E058: Career Narratives

hello. This is James, and this is Jane,

and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. What are we speaking about

today. Jen, today we're talking about the role of narrative and careers, which I'm super excited about. Yeah,

that sounds good. Before we get into that, let's just do a little quick reminder for people, we're going to be following the usual process we go through. So, you know, definitions, research stuff like that, and before we move on from that. Jen, have you got any thoughts on how people can get in touch with us.

I've always got thoughts, you know that. So we've had quite a lot of activity on Twitter recently, so we'd love to keep that going, and you can find us at the WoW podcast. I would also encourage people to check out our website, because it's got lots of great articles on there, really helpful. It's also a place where you can find all the podcasts if you only recently joined us. Recently joined us, and it's also got some information about our Twitter chats and Twitter moments that we've had, that we have on a monthly basis, to give you an idea of the kind of people that we interact with. And that's worldwork.io so we're also on Facebook, LinkedIn, all the usual places.

Cool. That sounds good. So should I kick us off with maybe some definitions? To get things going today? I think that would be a great place to start.

All right, so here we are at definition discussion. Just like we'd like to do, we're going to talk through four definitions for you today. We're going to talk about narrative, storytelling, career narratives, and then story arc. So I'm just going to start up at the top. So narrative. What's narrative? Well, a narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events, a story, and that's from Wikipedia. So let's talk about storytelling. Then, storytelling is the activity of telling or writing stories, which is from the Cambridge dictionary. And let's drill in a little bit more let's think about career narratives. So what are career narratives? Well, they convey career stories that enrich for readers, understanding of a candidate's background and offerings. That's from a website called Career pro Canada. It's a Canadian careers website, but essentially it draws to life a relationship between narratives and careers and how they bring a candidate's experience to life. And then our last definition is story arc, which is also sometimes known as a narrative arc. So a story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, board games, video games, that kind of thing, with each episode following a dramatic arc on our television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. So that's our definition for you. So we've got narrative storytelling, career narratives and story arc. Have you got any thoughts on this? Jen,

I think two things. One, it sounds to me a little bit like a narrative is just a story, which is very helpful. Sometimes people use, you know, sexy terminology, to get ideas across. And I think the other thing is that if you think about your life or your career as a journey or story, then you start to see why these things might be relevant. Okay,

cool, so that's our definition. Would you like to jump in the research, round up and maybe explain a little bit about why we care about career narratives and narratives in general.

Yeah, absolutely so career narratives, and actually, the use of narrative in the way we think about our work is massively interesting to me. And we were talking just before we started recording, about why. Why is storytelling? Why is creating narratives such a big part of human society? And I think that's a really good place to start. So we are, as humans, innately looking for meaning and things. That's what we do. We look for meaning. We look for patterns. Those are two of the things that we most consistently do as human beings. And one of the two of the stories that I think are really useful at thinking about this. One is a an experience I had. I went out to Australia, and I went on a tour, and they were explaining some of the history of how the people in Australia, prior to the arrival of the English, had found their way around the continent and found water and things like that. And they were talking about Aboriginal storytelling, and it was quite extraordinary, and they explained how entire groups of people who lived together would craft incredibly complex stories that would be repeatedly told to children in that group so that they could understand and learn them. Because story. Selling is so much easier to engage with than just a list of facts and figures and directions. And what they did was in those stories, they wove places and rules about living and what was safe to eat and what wasn't, and where they could go for water and things like that, such that the group of people would always be safe, because there were people in it who always knew those stories really well. And I thought that was an incredibly clear explanation of how stories can be used in human groups to change people's behavior and to govern how they work. And the other thing that we were talking about, which I think is really interesting, is how we make sense of our history as groups of people, and specifically countries, I think you were talking about James, and I think this is really, really interesting, too. So we look backwards quite a lot, right? We look at who in the past did good things for our group of people or our country in this case, and then we look for stories about them, in order to mythologize, to create stories about that help the following people understand what values, what behaviors matter and important to our group. So for example, if you look at the British and the way they talk about Winston Churchill, these are great, you know, he was, he is deemed to have been a great orator. One of the greatest stories they tell about him is the speech he gave. And, you know, in his work as prime minister, and we do that because we are trying to talk about the values of the organ of the country. In this case, which I think is really easy way of understanding just how big apart stories play. We don't tell stories about Winston Churchill and just verbatim repeat what he said. We tell the story about how he made the speech, and where he was, and what the words are that he said, and why he said those things. And so I thought those were really important. And the reason stories work so well, in my opinion, is really twofold. One is that we recognize ourselves in them. So we look ourselves as hero or heroine, as protagonist of a story, and we relate to the other person in that story. So when we hear stories about other people, we look for for meaning and how we could be like them, or how we could be different from them. And then we also, as you often say, James, we're pattern seekers, right? We look for patterns and we try and then replicate our understanding of the world based on what patterns we find. So if we see common stories, so for example, if we see the brave boss who stands up against people in many places, we will ascribe behaviors from one person to another, because we see commonality in those stories, which can be brilliant but can also be quite risky, because we may not know actually whether that's true or not. So I think storytelling has a huge place in our society. And what I wanted to do for the rest of the research round up is talk a little bit about why it matters within our careers and when we're talking about and thinking about our own careers and career choices. What do you think about that?

