The Stories We Inherit And Rewrite
Early scripts shape our lives, and we must choose new ones with intention
I was handed a story before I could speak. Most of us are. Mine whispered in the background of every decision, every risk, every moment of hesitation.
It said: earn your worth. Stay sharp. Keep your voice down. Do more to be more.
The first time I remember breaking the script, I was nine or ten. I’d spent weeks building a machine for a science fair - a couple of dozen levers and mechanical elements, all leading to a balloon pop. Two days before the fair, my teacher reviewed the project, looked it over, and said, “What’s the point, why not just use a pin?” I nodded. Smiled. And then, after he left, I tore it apart. Rebuilt it with even more complications added.
But if I trace back further, there were earlier signs. At three or four, I became obsessed with taking things apart. Household devices, wind-up toys, even a rotary phone. I wasn’t trying to break them. I wanted to see what was inside, how things worked. My father once found me sitting in the hallway, surrounded by the disassembled innards of a transistor radio, explaining to no one in particular how it "talks." I didn’t have the words yet for curiosity or systems thinking, but I was already living in that direction.
As I grew up, I layered stories on top of that first one. I became the fixer, the engineer, the strategist. In college, I gravitated to systems thinking and risk models. Not because I loved control, but because understanding chaos made me feel less alone in it.
My first job out of school, I joined an engineering risk team at a global bank. The story there was crisp: be right, be fast, be invisible. I learned to listen more than speak. To predict where failure might come from and stop it before anyone else notices. I earned a reputation. Promotions followed. But the further I climbed, the more distant I felt from myself, from the people I was meant to lead.
It showed up at home first. I was the dad who built LEGO sets like architectural projects, who corrected grammar during bedtime stories.
One night, my daughter, five at the time, put her hand on mine and said, "Daddy, can we just play, not fix?"
That sentence did more than sting. It echoed.
I carried that echo into work, into friendships, into how I spoke to myself. And I started to notice something: I wasn’t alone.
A colleague, brilliant and quiet, always hesitated before speaking in meetings. One day over lunch, I asked him why. He shrugged and said, “Growing up, I learned that being smart was safe. Being loud wasn’t.”
Another friend, a founder who built a multimillion-dollar startup, admitted after a whiskey too many, “I still think I’m trying to impress a teacher who failed me in tenth grade.”
We’re not just professionals or parents or partners. We’re story vessels. Some passed down. Some stitched together from survival. Others made of hopes we haven’t yet said aloud.
For me, the turning point came in a leadership offsite. I was facilitating a session on transformation, all whiteboards and frameworks, when one executive, smart, sarcastic, tired, cut in: "You ever just feel like you're rehearsing life instead of living it?"
The room went silent. Some of those present laughed nervously. I paused longer than usual and said, “Yeah. I built a career out of it.”
After that, everything started to shift. I began to lead differently. Not just with strategy, but with story. I told clients and colleagues where I’d failed. I shared where I’d stayed silent. I invited them to do the same.
One CTO broke down while mapping his team’s friction points. "My dad never let us rest," he said. "Even vacations had schedules. I think I’ve been leading the same way."
Another, a product lead, admitted she hadn’t spoken in a board meeting for over a year. Not out of fear, but out of habit. “I was raised to wait my turn,” she said. “Turns out, in tech, no one gives you one.”
These moments aren’t just personal. They’re pivotal. They show us the difference between living a script and writing one.
So I started collecting questions, not answers:
What was the first story you were told about success?
Whose voice do you still hear when you’re scared?
When did you last rewrite a belief you inherited?
Stories became the real data. The emotional architecture beneath every decision. And slowly, a new pattern emerged.
I stopped managing outcomes and started inviting truth. With my kids, I ditched the metrics. We have “unstructured time” - a fancy label for messy and fun conversations. With friends, I stopped asking “How’s work?” and started asking, “What are you unlearning this year, what is changing?”
And in myself, I let go of the story that said: lead by being perfect. I began to lead by being present.
More recently, I was coaching a senior leader facing burnout. We were looking at her mapped weekly schedule, hour by hour. When we saw the calendar, twelve meetings in a day, zero time marked for thinking, she said, “Most days, I don’t even have five minutes to hear myself think.” I asked, “What would your ten-year-old self say if they saw this?” She laughed, then teared up. “She’d say, ‘Who took all the fun away?’”
That’s the moment we started rewriting - not just her schedule, but the story that said only output equals value.
The new story I live isn’t about ease. It’s about choice. I still work hard. I still plan deeply. But now I ask if the map I’m using is one I chose or one I inherited.
The truth is, rewriting stories is messy. It’s nonlinear. It’s a dance between who you were and who you’re becoming.
But it’s worth it.
Because the stories we rewrite don’t just set us free.
They give others permission to do the same.
I hope you have a wonderful Sunday and Memorial Day celebration with your friends, family, and community.
And thank you for honoring the stories of all the great men and women who serve our great nation in uniform.
Adi