Ignite Your Purpose With The BURN | Ben Newman

The burn is that underlying fire that actually ignites your why and your purpose that then causes you to take that necessary action to do what you say you're going to do to do that little bit extra. The unrequired.

What is at the core of an uncommon leader? Like what's. What's at the core?

Well, you know, there's five different things that. That I could take you through, but if I were to give you just one, I think uncommon leaders do what they say they're gonna do, and then they do just a little bit extra, which is what I call the unrequired. And the psychology behind that is that the highest performers, the uncommon performers, or even the uncommon amongst the uncommon, they know that in order to do the unrequired or the little bit extra, you have to do what's required of you. So you actually have to become more. You have to become more consistent in doing what you say you're gonna do. Otherwise, you can to the little bit extra, because otherwise you're just cheating yourself and acting like you're doing more, but you're really not even doing what you need to do.

Yeah, no, that's perfect. Well, you know, when it comes down to a lot of the top performers that I know, and I know you work with the elite of the elite, a lot of the top performers I know many of them have been through stuff, and it's almost like the stuff that they've been through created the grit and tenacity inside of them. And if I'm not mistaken, you actually came up with your own term for that, which is the burn. Right. So break down the burn. Because I know what's different than why and how. Break down the burn.

Yeah. You know, so. So the burn. And I think this is where, you know, a lot of speakers and coaches, it's just. It's a little subtle, miss. And they talk about why and they talk about purpose, which is so unbelievably important. But the burn is that underlying fire that actually ignites your why and your purpose that then causes you to. To take that necessary action to do what you say you're going to do to do that little bit extra. The unrequired. And you nailed it. You know, the high performers I've had the opportunity to spend time with. And for me, on my journey, in my life, it's the challenge and adversity that's defined me.

Right.

I mean, we need way more than 30 minutes to dive into all the challenge and adversity, because I've been Knocked down so many times, I still need two coaches. I'm still reading books every day. This is the work that I do. And I'm still trying to figure it out. But when you think about this burn, I'll just share a quick story because you and I have a mutual friend in Ed Mylett. And Ed, when he had me on to their Arete Syndicate to do a speech for their group, he had mentioned that Marshall Falk was going to speak after me. And, oh, Stephen, I was so fired up. I'm like, Marshall Falk. I'm a saint. Let's go. Yeah, Marshall was here. And I've known Marshall for years. But like, you get excited to hear him speak. He's one of the greatest ever do it. And so I stay on. I got my notepad ready. I'm ready to take notes. And Marshall starts speaking. That's actually a gold ball behind me.

That Marshall signed for me. So funny that we're heading to this story, but so Marshall all of a sudden starts talking about his burn. And Ed had really pushed him. He's like, man, like you did more than so many other athletes that have ever walked the face of the earth. How did you do it? And Steven, he went all the way back, just like all of your listeners. You know, that period of time that was tough for you, that gives you perspective that you can keep fighting. And he said, man, I grew up in a house with 11 kids. A great sandwich for me was white bread with sugar on it. And he said, every day I would wake up and I would train and I would push myself to levels of uncomfort, knowing I am going to create a situation for my family where or we aren't going back to white bread and sugar sandwiches. And he said, for me, every day when I thought of that, it created this. And these were his words. I don't even know what you call it. But he said, it was just something that was in my belly. And I'm sitting there going, that's the burn mark. That's the burn. But that's what he was referring to. And so you nailed it. That's what high performers have. It's this burn that ignites the why. And the purpose of that then causes individuals to become more consistent with the disciplines that it takes to win.

Well, given all that, given all the success that you've had, and we all, you and I, both know that success is a road. It's a journey, right? And different levels above it. I'm curious, what was the most significant challenge that you've been through yourself, that is, that created the, what became the burn framework. Like, what is, like what are some of the things that you've been through specifically?

Well, you know, there's business things that I've gone through, there's personal things I'm still going through, you know, right now. But really what has given me the perspective in my life was watching my mother battle a rare muscle disease called amyloidosis. So Steven, I can tell you, you keep in shape, which I've got a big amount of respect for. When you're in the type of work that we're in and having conversations with elite performers, and so in your muscles, in all your listeners muscles, every single one of us, we have amyloids in our muscles. You have an excess of amyloids. You have a disease called amyloidosis. My mother had that disease. Single mom, fighting to make ends meet. Divorced when I was six months old. Never knew my parents together. And my mother was told by specialists in Boston. We lived in St. Louis at the time, always St. Louis, but she had to fly to Boston, meets with a woman named Dr. Skinner who said, you're only the second woman under 40 years old you've ever seen or heard of having the disease. You have two to four years to live, Steven.

