The Pioneers Club
The community podcast for driven entrepreneurs and leaders.
Here you can connect with like-minded people, create a sense of belonging, and gain practical insights you need to gain more mental & emotional agency and resilience for your daily life.
We, your host Monika (certified mental & systemic coach) and co-host Patrick (entrepreneur & broadcast production manager), will answer your most burning questions, talk with exclusive guests, and share their own stories & experiences on how to deal with & thrive through the trials & tribulations of entrepreneurship.
The Pioneers Club
The Power of Your Personal Narrative: How the stories you tell shape your world
What if the stories you tell yourself are the very things leading to your success or holding you back?
In this episode, we dive deep into the narratives we create about who we are, what we're capable of, and how the world works. These stories influence every aspect of our lives—from our potential to our relationships, to the way we navigate challenges.
Together we'll look at the importance of these personal narratives and question, are you the author of your life or are you still enacting the stories written by others?
You'll learn:
2:25 - How to understand the stories you tell yourself and how they shape you & your reality
8:10 - How do we change & adapt our personal narratives?
11:35 - What it means to build an empowering story around negative experiences
17:01 - Common story examples: “Work has to be hard” & “I have to be perfect”
22:45 - The importance of integrating our successes in our story lines
24:16 - Taking on the role of the author & writing your own story
28:17 - Putting it into practice - How to start (re-)writing your personal narrative
Want more empowering tips & insights? Then join my FREE Monthly Mindset Mentoring and subscribe to my newsletter to get weekly mindset tips on how to gain confidence, clarity, resilience & ease - directly in your inbox.
https://www.monikalerch.com/newsletter/
Also, let us know, Which question would you want us to address in the next episode? Connect with us in our DMs or send us your question directly: https://www.monikalerch.com/send-your-question/
Your Host:
Monika Lerch
https://www.monikalerch.com/
Linkedin: /in/monikalerch/
Instagram: @themonikalerch
Your Co-Host:
Patrick Öffl
https://www.amikifilms.com/
Linkedin: /in/patrickoeffl/
Instagram: @patrickoeffl
Monika This is the Pioneers Club podcast.
Patrick The community podcast for driven entrepreneurs and leaders.
Monika Here you can connect with like minded people, create a sense of belonging and gain more agency in your daily life. Hi, my name is Monika and I'm your host. I help impact driven freelancers, entrepreneurs and leaders live their full potential and go from feeling overwhelmed, stuck and confused to being confident, clear headed and focussed as they go after their goals. As a mindset and systemic coach, I focus primarily on topics such as confidence, high performance, self coaching and self leadership and use my mindfulness based and systemic approach to help my clients thrive with more ease.
Patrick And I'm your co-host, Patrick, an entrepreneur just like you. I'm an international media producer working on live sports, premium documentaries and digital content. I help people bring their stories to life and work with a global network of partners to create engaging content. I live through the topics of our podcast, just like you and I will try to ask the questions you might have.
Monika Welcome back to this new episode of the Pioneers Club podcast. After a summer break, we are coming back to you with an exciting episode. A very important topic. And as we noticed while we were preparing for this episode, it may seem a little bit complicated, a little bit abstract. But once you dive a little bit deeper, you will notice that this is something that you are confronted with, 24/7.
Patrick It's actually quite interesting because you can hear it almost everywhere. People will always tell you this one thing and you will know immediately that you're in the topic of today's podcast.
Monika And not only other people. You yourself tell yourself the same thing as well. And we are talking about the power of your personal narrative, how the stories you tell yourself about your world, about yourself, about your potential, your capabilities, about other people, whatever it is, how these stories shape your world and shape your view of the world. And therefore, again, decide on how you interact and shape your reality.
Patrick When we talk about this topic, I think we need to start distinguishing between how we tell the world about ourselves and how other stories might influence ourselves. And when we talked about it before, it was quite interesting what you said, that basically when we tell someone about ourselves and especially in business, in the business context, we have to tell about ourselves quite often. We have to pitch ourselves, we have to sell ourselves. People want to know who you are, what are you doing and how do you see yourself in a business context? I think that's just one thing that tells ourselves how we see each other, right?
