One Simple Question that Can Change Everything as a NGO Leader

Have you ever wondered how much of your daily frustration comes from assumptions—not reality?

In this episode, we dive into the unconscious stories we tell ourselves that shape how we act, react, and lead. These mental narratives may seem harmless, but they often influence our decisions, damage our confidence, and limit our leadership growth.

In this episode you'll discover:

• A powerful question that can instantly shift your perspective and decision-making.
• How small mindset shifts can unlock new outcomes in your professional and personal life.
• Try a simple weekly exercise to identify and challenge limiting stories so you can lead more intentionally.

Listen now to uncover how challenging one internal story could change everything in your leadership journey.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

How are the ways you look at the world and yourself holding you back from your goals? Find out in today's episode.

Welcome to the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast. The podcast helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and empowering your team all the while avoiding stress, burnout and overwhelm. I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey

peace. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello, my aspiring modern humanitarian and development leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. And I wanna [00:01:00] start this episode with a story because this is really what this episode is all about, the stories we tell ourselves and how much they really, truly impact us.

So this story comes from the author Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And he has this beautiful story about how he was, one day he was on a train and there was a father with two young children on the train, and the two young children were just going crazy. Like they were just wild, like bouncing off the walls of the train and just

just really getting out of control, doing all kinds of things. And the father meanwhile was just sitting there with his hands on his and his head and just sulking just not doing anything about these children. And Stephen Covey became really [00:02:00] upset because he thought," why isn't this father controlling his kids?

They're out of control." And suddenly, the father seemed to sense that Stephen Covey was watching him. And so he turned to him and he said, "look, I'm really sorry about my children. It is just that their mother just died of cancer and we're coming back from the hospital and I just really, I just don't know what we're going to do."

And suddenly. Stephen Covey's whole outlook changed toward the situation. The story he had been telling himself before was that these children were troublemakers, that the father was not a very good father. And that was the reason for the scene he was seeing. But when the father spoke up and shared this horrible news about their mother, that totally changed everything.

Suddenly, Stephen Covey could empathize or feel compassion for this family who had just lost a very important person in their [00:03:00] life. And now the father was just overwhelmed and the children probably were too. These are the things that we do all the time, all day, every day, all the time.

The majority of our thinking and of what we, the way we see the world is filtered through our stories. It's done for our own survival. Our brains, they just is the way they work to help us survive. But sometimes it can work against us. So in today's episode, you're going to discover how our emotions, our actions, and our results, and our work and our life are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves.

A question that you can ask yourself to change your perspective and help you achieve what you want. And an exercise that you can do this week to identify how your current stories [00:04:00] are not helping you get to where you want to go and work and in life, and how you might change them. Alright, so I wanna start this with a quote by Tony Robbins, which is

"we are defined by the stories we tell ourselves." And the more aware I become of these stories that I tell myself every day throughout my entire day, the more I see how impactful this is. So we think sometimes that the problem is outside of us or that we know what the problem is. When in reality, a lot of times we make decisions based on assumptions and we are destroying so many opportunities to grow because of it.

I will give you some examples in a minute, but just as say that we create stories all [00:05:00] the time, and if you became aware of all the stories that you make up throughout your day, you would be surprised. And that is one thing I hope you take away from this episode is to start to notice the stories you have in your head and to start to use the question I'm gonna share with you to see how valid your perspective or your stories are.

So some of the stories I notice in my day include oh, this person seems mad at me or upset at me. This is something I might tell myself as I am engaging with someone or, communicating with them or even passing them on the street.

This person is not answering my email and so they must not want to join my course.

Sometimes, as part of what I do now, I send out emails and request if people are interested in signing up for my [00:06:00] course. And sometimes I get no response and instead of thinking, "oh, maybe they're busy," A lot of times my story is "they must just not want to join my course", or "they must just not be interested or I'm bothering them."

That's another story that I have. This person is not coming to course calls because they don't like them. That's another story that sometimes I have when I'm actually delivering the course and students don't show up. Sometimes I take that personally. I have a story that the reason that they don't come to the calls is because they're not entertaining enough or because they don't like me or something like that.

I like the word "story" because it really illustrates how, it's not a factual reality necessarily, but it's a story as in some narrative that we are telling ourselves that we sometimes, if we're not aware of it, we just believe as true. So [00:07:00] when I take action from these stories that I just shared with you, or really what they are is assumptions.

It can be very limiting. And sometimes I don't take action from them. I make decisions based on assumptions when I have no evidence that they are true. So for example, if I listen to the assumptions I just shared with you. I maybe would avoid the person that I thought was mad at me and maybe make them even more mad at me for avoiding them, or maybe actually make them mad at me because now I am avoiding them.

