“The Story I Tell Myself Is” – How Owning Your Internal Narrative Improves Communication

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Imagine you’re the owner of a construction company. Mid-morning, you get a frustrated call from the client on your largest project. “I’ve sent two emails and left a voicemail for your VP of Operations, and I haven’t heard anything back. If this is how your team operates, we’re going to have to reconsider the future projects we’re negotiating.”

Your chest tightens, and emotions flood in. Various stories start playing in your head:

  • If this is happening with one client, are other clients also frustrated?
  • Are we going to have subcontractors walk off the job site or employees quit due to the VP of Operations’ lack of communication?
  • What if we lose $50 million in future projects we’re negotiating? Are we going to have to start laying people off?

The fact-based observation is straightforward: the client sent two emails and left a voicemail without receiving a response. But instead of focusing on the facts, you let your emotions take over, and the stories in your mind start playing out, escalating the situation. You storm into the VP of Operations office and say: “Why aren’t you doing your job? Do I have to handle every complaint myself?!”

This reactive, aggressive communication style might feel justified at the moment but often damages trust, morale, and accountability.

At The Beacon Partners, we’ve helped countless leadership teams avoid these pitfalls by using our Constructive Communication Framework, which focuses on three critical steps:

  1. Separate facts from the stories we tell ourselves.
  2. Pause and identify and label the emotion you’re feeling.
  3. Take ownership and reveal your story constructively to foster trust, empathy, and collaboration.
internal narrative

Let’s break down each step.

Step 1: Separate Facts from Stories

The first step to constructive communication is to identify the facts of the situation and distinguish them from the stories you’re telling yourself.

What Are Facts?

Facts are objective, unarguable observations—things that a camera or audio recorder could capture. In contrast, stories are our assumptions or interpretations of those facts.

In Our Scenario

Fact: The client sent two emails and left a voicemail for the VP of Operations without receiving a response.

Stories:

  1. This communication breakdown is happening across the entire operations department.
  2. We will lose this client’s business and $50 million in future work, which will lead to financial hardship and layoffs.
  3. We’re about to start losing our best subcontractors and employees because they’ll assume the company is mismanaged.

How to Separate Facts from Stories

  • Ask yourself: What could a camera have recorded in this situation?
  • Write down the observable actions or events.
  • Then, identify the assumptions you’ve added on top of those facts.

Why This Matters

Separating facts from stories creates the conditions for healthy ideological conflict. Removing judgments and assumptions from the conversation minimizes defensiveness, builds trust, and opens the door for constructive debate.

Step 2: Pause and Identify the Emotion

Emotions don’t arise out of nowhere—they’re often preceded by physical sensations in your body. Pausing to notice these sensations is the first step in identifying and labeling your emotions.

The Connection Between Body and Emotions

When faced with a stressful situation, you might experience physical signals before fully registering your emotional state. In our scenario, the construction owner might notice:

  • Tightness in the chest or shallow breathing.
  • Clenched jaw or tension in the shoulders.
  • Racing heart or a knot in the stomach.

These sensations are your body’s way of signaling that something important is happening, and emotions quickly follow.

Using the Mood Meter to Identify Emotions

Once you’ve noticed your body’s response, use the Mood Meter to assess the energy and pleasantness of your emotional state. In this scenario, the owner might realize:

  • Their energy is high (e.g., racing heart, tension).
  • Their pleasantness is low (e.g., frustration, concern).

This combination—high energy and low pleasantness—helps narrow the emotions to feelings like frustration, anxiety, or anger.

Why This Matters

Identifying and labeling emotions strengthens your emotional intelligence and emotional literacy—your ability to recognize and accurately express your emotional state. Additionally, being aware of your emotional state helps you avoid aggressive communication and instead reveal your story using your preferred assertive communication style. Assertive communication allows you to balance confidence with respect for others, setting the stage for collaboration.

Step 3: Taking Ownership and Revealing Your Internal Story Constructively

Once you’ve separated facts from stories and identified your emotions, the next step is to take ownership and reveal your internal story constructively. Sharing your narrative with respect and vulnerability fosters trust, connection, and problem-solving.

The Importance of Taking Ownership

Taking ownership of your internal story shifts the focus away from blaming others and toward expressing your perspective. It demonstrates accountability for your emotions and assumptions, inviting empathy and building trust.

How to Reveal Your Story

In our scenario, the construction owner could say:

  1. Fact: “I noticed the client hasn’t heard back from you after two emails and a voicemail.”
  2. Emotion: “I’m feeling concerned.”
  3. Story: “The story I’m telling myself is that this communication issue might also be happening on other projects, which could impact our client relationships, subcontractor relationships, and employee retention. I’m also worried that if we lose this client’s business, it could lead to financial hardship for the company and potential layoffs.”

This approach communicates the facts and emotions while sharing the internal narrative driving the owner’s concerns.

Why This Process Works

The Constructive Communication Framework helps us live out the principles of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model by:

  1. Increasing Vulnerability-Based Trust
    Sharing our emotions and internal narratives openly and without blame demonstrates respect and transparency, building team members’ trust. This approach creates a safe space for open and honest feedback, encouraging productive communication and collaboration.
  2. Encouraging Healthier Ideological Conflict
    Starting with facts, owning our stories, and avoiding judgments creates the conditions for productive and respectful debates.
  3. Practicing Accountability
    Tackling issues directly instead of avoiding them reinforces accountability at both the individual and team levels.

What Comes Next?

Revealing your story is just the beginning. In the next steps of the Constructive Communication Framework, we’ll explore:

  1. Understanding the Unmet Needs Fueling Your Story: Identifying what’s truly driving your concerns—or each of your stories.
  2. Practicing Empathy: Developing empathy by understanding the other person’s perspective, particularly around the fact-based observations that triggered the situation.
  3. Formulating Clear Requests: Crafting actionable, specific requests to resolve challenges and move forward collaboratively.

Let’s Strengthen Your Leadership Team Today

When internal narratives take over, they can derail communication, erode trust, and create unnecessary conflict. By following these three steps—separating facts from stories, pausing to identify emotions, and taking ownership and revealing your story constructively—you can turn challenging situations into opportunities for growth and connection.

Ready to dive deeper? Read the next article in this series, where we’ll explore how to uncover the root cause or unmet need underneath the story you’re telling yourself and take the next step toward clearer, more empathetic communication.

If you’re ready to improve your leadership team’s communication and problem-solving skills, let’s schedule a call to explore how The Beacon Partners can help your team build trust, align goals, and achieve your vision.