Monika Well, this is the area where we as entrepreneurs or we as business owners are not only allowed to, but actually called to intentionally craft and create a personal story, a brand story, a struggle, a story, whatever it is that you want to create. We are called to do this very intentionally and we are given formulas and we are given examples of what performs well, what doesn't perform well, etc.. But when you look at it, actually, we all are constantly engaging in this kind of narrative work. We as human beings tell ourselves stories all the time about everything that we interact with, about everything that we experience, and of course, about ourselves. And you can hear this when people say, Well, this is just typically me. You will already know when somebody says this, Woah, there is a bigger story behind that. There is a complete narrative that leads you to say this little phrase, and it is oftentimes said in a joking manner when there is something negative happening. But actually it speaks to a certain way of painting the picture and narrating your path that led you to this point.
Patrick I mean, the younger generation will probably say story of my life. It's the easier and more modern way to say it, but it's basically the same thing happening there. But it's quite interesting because there's so much behind that saying, as you just said, it's what we tell ourselves about ourselves, how we see the world around us. But why is that so important? Why is it so important how we basically tell ourselves who we are?
Monika Well, there are two different dimensions that you have to differentiate. On the first dimension, for me as a coach, this is very important because oftentimes people tell these stories about themselves, about their world, about their reality in a way where they think that the story that they tell themselves is the actual reality. You know, there is this differentiation in, in a certain niche of coaching or a certain style of coaching and therapy as well, where they differentiate between making a clear differentiation between the land that you are walking on, the land that you are interacting with, and having a map of the land that you are walking into, you know. So we… the stories we tell ourselves are always like this map. They guide us, they shift our focus and this is already then the second dimension. These stories determine how we perceive our world, what we focus on, how we explain why certain things happen and why they don't happen. And therefore they have a direct impact on our thinking, on our feeling, and on our decision making and therefore acting. So, for example, rejection is this huge topic, and now every one of us will be rejected a thousand times, right? But the story that you tell yourself about how this came to happen determines then how you respond to it. So if you are rejected and you respond to this in in a storyline of “I am not good enough”, You will see any case of rejection as proof of this pre-recorded story that is just continuously playing on repeat in your mind. And therefore, when somebody rejects you, you will, of course, start feeling sad or disappointed or maybe ashamed, whatever the emotional reaction is. And then this will have a direct impact again on how you will see yourself. You see, I knew that I'm not good enough. I shouldn't have applied for this role or I shouldn't have taken on this project. The next time, maybe you will then hesitate to act on a certain opportunity or you will not even recognize the opportunities this is already then going even deeper. When you prime the way that you see your world in such a way where you just completely exclude certain things and we all do that because we can't even deal with the amount of information that we are confronted with. But where you exclude situations in which you could take control, in which you could, you know, have a positive impact and your stories prohibit you from even seeing those situations. So this is so crucial. And as a coach, I constantly work on this dimension, the personal narratives that the people have about themselves, but also about tiny situations, you know, about tiny experiences that might frame the whole path that you then choose to go on. And why is this so important then? Because we are constantly called to create the stories. There is this sentence, this quote that I love and I can't remember… exactly remember now who said it, but I constantly think about this as well. “Nothing has meaning. We give meaning.” This means no experience in itself has a story that is instantly attached to an absolute truth about how things are, you know? But instead you are constantly creating or reiterating the stories that you have already created. But this also means that you can, if you notice that a story is not really helping you, not really serving you, not really empowering you, you can rewrite it. You can actually kind of adopt the role of the author and choose a new story.
Patrick I mean, we have to be honest here. Sometimes stories don't make sense yet because maybe we don't actually know yet where it fits into the grander narrative of what we're trying to tell with with the story of our lives. But we also have to be aware that the stories we're telling about about ourselves, they can change because your context can change all the time in how you how you view the world can change down the line. I don't know, 5 to 10 years from now, you might see things differently and that story, the context of the story might change. So the story for you as a whole might change. And what kind of external influence also comes in? I mean, we live in times that change so fast that there are you're constantly bombarded with everything on social media, politics, news, whatever is going on out there, that your story might be different in just a few weeks or months even.
