Stories II: The Story You Told Yourself
was driving with a friend and we stopped at a red light. In front of us was a mid-sized SUV with a “Mom Life” bumper sticker. My friend went into a rant. It lasted a while and it was all about how she can’t stand people who’s self identity revolves around just being a “Mom”. I said “mmmm” in agreement. I was actually thinking “All you ever do is talk about your kids, and how you have structured your part time jobs around being there for your kids and that’s what makes you a great mom.” I was also thinking “You’d like to believe that your a career focused individual and that you are an artist, but those are just mild hobbies, your just telling yourself a fake story even if you believe it.” Then it hit me. Often we tell ourselves stories that aren’t true. But like all stories, if you say it again and again, the lie becomes the truth, at least in our own minds. This is why my friend was making such obviously hypocritical statements. On a very high level, this is how our culture changes over time. On a personal level, if we tell ourselves the right stories they can be a powerful way we better ourselves. Unfortunately, like my unintentional hypocrite friend, they can also be a way that we put blinders on from seeing our true reality and changing it.
The Highly Educated waitress
“I have an education that’s equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree in the personal trainer industry” said the waitress friend. They were waitressing, not working in personal training. They weren’t even working in the personal training industry in any capacity on a part time basis. They were simply waitressing. If you have a bachelors from an accredited institution, typically that bachelors will get you a job somewhere that pays more and has better benefits than simply waiting tables. This is because the job will most likely be in an industry or position somewhat aligned to that bachelors. Waiting tables is honest work and I applaud anyone who works an honest job. But no matter what my friend believes, they don’t have anything even remotely close to a bachelors equivalent. The only equivalent degree that I know of which is somewhat broadly accepted as an equivalent is the G.E.D. Even the G.E.D has issues. It’s still looked at by some employers as being less desirable than a traditional High School Diploma. This is where my waitress friend needs to be honest with herself. The story she’s telling herself about having an education equivalent to the Bachelors is a lie. It could be argued that telling herself that story makes her feel empowered with her $8000 investment in a six month long immersion program. Unfortunately, it mutes the incentive she may have with a more traditional bachelors, and as they say at graduation, all the rights and privileges it brings.
The Greatest Business Person in the World
“I can’t believe they turned down that customer. I know business, I’m a great business person, I would never do that, they are just an idiot and a horrible business person!” This was said while another friend was working for the person who’s the “idiot” because she couldn’t drum up enough business to keep herself or her contract employees busy with her own little “business”. I say the word business in air quotes because my friend’s business never provided a regular wage or made enough to pay for benefits like health care and retirement. She had to get the benefits from her significant other.
Also, on the topic of her “employees.” I also overheard the same small part-time business owner friend say “My employees know I don’t pay them right away, I’ll pay them when I have the money. They know that, it’s part of the deal”. I have a hard time thinking of any great business in history that paid employees when it was convenient for the business, let alone letting employees wait weeks or months for their wages. The only reason the friend was able to do that was because she was hiring her besties who all had more traditional jobs that brought in living wages. I happen to know most of them were very upset about having to wait weeks or months for the checks to arrive yet they went along with it because they didn’t need the money right away and they didn’t want to cause strife in the relationship or within the group. Technically, on paper, my friend had a business. The reality here is that my friend was just an independent contract laborer who had a crew. She was most likely one of the worst business people I ever knew. Yet, year after year, countless times, she told herself how great of a business person she was to anyone who would listen. She believed it. By believing it she could never really admit that her “business” wasn’t really worth the effort. She continued for years and years to subsidize the business with part time jobs just to have fun money as her spouse continued to support her basic life needs such as housing and medical. In the end the lie was a massive opportunity cost. She never went out and got a professional job and lost out on the twenty years of personal development and increasing income it would bring from developing a career with a stable employer or employers.
The Brilliant Estate Planner
“Well with the new points we get the option to just give it back to them if our kids don’t want it after they die.” Said my friend, an admittedly analytically brilliant scientist. My friend is also a timeshare customer and this line of thinking came after his third purchase from the same timeshare chain. He also said, “plus now we have the type of points that gets us way more time credit and it also gets into the properties that we weren’t able to get in with our other level of points.” and finally, the classic. The Pièce de résistance of comments was “they gave us a really good deal!” I’ll start by saying the amount of cash they spent for this third round of points was equivalent to a new car. A small new car, but a new car nonetheless. On top of this, my friend, the timeshare customer and his partner were forever giving away time at their timeshare with their existing points because they never traveled enough to use it. Yes, it’s true that for an estate, to divest itself of a timeshare property is challenging, but it can definitely be done for significantly less than the price of a small new car. The second story, the one about more time, and better points was fundamentally moot. You have to have the time and desire to travel yourself. Otherwise you just created another problem of massive opportunity cost if you, or someone else, doesn’t use your timeshare points in this use it or lose it industry. Finally, there is no such thing as a good timeshare deal. Ever. This is common knowledge, and a search on google will bring up all the numbers as to why it’s so bad. This friend is analytically brilliant, yet, timeshare salespeople are highly trained to deal with analytical counter arguments to their sales pitch, let alone the fact that his responses from the prior two purchases were most likely database to allow future sales pitches to be more effective. All of this, plus other factors, is why my friend adopted their story as his own.
Today I shared the experiences of two emotional thinkers and one analytical thinker, all of whom are in some way being negatively impacted by stories they are telling themselves. The key takeaway to all three of these tales is that as long as the people in them keep telling themselves their stories, they won’t ever change their behavior. Consequently they won’t remove themselves from a bad situation. The Waitress will never get the real education she needs to better her life. Why would she? She already has a bachelors equivalent. The business owner will never build a real career because she’s so great already. The estate planner will continue to throw tens of thousands of dollars away every time they walk into the “owners update meeting” they are required to attend when they use their points to stay at one of the timeshare companies’ properties.
When I think about my friends and the stories they tell themselves I have the same reaction as mostly everyone else. In my experience, “Really, you believe that?!?” seems to be everyone’s first thought. I think many people leave it there when they find themselves in the same situation where they are hearing the same kind of specious truths being shared by someone who believes them, they either don’t comment or politely agree with the storyteller’s perspective. Then the listener will go home and if they have another thought about it, it’s most likely an unshared opinion of gullibility or stupidity.
When I reflect back on them, I think their stories are actually cautionary tales. I believe these are normal people with normal feelings and beliefs much like my own. They have allowed themselves to get stuck in a rut of self-defeating behaviors because they told themselves a story so often and for so long they believed it even if it was clearly false. I wonder what stories I’m telling myself that are keeping me in a bad place? Is it the story I tell of my health and how it limits me? What about the story I tell about my own career options or purchases? Thankfully, from now on, whenever I think “Really, you believe that?!?” about something someone is telling me, I’ll probably always be reminded to reassess my own stories that i’m telling myself and others. Maybe I can change some of my own self-defeating behaviors. I’d love to try to get my friends to think like this. It could really help them. That being said, I’d feel a little guilty if I succeeded. I say this because, even though I’d help my friends better their lives, I’m pretty sure a couple of timeshare sales people would lose out on some big commission checks in the future.
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