The Story Is Never Finished

Are we really the best people to interpret our own lives?

Award-winning podcast producer Michael Osborne joins Paige Williams for a conversation about storytelling, identity, listening, truth, creativity, and the stories we use to make sense of ourselves.

After years of producing podcasts and listening to thousands of stories, Michael has come to believe that our own interpretation is always incomplete. Sometimes we need another person—a friend, producer, mentor, advisor, or listener—to help us see what we cannot see ourselves.

In this conversation:

Why Michael says, “I’m just not the best arbiter of my own story.”

How an unexpected conversation at Stanford changed his career

Why ego can talk us down as easily as it talks us up

How other people help us test the stories we tell about ourselves

Why creativity gives us another way to understand experience

What makes a story feel both unpredictable and inevitable

Why great storytelling creates learning and meaning

The responsibility of a producer to the audience

Michael’s idea of “metaphorical possibility”

Why Narrative Intelligence may require us to keep our stories open to revision

Michael’s working definition of Narrative Intelligence:

“A journey to understand the stories that help us make sense of both ourselves and the world while recognizing that those stories are always subject to new events, new information, and most importantly, new interpretation.”

Perhaps the deepest takeaway from this conversation is simple:

The story is never finished.

100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project asks:

How malleable are the stories we live by—and what does it take to change one?

Take the Narrative Quotient assessment at StoryKeys.co and subscribe to follow the full 100 Stories inquiry.