Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence

Rewriting The Stories We Tell Ourselves

• Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence • Episode 12

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What if the biggest thing holding you back isn’t your circumstances, but the story you keep telling yourself?

In this episode of Notes for an Awesome Life, John Spence and host Josh Wilson explore how personal narratives shape identity, behavior, relationships, and growth. From childhood conditioning and self-talk to reinvention, boundaries, and the courage to change, this conversation digs into why some stories linger long after they stop serving us.

Together, they unpack how early experiences influence adulthood, why self-improvement can strain friendships, and how intentional action can help rewrite limiting beliefs. Along the way, they discuss philosophy, vulnerability, compassion, and the difference between aspiration and authenticity.

This episode is a thoughtful reflection on identity, personal growth, and what it really means to live an intentional, meaningful life, especially when the old version of you no longer fits.

  • Email us: awesomelifenotes@gmail.com
  • Learn more about John: JohnSpence.com
  • Familiar Wilsons Media: FamiliarWilsonsMedia.com

About John Spence: John is a globally recognized business thought leader, former owner/CEO of five companies, and advisor/coach to organizations from startups to the Fortune 10. He’s lectured at more than 90 universities and was named by the American Management Association as one of “America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch.”

About the show: Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence focuses on personal growth, happiness, clarity, and the everyday habits that compound into an AWESOME life.

Credits: Hosts John Spence and Josh Wilson • Produced by Josh Wilson for Familiar Wilsons Media • Special thanks: Amanda Wilson (writing and production), and Domingo Jimenez (writing and marketing).

SPEAKER_00:

This is a familiar Wilsons Media Production. John Spence is recognized as one of the foremost business thought leaders in the world, a global top 100 business thinker and advisor to companies from startups to the Fortune 10. But it didn't start that way. In college, John hit rock bottom, kicked out of one university and rejected by another. That's when he made a decision to change his attitude and take a systematic approach to building the life he wanted. Through hard work and relentless learning, he went on to create a life full of meaning, joy, and connection. I'm Josh Wilson, and this is Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. We invite you to join us in conversation as John shares with us the lessons, habits, and tools that he used and that you can use to build an awesome life. Welcome to Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. I'm Josh Wilson. I'm John Spence. John, happy after Christmas. How was your Christmas time?

SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful. We had some friends over and uh very relaxing. And I was, you know, I've been losing weight a lot, and uh unfortunately I there was a cake there. So I I my discipline was not quite at the level that I'm attempt to pretend it is, but uh no, very relaxing. And you and your family?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah, I gained seven pounds. Ha!

unknown:

Really?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh no, I did, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

My wife goes, Don't worry, that's water weight. No, that's fat.

SPEAKER_00:

That is cake weight. Absolutely, it's cake weight. What are your favorite holiday type foods?

SPEAKER_01:

Are you a turkey guy? Yeah, we have turkey at Thanksgiving at a really big prime rib uh for uh dinner. You know, and I I went to like a sort of a cooking school with my mom and stuff, but I love prime rib because it's salt, pepper, meat, heat. That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice, it's kind of hard.

SPEAKER_01:

Unless you overcook it, it's pretty hard to mess that up.

SPEAKER_00:

Keep it simple, stupid. Although that that's the thing, the the overcooking it, because it's under, it's under, it's under, and then it's over. Yeah, this is is my experience with with cooking meat. Very frustrating. And then it's the like this the secret sauce is allowing it to rest and continue to cook. That's correct. Which I'm sure I'm sure that you know all about that. Welcome to Notes for Awesome Grilling with John Spence. John, I was talking to my friend about the podcast just yesterday, and he's and he he listens, and so thank you for listening, Tom. And he said, uh Josh, ask John, although I think I know the answer to this, but ask John if he does New Year's resolutions.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh no, not really.

SPEAKER_00:

Didn't think so.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, I mean, every day's a resolution to try to be more disciplined and stuff. No, yeah, I we were talking about this before we started recording, is I've I'm taking this time now to go back and reread some of the most impactful uh books I've read, uh, and philosophy books mostly, just to refresh my focus and make sure that I'm I'm doing the sort of things I need to do. Or I not need to, I want to do that I I feel is important. So yeah, I've been I've blocked two hours a night uh recently, get to bed a little early and just rereading Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, all the isms.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's right. Um, it's interesting because it that kind of ties into what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the power of story. We are a storytelling people, and obviously the most important stories that we tell are the stories that we tell to ourselves. Now, we've delved into on this podcast several times about the power of self-talk and about how vision is important. And we've talked about this idea of the framing story, how you put something in context uh depends on how you will receive it or how you are perceive it. But I do want to dive into this idea of the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves with this question, right? Okay. What is a a story that you told yourself about yourself that turned out to not be true? Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