I love the power of stories, and I love the power of narratives, and I love the fact that it works on that huge scale that you speak about. You know, when we think about nation building, that's bringing people together under a common set of stories. You know, these are our stories. This is who we are. I'm defined by the stories that I know about my ancestry, that I know about myself, and that shapes who I am now and in the future. And I think that's so powerful. I think it's fascinating. And as actually, as you were speaking, something popped into my mind when you think about, you know, people who are really good at remembering long digits of numbers or series of cards and playing decks and stuff. They do all of that by writing stories in their heads. You know? I mean, that's the way that we remember, is through stories. And it's so innate in us. I think it's fantastic. So I'm looking forward to hearing what you've got to say about careers.

Okay, well, that's good. I'm glad you're looking forward to it. So I want to really talk about first, why does this matter, and why are we talking about it within a career context? So I think we've hopefully explained why narratives play such a big part in human society. But really, what's the big deal about careers? Well, there's a few reasons. One, I just want to call out the fact that there is a huge amount of information out there at the moment about how you need to write your career narrative within your job application and things like that. And it's there, and I'm not going to agree with it or disagree with it, but what I want to do is dig in a little bit why that matters, and why people think career narratives are important and powerful, rather than the detail of, you know, how you construct it in your CV. And really, for me, there are sort of four elements that is really important to think about narratives within your career. The first is about making sense of your own journey in your career. And I think you know one of. Is a great quote about how humans are just machines looking to make meaning right. And I wish I can remember who it is now, but I love that idea that we are just desperately trying to make meaning out of things, make sense out of what's going on around us. And so narratives help us do that. If we can create a story that we recognize, then we get more comfortable, because we can see there's a sense in it. The second is about proactively taking an approach to sharing your journey. So whilst the first is you personally making sense of your journey, the second is about proactively taking approach to share your journey. So what are you going to tell people about your career? What are you going to articulate when you tell friends, family, workplace, and then the third is the one that I don't think gets talked about enough, and is incredibly powerful in my mind, which is about using narrative to understand and make sense of your journey, and then thinking about how you want to plan your Future journey. So thinking about stories and narratives and actually writing a story in your head for your future, such that it helps guide you through the future processes. And then I think there is a fourth one, which I'm not going to touch on too much, but I think it's worth mentioning, which is that we think it's important talking about this because we want to raise the awareness in people generally of the power of narrative and how it can affect how you see yourself, how you think about your work, how you think about other people in the workplace. Because I think that's massively powerful. And hopefully by talking about the first three, the fourth becomes clear. So let's talk first about the narrative that you hear, which is making sense of your journey, and this is the narrative that is in your head, okay? And this is constantly ongoing, and your brain is trying to make sense of the choices you're making, the decisions you make, the things you do at work, the things you don't do, your behavior, your action, etc, okay, so this is you making sense of your journey, and it's the narrative you hear in your head, and mostly it's the stuff you tell yourself. So when we talk about organizational psychology, it's stuff like self talk mindset, it's about your unconscious or conscious career choices that are influenced by those things. So James just stopping after that first one of the narrative that you hear, the one that helps you make sense of your own journey. What do you think about that? Well, I think we all have these and I think,

