In Part 2 of his three-part series, narrative strategist Chris Hare shares the stories he used to survive. From a near-suicidal season while working at Amazon to a healing moment years later in a record store, this episode unpacks how internal stories—if left unchecked—can become prisons. But when named, challenged, and re-authored, they can also become paths to freedom. For Gen Xers who’ve spent decades carrying stories they didn’t choose, this is a masterclass in taking your story back—and choosing what to build next.When the Narrative Turns Against You“I repeated ‘I’m stuck’ like a mantra—for hours, every week.”Chris reveals how one toxic narrative nearly ended his life, and how a shift in story—triggered by a tragic moment—gave him just enough room to survive.From Mental Health Crisis to Narrative Recovery“I believed I was going to die. That became my story.”He shares his journey through depression, chronic pain, and burnout—and the slow, uncomfortable work of rewriting that internal tape.The Most Powerful Story He Ever Felt“It started with my boss’s tattoo and ended with Eddie Vedder hugging me in a record store.”Chris tells the full-circle story of how a Pearl Jam song became the turning point in his healing—and why storytelling doesn’t just change businesses, it changes people.Storytelling Is a Risk—and a Return“Most of us tell curated stories. The raw ones? That’s where the power is.”He makes a case for telling the stories that aren’t polished. Because those are the stories that truly shift our futures—and invite others to shift with us.From Blame to Responsibility“I had to stop blaming everyone else for my unhappiness.”Chris opens up about how his marriage nearly ended, and how rewriting his personal narrative—through new inputs and radical honesty—brought him back._____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Chris Hare --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.15 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>150,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest of this episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. If you've been listening to my show, you know I bring guests from all corners of the world to share their stories.
Through these stories, we dive into hindsight, insights, and foresight for you, the progressive-minded listeners who crave change. Whether you're navigating a career shift a personal transformation like health challenges or driving change in your organization or community, there's something here for you. Today's episode has a unique twist.
I'm interviewing a storytelling expert to share his own story. My guest, Chris Hare, is a strategic narrative advisor and coach for companies like Amazon and Microsoft, guiding leaders and executives with his approach called Atomic Storytelling. His method breaks down complex stories into their cool, resonant elements.
In this three-part series, we'll journey through Chris' experiences in three stages. Yesterday in part one, we explored his expertise in helping businesses craft compelling corporate story and understand the connection between story and narrative. Today in part two, We'll look at storytelling for personal transformation as Chris shares some of the best and worst stories he's ever heard.
He will also open up about his own mental health challenge. Then in part three... He'll introduce tools we can use to develop our own stories and narratives. And here's a personal confession. I told him one of his exercises might just make me cry. I'll also be sharing my own experience with another exercise. highlighting both its challenges and insights.
So let's dive into the second chapter of Chris' story. So far, we've covered a lot about narrative and storytelling in a business context. But as you mentioned earlier, Narrative can also play a powerful role at an individual level for leaders, for people in career transitions, or even entrepreneurs building a new venture.
My next question naturally is, how do we apply narrative and story to individual situations? Could you walk us through some examples to help industry this?
I found it, and the young people listening might need to go to Wikipedia and look up what a cassette is, but I find it helpful and more visceral to think about narratives and our personal narratives as a cassette tape, a tape that's playing in our head. We're constantly writing and rewriting that and adjusting that.
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Chapter 2: What is Atomic Storytelling and how does it help leaders?
Chapter 3: How can narrative and storytelling be applied to personal transformation?
My next question naturally is, how do we apply narrative and story to individual situations? Could you walk us through some examples to help industry this?
I found it, and the young people listening might need to go to Wikipedia and look up what a cassette is, but I find it helpful and more visceral to think about narratives and our personal narratives as a cassette tape, a tape that's playing in our head. We're constantly writing and rewriting that and adjusting that.
Chapter 4: What examples demonstrate the power of reshaping personal narratives?
This is the future I'm creating, or this is what's happening in the present, or this is what happened in the past, and we fuel that with stories. So I'll give you a few different practical examples. So one, I have this one CEO that I work with. He's a serial CEO and board member. And Chicago MBA, go Chicago, I know you're a fan. Chicago MBA, McKinsey consultant.
When he came to me, he said, it was, how do I, I have one narrative that I use with private equity, another that I use with venture capital. Another that I use with board roles when I'm interviewing. And then I've got my hippie yoga community and my nonprofit work. And what I want is one narrative.