There's one that's still true that I haven't fixed yet or I haven't worked on yet. Uh I think the story I told myself that I I it wasn't true is that I don't like people. Uh I, you know, I'm we've talked about the fact that I'm uh pretty uh what do they call that? Introverted.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But you know, deep down I figured out uh that I really do love people and I love being around them uh and I care about them. It's just awkward. I I feel uncomfortable. But, you know, this is one of the things the philosophy stuff that I was been reading the last few days pointed out is, you know, at the end of the day, and I actually say this it in my TED talk, at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is how much you love people and how much they love you. And I feel that, and I think a lot of people do. It's it's difficult for me to show it. It's difficult when people act that way towards me because I feel uncomfortable. But really, it I I've I've gotten over that story and realized I really do care about people and want to be around them and be connected to them. So that and that's a pretty limiting story to tell myself.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, uh absolutely devastating, one would say.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, why did that story get started?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, you know, it's this is really interesting. It's like uh psychotherapy here for a second. I thought of something too interesting during the um holidays, is holidays in my house were terrible. Not, you know, just not fun. I had a uh brother that would open up all of his presents in like 35 seconds, and I'm the guy that opens each one and thanks my mom and my dad and plays with it for a little while and then go back, and there's and he'd be looking at him like, Why'd y'all get so many more presents than me? So when people give me presents, I'm like freaked out. But I also realized this is really interesting. My wife went to uh lunch with one of our friend's sons. He's in college, and they've been hanging out and doing stuff. They go to dinner together every now and then. I thought, you know, I was never socialized as a kid. I never went to dinner with one of my friends. My parents never had anybody over for dinner that I can remember ever. Uh, I was never invited to lunch with my dad or his friends, or my mom didn't really have any friends. So part of it, I think, is I didn't really have a lot of exposure to other people, uh, adults at least, when I was growing up. And maybe that's one of the reasons I'm uncomfortable around people. I just I haven't had enough practice uh when I was young to get comfortable in situations like that. That was a new epiphany for me. It wasn't until I saw my wife go for the multiple times and hangs out with her friend's kids that I went, I I never experienced anything like that. What about you?

SPEAKER_00:

The story that I still struggle with and that has cost me dearly in my life is the story that I was told as a kid, and that is you are not good enough. Nothing that I could do could please my dad. You know, this podcast is half having an awesome life and half us um commiserating about our father's situations. But, you know, it's true. These things, these stories that are given to us as children turn out to be the most enduring and and the the the ones that are most difficult to shake, because I am not good enough is in in my foundations. Yeah. And I mean that that cost me a marriage, this way of thinking, you know, because all the things that come from I'm not good enough, therefore I'm not worthy to be loved, therefore I I I you know can't open up and I can't share because I will I will be rejected, and all these things build upon each other. And like I said, that that cost me uh a great deal in my life, you know, and it's still a story that I deal with today that I I'm not good enough, you know. It's it's rattling around this bald head all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's a lot of people have that story or similar stories a lot. It's it's um there's a book that I really, really like. It's a little bit esoteric. It's um the four agreements by Miguel Ruiz.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it's based on sort of a Toltec philosophy. And but one of the things he starts off at the beginning of the book, he says, We're all domesticated, just like animals. You know, you teach your dog to sit, stay, come. Uh well, you do the same thing to kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Sit, stay, come, no, you know, don't eat that, don't do this, don't think that way, don't talk this way. Uh, you're allowed to do this, you're not allowed to do this. This is good, this is bad, those people are good, those people are bad. Uh, and it really took me a while. And some people really don't like that analogy of you're trained just like a dog. Uh, but the truth of the matter is when you're really young, you are uh at some level. And it's hard to go back and realize had your training been different, you might be different. Uh, I'm not a big fan for going back to my childhood and blaming something on my mom or my dad or my brother, even though it's true.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So that's that's the thing though.