I think that becoming knowledgeable of the fact that you have a narrative again, you know, being able to get that little bit of a distance so you're no longer just experiencing your narrative, but you're aware that you have a narrative it's a really powerful thing. I think, I think that the same, in my view, goes with you know, recognizing your emotions, recognizing the way that you think. And I put recognizing the narrative that you have for yourself over your life as just that, as the story that you tell yourself, as for as the patterns that you've identified as for directional evolution that's applied to your life is a really powerful thing, because when you understand that the narrative is partly a reflection on the things that have happened to you, but partly a reflection on your construction of those into a story, I think it gives you power to have more control over what you do in the future. And I guess what you tell others is kind of what I think about that. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes total sense. And I was really it was really funny, as you were talking just before you said it, it the same thing popped into my mind, which is this idea we often talk about how understanding your emotions and getting some distance for them helps you to control, understand, interpret them. I would say exactly the same thing about this, yeah.

And I'd call that like meta narrative, or whatever. I mean, whatever it is, it's recognizing that the narrative that you have over your life is something that you've constructed, or that others around you have constructed for you and that you've accepted. But a lot of these things are are made, in my opinion,

which is interesting. Okay, so maybe time to move on to the second narrative that I want to talk about, which is the narrative you choose to share. So this is what you consciously or unconsciously tell others. It quite often forms the backbone of your CV, of your application process. It's very much something that will underpin how you talk about potential promotion with your boss, or how you talk about changing careers, or career breaks with people. And these will be things usually that you believe that explain your career journey. And I say usually because there are people who will deliberately say things that are not true for a number of reasons, which we'll go into the next one, but generally they tend to be the things that you believe and that you believe people will see favorably. So it's quite rare that we share negative narratives. So when I think about the narrative that people share, they will quite often. And well, they will always nearly cast themselves as the protagonist in that story, or the main character. If they don't, that's an interesting thing in itself, but they also, I think, quite often, will cast a positive light on it, and they will not necessarily take the time to think about how people might perceive that narrative, because they only hear it from their own perspective and not necessarily from others. So one of the most powerful things you can do, in that sense, is ask people to tell you what they think your career narrative is, because that will tell you what you're sharing. And I always think that's fascinating. Tell me what you think about I think about my career. And when people tell you you're like, Oh, that's not what I think. So where am I putting out that perception that's not correct? Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. And I like the what do you think I think about? I mean, those steps of removing are always interesting. And I think the stories that we tell are important, and the point about consciously or unconsciously is important. And I love to explore more when people tell stories that maybe aren't accurate, and whether they think they're accurate. I mean, you know, this goes some extent, back to that reality around what the stories really are and what they really mean.

So interesting. Yeah. And for me, yeah, totally. And for me, all of these three approaches to narrative and thinking about their roles, all of it, my dream would be helping people move from an unconscious to a conscious level, absolutely because I think if you can be more conscious of them, then you are more able to understand what impact they might be having on you and others, and on your future and on your past. Yeah,

and you know what? Just think about that a bit more. It might be impossible, but thinking about why you tell those could be helpful as well. I totally agree that understanding that you do this is important. But you know, why would you maybe have a narrative that's a certain way. I mean, I love the idea of starting to explore that, though, of course, that's telling a story about why you tell a story which is a little bit cyclical. Oh,

yeah, but I you hang on for stories from the keyboard, because I've got one for you on that. Okay. And then the final thing to think about, I think, is the narrative that you write. And I don't think this gets talked about enough, and I think it's brilliant. It's got it links in positive psychology, it's got its links in proactive behavioral change, all sorts of things. But ultimately, the narrative you write is it's conscious, and it is a conscious consideration of the narrative that you are currently telling and making choices about what you want to do in the future and what the story around that is. And so for me, this is where narratives become so clever, because actually what you can do, if you can really visualize and tell the story to yourself of what your future might be like in a career. Because like in a career perspective, you can start to unpick the ingredients that would make that happen, and you can also start to share it. And I always refer to it as recruiting allies, so figuring out who in your life you actually want to share this future with this future story, so that they can in future moments know it, and think about how they might be able to support