Monika Yes and no. It depends on how open you are to actually challenging and rewriting your story, because oftentimes as well, this will have an impact on your choices, on how you view your actions, how you view yourself. And many times people will also defend the story even if they notice that it is not really helping them. If they notice that it is actually weakening them, maybe they will defend it in some way. Because I think you said something very interesting beforehand. We might not be aware of it, but every story that we tell ourselves about ourselves or about our world has a certain purpose attached to it. Doesn’t mean that it is still relevant. But at some point you picked it up because it fulfilled a certain purpose. And we already talked about this when we talked about self-sabotage, etc. Nothing that we engage in is like meaningless or just stupid, you know, like silly or whatever. There was a certain point of time where you picked this storyline up. May it be because of loyalty towards your family, maybe because you were simply enmeshed in a cultural field where this storyline was just, you know, there was just no alternative presented to it. Or it may also be that this was the only way that you knew how to fulfill a certain need in a certain certain situation, but you can always updated. This is the work that we can then intentionally choose to do. Our stories can change with the experiences that we make. This is what you will oftentimes see when people travel a lot, when they are confronted with completely new situations where they don't have a predefined picture of what things mean and how they are supposed to look. And then you will notice that stories change and meanings change and they question values, etc. But you can also update it intentionally and this is what coaching oftentimes then does, right? You notice that a story is not really helpful. Then you work with a coach or you kind of learn the tools that also you can apply yourself and then you start rewriting it intentionally.
Patrick I mean, it's the best case. If your story adapts a little bit, that means you're just open to new experiences and also willing to grow to adapt your story, even to the story parts that may not be the best that happened to you. I mean, we all have parts of our lives that I don't know, maybe you're not proud of them. Maybe you see them in a not good way or whatever. But even those parts of your story can be a positive thing down the line. So that could be a good thing.
Monika Of course. Now, I'm always careful to say positive or negative, just like we talked before, right? Because it's very difficult to judge things in this way. But there are horrible experiences, of course, that many people have to go through at some point of time or that they experienced due to certain circumstances where no one would say that this is a positive thing. But the actual work then becomes to turn this into something that fits into an empowering storyline. So even though that one situation or the one experience or whatever it is, you know, may not have been positive, nice, beautiful, empowering, whatever it is - by crafting an intentional story, you can turn it into something that was, kind of like, in the hero story, you would say, like he receives the call to the adventure and this is oftentimes not a very nice moment. This is a disruptive moment, but it can turn into an empowering story. The purpose of all this that we are talking about is not to gaslight yourself and try to tell a powerful positive story even when things go really wrong and even when things go really bad, to just neglect your feelings or to engage in toxic positivity, or even gaslight yourself into not actually dealing with reality. This is something that I can also see with people who understand this topic, but only on a superficial level. Then they start shaping certain stories before they have actually even looked at the situation that they are confronted with before they have actually accepted it. And this means that you are kind of just like throwing a towel over a situation in order to not really see it for what it is. This is not the purpose of what we are talking about right now.
Patrick I hope that we can agree that whether it be positive or negative or whatever you want to call it, you should be allowed to feel whatever feeling that you have in any situation and then move on from there. So when you were talking about the rejection, for instance. Yes, go through every emotion that you have, feel whatever you feel. And then also, when you're out of that first valley of darkness, basically where it doesn't feel great that you've been rejected, then you move on and then you try to put it into context somehow. Was it a good thing that it didn't happen? Was it a bad thing that it didn't happen? And what are you taking away from that and how you move on with that experience? I mean, if you do that for me personally, at least, it feels like the healthiest thing to deal with that because you will never just throw feelings away and just ignore it. You know that you can actually process the whole thing.
