Stories Move What Strategy Can't

Nov 21

Ever notice how the people who've walked through fire rarely lead with their credentials?

They lead with their story.

I learned this first as an oral historian, sitting with Holocaust survivors as they shared experiences too profound for academic analysis. The truth lived not just in their words, but in the silence between them - in those moments when memory brushed against something too raw to speak aloud.

Later, I found the same pattern in recovery rooms. No one got sober from a PowerPoint presentation about addiction. They got sober because someone else's story cracked open the possibility of a different reality.

This fascinates me: Real change doesn't happen through instruction. It happens through connection. Through seeing yourself in someone else's journey and realizing you're not alone in your particular flavor of stuck.

Maybe that's why I share my own stories of sobriety, business failures, and career reinventions. Not because I've got it all figured out, but because sharing where we're stuck creates momentum. Like finding that sweet spot in your gearing while pedaling up a hill. The moment you stop fighting the gradient and friction and find the right ratio to let momentum flow through you.

They changed because someone else's story showed them where they were creating their own resistance.

What gear are you grinding against right now? What stories are you not letting flow through you?