you with it. Yeah, I love writing the narrative piece. And as you said, you know, it comes out of things like positive psychology and change and and, and I think it's hugely powerful and at a personal level, I think that trying to rewrite some of my narrative for the future, and becoming aware that I have a narrative for the future is really, really powerful. So as an example, like a slightly flippant one, but an important one, I have told myself new stories about who I am in relation to food. So, you know, I always used to be the type of person who would tell myself, Oh, well, I'm going out. I'd like to eat healthily. But let's face it, I'm the person that at the last minute will change their mind about what I'm going to order in order for the secret comfort food that I always really wanted. That's really bad for me. And I would just pretend all the way along that I'm going to eat a nice, healthy thing, and then I'm just going to do that. So because that's the narrative I tell myself about the future, I'm kind of doomed before I even go out, but becoming aware of it, that is the story that I'm telling myself internally lets me kind of address that and say, You know what? No, I'd like to imagine that I'm the person that doesn't do that anymore, and having thought through that and put myself in that position in advance of actually getting there gives me a better chance to behave in the ways that I want to, but align to, you know, what I would like my future self to

do? Someone put it really to me the other day, right? And they were talking about behavior change in a similar sense. They weren't talking about food. They were talking about work related habit. But they said, you know, if I can't even tell you what it looks like to do what I want to do. How on earth can I do what I want to do? Yeah, absolutely. And I was like, That is the most straightforward way I've ever heard. So I liked that. So there you go. That's a quick summary of career narratives, the role they play, the role that they can play in your work life, and some food for thought about how you might start to think of. Out the window in life. So now it's time for Do, do, do, list of the week. James, take it away.

Yeah, cool. All right, so the list of the week is maybe a bit of a chunky one this time, but hopefully it's kind of fun. I'm sure a lot of you are aware that there's a view that there are only a certain number of stories that exist within, I guess, the human lexicon, or whatever we want to call it, and so what we're going to do today is we're going to talk through seven basic plots. And a lot of what we've got here is some reflections on work done by someone called Christopher Booker and a book called The seven basic plots. Why we tell stories. And a lot of what he's done actually builds on work of other people like Joseph Campbell and other people who are heavily involved in storytelling. And just before we get into this, it's worth noting that there's also a view that all stories have, like a very similar meta plot, is what they say. So pretty much all stories, whatever type of story they are, follow roughly the same type of structure. So, you know, there's anticipation and there's a dream or a goal, and there's, you know, frustration, and there's a bit of a nightmare and there's some resolution. And whatever genre story you look at, basically the main characters of protagonists go through roughly the same type of thing. And to be honest, stories are really boring if people aren't aspiring towards a goal, if they aren't frustrated along the way, if they don't get some personal development and big challenges to overcome, and if they don't get a resolution right? So, so that meta plot exists over all of these stories, story types that I'm going to run through. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to run through the story types, I'm going to explain a little bit about what they are. I'm going to give you some examples from, you know, popular culture and films, and then just touch on briefly how they might relate to work and career narratives. Before I get into all the stories, I'm going to read them to you. So you know the types of things we've got, the themes that we've got. As I said, there's seven. So number one is overcoming the monster. Number two is rags to riches. Number three is the quest. Number four is there and back again. Roughly, it's called voyage and return. Number five is comedy, number six is tragedy, and number seven is re birth, right? So I'm going to go through those in order and explore them in a bit more detail for you. So let's go back to the beginning, overcoming the monster, right? We've all heard stories like this before, and what happens here is it's really about a protagonist setting out to defeat an evil force that threatens the hero, their homeland, their way of life, or something like that. So there's a big evil thing, there's a good person. The good person goes and deals with evil thing, and life's better. So some examples of that are things like Dracula. James Bond is often a bit like that. You know, these, these sort of super villains. Star Wars is really a bit of a hero's journey, you know, tackling the Death Star and all that kind of stuff. So overcoming the monsters are a common story. When we think about some things we can do in work, in this this instance, we can think about things like maybe overcoming a weakness being, you know, overcoming a monster, maybe improving your self confidence, improving your public speaking, overcoming fear or failure. So some of that personal journey stuff can fit into this story. Number two is rags to riches. So here the hero or heroine acquires power or wealth or a mate and loses it all and gains it back again, growing as a person as a result. Okay, so here you've got somebody who starts with little, aspires lots, goes through a developmental journey as they move towards getting lots, and grows and becomes richer as a person along the way. And some stories that fit into this are things like Cinderella or Aladdin or, you know, Ratatouille, some of those stories like that of individuals gaining things and learning about themselves, really along the way and from a work perspective, or stories in here, such as, you know, maybe I was promoted too early, or I suffered a career setback. You know, I got what I thought, I thought I wanted, I need to find out that it was not what I wanted, and I was kind of empty with it. So it's all that sort of personal growth from setting goals, achieving them, and then discovering along the way that maybe they were or weren't what you wanted. Next up, we get the quest. And so the quest is all about a hero and their companions setting out to acquire an important object or get somewhere, and along that journey to that end, place or location, they're faced with temptations and distractions and obstacles that test them as individuals, and it's about really whether or not they can achieve that, that goal of getting to our destination while overcoming all the obstacles along the way. So some stories here are, you know, a classic one is Lord of the Rings, where, literally, a group of companions set up to achieve something right and overcome obstacles along the way. Other things like this would be Watership Down, or Raiders of a Lost Ark. And here you can. Think about this from a work perspective, potentially as a single minded career direction, usually with a cause, maybe something purposeful, maybe you want to, you know, achieve a specific piece of societal change or organizational change or legislative change, or whatever it is you've got to somewhere you're trying to get to, and you've got lots of obstacles along the way. So you and your your people that you work with carry on on that journey. Next up, number four, voyage and return. So here, this is about going and coming back, right. And here the hero or heroine goes into strange land, overcome some threats, learn some important lessons unique to that location, and then comes back with experience as a result of of their journey. And here we've got things like maybe Spongebob Squarepants a movie Back to the Future, and if we think about it from a work experience, you can frame this as stories, if maybe you do a secondment right, or maybe you do a lateral move into another part of your organization or another industry for a year or two and come back so you go, maybe you work in James case, maybe you work in the third sector, and you go and you work for two years in corporate PR, right? And then come back in and gain the lessons from your your voyage in return. The fifth type of story they talk about is comedy. And so here it's light, it's humorous, it's cheerful. The main character has those qualities. The motif is, generally of these stories, something like triumph over adversity, reaching happy conclusions. You know, maybe, maybe some of the challenges are a bit lighter in here.

