going for 10 years. I've quit 30 jobs, but I've never quit on myself. I haven't quit on my business,

and I will not because I'm learning and growing so much about myself, about the world, about people. And it's, I mean, it's pretty amazing. I've learned to live on less and feel rich regardless of the money in my bank account. I've learned to get out of autopilot and to take responsibility for my life through the stories that I tell. My last role in corporate was the head of storytelling. I've loved stories my whole life. This whole show, it's always a story in every episode because stories are just they're so cool. They're easier to learn through if you really listen. They're more interesting than just a bunch

of bullet points or activities. And they're fun to create. You can literally create any story in your head that you want. And I really believe that if we could imagine it, it exists in some realm. Then it's just taking the actions a little bit at a time. So here's what I invite you to do as I start rapping. I invite you to grab a notebook and give yourself an hour. Today, tomorrow, do not put this off. If you care about your life, let's rewrite your story a little bit. And if you're doing great, awesome. Let's elevate you a little more. I actually always tell people in

coaching it's actually super fun to do coaching when things are going well. People always think, oh, I need a coach when things are not going well. Yes. But also, things are going really, really well. Let's build on that momentum. So if your stories are working and they're good enough, cool. How do you elevate it a little bit more? And if your life is not working, like a lot of our lives are not, and that's okay, write down five stories. Look at them, breathe into them, thank them, accept them. This is okay. Write down the day in the life of that person who believes those stories. If

you believe that you're not skinny enough and you don't have enough money, you might wake up and go, oh, I have to go to this job that doesn't pay me enough. And then you look in the mirror and you see the flaw. If you believe that your body is perfect and healthy and it's getting better every day and you have enough and you're growing, you might wake up and look in the mirror and say, Hey, beautiful, you're doing great. We're gonna make some fun today. We're gonna do some work that matters. We might even get a bonus, right? Literally, if you start your day by looking

at yourself or just thinking a different story, you will change your day. You don't believe me? Try it out. You believe me, awesome. Keep doing it. So take an hour, grab a notebook, write down your stories, write down your day. You don't have to write a novel, but write as long as you want. I like to give an hour because that's usually actually more time than you need. But give yourself the gift of doing this action. Do this, please. Um, and then rewrite the stories, rewrite the day. I'm posting a link to all of this in detail so that if you forget what you're doing, you

can read that. And do this within the next 72 hours. Share this with someone else who you feel like is in a story that like probably isn't their greatest story. Don't you want the people you love to be living their most rad story? I do. But it starts with you. People will listen to you more if you try to motivate them if they see that you're doing the work. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and then please, as you hopefully are enjoying this show, share it with people you think would enjoy it and write a review. Tell me in a review how rewriting your story,

how doing some of these exercises has elevated your life, has helped you. I really want to hear from you. It is very nice when people reach out and I see the impact that is coming from this show. You know, I haven't been feeling very well. I've been in a bit of a I kind of describe this past nine months of my life as like a really massive pause. A lot of things have been happening. In a lot of ways, they've been hard. And this show has brought me a lot of um

meaning. Uh, I feel like I'm being of service. I feel like I'm being creative, and yet sometimes it is so hard for me to put my butt in this chair and record, even though I love it. So I got myself in the chair today because I'm doing this for me and I'm doing this for you. And I really hope it serves you. I really want to know. And even if you don't tell me, just do it for you. It's always helpful when we share with others, but we don't have to. Notice what you're telling yourself. Notice what you're telling others. If you keep complaining about the

same thing over and over and over again, you're literally just putting it more into your space, into your mind. So try to rewrite things a little bit, keep it simple, see what happens, and then practice, practice, practice. Because you could be a super epic storyteller. You already are, you might just not know it yet. All right. May you also enjoy this process, feel your feelings, see how you feel when you read the day in the life of the person who's been saying what you've been saying, and see how you might feel when you read the other day with the rewritten stories. And then just choose one

because you can have a different day tomorrow than you had today. It is never too late to rewrite your days in your life. It is never too late to start your day, it is never too late to start your life. Maybe if the book that you've been uh uh writing or reading is shitty, maybe you just gotta pick up a different book. Know what I mean? Thank you for masterfully listening. Check in on how was that? Did you enjoy that one? Was it harder? Whatever it is, it's all good. I'll see you next time.