Please introduce yourself. Gladly. Thank you,
Sue. It's lovely to be here. I'm Carrie West.
I have written a book, Life Rewritten. It became
an international bestseller. Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure to be here and talk about that.
I'm also a narrative coach. and a speaker so
people have asked me what's a narrative coach
and there's a there's a branch of psychology
called narrative therapy i'm not a psychologist
but what i what i am is a storyteller and so
i use my background in storytelling to help people
sort through any number of issues that they might
be dealing with So good. Oh, my goodness. And
it's all about the stories we tell ourselves,
right? It sure is. It sure is. Life is this huge
story. It is. An epic, dramatic, crazy -ass story.
For sure. What is your vision, Carrie? Okay.
The story saved my life. And I mean that literally.
I had a really difficult beginning to life. I
was rejected. day one parents didn't want me
did the very very minimal and sometimes even
less than the minimal to keep going stories kept
me alive so at night i remember my first memories
are lying in bed not able to sleep and telling
myself a story so i could sleep and my stories
were about my real family that was looking for
me and they were larger than life and they were
great and they took me they bought me clothes
they gave me great food they did all these wonderful
things for me so it was the only way i could
fall asleep it was it was my form of comforting
self -comforting so i could i could make it through
another day and as i i grew up and sorted out
that view of this of this life I ended up going
to film school. I went to the American Film Institute.
And always, before that, I always kept journals.
I always told stories in my journals. They, again,
kept me alive. It kept me, my vivid imagination.
Didn't know it at the time, but I was visioning
a new world. I was visioning a different life
for myself. Didn't know it at the time, but that's
what I was doing. So then when I went to film
school, we were prepping one of our many film
projects, and we were sitting there talking about
characters and themes and plots and how everything
fell together. And I had this aha moment of,
holy crap, it's a story. My life is a story.
And if that's the case, I can change it. I can
write a different ending. I can write a different
plot. I can pick up new characters. Oh, my gosh.
And that started me on this journey of looking
at life as a story and working with it from that
perspective. But I want to be clear. A lot of
people say, so you reframe what people are doing.
It's like, I create understanding. I help you
to understand it. When you talk about an origin
story, when I look at my origin story. When we're
born. we walk into a play that's in the second
act right our parents have this whole history
and they have their own origin story that they've
been living if you have siblings they're they're
a part of this story at whatever phase act one
or act two depending on their age but you walk
in dead center it's like you're walking on stage
that's on a play that's been going on and you
have no idea what it's about you haven't talked
to a director you haven't seen a script so you're
like Line. Line. Exactly. Line. And so how do
you create your story? What is that foundation
of your story? So I get into the belonging. You
know, you need to belong. It's a survival thing.
But belonging is one of our first needs. So I
realized that if we could look at that and understand
it. understand who these people were and the
story that they were living before we jumped
in honestly i could forgive them i could forgive
all of it and live my life and build my story
and then i realized that everything they did
made me who i am so here i am a little over 30
at this point I can turn this all around. I went
from this horrible beginning to this amazing
life that I have now in Santa Barbara, California.
The only downside is I have this dog who thinks
he's in charge of our life, and he's kind of
a bully. He's always demanding things, so we
have to deal with him. But I can now, using this
concept and this view, I don't reframe it. I
change your perspective. I change your understanding
of the situation. And working with people individually,
working with businesses, of all the businesses
you could have started, why did you pick that
one? What is your origin story for your business?
Then you can take that apart. When you understand
it, it's like, oh. I've had more people have
aha moments just getting them to understand their
origin story, where they came from. So if I could
change, if I could talk to everybody about their
original story, their backstory, or how they
became who they are today, it changes almost
instantly. It doesn't even feel like you have
to go through this big whole process of change.
You just have this understanding and awareness
that... A lot of these stories weren't ours.
You know, half of the stories that I was living
about life is hard or you have to work hard and
work 90 hours a week just to get by. That's my
parents' story. My parents were immigrants that
had rough lives coming in. That was their story.
Why do I have to take that on? Can't I believe
that life is beautiful? You can create wonderful,
magical things really easily. Does it have to
be you have to work 90 hours a week to barely
get by? Does hardship and struggle? No. I don't
think life was intended to be hard and difficult.
I think we were given this beautiful playground,
and we've turned it into this dramatic. fight
sequence almost from some big epic battleground.
