The Hidden Story Running Your Life

What story about yourself are you treating as fact?

Join The FREE Creative Leadership Circle here: https://www.skool.com/creativeleadership/about

In this episode of The Keys with Paige Williams, Paige explores how the stories we carry about ourselves quietly shape our leadership, career decisions, and sense of possibility.

Through real listener questions, Paige introduces the concept of Narrative Intelligence — the ability to recognize the story shaping your life and leadership and consciously author the next chapter.

Listeners ask questions about hesitation, leadership identity, and the feeling of outgrowing a role. Paige walks through how hidden narratives can show up as overworking, staying silent when you have the right idea, or feeling like you are performing leadership instead of inhabiting it.

Paige Williams leads a group coaching program for women leaders focused on Creative Leadership and Narrative Intelligence, where participants work through real-time transitions, identity shifts, and leadership decisions inside a cohort.

Drawing from her framework, The Twelve Creative Keys, Paige explains how leaders can begin uncovering the stories shaping their decisions and shift from performance-based leadership to creative leadership.

If you are navigating reinvention, a career transition, or a moment where something bigger is calling you forward, this episode will help you begin seeing the narrative patterns shaping your life.

Reflection question from the episode

🗝 What story about yourself are you treating as fact?

🗝 What story about yourself are you outgrowing?

Send a question to the show

Text or leave a voicemail
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 801-843-5397

Your question may be answered in a future episode.

About Paige

Paige Williams is a transformational guide, executive coach, and the bestselling author of The Twelve Creative Keys. Her work focuses on Creative Leadership and Narrative Intelligence, helping people become all of themselves so they can lead without self abandonment.

Hosted by Paige Williams
Executive coach. Transformational guide. Author of The Twelve Creative Keys.

Call or text a question: 801-THE-KEYS, 1-801-843-5397
Learn more at https://www.paigewilliams.co