Oh my gosh.

And my mother comes back from Boston, takes out this old blue Mead notebook. It becomes a place where she unleashed her positive mental attitude onto the world. And she would write, beat the statistics, beat the odds. Live with the disease that is chronic and fatal. Believe in yourself, combat anything purpose in life. And my mother taught me that when you are clear on your purpose, which I now refer to as the burn that ignites that purpose, which I know she was, it helps you really embrace your pain. And even though My mother had 24 hour nursing care in our house her last year living, every night she came to the dinner table to ask how my day was at school. And so I think for all of us, we have to remember that we can fight through the pain when you shift to the perspective of the things that are worse than what you are currently going through. And My mother passed 11 days before my eighth birthday. And really what she did, she passed the pen that she was writing within that journal, passed it on, you know, for the opportunity to continue to write her story. And that's a burn that just won't go out inside of me, that I connect to every morning to really engage me in doing what it takes to fight the tough battles of life. Because life is not easy. It'll Throw it at you, man.

That's amazing. Well, I also know you have a standard or a practice. If I'm not mistaken, your alarm clock is actually set to remind you of your burn day in and day out.

It is.

And when I was on Ed's show, he actually got this out of me. And he was the one who really had me, had me talk about it. But a lot of people don't know you can actually name your alarm clock. And you know, a couple of things here, because I think it's important that we all create the environment that causes us to be successful. We all know the things that we need to do. Like, you know, what you need to do on a daily basis. I know what I need to do on a daily basis. But typically, self talk and the wrong environment keep us from following through with what we know we need to do. So a lot of times, for instance, that's why I kind of. I love that you brought it up and why Ed really liked this part of our conversation. Most people keep their alarm clock where on their phone, right next to their bed. Let's just make it as convenient as.

Possible to hit the snooze.

Right. Let's make it as convenient as possible. And so I decided to move it into another room. So I put it in the bathroom. It's across the way on the other side of the bedroom. So for me, I always joke, I gotta wake up. It's a light jog to get to the phone because Amy's gonna kill me if it's going off. And then I look on that phone, and the first thing I see, because you can name your alarm, it says Janet Fishman Newman Legacy. So I've intentionally set up my environment that the first thing I see and look at is my mom's name. What's the probability of me hitting the snooze button and going back to bed when I just connected to the burn?

Yeah.

And the commitment that I've made and the choice I've made. Just like all of you can make a choice to fight for what you're going to fight for in your life at a completely different level. There's no hitting the snooze and going back to bed.

Man, I love it. Well, let me go back to your mom for just a second, because everything, everything that I've heard you mentioned about her before on this show and other shows that I've watched, there's an element where she almost intuitively knew how to master self talk. You know, when you get a diagnosis, like she Got. It would have been very easy to cower and kind of say, this is it and this kind of thing. But your mom grabbed the blue ME notebook and obviously got into the self talk. When it comes to elite performers, how does self talk play into kind of what we're doing? How do we. How can we cultivate better self talk, etc.

Well, I think first off, there has to be a level of awareness and acknowledgement that we're all going to have self talk. You know, you've got self talk, I've got self talk. No matter how many conversations I have, whether it's elite performers in sports, elite performers in business, everybody's gonna have self talk. And so there's different tools that we utilize with our clients. It's breathing technique called your emotional trigger, that you can find in our mental toughness playbook. And, you know, these are things that get you to your ideal state of focus.

That when you're focusing on the favorite period of time. So let's say you're a swimmer, right? So if I take you all the way back to your very best race ever, and like, you can remember being in that pool, you remember when you hit the wall and you won the race and you're going to get that medal around your neck. When you're thinking about the specifics of that race, what are you not thinking about, Steven?

All your fears and all the stuff that goes with it. Right. All the negativity?

All of it.

Yeah.

And so when we experience self talk, we have to have the awareness to say, okay, how am I going to control and beat the self talk? Most people just keep having the conversation and they don't understand the tools or it's called expectancy theory in psychology that what you focus on expands.

