March 18, 2025

On Sunday, I went to Zurich to meet my former mentor and coach, Jachym.

He, his wife, and I spent the afternoon catching up on each other’s lives and what’s been moving for us.

Jachym and I spent one year together, and he has been a big influence on how I coach today, how I understand myself, and especially how I explore identity and the patterns that created mine.

We talked about coaching, personal development, trading, the state of the world, and entrepreneurship.

When we talked about entrepreneurship, he said something that hit me again, even though I had heard it many times before.

"The future and the past are stories I tell myself. The one I told myself wasn't great, and it wasn’t true. Now, I am telling myself a story that isn’t true, but it’s great."

"When I tell myself a great story, it not only feels better, it also creates different actions that are much more aligned with what I want in life."

I have heard this before, and my mentor Ria said something similar in a different way: "If you don’t like the story you have, create a new one."

What hit me deeply this time is that I realized I always live inside this story of the future and past. Yes, I’ve had moments where the future and past dissolved, and only the present was there. But then, I go back to the future and past.

The future and past aren’t problems as I once thought, but empty vessels where we can create meaning through stories.

This only becomes a problem when I don’t recognize that what I am living in is a story. When I see it as a story, something magical happens. I become the writer of my story. I can choose if I want to continue to live inside the story I have or create a new one.

Not that my stories are true, but they create actions that then become true and create what is true in my world.

When I told myself I would be a dancer, there was a point when it was pure fiction. But telling myself that story led me to take action on it. When I took action, I became a dancer in the eyes of others.

This is the same with anything.

Before it is your lived experience, it is a thought in your mind.

And the story you tell isn’t the truth, but it matters to you. It will create the actions you take, and these actions will create the results you experience.