So that's my vision. I think if we challenge
these original stories we've been given, we become
a lot happier. I can see that. That's incredible.
Tell me more about how it looks like when you're
working with a business owner. I can see how
this would be almost therapeutic. maybe even
more than therapeutic for like a personal side
for sure. Where does this work for a business
as far as figuring out their business origin
story? What happens next? Well, it's so funny.
I'll answer that with an example. My partner
is a musician. He plays classical bassoon. And
he has this really fascinating conductor that
he works with on a regular basis. And I said
to him one time, Maestro, can I talk to you about
your origin story? He says, yeah, sure. And turns
out he's Italian, but he was raised in Switzerland.
And even as an eight or nine year old, you know,
playing music. happened almost immediately a
lot of these musicians even my partner he picked
up instruments when he was three years old he
was always fascinated with it so i said maestro
how did it start and he said well me and my cousins
when we were eight or nine years old we'd grab
our instruments and we'd go into you know some
area and we'd play and i i always found i had
to tell them where they needed to sit and how
they needed to perform and i said ah do you see
how that affected you becoming a maestro? And
he said, no, I don't think it is. Okay, maestro.
So here you are, a nine -year -old, and you're
already organizing all these other musicians
and telling them what parts to play and how it's
going to sort out. Can you get that? And he went,
oh, you're right. I had no idea. Wow. I said,
so. how does that fit for you now, now that you
have that awareness? And he said, that brings
me great joy. And then he thanked me. He said,
you know, I was starting to feel like I was getting
stale in the work I was doing. Because even if
it's creative, if it gets repetitious, it's not
as enjoyable. But when he started remembering
the joy he had with his cousins and his friends,
his kids, You know, as kids, we haven't learned
yet about how you're supposed to do things or
what you should be doing. So he remembered that
and that he's been saying that his work since
that conversation has just been exponentially
more fulfilling. He brought some of that forth,
that remembering of how much fun he had when
he was just playing with his cousins. So in some
other cases, you know, I've worked with a lot
of entrepreneurs and it's like, well, why did
you pick that business? And by the way, even
if it's because this is something you felt you
could make money at, great. But there's still
a reason why you chose to become a chef rather
than an accountant. You know, when I talk to
accountants, it's inevitably my parents always
liked, always enjoyed. their budgeting and that
and I always felt like I connected there's there's
typically some connection with the family when
you're a chef and you want to start your own
restaurant there's some connection in your childhood
that around cooking you know my mom was a great
cook for all of her shortcomings she really could
bake and she was a great cook so there's one
of my sisters is a chef and she knew all mom's
recipes and she had all that stuff it's so fascinating
so the other part of it too is sometimes these
accountants take on I worked with a different
accountant who who took this on because his parents
pushed him to say accounting will always mean
you always have a job and and he hated numbers
He was probably like me. I can barely handle
an Excel spreadsheet. But his parents thought,
if you take a job as an accountant, you'll always
have work. You'll never be out of work, which
is a common thing for people when they start
a business or they're picking a career. It's,
what were we told we should do? And when I hear
should, I think, tell me that story. What story?
Who told you you should do this? What's that
story? And it's inevitably, well, the school
said I did well in sciences, so I should be a
doctor. Or I passed some interest test that said
I should do this, so I take that career. And
starting a business is the same thing. You are
running a bunch of stories about why you'll start
this business. Now, there's a difference between
the type of business they start. and why they
decided to go on their own versus working for
somebody else. So that's a whole different set
of stories. If you have started a business, back
to the accountant, you started a financial consulting
business, you do a lot of financial consulting.
I had another client who just loved helping people
with their wealth portfolios, felt that it was
like playing clue or strategy. It was one of
these or chess. You know, chess is a very complex
game. So they excelled at that type of an environment.
So financial planning to them was different than
being an accountant. So it's fascinating to me
how they put this together, and you can always
trace it back to something in their origin story.
I was talking with a guy who wanted tenure, had
been trying forever to get tenure, and would
shift to universities hoping to get tenure. And
he was getting ready to do it again, and he called
me and he said, look, I need to get tenure. And
I said, why? Why do you need it? oh you know
job security and okay where did that come from
well you know my parents and it's inevitably
it inevitably comes back and it's like so how
what was your parents relationship with their
parents oh my grandparents were awesome but how
did your parents get along with them oh my god
my mom hated his her mother because her mother
kept pushing her to do stuff blah blah I said,
do you see how that rolls down the generational
story? And your mom was pushing you because,
and he was like, oh, huh. After five sessions,
he had tenure. Wow. And it was when he said,
you know, you're right. I'm going to quit trying
so hard. It'll happen or it won't happen. I know
I'm a great professor, teacher. I'll always have
work. I'm not going to worry about it. Son of
a gun if a tenure position didn't open and they
called him. He didn't have to apply for it. He
didn't have to do anything. Even better. Yeah.