And often, comedy is really about more than the humor in it. It's more about sort of overcoming the challenges relating some of the things that we feel when we watch comedy. Conflict tends to become more and more confusing. But at last, everything gets clearer when we when we think about comedies, and quite often, there's a bit of uncertainty and it's difficult to interpret within comedy, and that's what makes it funny. To some extent, maybe we can't predict the narratives on our own, and romance often falls into a comedy type of setting. So examples could be Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridger Jones, diary, things like that. And I guess in terms of thinking about your own life, or maybe in terms of drawing that into work, you can think about, maybe, you know, the comedy of trying to find your dream job, and all the silly things that you do as you try and explore what that might be and what you like, and the mishaps you have along the way, when you accidentally did this job and discovered if I was a dreadful thing for you, but you didn't know, and wasn't it funny, and all that kind of stuff. So that matching of yourself to a job and the sort of bumbling that we all go through when we try and figure out what's right for us, could be in there. So number six, then is tragedy. And here tragedy is it's often about the hero, or, I guess, for protagonists, for heroin, is often, generally somebody with a character flaw who or somebody who makes a mistake, and ultimately, they're they're kind of led to their demise through their character flaw or their mistake. It could be that, you know, they're a good person, but they've got a flaw. They do something wrong, and events unfold around them that lead them to a downturn. And there's a little bit of, I guess, sympathy from the audience, because fundamentally, they're a good person, they're just not quite perfect. And, you know, the world gets on top of them. And some examples of stories like this are maybe Macbeth or Citizen Kane or even Avengers Infinity War. Why not? I mean, check that in there. And from a work perspective, this is stuff that we can we can bring into our narratives when we're thinking about learning from mistakes or ways, but we can share, you know, bits to do with the failures we've had in the past and the stories that we tell around those Next up, the last story, this is rebirth. And here, this is all about events that occur in life, that force of heroes, of protagonists, to change their ways, and often, as a result, they become better individuals, right? So we go along through life, something major happens to us, and we change as people, and we grow and we're better as a result of the challenges that we face. So some examples here would be things like Pride and Prejudice, the frog prince even Groundhog Day, right? These are all stories of unusual things happening that force us to become better people. And when we think about, you know, rebirth from a work perspective, we have things like changing careers, or, you know, in some instances, it could be, you know, it could be a large life event that forces change on you, and that's an opportunity to be born again into a new way of doing things, or a new location or a new role. Or it could even be things like promotion or lateral. Moves you can take yourself to a new team and be reborn in a new way of being and doing things cool. So those are the seven story types that we think are common. What are your thoughts on those? Jen,