SPEAKER_01:

I look back and go, well, that might be why I am the way I am today a little bit. But you know, the other thing too is um I've got a 40th reunion uh of the rugby team I played on here at the University of Florida coming up. And I one or two guys got in touch with me, and already they've said, like, you seem a lot different than you were in college. And I don't know that they're saying that in a positive way because you know, I said I I quit drinking and they're like, Oh, that's not good, you know, a couple of other things. But then I the books I've been reading last night, and I I hope everybody, you know, asked for New Year's resolutions a little bit. It's been amazing to see how uh reading and studying and learning and talking to other people has allowed me to make and many people make some pretty significant changes uh about the way they want to act and behave. The reverse is there's a lot of people that never make that decision. Uh and our I I have a good friend that I went to high school with in college, and he worked for me. And at some point our paths diverged because I was really big in trying to improve and do this and learn. And he's like, I just want to go play golf, softball, drink beer, watch sports. That's pretty much what I want to do for the rest of my life, which is what he's still doing, and that's great. Just he doesn't really like the changes I made. And I'm hoping as people are listening that you're you're thinking, yeah, that's that happens from time to time, but um, that's okay. Uh one of my friends says sometimes you have to prune the friendship tree, and uh there's gonna be people that I I started on an arc, I'll be quiet after this, let you talk, about the courage to be disliked.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it it's around the idea of setting very high standards as a business person. Um, I followed the work of uh Charlie Trotter, who's one of the top restaurateurs ever in history, and he was a monomaniac on a mission. He was totally unreasonable, he was out of control, but he also ran the number one restaurant in the world for like 15 years, and he didn't care if people liked him, he didn't care at all. Uh and I mean it didn't matter to him, all he wanted was that goal. He destroyed his family, his health, everything else. However, the people that did work for him loved it. It was brutal, he was aggressive, he was demanding beyond any ex you know anything, but that's why they went there. The ones that wouldn't live up to those standards or couldn't or didn't want to, it was miserable and they left immediately. I think part in your life sometimes there are people that don't like the standard you set for yourself, and you have to have the courage to say, no, this is the way I want to be. You may not like it. Uh, and it will tie this back to my, you know, the friend from high school is I'm sorry I've changed, uh, but this is the way I want to be. And if you don't like it, that's okay. I'm just gonna move forward in this other direction.

SPEAKER_00:

I do want to draw a distinction between you and the brutal restaurant tour, though, because you have compassion and empathy and love and all these things wrapped up in what you do. I just don't want people to hear the wrong thing here.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, no, no. I I made a I made a clear decision. This is part of what the article is about to not be the best and try to be the best in the world. And I'm in the top 100, which is pretty cool, but I'm not willing to pay that price. I'm not gonna sacrifice my family and my health and everything else just to be number one in the world. And that's what the article was, because I hear people and businesses a lot say, I want to be the best in the world, we want to have the number one company in the world. I back up and go, I don't think you understand what you're saying because you can do that, it'll just cost you almost everything. You know, for someone like me, traveling 200, 220 days a year, uh like I my wife and I chose not to have kids. We didn't really want them that much, but I could not, it would be totally selfish of me to have children and be on the road that much. Um, some people are married to have kids and travel 300 days a year in my business. More. I would, I'm not willing to do that. So even me, I I want to be like you said, loving, kind and respectful. I don't want to be like that, and I don't, I don't, I don't see any need to because that goal is not very valuable to me.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to circle back to the a thing that you said about you not wanting to blame things on your childhood. I do think, and I think that you would agree with me that there's tremendous power in really spending time to figure out, well, basically why the hell we are the way we are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And, you know, I I think that I've talked about this before. When I started journaling, I guess a year and a half now, where I was really going through it and just really trying to figure things out. That process of just writing down memories was tremendously helpful for me to figure out, well, this is why I'm like this. You know, and it's not about blaming parents or this and that, but knowledge is power.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I just have a hard time. Well, I don't have much positive to say. I look back, and really mine is all, man, am I glad I'm not like that? Oh, sure. You know, I'd I mean, I'd say most of my memories uh are this is stuff that I don't want to do. This is the kind of person I don't want to be. And again, my father was never abusive or anything, uh, you know, physically abusive or anything, just he was an egomaniac. And you know, he he was everything had to be around him, period. But I look back now and say it taught me an awful lot about the way not to be and the way not to treat people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and just like you were saying that you had that that brilliant flash about the story that you don't like people, and it turns out that hey, you do like people, but it had to do with the way you were raised. Does this whole idea of not liking people it's still a story you tell yourself sometimes? Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's um it's weird because I really, really, really, really care deeply about people. I just want to do it from a distance. Let me do it from the other side of the restaurant or whatever. But it's just awkward for me. Um and I'm trying to get over it. And you know, that I'm getting better in the relationships that I'm in with my friends and stuff of being more vulnerable, being being more open. I mean, at a level I've I did not think was possible. Uh, but that's taken years of practice and and safety, the safety of friends that you do say and do whatever you need to do and and still have unconditional love for you, or near total unconditional love.

