The Way We Narrate Our Lives Shape Who We Become (How to Rewrite Your Stories Into Legends)

This is the story of a man at the brink of suicide but turned his entire life around.

Harland’s father died when he was six years old, leaving him to take care and cook for this siblings. When he was 12, he left home, quit school and worked as a farmhand.

He lied about his age at 16 and joined the Army, only to be discharged a year later. Thereafter he worked on the railroad, emptying ash pans from railroad engines, but that didn’t last long either, he got into a fight and that lost him his next job on the Illinois Central Railroad.

When he was 18, he got married, but at age 20 his wife left him and took their baby.

Life was not easy and holding on to any job was a struggle for Harland.

The next two decades was a continued string of failures

• Tried his hand at a law career - but ended when he fought with his own client

• Had a job selling insurance - fired for disobedience

• Worked as a fireman - also fired shortly after he started

• Started a ferry boat service - had to shut down as a bridge was built

• Started an oil lamp business - failed as electricity reached rural America

In the next few decades he started a service station business for automobiles driving across the state and he bought a motel. But his bad luck continued. His motel burned down and his service station was forced to close because a highway bypassing his station was commissioned.

Harland was in his 60s and he was done.

He was considering suicide.

He was a failure.

But as he started writing his suicide note, he found himself writing down all the things he wanted to achieve in life. Instead of telling himself a story of failure, he told himself a story of hope.

At the top of that list was his fried chicken recipe.

He borrowed $87 from his friends, lived out of his car and sold fried chicken door to door. He wore a white shirt, black tie, white jacket and pants.

And the rest, as they say is history.

BASE PRINCIPLE

We become the stories we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves have the capacity to bring us down or lift us up.

WHAT IF?

What if you could rewrite and edit the stories that hold you back? What if your personal narrative was able to change the circumstance you are in?

An experiment with 40 distressed Duke University freshman gives us an insight as to how story editing can help us achieve more.

A research team split the students into an experimental and a controls group.

The experiment group watched videos of upperclassmen talk about how hard it was to adjust to college, but after some time their grades got better as they got used to collegiate life. This was used to prompt students to edit their own narratives about college. It was not that they weren’t suited for college, they just needed time to adjust.

The control group weren’t shown any such video.

20% of the control group dropped out within the next year, while only 5% of the experimental group left school. That’s a 4x improvement of retention!

Wilson and his team trained these students to perceive their circumstances differently, to see themselves up for a challenge rather than submitting to their born talent.

While we won’t always have other people help us rewrite our stories for us, here’s how we can do it for ourselves

Write your Legend in 4 steps

1/ Examine habits and patterns

Instead of focusing on what you want to change, turn your attention to patterns or bad habits. I find myself quitting when things get hard. I can’t seem to get up when the alarm goes off in the morning. Once you have identified the negative habits and patterns, you can start to look at the underlying stories.

2/ Capture underlying story

Start writing. It’s a free flowing exercise to dump all your feelings, your experiences, your history - all your stories about that habit and pattern you’ve identified. I can’t get up because I’m not a morning person. I’ve never been able to do it. My parents are also not morning people. Once you’ve put it all down on paper you can start the process of rewriting.

3/ New perspectives

Lori Gottlieb, a renown American writer and psychotherapist said in her TedTalk that humans are notoriously unreliable narrators of our own life. We view our world through our narrow slivers, which we then appropriate as reality.

Here are 3 ways to open up our perspectives.

I. From a kind and caring person (what is another person seeing that I’m not seeing?) - You've done things you've never thought possible, giving up snoozing? You just haven't decided to do it.

II. From your favorite heroic character (what would they say about it?) - There just isn't anything legendary planned in the morning! Once I realized my morning exercise will make me stronger, my life changed.

III. From someone writing your obituary (what do you want your story to be?) - A fighter. Someone who never gave up and gave themselves no excuses.

4/ New story

Now that we’ve seen the possibilities of a new story. Craft one that helps you instead of hurt you. It will be uncomfortable, because change requires discomfort and most of us hang on to what’s comfortable, even if it’s terrible for us. Howie wakes up the moment the alarm rings because there is not a moment to waste! That's what legends do.

5/ Practice

Lastly, repeat this new story to yourself. Behave accordingly and practice, practice, practice. You will face setbacks, just give yourself grace and keep at it.

Because that’s what Legends do. 😉
​Live your legend,

Howie Chan

Creator of Legend Letters

​Read my story​

​Follow me on LinkedIn

Sources:

1. The Real Story of Colonel Sanders is Far Crazier Than This Bland Inspirational Meme, The Verge, July 5, 2016 - ​LINK​

2. Douglas, Lucy, The Story of Colonel Sanders, KFC Founder, Fleximize - ​LINK​

3. Kantor, Loren, The Bizarre Life of Colonel Sanders, August 22, 2022 - ​LINK​

4. Baer, Drake, Here’s How Changing Your Life Story Can Make You More Successful, Business Insider, January 21, 2015 - ​LINK​

5. Cook, Gareth, How to Improve Your Life with “Story Editing”, Scientific American, September 13, 2011 - ​LINK​

6. Gottleib, Lori, How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life, Ted, 2020 - ​LINK