Early in life — say about college graduation — one is handed the terrifying assignment of deciding what the next chapter of your life is going to be and whether you intend to star in it.
You may laugh, but it’s true. You know it’s true.
The greatest undeveloped talent in many young persons is the ability to tell a compelling story in which they are the star.
Storytelling has made a gigantic resurgence amongst the leadership cognoscenti as the critical skill for life and business success, but it is also the critical skill for your entire existence.
So, pick up the pen and start writing? Yes.
OK, let’s circle back to this post and read it — everybody needs a plan — hyperlinked below:
Use that plan to envision and write your own story. One more time:
Write your own story.
Not your parents’ story. Not your boss’s. Not the one your neighbors or frat/sorority brothers/sisters think you should live. And certainly not the ridiculous little screenplay social media and influencers have prepared for you.
Yours. Uniquely yours. Big as the Rocky Mountains.
Here’s the trick: write yourself as the main character.
Main characters have agency. They make decisions. They take risks. They get knocked down, occasionally make spectacularly stupid choices, learn something, get back up, and keep moving.
They do not spend 40 years wandering around as an extra in somebody else’s movie.
Have, employ, and project Main Character Energy. Like Paul Newman, a man who did a lot of stuff. Or Scarlett in Gone With the Wind.
Decide who you are. You are way more of a badass than you could ever imagine. Decide exactly where you’re going. Decide what matters. Stretch to be that person. Then write the next chapter accordingly.
Make a plan knowing it is just an edit away from perfection. You control it. Completely.
And every few years (actually twice a year is good), pull out the manuscript and edit the damn thing.
People change. Circumstances change. Dreams change. You are allowed to rewrite the plot.
Kill off a bad chapter. Introduce a new adventure. Change careers. Move somewhere interesting. Learn something difficult. Fall in love. Have babies. Start a business. Build something. Start over.
Just don’t surrender the pen and don’t let someone else write your story.
Because, my dear, if you don’t, someday somebody is going to write the final line. You are going to be a bit actor in somebody else’s story.
Until then?
You’re the author.
You’re the main character.
Inject main character energy.
Act like it.
Just do it.
It’s all just fanciful until you do it, write it in ink, and show one other person on the planet. Only then does it become real.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car and I wrote and lived my story.
Write your damn story. Own your future.