Aug 24, 2026 · 16 min · 9 segments
Have you ever wondered how much of your daily frustration comes from assumptions—*not* reality? In this episode, we dive into the unconscious stories we tell ourselves that shape how we act, react…
Tori PeaceHost
And I want to start this episode with a story because this is really what this episode is all about.
So this story comes from the author Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
And he has this beautiful story about how he was, one day he was on a train and there was a father with two young children on the train.
Like they were just wild, like bouncing off the walls of the train and just... just really getting out of control, doing all kinds of things.
And the father, meanwhile, was just sitting there with his hands in his head and just sulking, just not doing anything about these children.
And Stephen Covey became really upset because he thought, why isn't this father controlling his kids? They're out of control.
It's just that their mother just died of cancer and we're coming back from the hospital.
The story he had been telling himself before was that these children were troublemakers, that the father was not a very good father.
But when the father spoke up and shared this horrible news about their mother, That totally changed everything.
Suddenly, Stephen Covey could empathize or feel compassion for this family who had just lost a very important person in their life.
The majority of our thinking and of what we, the way we see the world is filtered through our stories.
Our brains, they just, the way they work to help us survive, but sometimes it can work against us.
So in today's episode, you're going to discover how our emotions, our actions, and our results, and our work and our life are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves, a question that you can ask yourself to change your perspective and help you achieve what you want, and an exercise you can do this week to identify how your current stories are not helping you get to where you want to go in work and in life and how you might change them.
And I want to start this episode with a story because this is really what this episode is all about.
So this story comes from the author Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
And he has this beautiful story about how he was, one day he was on a train and there was a father with two young children on the train.
Like they were just wild, like bouncing off the walls of the train and just... just really getting out of control, doing all kinds of things.
And the father, meanwhile, was just sitting there with his hands in his head and just sulking, just not doing anything about these children.
And Stephen Covey became really upset because he thought, why isn't this father controlling his kids? They're out of control.
It's just that their mother just died of cancer and we're coming back from the hospital.
The story he had been telling himself before was that these children were troublemakers, that the father was not a very good father.
But when the father spoke up and shared this horrible news about their mother, That totally changed everything.
Suddenly, Stephen Covey could empathize or feel compassion for this family who had just lost a very important person in their life.
The majority of our thinking and of what we, the way we see the world is filtered through our stories.
Our brains, they just, the way they work to help us survive, but sometimes it can work against us.
So in today's episode, you're going to discover how our emotions, our actions, and our results, and our work and our life are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves, a question that you can ask yourself to change your perspective and help you achieve what you want, and an exercise you can do this week to identify how your current stories are not helping you get to where you want to go in work and in life and how you might change them.
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