The Power of Story by Jim Loehr

Author:Jim Loehr [Loehr, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416545798
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2007-09-17T14:00:00+00:00

WHEN STORIES COLLIDE: THE TWO VOICES OF THE STORYTELLER

The public voice expresses the story we tell others. It is posture, and by that I don’t mean false posture but rather presentation. It is our voice to the world outside ourselves. It may or may not reflect the truth.

The private voice expresses the story we tell ourselves. It can be the measured voice of reflection or the completely uncensored voice of cynicism. It can be our filter, our gut check, our crap detector, our relentless, brutal critic. It reflects our internal reality at the moment but may or may not reflect objective truth.

Both our public and private voices coexist throughout our life. Both voices help to form “realities” for us and, to a lesser extent, for those around us. Although the two voices move us forward in different ways, if they are to work effectively for us, they need to be aligned.

That’s the ideal, of course: having both voices be as aligned* as much as possible. No, let me refine that. To be aligned is necessary but not sufficient; after all, you may privately believe that Joe in Accounting is skimming off the top, and you may even share that view publicly with colleagues—but if it’s not true that Joe is doing that, then simply being aligned in your views means nothing. Or a man may feel, privately, that all women are to be mistrusted, and he may, publicly, tell joke after joke that betrays his misogynistic view, but merely having his voices in concert with one another doesn’t necessarily reflect anything positive or factual. The ideal, then, is to have both voices be aligned and to have each of them express a version of a story that is virtuous, productive, and realistic.

Unfortunately, that rarely happens. I estimate that in 80% to 90% of my clients the private and public voices are out of synch on one or more of their most important life stories, as well as dysfunctional—their stories around work, around family, around health, etc. In these cases, the two voices are not working toward the same goal, not operating from the same vantage.

Some examples, in minor and major affairs, that may feel familiar:

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