Tell better stories

Tell me a story about your life and I’ll tell you who you are.

When I was in middle school, my friends and I had this sacred ritual.

We’d go to the movies—sometimes just a few of us, sometimes ten of us—and afterward, as everyone drifted toward their parents’ cars, something kind of magical would happen.

We’d start to gather.

No one planned it. No one said, “Hey, let’s talk.”

But a circle would form. Under the streetlights of the Regal Cinemas parking lot in Ormond Beach, Florida, a circle of smart, passionate people would just... stand there.

And we’d tear the movie apart.

Not to be mean—well, sometimes. (I think we can all agree that Indiana Jones just doesn’t need fucking alien pyramids.)

But mostly, we’d analyze. We’d argue. Defend scenes. Agree. Disagree.

We loved going to the movies—but we loved going to the parking lot even more.

Years later, I moved to L.A., became a film editor, and guess what I do now?

I stand in a circle with smart, passionate people. And we tear movies apart. We analyze. We argue. Defend scenes. Agree. Disagree. We break things down to rebuild them better.

Back then, it was about figuring out what we loved. Now, it’s about figuring out what works.

We sometimes think that our careers start when we move to the big city, when really, they start in our small-town parking lots, with our best friends, talking about the things we love.

I’m in a different circle now.

But the ritual is the same.

Location of said ritual.

Telling a story isn’t about memorizing a list of literal facts and reciting them. It’s about asking yourself—what is the point of this thing I went through? How did it affect me? And how can I talk about that experience to best express the emotional truth? And, ideally, affect positive change.

Positive change in the world, sure, but something else happens when we tell our stories—we believe them.

It’s actually crazier than that—we don’t just believe the stories we tell; we become them.

A lot of people have stood outside a theater and talked about movies. But not everyone sees that the way I do. For me, that story is about someone who sees all of the seemingly insignificant moments in their life as essential building blocks toward something much greater. It’s about looking back and going, “Wow, I didn’t think that mattered, but it turns out it mattered more than anything.”

Which, if you are the type of person who believes that, you start to look around in your day-to-day and treat seemingly insignificant moments as potential essential experiences. And not just in retrospect, but as they occur in the present moment

When I ask candidates in a job interview, “Tell me about yourself,” I’m not looking for you to memorize a list of literal facts and recite them. I want to know what you went through and how it affected you.

Tell me a story about your life and I’ll tell you who you are.

If you want to change your life, tell better stories. Because in order to tell better stories we have to look closer at our lives. We have to examine them and figure out what matters to us. What’s changing in us.

And here’s the point—examining doesn’t just make the story better.

It makes us better.