Yeah.

You focus on what's negative, you get more negative. If you focus on the positive, you get more positive. So when you learn to control your self talk, essentially all you're doing, it's very simple. These words sound big, but it's simple. You're controlling the negative silence thing in the negative, replacing it with a positive, and then moving forward with complete focus to take action.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's perfect. I mean, the reality is, is that that thought is creating an emotional trigger, which creates an attitude, which then creates an action, so on and so forth. One of the things that I know that you and I share is this affinity with questions, asking questions. I used to say that, you know, questions open hearts and statements, close them. And I know one of the things that I've Heard you mention before is especially conquering self talk. And then just leading people from a place of authority rather than power comes down to questions. How important are questions in our day to day walk and our day to day development?

You know, to me and for me, I don't know if you read any of Max Weber. It's pronounced Weber, but W E B E R. He's one of the fathers of sociology and he talked about. This is where it all came from for me. He talked about the difference of power versus authority. So as a leader, as an influence, and we're all leaders and influences, whether you're leading yourself, whether you're leading your family, whether you're leading. So regardless of title, we're all leading somebody. But power is when you force or coerce somebody to do your will. Okay. Authority is when you inspire or empower somebody to choose what they know they need to choose in order to drive an outcome or a result. So I ended up deriving from my research of baby. It's questions over statements, which it sounds like you found too. And I can tell you, Stephen, go do this. And if you don't do this, you're not going to be successful. You're going to be like, dude, what did this guy put in his Cheerios this morning? I'm not, I'm not listening to him. And I was the type of athlete, I'm the type of performer, I'm very intense, I'm very aggressive. You could do that to me, I'd be fine. Something tells me I actually could do that to you.

We'd be fine.

But most, most people, most people, it's asking the question because if you come at them that way, they're going to resist even if what you're telling them is the truth. So I always found, ask a question and the question engages them to answer. And when they answer, they then take ownership of what they already know they need to do to be successful. So if I could just carry this through really quick for the listeners. I want everybody who maybe you've been experienced self talk recently, and there's something that's holding you back. Now let's think of your ideal state of focus. What's your favorite period of time? What's the period of time where in your job, in your career, in the pool, on the court, on the field, you performed at your highest level? I want you to think about that period of time, then answer this question. What were the things that you did on a daily basis that gave you confidence to perform the way that you did? That day and now, Steven, we have engaged in a coaching conversation where they can say, well, I was working out, paying attention to my nutrition, doing this, focusing with a coach. I was reading books on mental toughness, mental conditioning, visualization. Okay, well, are you doing those things now? I'm not. What would happen if you re. Engage those disciplines that caused you to be so confident in the story that you just shared with me? So you and I both know this, but I think it's always good to take people through that short exercise. That's how it works, because we know what we need to do. You're the one who performed there. I wasn't in the pool with you. I wasn't on the field with you. I wasn't closing that big deal with you in the boardroom. And so it's getting back to the disciplines that build confidence that cause you to drive success.

Yeah, man. No, that's. That's so good. Because I remember when I was homeless, you know, 20 plus years ago, one of the things that I went through specifically to get myself out of that was something I call mirror work, right? I just happened to be a public restroom, just trying to wash myself up a little bit, and I just happened to catch my eyes, like raising my head and catching my. My eyes and kind of looking back at me. And first thing I did was I said, how the hell did you get here? Like, you know, almost like a sense of radical honesty, right? A radical honesty to say, all right, you got yourself here, you can get yourself out. I then went into what some people say is woo woo. I don't think it's woo woo, but I began saying, I am or I will be or I'm going to. Right? And it took about three weeks, and I, stable, at least got stabilized, and I began to rebuild from there. And, you know, one of the things I remember during that timeframe is I had a key mentor that came. Came along My. My life, actually, I had two. So I had the negative, what I referred to as the negative mentor and the positive mentor. So negative mentor. It was somebody who was, in this case was actually my father who was telling me all the things I couldn't be. And the positive mentor was a guy by the name of Steve Myrick, who basically helped rebuild me essentially from his perspective. And one of the things that I. That I took away from that is this essence of manipulation versus influence. Now, I know we just hit power and authority, but in all the work that you've done and all the. In all the people that you've Helped become, you know, elite.

