Ep #80: Rewrite Your Leadership Journey: The Power of Personal Narrative (Part 1)

What if the stories you tell yourself about your painful experiences shape your leadership journey? Today, I am diving into why rewriting these stories might be the most powerful leadership move you will ever make. Stay tuned.

Welcome to The Reinvention Lab: Where Ambitious Women Transform Loss into Legacy. Hosted by Master Certified Life Coach and fellow trailblazer, Sandy Linda, this is your space to discover how life’s biggest challenges can ignite profound transformation—where grief becomes growth, setbacks become stepping stones, and your unique story lights the way for others. If you’re ready to turn life’s challenges into opportunities for leadership, legacy, and forward momentum, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in.

Hello, creative humans and fellow trailblazers. I am thrilled you have joined me today. There’s something powerful about gathering like this, even with your earbuds and my voice creating this little sanctuary of growth together.

Last week, I had a moving conversation with a community member struggling with her past experiences. Despite her efforts, she finds it hard to open up to new healing possibilities. Nicole took our grief archetype quiz and found out she is an explorer in active grief recovery.

Now, if you have recalled in our past episodes, explorers are folks who seek a sacred thinking space to connect with inner wisdom. They reflect and find meaning from their experiences to process grief.

As Nicole shared her journey, something she said stopped me. She told me, “I keep trying to move past it, but these memories keep surfacing when I least expect them.” I leaned forward and said, “Nicole, what if those surfacing memories aren’t a sign that healing isn’t working? What if they are invitations? Your inner wisdom is tapping you on the shoulder and whispering, ‘Hey, there’s something important here that needs your attention.'”

I think there’s something courageous about pausing to ask yourself, “What’s causing me to stay rooted in this past experience?” This conversation got me thinking about how our past narratives shape our future possibilities. Over the next few episodes, I will explore rewriting your past narratives, not to deny what happened, but to transform how those experiences influence your leadership journey.

Today, I am starting with something fundamental for you fabulous listeners: Understanding the power of personal narrative. There’s something fascinating happening in today’s leadership conversations. We hear constant talk about resilience, grit, and bouncing back, but almost no one is addressing the mechanism that makes transformation possible: the stories we tell ourselves about our losses and failures.

Most leaders offer surface level advice, like staying positive or learning from failure, but they don’t explore the brain and language territory we’re discussing. They don’t examine how the words we use about our losses rewire our brains and reshape our leadership presence.

Have you noticed how two people can experience the same loss, but create different leadership journeys afterwards? It is really about the event itself. It’s about the narrative they construct around it. These aren’t just stories. They are the actual frameworks of how we see the world. I want to explore three fascinating narrative dimensions that might change how you think about your past experiences.

First, I will explore neuroscience findings on how narratives wire our brains. Second, I will examine the language patterns that reveal if someone is stuck in grief or moving toward growth. And third, I will explore how your narrative shapes your leadership presence along with actionable steps to engage and embrace your personal narratives.

The goal isn’t to erase painful memories or pretend losses didn’t happen. It’s about discovering how these experiences, viewed differently, might contain the seeds of your authentic leadership gifts. I’d love for you to consider this. What past experience still has a big impact on you? That connection between past experience and current behavior is where your transformation work begins.

Did you know that repeatedly telling yourself a story about a loss, creates neural pathways that become your default way of seeing the world. Your brain is like a forest with countless pathways. When you think or experience something often, It’s like walking the same path through that forest. Eventually, that path becomes easy to travel. This is how neural pathways strengthen in your brain.

The amazing thing about your brain, and this is what neuroplasticity is all about, is that this forest isn’t fixed. Your brain has the extraordinary ability to create new paths and let old ones grow over. This happens throughout your entire life, not just during childhood, as scientists once believed.

But here’s the incredible news about your brain that has established neuroscience. This forest isn’t fixed or static. Your brain can create new trails and let unused ones fade throughout your adult life. This neuroplasticity means you’re never trapped in old patterns of thinking, even if they have been with you for decades.

Here’s a relatable example. Think about your first significant loss, perhaps the end of an important relationship or the death of a loved one. In that moment, your brain likely created a neural pathway connecting that experience with distinct meanings, such as I’m alone, I am not enough, or life is uncertain and scary.

Every time you remembered and described that loss the same way, you reinforced that neural pathway. It became your default way of understanding similar situations. You have built a super highway in your brain that automatically takes you to those same descriptions. Have you noticed how your words change when discussing tough experiences? There’s a fascinating research that shows our language transforms as we move from being stuck in grief to finding growth after loss.

Think of someone you know trapped in their painful past. When you talk about their experiences, you often hear them say, “I” and “me” a lot. “I can’t get over this. This happened to me. My life is broken.” This self-focus is a clear sign of someone still processing their grief. Their language often focuses on the past, creating a sense of being stuck. Their stories contain many negative words like “terrible”, “devastating”, or “awful” with very few positive expressions. They frequently use absolute terms like “never” or “always.” They don’t allow for change. Their language creates a closed loop that keeps them circling around the same painful story.

As people heal and grow, their words transform in various ways. First, they use more “we” and “us” instead of just “I” and “me”. This shift shows they are reconnecting with others and seeing themselves as part of something larger than their personal pain.

