Mr. Chattam was my third-grade math and homeroom teacher—an ex-military captain with a precisely trimmed marine cut and crisply pressed shirts. I was terrified of him, yet I lived for his class, because unlike any other teacher, he read aloud to us for a full hour after lunch.
His deep voice filled the room as he gave voice to each character—women included, which we eight-year-olds found hilarious. And the books! Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Then there was the second half of the day: math.
In spelling and writing, I was acing it. Not so on Mr. Chattam’s math tests.
Too many wrong answers and you had to “walk the Oregon Trail” – a dirt circle worn into the playground by years of Chattam students. Apparently missing his earlier career, Mr. Chattam would often walk the trail with us, barking orders.
At first I didn’t mind; I got to be outside with my fellow math strugglers. But mid-year, Mr. Chattam upped the ante. Walking the trail apparently wasn’t humiliating enough, now we also had to flap our arms and repeat “I am a bluebird” while circling the field.
I never did figure out how that helped with my math skills.
What stung most was the split: perfect stacks of A papers on one side of my desk, and every Friday the shame of the Oregon Trail on the other.
I don’t fault Mr. Chattam much. It was the late sixties and strictness was expected. And the love of stories he gave me far outweighed those moments of humiliation.
I assumed that was the end of it. A quirky story from a different era, tucked away with school lunches and kickball.
Alas, the drill sergeant wasn’t done with me yet.
Decades later, over a lively dinner with a group of fellow coaches, grade school stories came up. Each story was funnier than the last, and I cheerfully chimed in with my story about Mr. Chattam. Instead of raucous laughter, I was met with wide eyed shock and questions:
“Did you get therapy?” Asked one coach.
“Did he get fired?” Asked another.
“Therapy? Fired for what?” I responded, confused.
Later, after a table full of coaches did what coaches do, I admitted that yes, in high school, I realized a drill sergeant had taken up permanent residence in my head. And for decades, that inner drill sergeant had me walking a mental Oregon Trail – ruminating in loops over wrong turns, missed deadlines, botched calls.
“It’s his fault!” the coaches chimed, triumphantly, in unison.
The Stories That Inhabit Us
These are the stories we rarely share with others, stories that inhabit us – often from an early age – that guide our behavior and choices, sometimes unknowingly.
Most of the time you don’t hear them as stories at all. You hear them as facts. Narratives like:“I’m too sensitive for this bold world.” “I’m not the type who puts themselves out there.” These stories shape your confidence, consistency, and what you allow yourself to publish, say, or charge for.
My own Mr. Chattam story turned out to be one of them. As an eight-year-old, I remember being pragmatic about the Oregon Trail — I figured I deserved it, and that the solution was simply to apply myself harder. Problem was, math might as well have been another language, and Mr. Chattam didn’t teach Greek.
Fair enough.
What I didn’t see until much later was that the drill sergeant had followed me. It wasn’t so much Mr. Chattam, it was the story I told my eight-year old self about those events.
Mr. Chattam moved on, the story stayed. And that’s on me. The originating story, I’ve come to believe, isn’t really the point — what matters is what you do with it now. A few of my therapist clients would push back on that, and I do understand their point.
In the work I do with Indie-Experts, the question that moves people forward to take a next step is seldom “how or when did this begin?” It’s “what is this story costing me today?”
This layer surfaces in almost every client relationship, sooner or later, and it often becomes the real work.
- A professional in his late 60s, starting a second career as a health coach, was doing everything right on paper. A few sessions in, he realized he was secretly convinced he was too old to succeed online.
- A doctor who signed on for my 12-month Authority Intensive coasted through the first quarter. Three months in, he admitted the real issue wasn’t strategy. “I’m afraid to show up as myself,” he said. “Visibility feels really terrifying.”
- A gifted therapist realized, months into our work together, that her content wasn’t the problem. She’d carried the block since childhood: “Sensitive people don’t take up space like this.”
We usually call stories like these self-talk or inner dialogue. Either way, what matters most is how the stories you tell yourself impact you: is the internal chatter serving you or hijacking you? This awareness alone creates the space needed to tell yourself a better story.
If you’ve struggled with these patterns, I’ve gathered a few strategies that have offered me the most traction through the years. Find the technique that resonates most with you.
Tell yourself a better story
Seth Godin offers the most direct approach:
“The remedy for negative self-talk is not the search for unanimous praise from the outside world.
“The remedy is accurate and positive self-talk. Endless amounts of it. Not delusional affirmations or silly metaphysical pronouncements about the universe. No, merely the reassertion of obvious truths — a mantra that drives away the nonsense the lizard brain is selling as truth.
When in doubt, tell yourself the truth.”
Tell yourself the truth.
The challenge is these self-stories are often invisible to us precisely because they feel so true.
So, it seems to me the point is determining what’s actually true about the stories we tell ourselves.
What’s True About Your Self-Talk?
The challenge I’ve found with many of the stories I tell myself is this: when I’m angry, stressed, or low-energy, all self-talk tends to run on auto-play, often replaying some old, destructive loops.
It helps to have a spouse, coach, or therapist question the narrative. Or you can try The Work.
Thirty years ago, I discovered The Work by Byron Katie. While Seth Godin urges flooding the lizard brain with truthful mantras, Katie’s method provides a structured inquiry that questions your story’s foundational claims.
Her insight: “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer — and that this is true for every human being.”
The process is simple and often profound. You isolate a stressful thought or story — often a judgment about yourself, others, or reality. A common one for the coaches and practitioners I work with: “I’m not progressing fast enough in my work or visibility.”
Hold that thought in mind as you walk through the four questions. You’ll see how they shift.
The Four Questions:
1. Is it true? Don’t rush to the obvious yes. (Is ‘I’m not progressing fast enough in my work or visibility’ true? Compared to what timeline?)
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? This one often cracks the certainty. (No, progress is nonlinear.)
3. How do you react — what happens — when you believe that thought? Trace the effects: emotions, body, behavior, relationships, sense of self. (Anxiety, comparison, procrastination, harsher self-talk.)
Sit with that for a moment. This is the question that shows you what the story is actually costing you. That discomfort is useful — it’s what makes the next question matter.
4. Who would you be without the thought? Not who you should be, or who you’re trying to become. Who would you actually be, today, if the story simply wasn’t there? (More present, enjoying the process, taking steady aligned steps.)
Follow with Turnarounds: find opposites of the original thought and explore whether they are as true or truer.
For “I’m not progressing fast enough,”turnarounds might include: “I am progressing in my own way.” “I’m progressing too fast in some areas and missing depth.” “I don’t let myself see the progress I am making.”
Then — and this has been key for me — find genuine examples where the turnaround holds. I write these in my journal, to return to for a record of how far I’ve come.
When locked in rumination, the loop feels like reality. The four questions interrupt by shifting from belief to investigation.
- Question 3 surfaces the suffering the story causes.
- Question 4 and the turnarounds open what’s possible on the other side of it — which is exactly what Godin means by the reassertion of obvious truths.
So, Which Story Wins?
You don’t need more consequences or inner drill sergeants. You need more self-story time. Someone from your past is always perched in your skull, narrating the day back to you.
Every thought, habit, and action you return to is a vote for which story gets stronger.
The only real question is whether that voice sounds like a drill sergeant or a teacher who loves books.
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