Monika That's the thing. You have to process it. You have to actually go through all the stages instead of jumping like from point zero to step ten and just kind of ignore the steps in between. But what you said right now is also a very, very important moment where you actually also then don't engage in the stories that you tell yourself about something, because these stories can often then lead to people feeling an emotion. Let's take your rejection as example here. They feel the moment of rejection. They feel that they are disappointed and maybe even angry. And what oftentimes people will then start doing is they will, at least not intentionally, start reiterating the stories about how they are not deserving or about how they are the victim. Of course, things don't work out for me and then they will start actually moving away from the present situation and not processing this present situation, but bringing into a lot of unrelated stories from the past. You know, they are not called for in this situation. Let's say it like this. They have no actual connection to the present situation potentially, or if they have, this is not a moment where people oftentimes then use it in a solution oriented way. They start reiterating the stories in order to spiral then into the feeling. And, you know, this is then where the feelings get hardened. This is where the anger is not only the anger that is maybe elicited by this one situation, but it's the anger that has been built up over ten years of rejection, maybe. Or where the disappointment doesn't mean that you are disappointed because of the small situation, but you are actually attaching a whole lifetime of micro and macro moments of disappointments potentially to the situation, and then saying like, Story of my life, I'm always going to be disappointed. Also difficult moments to interrupt the stories that you are telling yourself and to actually feel the feelings, go more into your body, to kind of allow yourself to just be present and then go into the story work, into the narrative work of recognizing, observing first, first and foremost observing non-judgmental. What kind of stories come up, why they come up in this way, and then of course, the questions that you just said, how is this a good thing might shift your whole perception of the situation.
Patrick You can change your perspective of your story with looking at it from a different angle, seeing is it good or bad? But we'll go into that in a little bit when we're also talking about who is actually writing that story. But before we come to that, I really want to talk about we've been talking about the example of rejection now. But you as a coach, you deal with people in business. They all have to deal with some sort of predefined story, you know, some external thing that's thrown at them. And then they're building these stories around themselves. What are the most common narratives from from those people that you hear? Because, I mean, you're you're in touch with so many different people. And what are storylines that you hear from other people?
Monika Wow. There are a lot of different storylines, of course, with personal experiences, but there are also certain common themes. One of the themes that I right now, because I started to work a lot with CEOs, so more established business owners and entrepreneurs as well who have been building their businesses for seven years, maybe even have three businesses. For them, oftentimes it's the storyline of “work has to be hard”. I've only given my best when I'm struggling, like when I have nothing else to give. This is the moment when I know that I have given enough. And the storyline of work has to be hard is like this overall theme that you can then recognize in how they approach certain situations, how much pressure they take on, even if it's not necessary, you know. They make things harder in order to keep things fitting to this storyline or when things don't fit the storyline, when they get things very easily done. This is oftentimes also related in the context of exploring their strengths and values. The things that they find come easy to them, you know, oftentimes talking with people, building relationships, is something that they then completely dismiss because it's not hard. So they don't even recognize the talent that is hidden within that.
Patrick One question to that - do you actually ask these people where that's coming from? Like, where did they hear that work has to be hard. I mean, especially in that case when there's a CEO, we all know that there are movies out there in media. You always hear it, they're working so much. It's like overtime until it almost kills you. But where do these people get that idea from? I mean, what what is their their answer when you're probably asking them?
Monika Sure. I ask them. I always ask something in the… on the lines of who says that or where do you get this idea from or something like this? And there is no clear answer. It can be their family background. If they come from a family of workaholics, for example, it's very obvious that they will have gotten this picture of work and workaholic, hard suffering, etc., that this is just intricately linked. This is the storyline around work. But sometimes it's also something that they have just gotten used to because they started out as entrepreneurs, doing everything by themselves. And over three years, four years, you fall into this mode, you know, where you don't even update, there you go again, this storyline of how you work once you have the employees and they are still in this self-image of having to work and do everything and work long hours and work non-stop, even though the circumstances have changed.
Patrick A little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy then.
Monika It sure is. This is where… this is what I mean. We also choose to see things in a certain way then, and we make decisions also in a certain way. Then in order to still be coherent. This is a deeply rooted need within ourselves to be coherent in one way or another. So if you have this storyline, that work has to be hard, you will subconsciously choose to approach things in a certain way in order to stay coherent with it. Of course you do. This is also when you… when you look at the example of the storyline of I have to be perfect in order to show up or in order to be an expert or in order to be called valid or worthy of something, a project. This is also a storyline. I have to be perfect. Well, there you have to dissect a little bit what does it mean to be perfect, etc. But this is something that I see with a lot of experts happening, people who are really deep into something. They know so much that they already know a lot about what they don't know. And this is also a certain type of expertise, but they don't see it as expertise because they have this picture of perfection. And then they will try to fit the storyline. So they will maybe ignore opportunities. They will overwork. They will overthink. They will engage in a lot of imposter syndrome behavior oftentimes as well. All of these things, just to stay true to this storyline of “I have to be perfect in order to be the person that I desire to be".
