The stories you tell yourself about events shape your emotions and behavior. A driver cuts you off: you can see a reckless jerk, or a parent rushing to the hospital. That choice ripples through your team and organization.
And the one thing that determines your responses are the stories that you tell yourself. You tell yourself stories every day about every single experience that you have. Think about the last time you got cut off in traffic. Ahem. It wasn't the experience that made you angry. See, it's the story you told yourself about that privileged lady in the Lexus who thought she owned the dang road. That's what led you to turn into Yosemite Sam and say bad words through your windshield. But I want you to imagine what would happen if you told yourself a different story. What if instead of a privileged lady in a Lexus, what if she was a concerned mom who was on her way to the hospital to check on her son who had just been in an accident? Would your response have changed? See, you become a hero when you realize that you control responses and your responses determine the outcomes. When teammates connect the dots and know that their stories and their responses have a direct impact, not just on their life, but the lives of their teammates, the life of this organization is depending on your stories.