Join our free Leadership Circle: https://www.skool.com/creativeleadership/about

 Connect on LinkedIn and Instagram @paigewilliamscreates

Creative Leadership begins within. Clarity follows willingness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What story about yourself are you treating as fact? Because that story might be running your whole life and you don't even know it. Today we are talking about narrative intelligence. And let me start with a question that came in from a listener. Emily from Denver asks, Paige, I feel like I'm on the edge of something bigger in my career. But every time an opportunity shows up, I hesitate. Part of me wants to step forward and lead. And part of me says, I'm not ready yet. How do you know if hesitation is intuition or is it just a story that I'm telling myself? Emily, this is such an important question because most people assume that hesitation means that they lack confidence. But hesitation is often pointing to something that is deeper, a story about who they believe they are. And that is what narrative intelligence helps us see. Narrative intelligence is the ability to recognize the story that is shaping your life and your leadership and consciously author the next chapter. Most leaders believe that they are making decisions based on strategy. But underneath those decisions are usually a narrative. And once that narrative becomes visible, leadership behavior changes quickly. So, Emily, the question I have for you is if you were completely honest with yourself, what story are you telling yourself that's making you hesitate stepping into your next chapter? I'm Paige Williams, and this is The Keys. I'm an executive coach and the author of The 12 Creative Keys. And Emily, when you ask, what story am I telling myself that makes me hesitate? The 12 creative keys is a process that you can go through in order to go from willingness all the way through awakening so that you can change the narrative that you're living inside that's limiting you and making you hesitate from becoming the leader that you're meant to be, from becoming all of yourself. This is a coaching show where we talk about real moments of change, reinvention, leadership decisions, life transitions. You can call in to the show and leave a message or text the show a question about reinvention life and leadership, whatever threshold moment you may be living inside. The phone number is 1801 The Keys. That's 1801-843-5397. Please text or call the show your question, and I will answer it on the next episode. And um, make sure to subscribe to the channel. That really helps me get the word out. I'm new to YouTube, and it helps me get these videos out to people who want to learn more about the stories that they're telling themselves. Today we're talking about hidden stories that shape our life, our identity, and our leadership. So let me give you a few examples. A leader who carries the story I have to prove myself in order to be worthy is often the leader who becomes the overworking person. And we all have them in our life. I am very guilty of being the overworking leader. And I always have to ask myself, why is it that I'm overworking? And it usually comes down to a story about self-worth that I carry. Another leader carries a story of I shouldn't take up too much space. So they stay quiet. Even when they have the right idea, even when the team needs their ideas, they stay quiet because they're taking up too much space. Another leader believes if I slow down, everything will fall apart. And so they never stop. And that creates burnout. These are different behaviors, different stories, but they all have the same root cause. And that is an invisible narrative that is shaping how they respond to life, how they respond in their job, and how they are showing up as a leader in their life. If you want to change your life, change your leadership, change your company, you must change yourself. And in order to change yourself, you need to look at the narrative that is operating underneath your leadership. We have a question from Tabitha in Birmingham. She asks, Paige, I lead a team and on paper everything is going well. Good for you, Tabitha. But I still feel like I am performing leadership instead of actually being a leader. Oh, God, that's interesting. She asks, is this a confidence issue? Or that could that be the kind of hidden story that you talk about? Oof. Man, let me tell you something, Tabitha. Just knowing to ask that question is everything. When we look at narrative intelligence and the stories that we're telling ourselves and leading from, the hidden stories that we may not even know we have, our first key is willingness to look at the story. And that is the first key of the 12 creative keys. Tabitha, this experience is extremely common: performance leadership versus embodied leadership. Everything looks good externally, but internally you're feeling like it's performance-based. And that feeling often comes from an identity narrative. And the narrative might sound like I have to earn my place. I can't get anything wrong. I can't show uncertainty. That is certainly performance. Because even though we are leaders, we are humans. We don't always have the answers. So why do we feel like we do have to always have the answers? Because underneath, in the way that we're leading, there is a story that we're operating from. And when those narratives are running in the background, leadership becomes performance-based. Narrative intelligence helps leaders see those narratives. And when they see them, something shifts. And leadership stops feeling like you have to perform and instead become something that you inhabit. So if you're feeling like a fraud, why? What is the story that you're telling yourself that makes you feel fraudulent? And if you want to be able to look at the patterns in your life of the stories that you're telling yourself that are giving you false narratives, you can use my framework, The 12 Creative Keys, to go through the process of uncovering and discovering those stories. So if this conversation is resonating with you, please subscribe to the channel. You can pick up the 12 creative keys on Amazon. You can also join my free leadership circle where we're talking about these threshold moments of leadership, where we're shifting from performance leadership into creative leadership. This is the kind of work that we're exploring. Leaders come into the creative leadership circle for women to explore why they're stuck. We examine the stories shaping our decisions, and then the patterns appear. And patterns is how we lead, and patterns is how we limit ourselves, and patterns is how we interpret opportunities. And once those patterns become visible, leaders begin writing a new chapter in their leadership story. And that is where transformation begins. And we're doing this amazing transformation work inside my women's creative leadership circle. And it's free to join. So look in the comments, and there's a link. So we have another question from Rachel in Seattle. Rachel in Seattle asks, Paige, I feel like I have outgrown the role that I'm in. Well, if Rachel was with