Patrick I always love that storyline because when you meet people, it's we're all kind of experts in what we do or on our way there at least knowing more than other people in that field. It's always so interesting when you meet those people because they always feel like, I don't know enough. I need to know more. I need to be better to do this and that. And then you come in as an external person and you talk to them and it's like, Whoa! They're really good at what they're doing. And then you yourself feel, again, this I'm not as good as they are. So it’s… it's this vicious circle where people don't believe that they're good enough while externally they don't even recognize how good they already are. I think sometimes you just have to reinforce people and telling them you're already really good at what you do.
Monika Keeping things along the lines of our topic today, this is part of it as well, kind of. Do you allow yourself to integrate also your successes, your strengths, your what you called before contextualization? So the things that you have achieved already, not in an arrogant way, not in a boasting way, but also simply to be part of your story as something that constitutes certain chapters and certain events in your life that impact maybe how you see things, how you approach things, the experiences that you have. It's funny that you talk about this as well now because I have been preparing a new coaching program. Just talking about the imposter syndrome and just focusing on kind of, you know, working through all of this and this lack of internalization and explaining to yourself how your successes really are to a certain degree, maybe even dependent on luck, maybe dependent on external situations, but also always to a certain degree, dependent on yourself, and recognizing how this is also your impact that allowed the success to happen. This takes a lot of internal work for a lot of people who have never allowed themselves to internalize these successes.
Patrick Because it's quite easy actually, and you're bombarded so much by what other people are saying, what the media is saying, how the world is constantly changing. For me at least, it always helped other people reinforcing some things. But that's also when we're coming back now to the topic. Who is actually the author of your story? Because obviously, yes, it's easy to hear other people talking about some things. And that's you're taking that you're taking some things for granted and you're building a narrative around certain things that you hear from whoever out there. But. It's so hard to distinguish between, okay, I'm hearing something and maybe I can take something positive from that. Or what other things are going on out there and how can I fit them - all of these things that are out there - how can I fit them into my own personal narrative? And who am I in that narrative? I think it's so hard.
Monika This is a very intentional creation process. I'm fascinated to read books by authors written for authors. Because authors, of course, are constantly engaged in this process of consciously deciding how to write about certain events, how to fit things into a narrative. Choosing - like making intentional choices, what's to take into a story and what to leave out. And this is also a very important process for us. Whether we put importance on everything or whether we are intentional about choosing which situations we allow to have an impact on us and our storyline. Yeah, this is a lot of intentional work and I see it with my clients as well. It's not something that you start doing today and then tomorrow you have a different story. You have to build this meaningful story that is also logical to you, that makes sense to you, that allows you to grow. But it fits also all of your experiences into it. Then also, oftentimes when you start doing this work, you will start noticing new things and then you will be called to kind of look for new storylines or maybe listen more intentionally also to different people having different storylines and how they talk about certain things and how they make sense in certain situations. It's a very curious and, and creative process, but it's oftentimes also something where I see people holding themselves back because they feel as if they should have this one fixed storyline already.
Patrick If only it was that simple. There is no one storyline that's basically not a one size fits all approach, that's not working. We all have our own story and it has to be created in the context of what we do, the people that we have around us, where we grow up, culture. So many things.
Monika Yeah. And and oftentimes I think it's also okay to tell yourself like, yes, of course you want to feel confident in yourself. You want to be proud of yourself, whatever. But sometimes the way towards that may need a few little, you know, steps in between. You can't jump from just like you said before, you can’t jump maybe from writing tragedy, maybe even right now about a certain situation. And then in the next chapter, you are instantly starting a comedy. Maybe you need an in-between chapter where you allow yourself to make this transition to grow, towards being proud of yourself and finding the right storyline for yourself. You know, it's not about gaslighting yourself or pushing yourself into this storyline that other people will also tell you. And this is now something where I will say: there are a lot of coaches or gurus that will tell you how you should think about yourself. You should love yourself in this way. You should be proud of yourself. In this way you should kind of whenever something happens, you should think about this in this way. And I'm not one of those. I allow for a lot more freedom and flexibility and creativity there, because I think also this process of finding your personal narrative and creating it intentionally is so empowering. Because once you learn how to do this, once you go into this process, you will notice how easy it gets to constantly rewrite certain story lines and choose new ones and also look for even more empowering ones. So it's an enriching process.
