Eating the Elephant: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
An opinion piece by Shannon Harnett
Over the long weekend I went to a school reunion. One of those things you almost talk yourself out of: it'll be weird, what if no one remembers me, will I fit in, what do I wear?
I went. And I had the best time. Lost my voice, tummy muscles sore for days from laughing kind of time.
Same laughs, same energy, same people just with a few more lines on our faces, less hair on the boys' heads, and a lot more life behind us. I'd forgotten what a cool bunch of people we were. And still are.
Here's the thing that stuck with me on the long drive home. What was I even worried about? Not remembering me? Not fitting in? Come on. My brain had just made that up.
Our brains construct narratives to keep us comfortable and safe. They fill in gaps with assumptions and present feelings as though they're facts. As Mark Manson puts it: emotions are feedback, not facts.
I reckon we do this constantly, not just in our personal lives, but in our businesses, our communities, and right across rural New Zealand.
Think about the stories we tell ourselves on the farm or in the office:
"I can't afford to take time off." "No one else can do it the way I do." "Things will settle down after [insert season, event etc here]." "My kids/partner won't cope if I go and do a Nuffield."
Sound familiar? They do to me. I've told myself every single one of those at some point. And looking back, not one of them was true. They were just comfortable stories my brain served up to keep me doing what I'd always done.
Ah, the lies we tell ourselves. Personal growth, and I'd add business growth, is really just the process of learning to lie to ourselves less. Questioning the narrative. Asking: is this actually true, or is it just what I've always believed?
In my world of rural accounting and advisory, I see this play out all the time. A farmer convinced their operation is too small for succession planning. A business owner who won't look at their numbers because they "already know" things are tight. An owner who won't hand work over to the new manager because "they won't do it properly."
The people who challenge those stories, the ones who stop, question, and get curious, are usually the ones who find the breakthrough. The farmer who sits down with the family and discovers the next generation is interested. The business owner who opens the books and realises there's more opportunity than they thought. The owner who steps back and watches the new manager nail it.
At the reunion, I was 'lovingly' reminded just how bad I was at maths at school, shockingly bad. How could someone who couldn't pass maths possibly become a chartered accountant and go on own an accounting firm?
How did I do it? Not because I was naturally gifted with numbers….clearly. I got here through perseverance and focus. By refusing to let one result write the story. My brain tried to tell me I wasn't a "numbers person." That was a lie too.
And I think that's the real antidote. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You just have to keep showing up, keep questioning the narrative, and back yourself, even when the evidence doesn't look great yet.
So here's my challenge to myself and to anyone reading this. What story are you telling yourself right now that might not be true?
Your brain is a well-meaning liar. Sometimes the best thing you can do is get in the car, drive to the reunion, and prove it wrong.