So I promise you, if it's a CEO of a corporation,
if it's a chief executive, if it's a middle management,
there's an origin story to that. Teachers are
another great one. A lot of women are teachers
because they were told as young women, the teaching
profession is a great profession for you. Now,
not always true. Some people do it because that's
their way they want to help kids. They like working
with kids. They want to help them. But it's so
important to understand that origin story. And
more often than not, it brings together. this
sense of fulfillment of why you've picked this
business that you want to go into or this career
path that you want to do. Tell me more. So fulfillment,
I could see that being like kind of closing the
loop, like understanding why you're in this.
What other, what else does it do for them? Well,
sometimes it sets them free. I had another client
who became a lawyer. because dad was a lawyer
and his dad was a lawyer and you know that's
what we did we were a family of lawyers he was
miserable absolutely miserable wasn't very good
at it had been doing it for 15 years and was
still an associate still hadn't even gotten anything
like a partner track and he he actually I said
to him well what if you had a perfect world because
he kept saying well I'm 40 years old now I can't
change careers now I'm stuck Dude, when I started
this career, you don't want to know how old I
was when I started this career. You just don't.
And he said, well, what could I do? And I said,
well, you make a plan. It turned out he wanted
to become a graphic artist. And he I said. Do
you want to take a class? Take a class and see
if that's what you really want to do. There's
a lot of night classes. There's a lot of things
you can do online right now just to see before
you blow up an income. See if you can do this.
Well, it turns out he took one course. He loved
it. Then he did a weekend adult learning program.
Love that. And actually built a portfolio for
himself and actually did become a designer. Wow.
found his path it took him a little bit of time
it didn't happen overnight but he built his confidence
level with his skill set and and then he needed
to get strong because of course his parents who
were both retired at that point were thought
he was nuts for doing it so there was also that
kind of coaching to help him deal with that that
kind of a shift but he was he was happier than
he'd ever been that's so cool yeah How does your
book fit into this? My book, Life Rewritten,
is the foundational beginnings of why I picked
this path. And it talks about the elements of
storytelling and how I applied those to my life.
And then I provide a how -to section in each
book. So you don't have to go and buy a workbook
after you buy the book. It's pretty straightforward.
I start off with a story from my life and the
story element. that goes along with that and
then how to apply that to your life. My next
book, which will be out hopefully by the fall,
is Business Rewritten. And it's, again, how you
can apply these same principles to business.
So I figure life is first, then business rewritten.
And then I have another book, Money Rewritten.
which talks about the money messages we've been
given and how to deal with the money stories
that we carry so that you can live. I have what
I call the wealth, prosperity, and abundance
quotient, or IQ, the WPA IQ. Most people think
of money. They don't think about prosperity or
abundance and what that means. And so I take
apart the money stories we've been given. so
that you can apply that because the money stories
we've been given affect our careers, affect our
choices with businesses we start. It's an underlying
theme that affects everybody's life is their
money. But again, I call it the wealth, prosperity,
and abundance index because... That's really
what we're talking about. Money is an intangible
concept. It's really not something called hard
fact. So Life Rewritten was the start where I
introduced these ideas of looking at the actual
story elements. I look at characters, themes,
plots, inciting incidents. The inciting incident,
you know what that is as a writer. Why did you
take this journey right now? What event? What
happened? For me, it was when my father died.
I hit rock bottom, and that was it. That told
me I needed to really take a look at my life
and deal with it, and that sent me on this journey.
There's an inciting incident. Why did you start
this business at this time? Are you solving a
problem, or are you addressing something, or
are you taking over a business, or is this just
where your skills lie? Understanding that inciting
incident, why? why is such a foundational thing
to know. That's all covered in Life Rewritten.
And then from there, I take it into these other
ideas. Thank you for being here today. I'm really
happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward. This
is going to get more and more fun. We'll have
more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show. And thank
you for giving us your time and attention. Have
an excellent time building out your vision and
becoming a vision pro yourself.