Change Your Story, Change Your Life.

How the stories that we tell ourselves each day either help us progress, or regress.

Today I was thinking about how my entire life has been a collection of stories - the ones I share with external parties, and the ones that I experience internally. There are 3 ways that my stories are built: 

1. Documented stories - these are the stories that I experience in my day to day life and share.

2. Conscious stories - these are the stories that I want to believe and live, and so I consciously program them into my DNA until I start to live it out. I swear by this practice. If you believe it, and you practice it, you’ll see the results. 

3. Subconscious/Unconscious stories - these are stories that other people, my environment, and traumatic experiences have projected onto me. 

I’m aware of all three stories when they’re happening. This is the beauty of awareness. You can tell what story is being told/manifesting per time and you can decide if it is true, untrue, adding to or subtracting from your growth, and you can take action on it. 

Here are three examples of how these stories have shown up in my life: 

DOCUMENTED STORIES

I live for storytelling. I have seen how the things that I share have a true impact on the people with whom I share. As a result, I love to share what I think, feel, and experience through various content mediums. Sometimes it’s this newsletter, my instagram, my podcast, in personal and group conversations with people, etc. I’m a chief storyteller, and it’s one of the things that I’m truly passionate about - telling my story, and telling other people’s stories. I have learned to tell my story as it is  - in its raw form, while it’s still processing. Sometimes it’s a full story, and sometimes it’s parts of the story in progress. It can be something I’ve learned, or still learning. It can be somewhere I’ve been, or want to go. It can be an ideology that I find interesting, and I’m still exploring. It can be a success story that I experienced, or a work in progress story that I’m in the middle of. To be able to document your process requires honesty, and vulnerability. I once told a story about how a few years ago, I walked into the bank and the representative serving me was someone who follows me on Instagram. It was such an awkward moment for me, knowing that they’d see how my bank account didn’t match all the great work that I was doing at the time. Basically, I was thriving in my professional life, but my account balance wasn’t reflective of this success. I had a ton of responsibility happening simultaneously, and as a result my bank account was always bleeding. But I got over it, and I’d walk into the bank with my full chest (read as: Cardi B energy) because I became more confident about my identity not being tied to external things. If you work in a bank and you check my account, I’m either rich or poor depending on which of the bank accounts you check. I pay my bills though, and I have zero debt, thankfully. We are always a work in progress, and that’s okay. Tell your story as it is, people will take what they need from it. 

CONSCIOUS STORIES

The current state of your life is a result of the stories that you tell yourself - what you believe, what you don’t believe, what you say is possible, or impossible, what you’re lying to yourself about, etc. What this means is that you have the ability to eradicate the limiting stories that you’re telling yourself, and reprogram your mind with new stories that set you up for success. 

For example, over the years I have told myself that I am a bright light on a journey to becoming the best version of myself. It is a story that I hold very strongly and that I am consciously living inside and out. This story has allowed my mind and heart to be open to anything that nurtures and reinforces this story. I consume material that adds to this story. I build friendships that add to this story. I take on opportunities that add to this story. I take actions that remind me of this story. I believe, live, and breathe this story. In this same light, I decline and remove myself from people, situations, actions, that do not contribute to this story. You can replace “story” with “beliefs” - it’s the same thing really. 

People who hold on to limiting beliefs about themselves, are likely to live a life that reinforces and enables these beliefs. It’s not just some spiritual principle. It’s also scientific - how our brains are wired. All the things you hear about visualisation, manifestation, law of attraction, etc. It’s science. You have the ability to create stories that either help you progress or regress.

Our brain has the reticular activating system, a system of neurons that filters the information in your brain– and you are responsible for the filtering. What you will always think or tell your brain will penetrate and adapt. Let’s say you continually think everybody hates you. Your reticular activating system will easily recognize and point out evidence that confirms your negative thinking. Mel Robbins has a video to explain this, and it’s one of my favorite videos to play during my training classes. Please watch this video to fully understand how powerful the stories we tell ourselves truly are. 

SUBCONSCIOUS/UNCONSCIOUS STORIES

For every time I have found myself feeling out of alignment, it is usually because of a story that I’m holding on to. What story am I telling myself ? Is this story really true for me ? Why am I holding on to this story ? What would it require to stop holding on ? These are all questions that I ask myself in such moments. 

Here’s a real life example for you - Between 2009 and 2017, I held on to the story that I wanted to run the biggest brand agency out of Africa. It was a story that I deeply believed in. People would always tell me how great I was at brand development, and media. So I started an agency called “The Innovation Factory”, and we executed media projects, and were journeying towards building a media empire. Then it failed (in a good way). I started off another media company called “A2 Creative” and we executed a ton of successful brand campaigns across various industries. I connected with one of my now-best-friends who became my business partner - in fact, we connected on the basis that we both wanted to run the biggest brand agency out of Africa. So we merged our brand companies and became “Trellis” - the agency of agencies. We were growing exponentially with 15+ staff strength, a fully functioning office, brilliant client work, and insane monthly overheads - at some point we were doing so well that we hired staff from some of the top consulting firms, and paid premium salaries. We would envision ourselves on magazine covers as the young guys that were building corporate brands on a global level, and we were well on our way to being those guys! 

The full story is long, so I’ll spare you the details. But the short story is this —- we felt really unfulfilled. I kept asking myself if I really wanted to build a top brand agency, or if this was a dream that I had subconsciously picked up. The latter was the truth. I didn’t really want to build an agency. I looked around the industry, and saw the agencies that had been built over time, and while I respect the work that they do, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. One day, my partners and I met up and had a conversation where we all shared what we really wanted to do, and in that moment we realized that we had all been building a dream that wasn’t ours. It was a dream that felt convenient, collaborative, and lucrative. We found out that we each wanted something different, and that we had held on for so long because of our beliefs, our loyalty to each other, and the people that we were carrying along - our team. We had to step aside and choose us. It was tough. In fact, I remember getting a client brief the week after we had decided to shut down. I emailed the client to let them know that we were no longer accepting briefs. It was hard, because it was a big budget project, and the profit margin was enticing. But we said No. I remember having one on one meetings with our staff to notify them of our new decision. In order to mitigate the impact on them, we helped some of them get placements in other agencies - we made phone calls, called in favors, and wrote recommendation letters. We did what we needed to do and we called it quits. It was super liberating, although the year that followed was HARD on us financially, mentally, and emotionally. Many things occurred in my life simultaneously, and I wondered if I had made the right decisions at the time. Now, I can truly say that I did.

In the years that followed, I worked on developing brands as a consultant alongside my partner. We focused on consultation vs execution. We’ve done so much great work in such a short time. In all of this, I realized that… Yes, I love to build brands. Yes, I have great skill and possess a rare gift for helping brands succeed. But my work is beyond the “brand”. My work is in dream interpretation. I exist to interpret dreams, and these dreams are held by visionaries, kings who need to birth great things into this world. I have a gift to guide them, and provide them with the structure that they need in order to not just birth, but to thrive. I’m on a mission to empower individuals and organizations to take decisive action to get their best selves, and best work out into the world, and I don’t need to be a brand agency to do this. I just didn’t have a word for it at the time. But now I know that I’m a Dreamterpreter (dream interpreter), and I hold on to it as an identity that not only makes me happy, but is also fulfilling. What this means is that it doesn’t matter what industry I step into, I can serve in a way that I truly add value to others and to myself. I am an innovation factory, a trellis that acts as a support structure for people to thrive, and a light that illuminates paths. 

So…my dear friend… what story are you telling yourself ? Is it serving you, or taking away from you ? Change your story, Change your life.