They also start balancing past tense words with future tense ones. Instead of only saying, “This happened to me”, they might add, “Next time I will approach things differently.” This language bridge connects their paths to new possibilities ahead. They use more thinking words like “understand”, “realize”, and “consider.” These words reveal they are processing their experiences rather than reliving it. Their black and white language transform into nuanced expressions with words like “sometimes”, “perhaps”, or “in some ways.”

Here’s a simple example of someone stuck in grief might say, “My partner left me. I will always be alone. Nothing ever works out for me.” A person moving towards growth may say, “When my relationship ended, it was painful. I’m beginning to understand some unhealthy patterns. We both shared in different ways. I’m thinking about what I want in future relationships.” Notice the difference? The second version shows more of a balanced perspective and openness to new possibilities.

Let me share a story from my corporate days that illustrate this concept. Jessica and Anna experienced identical losses during a company restructuring. Each lost their most successful product line, half their team members were reassigned, and both faced pressure to maintain previous revenue targets.

Jessica’s story of devastation was, “Everything I built over five years was taken from me overnight,” she had told her remaining team members. She interpreted the restructuring as a personal failure, a sign that her previous success wasn’t good enough. I should have seen this coming, she kept thinking. If I had pushed harder on our quarterly numbers, maybe we could have saved the product line.

When team members raised concerns, Jessica’s internal narrative made her defensive. I can’t afford another failure, she’d think. So she began micromanaging projects and avoiding risk. Innovation slowed. Jessica’s intense focus on metrics and process compliance created tensions during team meetings. When asked about her vision for the future, Jessica could only frame it in the terms of getting back to where they were before the loss.

Anna faces the same restructuring blow, but her internal narrative took a unique path. Her initial response acknowledged the pain. This really hurts. We put our hearts into building that product line. But then her story shifted. This restructuring is giving us a rare opportunity to reimagine what’s possible without the constraints of our established ways.

Anna viewed the loss as information rather than failure. In team meetings, she asks, what market shifts might we have missed while focus on our established products? She was transparent about her disappointment, but placed it with a larger story. During a challenging week, she told her team, I’ve been reflecting on my career path and I realized something interesting. Every significant growth period started with a painful disruption like this one.

This is so fascinating. The external circumstances remain identical. Both face the same market conditions, company pressures, and resource constraints. The difference wasn’t in their capabilities or circumstances. It was in the stories they told themselves about what their lost meant.

Jessica’s narrative created leadership presence, focused on prevention, protection, and the past. Anna’s narrative fostered leadership centered on possibility, growth, and the future.

What story are you telling yourself about your most significant professional or personal loss? Is it more like Jessica’s or Anna’s? How might turning that narrative transform your feelings about that loss and what you can create because of it?

What makes this powerful is realizing that these narrative choices aren’t about positive thinking or denying reality. Both Jessica and Anna acknowledged the pain of their losses. The difference was in what meaning they assigned to those losses. We can engage with that meaning-making process to transform our leadership capacity.

So how can you begin reframing your own narratives? What practical steps can you take to shift from a Jessica-style story to an Anna-style perspective? Let me share some actionable strategies that I have helped leaders I work with make this powerful transition. Here are two powerful practices in reshaping your most important narratives.

First, let’s activate your brain’s neuropathways with what I call the growth through loss practice. For the next week, spend five minutes each morning writing about a significant loss. Focus on the strengths or insights that emerge. What did you discover about yourself? What connections or opportunities opened up? The magic happens when you do this consistently. You are rewiring your brain to link that setback with progress instead of just suffering. You’re not denying the pain. You are expanding the story to include what came after.

Second, try what I call the language mirror exercise. It’s very simple. Record yourself on your phone, talking about a challenging experience for about two minutes. Then, listen back with curiosity, rather than judgment. Notice your language patterns.

How often do you use I, me, my versus we, us, and our? Are you speaking about the past? Or do you also incorporate future elements? Do you use absolute terms like always and never or more nuanced expressions? This exercise can provide insights about your healing journey. Remember, realizing these patterns is the first step towards shifting them.

As we close today, I want to remind you of something important. This work isn’t about erasing your losses or pretending painful things never happen. That would dishonor your experience and the people or dreams that matter to you. This work is about possibility. It’s about discovering how these experiences that brought you to your knees might contain the seeds of your authentic leadership gifts. The extent of your empathy, resilience, and wisdom, these qualities often develop through your challenging times.

Next week, I will explore how to deconstruct limiting narratives that may hold you back. Until then, I’d love to hear your insights this week. Share your reflections or email me about what resonates most for you today. And also, I am on Substack and I will leave the information in the show notes.

Remember, the story you’re telling yourself about your past isn’t just a story. It’s shaping the leader you’re becoming right now. I believe that when we engage with these narratives, there’s no limit to what we can create together. Until next time, I am right here walking this path alongside you.

Thank you for joining me today. Keep leading with courage, embrace your fears, and most importantly, with kindness. Bye everyone.

Thanks for joining us on The Reinvention Lab. If today’s episode inspired you, don’t forget to follow and share it with someone who’s ready to turn their challenges into opportunities. Want to take your journey to the next level? Visit sandylinda.com/program and apply for coaching today. Together, we’ll turn your story into a legacy. Until next time, keep moving forward with purpose, passion, and power.