Wise Decisions

Chapter 15Y.O.D.A. Guided Storytelling

Human beings are storytellers. This basic biosocial scientific fact is the simple reality of how our brains are wired, and the way oral history has been passed down from one generation to the next since the dawn of humankind. Stories represent our personal reality, just as this book is the authors' shared story about decision‐making.

There are real stories, fake stories, tragic stories, life‐changing stories, and harmful stories. Stories can be true, fabricated, pure fantasy, inspirational, grounded in facts, tainted with falsehoods, or completely authentic. Every time we speak to others or to ourselves we are storytelling, drawing upon our cognitive and physiological resources to construct and reconstruct narratives from various memories that are stored throughout our brain and body. Inner Voice 2 and Public Voice 2 are trained to send constructive and wise storytelling messages to our command center.

Great coaches are skillful, strategic, and effective storytellers. They understand the long‐game goals and help us map our storytelling toward the outcomes that will serve us best in the end. They see and understand why taking the hard right over the easy wrong is essential, and help us keep a firm grip on the steering wheel of sound decisions.

The Truth

As disturbing as it might be, we do not have direct contact with the real world. We only know the objective world indirectly through the filter of our senses, and our personalized experience ...