honestly, I love this stuff. It just struck me as you were talking it through, that the way I had read these prior when we were preparing for the episode, had conjured up a whole set of experiences in my life and the lives of others that made me think about those plot lines, and yet, when you described them through your words, I saw them in completely different ways and sort of a whole nother set of experiences. And particularly, I think with comedy, it's just such a great explanation, right? So the idea, and I'm thinking about that. There's a film called, I think 27 dresses, like she tries on loads of different dresses because she's bridesmaid 27 times or something. And it literally made me think of trying on all of those careers, all those job types, trying on positions in organizations, as you try and find this perfect fit for you and your job, like a little romantic couple. And it made me chuckle. It's funny,

isn't it? And it's always it's funny how listening to other people speak about things that you know gives you a different flavor of it. I think that's really cool.

Yeah, I think it's a really useful thing. And when people are thinking about this, thinking, Okay, so you've told me about narratives and why they matter. You've told me about plot lines. What do I do now? Right? Go away and think about which stories explain some of the biggest career instances in your life. Look at your CV and pick different roles, and think which of these plot lines would fit, because that will alone start you thinking about this stuff.

Yeah, and back to some of those earlier points. Don't just think about which plot lines fit. The past of your career. Think about the future. You know, where do you want this to go? What are you doing? Where do you want it to end up? I think there's some fun to be had in that as well, which is cool. That might just take us on to stories from the keyboard. James, oh, yes, okay. Well, have you got a story from the keyboard then that you'd like to

share that would be great if I can. Yeah, so I'll start, and that's because I'm quite I might have even told this one before, so I'm really worried, but I think it comes into its own here. So when you look at what my story should have been on paper, based on expectations from people around me, like my family and my friends and my school and stuff like that, I should have gone off to a good university and got a decent degree and gone and got a normal job. And I say normal, I mean normal like my friends, so, you know, join a graduate recruitment scheme was something. And when I went to uni, I loved work, and I didn't love uni so much. And so I came out with a degree that was a grade, a class lower than most of my friends, a tutu. And instantly, and actually, before I got it, I had squared it away as I'm just not an academic, and it was the only thing. I'm a worker. I want to work. And I that was what I told myself, and that's what I told everyone. I didn't understand it was narrative at the time, or a story. I just knew that. That's what the reason I made from it. Oh, I want to work and graft. And the thing is, I've told that story so many times now to so many people's probably because I'm a little bit ashamed that I didn't work harder at it, and probably because I see it as a failure when I really shouldn't see it as a failure. I should just see it's different choice I made at the time, and maybe a bad timing for me, um, but it made me feel better. But what I think is fascinating, and this is, this is what I think so powerful about narrative is at some point in the last few years, I thought to myself, I don't want this to be my story anymore. I am tired of this story, and I might be 40, whatever I was, but I don't want to tell the story anymore. And for me, that was revelatory in thinking about what I wanted to do differently in my workplace in the next two or three years, and actually probably started a few years before that, because it was about my relationship with learning and learning what from academia. And you know, now I'm in the second year of my masters, and you know, I'm really proud of that, but I cannot begin to tell you that it is not really about the learning. For me, is about rewriting a narrative that I had held onto for so long that it had become a real burden. And so for me, understanding that as a story, and then rewriting what I want that story to be was just properly, properly revelatory to me. And now I can, you know, I'm telling a new story. And my new story is, I used to think I was not good at that stuff, and then I decided to be. And maybe, maybe it's a little bit of a quest, or maybe it's a voyage in return, but I'm going off to achieve something, to get something so that I can bring it back into my life and rewrite that story.