me, I'd say, what role is that? But something keeps stopping me from making a bigger move. Sounds like Emily. Part of it feels like fear, and part of it feels like responsibility. How do you tell the difference between a real constraint and a story that I've been carrying for years? Yeah, narrative intelligence becomes really powerful with this question, Rachel. Thanks for calling into the show. Sometimes the constraint is real, but very often the story interpreting the constraint is what keeps you stuck. So let me say that again. Sometimes the constraint is real. But the story interpreting the constraint is what keeps us stuck. So the story might sound like I'm safer where I am. I should be grateful for what I have and not want more. If I leave and step into something new, I might fail. So when leaders examine those narratives closely, they often discover something surprising. They are not trapped by circumstances, they are trapped by the story that is interpreting the circumstance. And when the story changes, new possibilities appear. So I'd ask you, what story are you writing? Are you authoring about this constraint? And can you lay it down? Are you willing to shed that old story about yourself? Shedding is creative key eight in the 12 creative keys. Are you willing, key one, to have the courage? Key two, to feel hope, key three. Key four, to surrender an old story that you are telling yourself. Key five is trust and release. Once you surrender, storytelling that keep you constrained, are you willing to trust and release and get honest with yourself, key seven, and shed that story, key eight, so that you can listen to your intuition about this new job, key nine, and then take aligned action, key ten. And we do all of this work for key 11 key 11, being of love and service to ourselves and to others. Because if you let go of this old role, you're allowing someone else to come in and have a new opportunity. And if you let go of this old role and accept a new role, you're being of love and service to the new organization that you're joining. And why do you do all this? For creative key 12, awakening or embodiment. Because without taking that next step, you don't get to become all of yourself with a new experience. You don't get to have a new experience with your life and with yourself. And you stay stuck. Why do we change? Because change is inevitable. Why do we resist change? Because there's some story that we're telling ourselves that is not true. And our job is to become all of ourselves as we are today. And if we are resisting opportunity, then we are resisting change and we are resisting a new experience of experiencing ourselves in a new way. And that new way is what keeps life fresh. It's what helps us wake up in the morning and feel great about living. And when we get burnt out and when we get stuck, it's because we're not doing that. We're not giving ourselves the opportunity to become willing to become all of ourselves. I want to ask you a question now. What story about yourself are you treating as fact? Write it down. And then I want you to rewrite the story. I want you to author a new chapter. Because here's the difference with narrative intelligence versus Myers Briggs or Human Design or Strengths Finders. Narrative intelligence has an assessment that I've created. You can find it on storykeys.co. But the thing about narrative intelligence is we're always writing the next chapter. Every day it can be a new chapter. Every morning can be a new chapter. We don't stay stagnant in who we are. We are always becoming ourselves. And so you can take this assessment and figure out what chapter of life are you in. And then you can write a new chapter. So I used to be a technology founder and CEO, building and scaling a tech company. And then my life shifted and I became an executive coach. And I decided that my passion was to help women like me become all of themselves, to be able to step into the next chapter, to be able to walk through hallway moments and become all of who they are and answer the calling of their soul, because that's what I had to do. The tech company was no longer working for me. And I had gotten absolutely miserable. And then I became willing to follow what my heart was calling me to do, which is to be here with you, teaching you about transitional leadership, about creative leadership, about narrative intelligence, about looking at the stories that you're telling yourself that are keeping you stuck. Look, nothing is wrong with you. Absolutely nothing in the world is wrong with you. The 12 creative keys give you a transformational pathway to become all of yourself. It awareness of who you are so that you can love yourself more fully. Because let me tell you something. You can take any opportunity that is handed to you because you are worthy. Because you can be of love and service to yourself and to others. You just have to answer that call. You just have to say yes. I know you're scared. The 12 creative keys is a way to walk through it. It gives you a path to being able to say yes to yourself. I work with women all the time. And in my creative leadership circle and my coaching, the thing that we struggle with the most is saying yes to ourselves. But when we say yes to ourselves, our lives change, our families' lives change, the people we work with change because we're changed. And our community changes because we're the light in the world. And so when we walk around in all of our being, we get to see people change as well. And that happens by first looking at the stories that we're telling ourselves that keep us stuck, that keep us burnt out, and that keep us small. Most people go through their entire lives without realizing that a story is shaping their decisions. And the moment that you can see that story clearly is the moment that you change your life, that everything changes. Because the story that once ran your life becomes the story that you can rewrite. And that is the power of narrative intelligence. And it's the beginning of creative leadership. If this conversation sparks something for you, I invite you to join us in the creative leadership circle. Share this podcast or YouTube video with a friend who may be going through an opportunity to transform their life, to change their life, to say yes to a bigger opportunity. The creative leadership circle is a free space where we are learning how to see the stories that is shaping our lives and our leadership. And each week we are exploring creative leadership and narrative intelligence, and we are practicing rewriting our stories and our next chapters together. You can find the link below about how to join the free leadership circle. And before you go, I want you to sit with this one final question. You ready? Here it is. What story about yourself are you outgrowing? I'll ask you again. What story about yourself are you outgrowing? And if you need me to reframe it, what story about yourself are you ready to outgrow? The moment you see that story clearly, you begin to write a new one. This is The Keys with Paige Williams. I'm your host, Paige. You can call in or text your question to 1801 The Keys.