Elite.

Have you seen an essence where maybe they were maybe in an area of manipulation where you then you bring in influence and it causes them to shoot quicker?

Well, you know, a lot of what you experienced was the same for me. And some of what I'm currently going through and working through myself with coaches and people who have a big influence on me to show up. And even when I don't feel like it, I always say standard over feelings. Don't allow your feelings to dictate how you show up. You got to choose to dominate that standard. So that influence piece is huge. Because influence, as you mentioned, can come positive and negative. I experienced a lot of that negative from my dad. But now when I look back on it, it's a double edged sword. You almost have to be grateful, like, hey, thanks for putting me through that, because it's given me the strength to realize I can fight through this. And so I think a lot of times people, they pull away from. I know for you you're a believer in authenticity and transparency. A lot of people pull away from authenticity and transparency. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I've got a podcast, millions of listeners. I can't tell anybody I was homeless. I can't tell anybody these things. You can't? No, no, no. Those are the things that make you real. You know, the periods of time when I've been knocked down in business where I'm literally paying. When I was a financial advisor writing checks back to the organ worked for that were the size of NFL game checks. I'm giving commissions back. My accountant is saying I don't have any clients who give money back to the company that they work for. Like, how do we reconcile this?

Yeah.

And so there's so much pain personally, professionally. That's where we really learn. And so I think to take people there and to understand pain is often where you build your greatest strength. I think it's one of the greatest things that we can do as a coach or a leader and is help people find strength in that pain. Find strength in your story. Find strength in what you've overcome.

Yeah, no, I love that. And know one of the things that I've, I've heard you say before that I really appreciate as well is because I think a lot of us will stay in that comfort zone place because we, you know, we don't want to face the pain. Right. But yet we'll say, well, we want balance in life. We want to have this in life. We want to have this in life. And one of the things I've heard you say before, is if you want balance, you have to build balance. It's still intentional, right? So talk to me a little bit about balance and helping people understand maybe that adversity and how that adversity works for them. You know, that kind of scenario.

First off, I love that you're going here because balance 100% does exist. And so that's another one of the mental training tools. There's actually six main mental training tools. We're getting ready to release our fourth edition, and we redid all of our videos and our courses for your mental toughness playbook. I am. Statements are in there. So it's interesting that you. That you brought that up. But we actually design one of the tools. It's called your prize fighter day, and it breaks down the decisions that you have a choice to make personally, professionally, and in your service to others every day. And when you do that, you do have balance. Now, let me go off on a tangent real quick, because I can't come on here and not give you guys my heart and my fire because I care. Stop listening to the people who are protecting you. Stop listening to the people who are giving you the message, balance doesn't exist. Just work really hard and take time off. And then you look back and you say, okay, I'm not intentional with my family. I'm not taking vacations. I'm not working hard. Because you're so pulled in so many different directions, you can't even think straight. And then you look and it's people who say, well, you know, there's going to be periods of time just. It's hard to have good nutrition. It's hard to find time to work out. So sometimes you're just going to have to get invested in your business. Well, take a look at the messenger. Often the messenger shouldn't be the messenger because they lack discipline in their lives. And I think we need to start living in a culture where we choose. And I'm sharing this with you saying, look, I still have two coaches. I'm still reading books. I don't have it all figured out. But I know that guys like you and I, Steven, if we're going to have a conversation with somebody about discipline, that our house better be in order.

Yeah, for sure.

I'm not the best father in the world. I give it my all every single day. I'm not the best husband. I give it my all every single day. I get my workouts in. I don't always eat the best, but I'm pretty damn Good with my nutrition. So it's one of those things. You have to choose to make these things a priority. And when you do, you will have balance. You will operate with a different level of confidence, and you will recognize that all it takes is a little bit of sacrifice and silencing the self talk and turning off the radio of the media and the noise and the messengers who say that you can't work out and be successful, you can't eat right and run a business, you can't eat right and spend time with your family. Whatever you say or you listen to, that's what goes into your ears and that's what drives your action. So you better be careful what you feed your mind, because that's going to determine the action that you take. So we've always been a big believer. It may never be perfectly balanced, right? I spend one hour here, one hour here, one hour here. But every day, you certainly can pay attention in different areas of your life to make sure that you're moving forward and creating success and in things beyond just making money.