SPEAKER_00:

It's hard to find that sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I have an interesting side story on this. Go ahead. I often I I talk to people fairly often that are moving to a new city for a new job or whatever, uh, and they're like, Oh, it's gonna be hard. I go, No, it's gonna be great. You know why? You can recreate your story. You can you can become whoever you want to be, honestly, but you get to leave a lot of baggage behind that nobody there needs to know. Like my nickname all through high school and college was Bear. And you know, the Bear. And I I'm writing that down. Yeah, yeah, I write that fairly well known for you know, drinking and stuff. And I never got in trouble in high school, never broke any laws. I'm a rule follower, but I was pretty uh larger than life. And uh, so everybody, when I get a message now, like the rugby team, yo, bear, you're gonna be at the party. Oh, we'll have a chug off. And I'm thinking, I'm not really bear anymore. Uh, I'm a different person. So it's kind of cool that as you meet new people that have never don't know your background at all, you have the opportunity to tell a story in the best light possible. And again, not lying, not manipulation, but people don't need to know about my background or Miami or things like that. If they ask, I'd tell them, but it doesn't need to be part of my story anymore. And I think that that self helps me self-define myself. And I think other people, you know, that you don't even have to move to a new city to do this. You just decide what's the story I want to tell about myself that I'll share with other people, and that creates their expectations of you at some level. And I like trying to live up to those expectations if I've set them about being kind and respectful and generous and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, it's not lying, it's aspirational. Yeah. And it's you telling this story, and at some point, you know, it's not fake it till you make it, it's you building that the confidence in that story in your mind.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've I've had the opportunity to do some fairly cool stuff, and I used to lead with that. Like, let me tell you about when I ran the biggest Marlin fishing tournament in the world. Like, that doesn't help anything. It's if somebody asks about it, I'll say that I used to be involved in the fishing industry, but I don't need to be running around telling everybody about all the cool stuff I do. I need to, I really need to focus on the cool stuff other people do.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's say, though, that one doesn't have the luxury of totally divorcing themselves from the place where they are from their context, but they really want to start building a new story for themselves. And they're stuck with the baggage like most of us are. You know, most of us don't up and just move whenever we want to, but we're kind of stuck with the baggage that we have that people know about.

SPEAKER_01:

It's sort of what I I've done too, and I've seen people do this, is you just um trying to think you shun that story, in my opinion. You just try not to, if people want to bring that up, you just move it to a different subject. You focus on the things you're doing now. You and really, I I this is another one that came up in my reading for the last couple weeks, rereading all my books is think about the person you truly, truly want to be, the kind of person you want to be, the interactions you want to have, the way you want to be thought, and then just back up and say, okay, how do I do that today? Not what I was 15 years ago, but what do I truly want to be now? And then just act like that person. That sound, and again, that's not fake until you make it. That set real clear values and priorities and boundaries. And I think one of the ways you move from that old story is is acting and behaving in a way that that is different than the story that people might have told about you, the baggage. They want to try to hand it to you, just give it back.

SPEAKER_00:

It reminds me in a way, and in the best possible way, of method actors. Method actors, and you can tell me if I'm crazy with this analogy, but it just kind of clicked in my in my twisted head here. Method actors, they tell themselves a story about this character that they're inhabiting, and every single, even to the minutest decision that they make, references back to that story. Now, the difference between this and method acting is that we want to live into and become that person. Right. And and it starts with even all the little small decisions that you make. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

You're exactly right. Being very thoughtful and what's the word? Uh, I'm trying to use the word intentional about even the smallest things of if I were this way, what would I do? You know, if like me. If I were a more caring person that liked people, I would get up and go compliment that person. Or like this morning, I was leaving breakfast. There's a guy trying to load some stuff in his truck on the other side of the parking lot. It was cold, you know, and I and I had a bunch of stuff on my hands. And I said, No, put it all on my truck and walked over there and says, How can I help you? What can I do? He's like, Oh, could you pick this up? Help me move that. And I moved a bunch of stuff around. And the whole decision was I want to be that kind of a person. I want to be a helpful person who goes out of my way to help other people. Left my own devices, I would have gotten in, turned on the heater and my heated seats and drove away. But and at the end of it, I didn't, I did that to be helpful to him, but I also did that to prove to myself that I can be the kind of person that I want to be. If I will just slow down, think things through, hold that in my mind of this is the way I want to act and behave. And in this situation, if I was that person, what would that person do? They would go over and offer to help.