That's a lovely story, genuinely, that's a really nice way to think about it, and a good, a really good example of a power that stories play and the

damage, right? Because I do. I know we haven't talked about that too much, but the unknowing damage they can do when you, when you and I don't even realize it. But I was telling that story constantly to people, to just a grade, even like. Years on, and that's crazy. So be careful people with stories, because they are powerful. James, doing some finger wagging, by the way, sorry, I've

just remembered we're doing a podcast, and you can't see me finger wagging in a comedic fashion. Anyway, James, what's your story?

My story is slightly different, but I think it's maybe relevant for people. And instead of looking back, my story is historic, but it's about looking forward, and it's about when I decided that I needed to leave one of my roles, and it was when I was working as an accountant in consultancy practice, I guess, type of thing. And I remember, like, I was in there, I was maybe two and a half years into my graduate program, and I was thinking about it, and like, you know what's going on? And I could just I could. Couldn't help but Picture My Life stretching out in front of me, and I'm like, Well, I can look around me, and if I keep doing this, in five years, I'll be that person. In 12 years, I'll be that person. In 15 years, I'll be that person. And I just thought, Oh, my God, this is horrible, like my my future is mapped out for me in this claustrophobic and constricting world that I don't really want to be part of, and that sort of envisaged narrative that I created about my future meant that I had to, I had to leave. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't going to be the right thing for me and but speaks to a few things, I guess. It speaks to the sort of, you know, foretelling of a future that we probably all do, and the power of it that can have on our decision making, but it also in hindsight, probably speaks to some of the lack of imagination I had, because there are loads of great things that you can do in that type of world. I just couldn't really see them. So I guess that's my kind of reflection on on the power of narrative and and, you know, I guess even for myself now, when I think about my future narratives, I guess the lesson is that whatever the future narrative is, but I'm telling myself that I can see it's worth questioning it again, because I'm very pleased with the decisions I've made, but equally, I'm sure if I questioned that narrative in a different type of way, I might have reached different outcomes that were just as satisfying for Me. So that's my my my thought on it. Wow.

Yeah. Okay, so I think that almost brings us to the end of the episode. Probably just got time for any top tips or final thoughts, anything from you,

James, I guess you know it's something we've touched on a few times. We've said it already in here, but my top tip is just to try and become aware. You know that living, I guess, mindful of the narratives that you you tell about yourself and that you have in your mind about your future, because those are really powerful things. And I've got, I've been in experiences in the past, but I'm, you know, not going to speak about here, but where you have to let go of a narrative from a future, and that is such a powerful thing. It's it's a real grieving process if you're wedded to a future narrative, and you know, just becoming aware of it, all those things that you hold are, are the narratives, and then being aware of a power that can have in your life, I think, is a helpful thing to do. So that's me. What about you?

Yeah, wow, you've made me think, just like almost I want to put a warning on this episode, like I did with some of them. This stuff is powerful. Because I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but I do think, you know, I was actually thinking about your story from keyboard just now, and the idea that you had to, that you rejected a narrative, and then had to, and you said, you said, The words had to leave, right? And I think that is an extraordinary thing that we probably should make people aware of. That my experience is that if you're not careful, once you on, once you reveal those narratives to yourself and to others, and what you want them to do is you may find yourself propelled to take action that you may, may, you know, be turbulent within your life. I have, I would say that this kind of stuff is, you know, some of may influence some of the biggest decisions in my life. And so I guess my top tip is, yeah, absolutely, look for your stories, but be careful, don't rush into things, right? You might rewrite a story, but there are, like you said, I mean, that's so powerful. What you just said about rewrite, about your story for the keyboard. You know, had you had a bit more life experience, you might have seen ways that you could have re written your narrative within that job, and you didn't, and that's fine, and you did, you changed it. But that, you know, just because you spot something doesn't mean you have to make all the changes straight away, but you might feel compelled to, so I've just said, be wary. You said, be aware. And I said, be wary. Yeah, that's good. We just juggle the letters around. That's all good.

Cool. Well, I think that's final thoughts, top tips. And I guess that's us kind of at the end of the episode, isn't it? It's just time to say, See you. Next time. See you next time.