Yeah, man, that's so good. I want to drop the mic right there and just let it. Let it hang for a couple minutes.

Why? Just. I mean, Stephen, don't you get tired of it? I mean, you know, people get on here and they write books on, oh, balance doesn't exist. And it's like, okay, I'm not trying to be mean or rude, but typically that comes from somebody who they're not working out and they're not paying attention to nutrition. They might be wildly successful in business, but I want to listen to Ed Mylett. I want to listen to Ed Mylett, who, when I look at Ed, I'm like, okay, the dude is 50. He just got out of the gym. He just finished eating a healthy breakfast. He probably just finished a conference call leading his team. He probably took his kids to school, and now he's lighting this stage on fire. That's why I love my relationship with Ed, because Ed pushes me to say, I haven't done anything in my life. I'm only scratching the surface. And you see Ed on the golf course with his kids. You see Ed on the golf course with his friends. He's one of the top. Well, now he's 50, so he can't claim it anymore. But now he's probably one of the top under 60. He's one of the top 10 wealthiest, you know, under 50 in America. And you're going to tell me Ed Mylett doesn't have balance in his life? Give Me a break. The guy's an amazing example. And there's so many examples that are like that. Once again, just to hammer home the point, you've got to turn off the noise of people who aren't doing it, giving you advice on what you should be doing.

No. And that's so good because. Because those that have done it have paid the price to get it. Therefore, they can tell you about the sacrifice it's going to take you to get to that next level yourself. They're going to tell you the power, you know, the one more mentality kind of scenario.

One of the things that I've also heard you say that I think I just thought was pretty powerful. Another little mic drop moment. It was this essence of, you're never going to outperform your self image. Right. So if we can never outperform our self image, how do we recreate, reinvent, re, establish our own self image?

Well, I think you just. You constantly have to push. You constantly have to challenge yourself. You constantly have to evaluate what your best looks like. And I think that goes back to the self talk. Right? You've got to. You got to stop the self talk. I'll give you a perfect example. When I was on Andy Frisella's podcast, you know, we talked about my choice to start the 75 hard program and then to do the entire live hard program. Stephen, I was one of those guys. I do what I call. It's an unrequired workout. It's 10 exercises. It's 45 minutes. Today was actually the 999th day that I've done it. So tomorrow will be a thousand straight days. And I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep going. Yeah, but because I was doing this workout, and then I would do my regular workouts on top of that. So no days off, no nothing for all those days. And so one of the things that I was telling myself was, why would I start 75 hard? I love Andy's program. It's amazing what he's done to transform himself to be an even bigger and better example for us with his messaging. Yeah, but I don't need to do that. I'm already in shape. I'm already. And finally I said to myself, and this is where I think you have the breakthroughs. It was a conversation back to that mirror that you talked about. I had to look myself in the mirror and say, ben, why do you keep telling yourself that you don't need to do that because you have a workout program. You do Every day.

Yeah.

And finally I decided I am going to do this. And, Steven, I went all in. And I am not saying everybody listening needs to start 75 hard or everybody needs to do the workout that I do every day. But find something that pushes you to challenge yourself to be your best with great consistency. And great consistency is not every now and again. It's every damn day. And choose to do it by going through the whole live hard program. It takes an entire year. You gotta be methodical. You gotta make the right decisions. You screw up one decision, one bite of a chocolate chip cookie, and you go back to day one. There's no margin for error. And when I got done with this, I created what I call the never do it again list. Stephen. And now it's a list of 14 things that I read every day as part of my mental training to get myself ready for the day. And there are things that I learned.

Why was I doing those things? And Steven, it included things like, don't give your power to other people. Don't have a silent voice.

Yeah, right.

The conversation you and I are having right now, some people would go, oh, my gosh, this guy's being confrontational. He's calling out other coaches. No, I'm not. I'm just saying I think they can have balance in their lives too, and they'll even be better coaches and leaders when they choose to stop listening to their self talk. And I'm doing that in the same breath as telling you I also had my self talk. So it's not that I don't. It's not that I don't have moments of weakness, but we always have to push ourselves mentally to figure out what does that next level look like.