Patrick [00:28:17] I think we also have to go into how do you actually write that story of yourself now? I mean, we've been talking a lot about you are your own author. You are the author of your story. But how can I do that now? I mean, we've been talking about the influences that we're surrounded with and that shape our story, basically. But how do I go into that process now? How do I say, okay, maybe I'm not happy with everything in my life story, but super happy with others? How do I then go about and then say, okay, I want to rethink the story of my life?
Monika So the first thing that I would say is actually to take a step back. Observe without trying to change anything quite yet. Instead, really, really try to become a little bit more attentive towards the narratives that you have going on, either in your mind or that you are exchanging with other people. You can start looking at how you explain to yourself what is happening, how you explain to yourself how you are feeling, how you explain to yourself how you were behaving, and also how other people are behaving towards you. Because this is also interesting. And then I wouldn't you know, you can start, of course, looking at everything now, but maybe it's best to start and recognize one storyline, like one topic. One situation that is important for you and look at the storylines, the primary storyline that that goes into creating a certain dynamic. So it may be, for example, rejection or it may be the imposter syndrome feeling that you're not good enough or it may be also, you know about it can be also a very empowering moment. What do you tell yourself in the moments where you do succeed and where you do feel proud about yourself? Because these can be also good examples of empowering storylines that you may want to expand to other areas of your life. So really kind of going there and just by becoming more aware and more aware without putting a lot of pressure onto yourself of having to get it right, you know, having to tell this story in a certain way right away will already broaden your horizon and will already make you more flexible and will show you ways where you can start challenging this story and where you can simply ask this question just like what we said before. Who says that? Like, Really? Who says that? Why does it have to be this way? And you will have a lot of situations where you will from inside. You will get this answer like, yeah, this is this is just the way it is. Well, who says that? Why? Why does it have to be this way? And maybe now you can also look for start looking for exceptions. Do I know people who have different experiences, who have different storylines? And how come that they allow themselves to have this kind of storyline and I can't. And this kind of challenging process is already very empowering.
Patrick It would actually be how I would go about it. Just be open to other people's storylines and then just take the positives from that and try to incorporate that somehow as long as it fits into your narrative, of course. But I think that's the beauty of it, that you can just basically choose from all those different storylines and you can always rewrite your story. I mean, that's that's really the beauty of it. Your story is not written somewhere like on paper with ink. You can just go back and edit something. It's it's the best thing.
Monika Yeah, that's the beauty of it, right? We are, we are constantly whether we are aware of it or not, we are the authors of our lives. And of course there are a lot of tools and a lot of methods that will will empower you to do this in very different ways and in practical ways, and then also to align your behavior towards that, of course, because once you have a new personal narrative, this should also have an impact on your behavior. This should have an impact on how you talk about yourself or your world, how you see yourself, how you feel. But this is the beautiful thing about this. Whether you have the most advanced methods, you know, and I teach my clients a lot of them, but whether you have the most advanced ones or whether you have a lot of capsule methods like trying one here and one other there. But overall, it all starts with observing and becoming aware of what you are telling yourself, and you can start doing this whenever you want to. You can do this for five minutes per day. You can do this for an hour per day. You can journal, you can do this while on the go. You are so free to step into this role of the author at any given point of time that it really is within you to make this choice. And it's simply the matter of choosing like, am I happy with this narrative that I'm telling myself? And if not, am I ready to step into the role of the author?
Patrick If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your fellow entrepreneurs so they can listen to Grab the link in our show notes and send it to them.
Monika If you're looking to join our tribe of movers and shakers to get a sense of belonging and fresh insights. Join our Pioneers Club community. The link to our community is waiting for you in our show notes as well.
Patrick And don't forget to connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram and let us know: what was a helpful thought or insight that you gained from this episode?
Monika Have any questions or ideas for us? Head over to our LinkedIn or Instagram pages and tell us. We read every submission and would love to answer your question in a later episode too. So thanks for joining us.
Patrick See you in the next one.