Do you ever think about the stories you tell yourself? Like, the ones running in the background of your brain, shaping who you are and how you see the world?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the hero in my own story. Maybe not a great hero. Not the kind with a cape or superpowers. But still, the one driving the plot forward.
Except lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m more of a narrator than a hero.
The narrator doesn’t really do anything. They just talk about what’s happening. They describe the action, give it context, try to make sense of it all. But they’re not the one leaping into the burning building.
And I think sometimes, that’s what confidence is—a story the narrator makes up to explain what’s happening.
Here’s an example: a few years ago, I was at this work event, and someone asked me to give an impromptu speech. Nothing formal, just a few words to kick things off. Everyone around me was like, “Of course, Art will do it. He’s so confident.”
So I got up there, said some stuff, made a joke or two, and sat back down. Everyone clapped, patted me on the back, said, “Great job.”
But you know what was happening in my head? Don’t trip over the chair. Don’t say anything stupid. Why are you sweating so much?
The narrator was busy spinning a story: You’re confident. You’ve got this. Everyone’s impressed. But the hero? The hero was just trying not to puke.
That’s what I mean about confidence being a story. It’s not something you feel in the moment. It’s something you decide after the fact.
Because here’s the truth: I’ve met some incredibly confident people—founders, athletes, public figures—and they all have the same narrator running in their heads. The same doubts. The same What if I mess this up?
The difference is, their narrator is better at lying.
But lying isn’t the right word, is it? It’s more like…creative storytelling. Like, you take the facts of your life and spin them into something you can live with. Something that makes sense.
And sometimes, that story changes everything.
I think about this one guy I knew in college. Not the coolest guy in the room. Not the smartest or the funniest. But he had this story running in his head that he was a winner. That eventually, no matter how many times he failed, he’d come out on top.
And he believed it.
You could see it in the way he carried himself, the way he asked every girl at a party to dance, no matter how many said no. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t defeated. He was just waiting for the part of the story where he won.
I envied that. Not the outcome—he didn’t always win—but the certainty.
It made me start paying attention to my own stories. The ones I tell about who I am, what I’m capable of, and why things happen the way they do. And honestly? Some of them are pretty bad.
There’s the one where I’m not smart enough to do something. The one where I don’t deserve a seat at the table. The one where everyone else knows what they’re doing, and I’m just faking it.
Those stories suck. But you know what? I get to rewrite them.
That’s the thing nobody tells you about being the narrator of your own life. You’re not just describing the action—you’re shaping it. Every time you tell yourself, This is who I am, you’re deciding what comes next.
So maybe confidence isn’t about being fearless or perfect or even prepared. Maybe it’s just about telling better stories.
Like the story where you’re not afraid to fail. Or the one where rejection isn’t a dead end, just a plot twist.
I don’t know. Maybe this is just the narrator talking. But it feels true.
Oh, and if you’re curious about how confidence fits into all of this, I made a video about it once.
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