Man, that's so good. It's so good. You know, it's. It's a great reminder that we are our own worst roadblock. Right? How we think, how we perceive, how we make choices, how we evaluate ourselves, how we. How we hold ourselves accountable when we. When we don't, you know, we don't measure up. You know, a good friend of mine, Evan Carmichael, was. We had a mutual friend that was doing this, his own challenge. And we were on Clubhouse this is almost a year ago for a few minutes, and we were talking about this concept where he was going through it, and he's like, yeah. He goes, well, you know, I've been going great for seven months, and yeah, it's been awesome. And then he ate some piece of cheesecake, and Evan's like, you got to start over, dude. You Got to start over. He's like, but no, but it's only one piece that he's like, you don't understand. It's a standard you're setting for yourself. You got to start over. Anyway, I had to share that brief story. I am curious. Like, there's literally. You type in leadership books right into Google, right? And there's thousands of leadership books that pop up. Okay, why was now the right time to write Uncommon Leadership? Why was now the time with all the other successes that you've had? What was the. What was the yearning in your heart, the burn, if you will, to put. To bring this book to the marketplace?

So this Uncommon Leadership was actually, and I say this humbly, and it's taken a lot of push from some. Some great mentors who continue to challenge me and push me. That's beyond my coaches to lots of individuals. It just means I'm a. I'm high maintenance. But that was actually my seventh book, and I had not come out with a book since 2014, Steven. I mean, my coaching, my work with Alabama football and North Dakota State, which sprung into my work with Kansas State when the head coach brought me there and the NFL players. It was. Right. I was busy. I was making excuses like, I don't have time to write a book. And Covid hit. And I had had this idea for a long period of time. I wanted to honor people who had had a huge impact on my life. So the book is actually 11 leaders. I refer to them as uncommon leaders who set an example for all of us of what it means to show up and do what you say you're going to do. And I wanted to honor those 11 leaders, you think, for all the listeners, the people in your life that have helped you become who you are, or the messaging that shaped how you show up. And when I had that in my mind, I wanted to honor them. How do you, like, just close the door on that?

You don't really.

It was one of those, okay, I'm writing this book, and I took some of the additional time that I got being off the road when travel shut down for Covid, and I stopped making the excuses and wrote the book. And, you know, I'm very glad that I did. You know, we've got a great team that helps us do everything that we do. And so I think it's a book. I feel it's a book. And the feedback's been great that people do kind of go on a journey with each one of these leaders. It's written in such a way that if you're running a Monday morning meeting, you could read chapter four in one day and take something right into your meeting. And that's what I wanted because I'm kind of the, you know, 10 pages a day, 15 pages.

I'm the same way.

I'm going to digest the whole book in a day. My mind starts racing. And so we wanted to be small, short, powerful, but immediate action that people could take so that they could be uncommon.

I love it, man. Where everybody's got to go take it, check out the book, get a copy for themselves. Actually use it as you just prescribed, which is take a chapter and then go lead your teams with it. I think it's phenomenal, your leadership and everything that you've done for elite performers, it speaks for itself. All right. You mean your reputation precedes you in many, many ways. I am curious, where can the audience find out more about you and kind of the next steps in learning more about all the different things you got going on?

So at Continued Fight is the Instagram handle, which I'm very active. Like you're. You're getting me, you know, unless the team is posting a video like I actively post in the morning, I enjoy it. It's a way for me to give back. Right. It's an I'm not too busy to write a post and share what's on my mind in the morning. I feel it's a great act of service in the morning for me. So when you engage, we're engaging together. So would love to spend time on Instagram. And then Ben Newmancoaching.com you know, helps everybody learn more about some of the resources that we've referenced and ways that we can stay connected. But, you know, I always love coming on these shows, especially with somebody who, like yourself, who's committed to taking care of himself, committed to being authentic and vulnerable and transparent, but also committed to putting together an amazing show with consistent, amazing performers. And so it's always a great way because I'm a big believer we are never finished. And I think your platform provides that for us to keep attacking that never finish mentality. So thank you for the chance to be with you and all your listeners.

Thank you for the kind words and of course, it's always my pleasure. In fact, you can, you can call this place home. Now, anytime you want to stop by and drop some more value bombs, you're always welcome to do it.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that, Steven.

All right, take care. Peace. I hope you liked that video.

And if you did.

Make sure you check out this next video right here. A lot of what I'm interested in and kind of a fundamental way is to think about the essential act of narrativizing your life, creating a story that helps you explain who you are to yourself.