The Most Important Stories Are the Ones No One Else Hears

Not every important story comes with a famous name or a huge audience. Lauren Regan makes the case for noticing the people, places and stories others overlook.

By Lauren Regan.

I started my career surrounded by stories. 

My very first comms role was at the National Centre for Children's Books, where every day was a reminder that stories aren't just a way to pass the time; they are how we make sense of the world. Before we can read, we're listening to stories - they help us understand people, navigate uncertainty and imagine different futures. As adults, we like to think we grow out of them, but the truth is we never do; the stories just change.

Recently, I was invited to appear on a podcast to talk about the realities of being a business owner, and my immediate reaction wasn't excitement; it was suspicion. 

"This has to be a scam," I thought. "At some point they're going to ask me to pay to be on it."

They didn't, of course, and it was an enjoyable conversation about what running a busy communications consultancy over the last four years has looked like. 

Reflecting, I found it fascinating that my brain had immediately written a story in which I couldn't simply have been invited because someone thought I had something interesting to say. Despite spending years helping organisations uncover and communicate their stories, my own internal narrator had quietly decided I wasn't quite believable as the main character, and this simply had to be a con. 

It made me think about just how much of our lives are shaped not by what is happening around us, but by the stories happening inside our own heads or the ones we think others are telling about us. 

As leaders, we spend a great deal of time thinking about the stories our businesses tell. We obsess over our websites, our LinkedIn posts, our brand messaging and our pitches, and we think carefully about how customers perceive us. Far less often do we stop to examine the story we've written about ourselves. Mine usually sounds something like this:

"You should be doing more."

More networking.

More clients.

More growth.

More. Always more. 

I don't have children, which adds another layer to that narrative. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that because I don't have school runs, bedtime routines or half-term logistics to juggle, I should now be significantly more successful because of all of that ‘free time’. Surely I should be squeezing more into every day? Women are building multi-million-pound businesses while raising families. So why haven't I?

It's an exhausting story and the frustrating thing is that I know better.

I know comparison is rarely fair when you’re comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's highlight reel; I know success doesn't happen in a straight line; I know every business grows differently, and yet those stories still creep in - and I’ve started to think that I'm not alone.

Many women in leadership are carrying around invisible narratives they've inherited over years, sometimes decades. That ambition makes you intimidating, that confidence makes you arrogant, that being approachable somehow means softening your opinions or that success should always be accompanied by humility, almost to the point of apologising for it.

We learn to qualify our achievements, we downplay our expertise, we describe ourselves as "lucky", and we add phrases like, "I just..." or "It's only..." before talking about something we've worked incredibly hard to achieve. With phrases like this, many of us end up editing our own stories before anyone else gets the chance.

I've recently read Bird by Bird, where Anne Lamott captures the constant internal dialogue many of us live with as a personal radio station she calls "KFKD". One channel is all ego, telling us how exceptional, misunderstood or uniquely talented we are; the other is relentless self-criticism, replaying every mistake we've ever made, convincing us we're frauds and that everyone else is somehow more capable. I suspect most of us spend far more time tuned into the second channel, and as women in leadership especially, it's often that critical voice that shapes our decisions, holding us back from speaking up, putting ourselves forward or recognising just how far we've come. The challenge isn't to silence that voice altogether; I'm not sure any of us ever do, but to recognise it for what it is - just one version of the story, not necessarily the truth.

In Bird by Bird, Anne remembers “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’” 

That really stuck with me. Our careers, and lives, aren’t built in a single dramatic moment; they’re built bird by bird, conversation by conversation, decision by decision, story by story. 

That’s the wonderful thing about stories, though: they can be rewritten. Not by pretending everything is perfect or replacing every difficult thought with relentless positivity. Real storytelling has never been about pretending the challenges don't exist. Every good story has moments of doubt, and the difference is that those moments don't define the ending.

Instead of asking whether we're doing enough, perhaps we should ask whether we're building a life and business that reflects what success actually looks like to us.

Not to LinkedIn.

Not to our industry.

Not to the people who seem to have everything figured out.

To us.

Success to you might be leading a team of fifty, or it might be staying deliberately small so you can pick your clients and protect your weekends. It might be building something that gives you freedom rather than status, or maybe it is making enough money to support your family while still having the time to see them.

None of those versions are more valid than another. The problem comes when we're trying to live someone else's story instead of writing our own.

As communicators, we're taught to think about audiences. Every piece of content starts by asking who we're trying to reach and what matters to them, so perhaps we should apply the same thinking to ourselves.

Whose voice is actually narrating the story in our heads? Is it ours? Or is it an accumulation of expectations we've absorbed from employers, social media, family, friends and society about what a successful woman should look like? Because if it's the latter, maybe it's time for a rewrite.

I've spent years helping organisations discover the stories that make them memorable. Increasingly, I think the most important stories we tell are the ones no one else ever hears.

Those stories shape the decisions we make every single day. So yes, tell your business story, tell your customers why you exist, tell your team where you're heading, but don't forget to listen to the story you're telling yourself along the way too. You’re the author and editor of that one, and you get to decide what happens next. 

Lauren Regan is the founder and creative director of MOLE, a brand storytelling and PR consultancy.

Crafting a meaningful brand story is within reach for every organisation. MOLE works with businesses in the UK and Canada to find their voice, tell their stories, and shape their future. To speak to Lauren about your organisations ambitions, reach out at  lauren@weraremole.com