So yes, on the business side, how do I attract more board opportunities without me having to pursue them? How do they come to me? So that was the outcome that he wanted. And I've...
become wise enough to know that I guarantee a process and I guarantee deliverables, but I won't guarantee an outcome because I've seen over and over that these narrative shifts that neither one of us could predict often almost always happen, right?
So with him, when we were done, his narrative, he now has one narrative and an authentic narrative at the core of who he is that came out of his yoga practice, but it can now be used and lensed across each of those different audiences. So now it's an authentic narrative that he can use when he's with his yoga community.
But when he's talking to Goldman Sachs about a business they just acquired, he has that narrative lens. And then he has stories from his experience to support that narrative lens. There's a CEO that I just recently finished working with. And I thought this was going to be my first ever failure. And so this is somebody who has a remarkable story. It's like it could be a movie easily.
They were miserable in their role and they were sick of telling the story and said, Chris, I want a new story. I want you to help me create a new story. And I want to exit my company. And it was fascinating. So in terms of my process, we do future visioning, but not just talking and thinking about it, feeling it. So I put them in that space in the future where they feel that.
And then they're also feeling the choices that they've made across their career, good and bad. Because my goal is not to burnish their reputation or that's not my initial goal is to pull out all of the realities of what happened and how that impacts them, how that makes them feel for better or worse.
And then we do storytelling across their lifespan, going all the way back to when they were a little kid. And I look for patterns and energy there. So I'd done those two steps with this client and it wasn't succeeding. And I thought, okay, this is going to be my first ever failure. And then we did the third part of my framework, which I call Atomic 360.
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Chapter 5: Why is it challenging to tell our own stories accurately?
I love that. So the one thing I would add to that to, in my mind, make that analogy. work incredibly well is you. So you're the one that's building with those bricks. So if we look at just the bricks on their own, that shows us a static structure that's made up of those stories. So I 100% agree with that. And then you are the dynamic piece of that.
You are the one who comes in and assembles those pieces from your past to assemble those new potential futures and that narrative. So I just want to zoom out or pull out slightly so that it definitely incorporates you in the energy that you bring, because that's what we do is really we're shaping those pieces from our past. So, yes, absolutely love that analogy.
My own sense of self-awareness has grown over time. Now, I talk to different people, like entrepreneurs, who say, Oh, I know myself better than anyone else. And they have a lot of confidence in their own self-awareness. But telling our own story, crafting our narrative, or even deciding which bricks to use and how to arrange them isn't that easy because we all have blind spots.
So my question for you is, what are some common blind spots or barriers that make telling our own story or building self-awareness so challenging? And why is it helpful to bring in someone like you to help with this process?
Yeah, so I think part of it is distance, our proximity. So we're so close to our own narrative and to our own stories that we don't see the broader picture. So if you're building with Legos, you might not see that there's a gigantic pile of Legos that's behind you.
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Chapter 6: How does an external perspective help uncover hidden personal narratives?
Right.
Or that you could order more online. Or here's another way to assemble them that you might not have thought of. Absolutely. I had one leader that I worked with. They just started talking and they'd done a lot of therapy, but they'd also gone through a huge spiritual transformation because of all the work that they'd done.
Once I put them in the right environment and had the right framing, everything just flowed out. But the next piece is that especially in the business world. And when you talk storytelling, I generally don't believe what people say. This is my most important story or this is my narrative because I've seen so many times that generally the narrative is there, but it's hidden.
And so my job is to put you in a space to where we can uncover that. And so where the kind of the mass media conversation around storytelling can be can create even more challenges is we think like the hero's journey, for example. Oh, I need to take this framework. And Chris is asking me about to tell my story and I've got to fit it into this framework. And I actually want the opposite.
I actually create what feels like a fairly chaotic environment when I'm asking for stories. And it may feel all over the map. I've had people that don't believe me or don't trust me about why I ask certain questions. But my goal is for you to collide with stories from your past that you've forgotten about, that you don't value, that you don't think are relevant.
and synthesize those because they are a critical part of what made you, you. I have this one client who, the first time I met him before we were working together, he told a colleague of mine, I met Chris, I really liked him. I'm like, oh man, this guy's great. I would love to work with him. And then he started asking me all these questions and I'm like, what? Oh man, Chris doesn't get what I do.
These are crazy questions. This isn't going to work. And then we got to the end and I was like, Holy cow, Chris gets me, right? And so the point being is, it's really about what are those elements for the past that we can uncover and then use those to shape the future. And generally, they're not at the level that you've processed.
like the level that you've gotten to it can be far beyond that so i have a client that i just recently finished working with and his story will be published at some point he is an m a advisor and for lower mid market lower and or small businesses and His whole thing is coming into businesses that look really good on the surface.
