How the Stories We Believe Shape Our Success—or Failure

What we believe about ourselves—and what others believe about us—has a powerful impact on how we behave and, therefore, what we achieve. A famous study documenting this effect presented students with a fake IQ test.[1] When the “results” came through, their teachers were told that a random selection of the students were on the verge of a great intellectual blossoming.

What do you imagine happened in those classrooms? Those identified as being on the cusp of rapid intellectual growth fulfilled those expectations, simply in response to the subtle differences in the way teachers treated them. The teachers’ cues created a new reality for the students; they were expected to achieve, so they did. Of course, simply identifying kids as geniuses doesn’t make it so, but the narrative that the teachers were telling themselves shaped their reality to the extent that it significantly affected their performance.

The Genius of Thomas Edison—and the (Probably) True Story of How It Almost Went Undiscovered

Famed as the inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, Thomas Edison is a household name. Not a single person reading this article remains unaffected by his supremely influential work. Yet, it’s surprisingly possible to imagine an alternative timeline in which Edison’s genius never came to fruition.

Gerald Beals, in his biography of Thomas Edison, relates the following tale:

When he was in grammar school, Thomas Edison came home one day with a paper for his mother. He said his teacher had told him to give it directly to her. She was the only one allowed to read it. As she read it out loud, she fought to hold back tears.

“Your son is a genius,” she said. “This school is not big enough for him and our teachers are not good enough to train him. Please teach him yourself.” That’s how Thomas Edison came to be homeschooled, and part of how he became one of the greatest inventors ever.

In his later years, as he was going through some old things, Edison discovered the letter that his old teacher had written to his mother. For the first time, he read it himself. It didn’t say he was a genius. It said, “Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.”

Two shockingly different narratives. One contributed to the life story of a man hailed as an intellectual giant. The other, which fortunately never came to pass, could have heralded a very different future, both for Edison himself and for all of us who rely on his inventions.

The key insight here is that neither story was objectively true. Perhaps Edison’s teachers were right, in some respects. Perhaps there were ways in which he exhibited signs of mental deficiency. Yet his mother took it upon herself to make the first narrative true, and we will always know Edison as a genius.

What Limiting Stories Are You Telling Yourself?

The relevance of Thomas Edison’s story is that we all absorb stories about ourselves that shape our self-perception and behavior. When we’re children, it’s hard to engage critically with them, but as adults we have the awareness to choose which stories we will adopt and which we will dismiss.

One of the most dangerous stories we tell ourselves is “I can’t.” The moment we say, “I can’t,” it becomes true. I can’t send salespeople to all our sites because we’re understaffed. I can’t bring on investors because my operation is immature. I can’t break into a new market because I don’t have enough confidence in your team.

If we think this way, we box ourselves into a corner, believing we have no options. The options may not be obvious, but they are out there, waiting to be discovered. If we commit to “I can’t” we never even look for them.

Investigating the stories we tell ourselves isn’t that complicated. It’s a matter of observing the reflexive responses that float to the surface when we’re faced with specific challenges. When we do that, we give ourselves options. We can ask which stories serve us and which we want to discard. It’s a constant process—no one ever uprooted all their negative stories in half an hour—but the sooner you make a start, the sooner you will notice the benefits.

[1] Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, “Pygmalion in the Classroom,” The Urban Review 3, no.1 (1968): 16–20.