So I actually create that reality by listening to my story. In the case of the person not answering my email, and I, my story is therefore they must just not wanna join my course, or they don't want to hear from me. If I listened to that story, then I would not follow up with the [00:08:00] person about my course.

And maybe I would lose a sale. Maybe I would lose a student because maybe they're just busy and there's some other reason why they haven't answered. And in the case of the person not coming to course calls my story is that they don't enjoy them or they don't wanna participate in the course, or they don't like me, something like that, then I might not follow up with them to see what's going on, and instead just allow them to keep doing and repeating the same behavior until they ultimately have to fail out of the course.

So these are all examples of my own way of seeing the world, my own stories, that if I'm not aware of them just being stories and that they aren't always true. I can take actions, like I just shared with you and these actions actually lead to results that I don't want.

They lead to me not reaching out and asking if someone really, [00:09:00] wants to join the course or not following up. They lead to me allowing students not to come to the course if they don't turn up. They would lead me to maybe making a worse situation out of a relationship. So these are not actions or stories that are helping me.

They're helping me keep small and actually, maybe protecting me in some way, but it's not who I want to be. And so I have to be really aware of these stories. I have to question them with this question I'm going to share with you now, which is what if this was not true ?

So when I become aware of a story my brain is telling me, for example, this person is not responding to my email and therefore they are not interested in my course. I have to ask myself, what if this was not true [00:10:00] or what if I am wrong? That's what a question that Mel Robbins shares is what if I am wrong?

And when we question that, then we can start to see some evidence or to see just how little evidence we have. That we are right, because to be honest, I have no idea why this person didn't answer the email. They could be very busy. They could be sick, they could have not gotten it. Maybe it went in their spam folder.

There's so many other reasons why they have not answered my email, and yet I am choosing this one. And this one that I'm choosing, which is "they must not want to join the course" is not helping me, and it's really not helping them either because this course I know could probably benefit them. So being aware of these stories can really help us number one, realize that [00:11:00] they're not reality, but also question

what is evidence of the opposite, or what evidence is there that this is absolutely true? And I promise you, most of the time you realize that there is no evidence or there's very little evidence, and that we are just actually making things up and filling in gaps because that's what our brains like to do biologically.

Our brains do this to keep us safe. And it also means that we tend to exaggerate risk, that we fill in gaps with assumptions, which tend to have a negative bias. And so when we question these assumptions, we break out of this pattern, and that's what I want you to try to do this week is as you go through this week, number one, noticing the stories that you're telling yourself. The

the things that, that you just say to yourself as if they're true, but then you realize that, oh, nope. How do I know that's true? I [00:12:00] don't. That's just an assumption. And you become more open to testing to see what really is true. Okay, so for example, with the example of me thinking someone else is mad at me, maybe I might wanna test that just by going up to them and communicating with 'em.

Maybe even asking them just to verify, and maybe they are. But if I just have the assumption that they are and then I avoid them, I'm never going to find out the real truth. So

really questioning the stories we have, first identifying them, but then questioning whether they're really true or not can be a very big impact or have a very big impact in how you choose to move forward. for example, with the person that not answered my email, if I tell myself, I have no idea why they didn't answer my email, and I'm not going [00:13:00] to assume something, I'm just going to keep following up until they say one way or another they're interested or they're not.

This will more likely lead to an outcome that I want then just avoiding and not sending another email altogether. Now, once again, sometimes your assumption will be correct . But if we don't question those assumptions, we tend to stay in our own comfort zone, in our own little box.

We don't take the risk of asking for a promotion or avoid addressing a performance issue on our team because we assume that the other person is going to react in some way or that our supervisor is going to say no. We keep ourselves small and safe, and that is what our brains wants us to do, but it's also not great if we want to really, truly grow and live the life that we [00:14:00] want.

So part of coaching is actually questioning the stories we tell ourselves. and it's a very healthy practice and will really, like I said, prevent you from taking less risk.

And it really is a healthy practice to be aware of the stories we're telling ourselves and to really question are they helping us or not. So how is the current story of yourself as a leader holding you back? For example, maybe you tell yourself that you are always late, and so you make that a reality or you procrastinate a lot and so therefore you also make that a reality.

Or maybe you have a story that your supervisor doesn't like you or that you can never handle being promoted to a higher level. What are your [00:15:00] stories and how do you know that they are 100% true? I want you to go through your week thinking about that question. Because the modern leader questions, assumptions, and acts from a place of truly not knowing.

Until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do, or do you let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is a first step to deciding what's working for you and what's not. To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz. What is your leadership style? You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, [00:16:00] www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz. Fill out your quiz and click submit. So what are you waiting for? Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz and discover your leadership style now. Your team will Thank you for it.