There's a lot of wealth locked up in the business but the business has a ton of chaos. And so he comes in and fixes that chaos and then helps them maximize their value and eventually their exit. most prolific storyteller i've ever worked with period to the point that i mean it almost my brain can handle a lot it almost melted my brain but what was interesting is where we got to his narrative is
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Chapter 7: What are some surprising stories clients have discovered about themselves?
But again, that was a story that he told and never saw it from that perspective. And not realizing that is a part of that flows through him. It's a part of who he is now.
Over the years, you've worked with so many people and have seen firsthand how they tell the stories and craft the narratives. So what's the worst story you've ever heard?
Yes, there's a lot of bad ones out there, but I think I'll pick on myself. And for this part gets a bit from a really challenging part of my journey. So in 2015, when I worked at Amazon, my mental health was in a really bad place and I nearly took my life.
What was interesting in retrospect is there was something that happened to me and I remember going to work the next day and believing that I was stuck. in the situation that I was this, I won't go into the situation, but I was stuck in this situation.
And there were some days where I was commuting up to three hours round trip in the dark, in the rain, in the Seattle, the terrible Seattle weather that we have. And I was in this place where I was stuck. It felt stuck in this job. I felt stuck in my car. I had chronic pain and I had a terrible situation at work. And so what happened is I would repeat over and over again.
I started to repeat, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. And I would do this for hours every week. And it became a mantra. You talk about the power of a mantra. Usually it's a positive mantra. This was a negative mantra. So I would repeat that. So that story was the thing that happened to me that precipitated this. And there were a bunch of other stories.
And that tape that played in my head, that narrative was, I'm stuck. And then one day, tragically, I saw I drove past a car of a gentleman who had just died in an accident. And all of a sudden, so that was a story. All of a sudden, my narrative internally became not I'm stuck. It became I'm going to die. And so I would repeat that narrative over and over again.
And I remember falling asleep in traffic one day, almost falling asleep. And then I remember almost swerving into a truck and I like those kinds of things. And those little tiny stories would keep reinforcing this narrative to the point that actually took me to the edge where I nearly took my life.
I know it's heavy, but that's part of why I believe in this work so much is because those, the way that we take those stories and synthesize them can be very high stakes. So like in that moment, you might, for somebody else, so you're in that situation, it might not hit you the way that it hit me and you might synthesize it in a different way.
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Chapter 8: What is the worst story Chris Hare has ever heard in his work?
How did you go about breaking it down and then recomposing it into something much more empowering?
As a creative person, when I went to Amazon, One of my clients, who was the director at the time, became the VP there. He would always talk about inputs and outputs. And it used to drive me nuts because as a creative person, I'm like, no, I just want to envision this future and do creative things. But it really is that. It's inputs and outputs.
But the challenge that I had was the inputs and how I synthesized them. In my case, one, you do have to hit. I shouldn't say hit rock bottom. I think that's part of it in some cases. But you need something that Fletcher at the Ohio State University, narrative scientist, and what he talks about as a plot twist. So there needs to, something needs to happen.
to create a shift, to shock you out of your way of thinking at times, give you a vision of a new possible future. So for me, a part of my narrative was also very much blaming other people. Now, to be fair, I had a terrible manager.
I had a lot that had happened across the course of my life, but I had taken all of that and said, I would claim that I took responsibility for my life, but I would blame others for the things that happened to me. I had to get to a place and in 2020, my marriage almost ended. My wife and I are now back together.
But to get through that, I had to completely rewrite my narrative and go from blaming others to taking responsibility and shifting so that to view a different future. My wife and I, for quite a long season, would actually say, we found it helpful to actually voice, and I would encourage listeners to do this as well, voice what the narrative is.
So in our case, it was, here's the narrative of what I'm believing about you in this moment, or I'm believing about this situation. I know it's not true based on this new future that we're creating, but this is what I'm feeling and believing at this moment. It really is, how do you create new inputs?
And so if you're in a place where you move into, whether we're talking business situation or personally with mental health, if you continue to put in the same inputs, things likely won't change for you. But for me, one of the positive inputs that I changed was I got into fly fishing. And so that put me in the energy of the river.
It put me in all the movement and all the creativity that goes into that, all the analyzing the river and trying to figure out where the fish is, but mostly just for me being in nature, right? That was a part of changing those inputs so that I could shift the, not only the narrative, but the, the outcomes of that narrative.
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