What Does the Story Cost You?

You can understand exactly where a story came from and still keep living it. Dr. David Drake has spent 30 years developing narrative coaching, helping people work with the stories shaping their lives.

And he challenged several assumptions I brought into this conversation.

Recognition isn’t necessarily change.

Understanding why you developed a pattern doesn’t mean you are free of it. Transformation may be much rarer than we like to believe.

And sometimes the question isn’t, What new story should I tell?

It’s: What did the old story cost me—and what do I need to release before I can live differently?

David describes stories not as fixed commodities but as living processes that change as we change. He argues that the same event can carry different meaning at different points in our lives, and that meaningful change may be less about erasing a story than gaining freedom over how much authority it has over us.

We also pressure-test the emerging Narrative Intelligence framework, including the roles of self-regulation, context, choice, release, and enactment—and whether Narrative Intelligence should ultimately be measured at all.

The question I’m left with: What story are you able to understand perfectly, but still not free enough to stop living?