SPEAKER_00:

And the bonus with that is that you have an immediate reward. Hopefully. Hopefully, the person that you help was thankful and it was a great interaction. And then boom, you're lighting up those the pleasure uh centers in your brain saying, I did this, I was this person, and it felt really good.

SPEAKER_01:

And then what I do too is in future situations when I'm thinking about doing something like that, I remember back and say, hey, you know, when I went to help that guy in the truck, he was really nice. And I met his his uh son, who had a really cool hat, and you know, it was really nice. I bet you if I did this again, this would end up being a nice interaction. So I gather a little bit of confidence uh that that worked out well, this'll probably work out well too. I mean, it's it's way out of my comfort zone to walk over across the parking lot and offer someone help because I think about doing it, but I'm embarrassed and I don't know why. Uh, but that's a story I've told myself. Like, don't don't bother people. He can handle it. No, it's not bothering people. Go offer help. And if they don't need it, they'll tell you. And if they do, then it's a joy to be of service.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it kind of reminds me of framing stories, this idea of catastrophizing what could possibly happen wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

Catastrophizing that that's your explanatory style, how you ex why how you explain to yourself why the things that happened in your life happen. And probably as much or more pain I see created to people because they're guilty for the past and retelling stories and of things that happened in the past and wishing about the way they could have done it differently ain't gonna happen, or already, you know, uh thinking about the argument they might have with someone and trying to figure out how they'll approach it, what they'll say, you know, what the other person will say and what it'll be like. You know, you're probably never gonna have that discussion, and you're spending an awful lot of time worrying about something that likely will never happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and the funny thing is, is we both well know that person's probably not uh thinking about anything except they're catastrophizing in themselves, not thinking about you, but thinking about them because we're all just at the end of the day, we all just think about ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Most of the time, that's why I'm trying to get better at maybe not all the time doing that.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, John. Well, um, what would you give us for homework this week?

SPEAKER_01:

How can you rewrite your story a little bit? How can you go back and uh again not lying, not manipulating, not uh exaggerating, but what's parts of your old story you could take out that no longer serve you? And what are new parts of your story that you can live into?

SPEAKER_00:

All right, I will do that as well. The only thing I would add to that is if you are out there listening, and this is something that I need to remind myself you are good enough, you can do these things, and it is possible because that's where we get caught up. I'm not good enough, and also I can't do this. Well, of course you can. And that's what the story is all about. All right, John, thank you so much. Folks out there, please get in touch with us and ask John questions and try to stump him. Awesome life notes at gmail.com is our email address. Again, awesomelifenotes at gmail.com. I want you to give us just a whopper of a question that we'll just have John in silence for 30 seconds. I would love that too. Um, if you'd like to find out more about John, JohnSpence.com is his website. It's got uh all sorts of resources uh for you, both personally and in the business world, because that is his domain of expertise. This is a familiar Wilsons Media production, so go to familiarwilsonsmedia.com to find more information about that. As always, I would like to thank John. I would like to thank Amanda, my lovely wife, and your wonderful team, particularly Domingo, although I haven't interacted with Domingo in a while. Hope he's doing okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I told my team, do not look at your phone, don't answer email for two weeks. Just pretend you pretend our company doesn't exist. There's nothing that will go wrong that can't be fixed after the fifth. So I Domingo and Adriana are they send me pictures from time to time of all the cool stuff they're doing, but I told him he, no business, stay, have fun. And if you do try to get on and do work, I will fire you.

SPEAKER_00:

So excellent. There's the there's that restaurant tour coming up. John, who would you like to thank today?

SPEAKER_01:

I would like to, well, let me see. Oh, I I know, and I've got a friend of mine who's behind. I'm rearranging the library, uh, my personal library at home and my office library. And there's a good friend of mine, Frank Sonnenberg, who's written multiple books. They're all wonderful. And uh I've helped him promote his books in the past, and he's been kind. And I just want to thank him for being such an amazing person and helping so many people. He's he donates all the proceeds from his books to charity, and his books are all about character and integrity and family and honesty and helping people. Uh, they're written in little short, like one page here's things to think about. He's an amazing person who's helped probably millions of people. So I want to thank him for uh his lifetime of dedication to that.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Now you've also given me something else to look up here, so thank you for that. Folks, we thank you for listening. Please share this podcast with people that you think would would get something out of it, which I personally think is everyone. So do that. And until next week, that's John. I'm Josh, and you all go out there and live an awesome life.