I Had Too Many Stories

There is probably a story you’ve told more than once.

Maybe it is funny. Maybe it still bothers you. Maybe it is from early in your career, or from a boss you had, or from a moment that seemed small at the time and somehow still comes up years later.

I think those stories are worth paying attention to. Not every story, of course. Some are just funny. Some are just annoying. Some are just part of life. But every now and then, a story keeps showing up because there is something in it that still has value.

That is what I have been thinking about as I get closer to sharing my book, Inspired by LIFE: Redefining the Future of Leadership. When I started writing the book, I wondered if I would have enough stories to work with. That sounds funny to me now because the problem was never finding stories.

I had too many.

There were stories from coaching, corporate life, teaching, family, sports, nature, animals, business challenges, and mistakes I would have been perfectly happy to forget. Some made it into the book. Many did not. A few were hard to leave out because I liked them, but liking a story was not enough. It needed to help the reader see something.

That became the real challenge. I was not just asking whether I liked a story. I was asking what the story actually helped explain. Did it make an idea clearer? Did it make something about leadership easier to understand? Did it help someone see themselves, their team, or their work a little differently?

That is where stories can be powerful. A good story can get underneath the polished answer. It can make an idea feel real. It can help someone recognize something in themselves before they would have been able to name it directly.

I see that in coaching all the time. A client may bring up something happening right now, and then an older story surfaces. A former boss. A tough role. A moment they handled well. A moment they wish they had handled differently. Something someone said years ago that still seems to carry more weight than it probably should.

Those stories are rarely random. They often help explain how someone sees themselves, what they expect from others, what they avoid, what they are proud of, or what still gets under their skin. Sometimes the story is not the whole answer, but it gives us a place to start.

The same thing happened for me while writing the book. I would think of a story from one part of my life and realize it connected to something completely different. A coaching conversation would connect to something from my corporate career. Something from teaching would connect to something I had seen on a team. Something with my dog, or something I noticed outside, would suddenly give me language for a leadership idea I had been trying to explain.

That is how I actually see the world, for better or worse. I find leadership lessons in places that may not look like leadership lessons at first. Sometimes that is helpful. Sometimes I am sure it makes me a little annoying.

Either way, it is real.

It is also a big reason this book exists. I do not believe leadership is only shaped in formal leadership settings. Coaching matters. Training matters. Feedback matters. Business experience matters. But life teaches us too, and sometimes the lesson lands harder because it comes from somewhere we were not expecting.

That is the piece I hope readers take for themselves. You may not be writing a book, but you have stories. You have moments that shaped how you think, how you work, how you lead, how you react under pressure, and how you show up for other people.

Some of those stories may already be helping you. Others may still be waiting for you to understand them a little differently.

Maybe there is a story about someone who believed in you before you fully believed in yourself.

Maybe there is one about a leader who taught you exactly how you never want to lead. Maybe there is one about a project that went sideways, a role that stretched you, a conversation that changed your confidence, or a moment when you realized something had to change.

Those stories can become useful if you do more than remember them. They can help you explain what you believe. They can help you coach someone else through something difficult. They can remind you what kind of leader you want to be when things get hard. They can also help you understand why certain situations affect you the way they do.

That last one is important.

Sometimes a current challenge feels bigger than the facts alone would suggest. It hits something older. It reminds us of a prior experience. It touches a fear, a value, a frustration, or a pattern we have carried for a long time.

When that happens, the story may be giving us information.

I do not mean we need to turn every memory into a leadership lesson. Please do not become the person who turns every trip to the grocery store into a lesson on strategy or executive presence.

Nobody wants that.

But I do think the stories that stay with us deserve a little curiosity. Why do I still remember that? Why do I tell that story the way I do? What did that moment teach me? What does it show me about how I lead now?

Writing Inspired by LIFE reminded me that I did not have to manufacture material. I had to look more closely at what was already there. The stories were already there. The lessons were often already there too. I just had to slow down enough to see what they were pointing toward.

I think that is true for many of us.

We are carrying more useful material than we realize. The challenge is that we are often so focused on getting through the next meeting, the next decision, the next transition, or the next problem that we do not always stop to ask what our own experiences are trying to teach us.

So this week, think about one story you keep coming back to. It could be something you tell other people. It could be something you usually keep to yourself. It could be funny, uncomfortable, frustrating, meaningful, or surprisingly ordinary.

Then ask yourself why it stayed.

There may be something in that story you can use as a leader, as a colleague, as a coach, as a parent, as a friend, or simply as a person still trying to grow.

That is the real power of our stories. They do not just remind us what happened. They can help us understand what it meant.

What is one story from your life that has shaped how you lead?