Part One — Old Stories: Recognizing Your Narrative
Stop 1. “That’s Your Story?”
Stop 2. “The Premise of Your Story, the Purpose of Your Life”
Stop 3. “How Faithful a Narrator Are You?”
Stop 4. “Is It Really Your Story You’re Living?”
Stop 5. “The Private Voice”
Stop 6. “The Three Rules of Storytelling”
Part Two — New Stories: Rewriting and Living the Transformation
Stop 7. “It Is Not About Time”
Stop 8. “Resources to Live Your Best Story”
Stop 9. “Indoctrinate Yourself”
Stop 10. “Turning Story into Action”
Stop 11. “Finishing the Story”
Stop 12. “Storyboarding the Transformation”
Introduction
I am Peter de Kuster, founder of The Hero’s Journey and The Heroine’s Journey, and for much of my life, I have believed in the transformative power of stories—especially the ones we tell ourselves. But it took a near‑death experience to truly open my eyes to what I wanted to dedicate my life to: helping others discover, shape, and share their unique stories, and in doing so, to rewrite my own.
Lying in that hospital bed, suspended between what was and what could be, I realized how fragile and precious life is. All the plans, the business meetings, the deadlines—they faded into insignificance. What remained was a burning question: What story do I want to tell with the rest of my life? The answer was clear. I wanted to travel, to write, to tell stories.
So I set out on my own Hero’s Journey, not just as a traveler, but as a collector of stories. London was my first chapter: a city of contrasts, where ancient stones and modern ambition collide. I wandered through its bookstores, speaking with creative professionals who, like me, were searching for meaning in their work. I listened to their stories of success and failure, and I began to see that every person is the hero of their own life, facing dragons both real and imagined.
Paris followed—a city where storytelling is woven into the very fabric of life. Here, in the cafés and on the walks into the city, I discovered that the stories we tell ourselves are the ones that shape our destinies. I invited others to join me in rewriting their narratives, to embrace change, and to see mistakes not as failures, but as the sum of valuable experience. I wrote books—over fifty, in fact—each one a guide for creative professionals, entrepreneurs, and leaders who wanted to turn their passions into their livelihoods.
Rome, Florence, Berlin—each city became a stage for new stories, new heroes. I learned that leadership is not about control, but about inviting others on a common quest, about creating a community of storytellers who inspire each other to greatness. I saw firsthand how powerful it is when people realize they can change their story, and in doing so, transform their business and their life.
But as the years passed, and my suitcase grew heavier with notebooks and memories, I noticed something shifting in the background of my own story. My parents’ voices, once strong and reassuring, grew softer on the phone. Their stories became tinged with nostalgia, their steps a little slower. I realized that while I had been traveling the world, the most important chapters of my life—those with my family—were quietly unfolding at home in the Netherlands.
It was a choice born not of obligation, but of love. I returned to the Netherlands, determined to spend more time with my parents, to be present for the small, everyday moments that make up the true heart of any story. I discovered new meaning in the familiar: the comfort of shared memories, the simple act of being together.
Through it all, I have remained committed to my mission: to help others discover the power of their own stories. Whether in Amsterdam, Paris, or writing in a café, I invite people to explore the stories they tell themselves, to rewrite the chapters that no longer serve them, and to become the heroes of their own lives. For in the end, our stories are not just about where we travel, but about the connections we forge, the love we give and receive, and the legacy we leave behind.
As I continue to write, travel, and guide others on their own Hero’s & Heroine’s Journeys, I know now that the greatest adventure is not out there in the world, but within ourselves—and in the stories we choose to live each day.
Ikiru (1952, Akira Kurosawa)
In Ikiru, a Tokyo bureaucrat learns that he is dying of cancer and that the life he has lived—safe, obedient, and emotionally restrained—no longer reflects the story he wants to tell. The film mirrors the moment in your introduction where you lie in the hospital bed and suddenly see the fragility of life. Just as your protagonist realizes that “the story I have been telling myself might be holding me back,” so too does the bureaucrat confront the quiet emptiness of his own narrative. The film then shows how the recognition of mortality becomes the starting point for a conscious rewrite: instead of fading into resignation, he dedicates the remaining time to building a public playground, a small but profoundly meaningful act that redefines the story of his life. The power of Ikiru lies in its quiet dignity: it dramatizes your core idea that the story can be rewritten even late in life, not by grand gestures, but by aligning one final chapter with authenticity and care. For your program, the film becomes a perfect mirror of the transition from living unconsciously to living intentionally, from scripting your life for others to scripting it for yourself.
The Hero’s Journey and the Heroine’s Journey
Stories that don’t work happen to everyone, not just the weak or incapable. In fact, they may happen more to the “successful” among us.
I see it every day, at the Hero’s Journey and Heroine’s Journey project, where great creative professionals and entrepreneurs come seeking transformation. The only way for me and my team to help the dozen or so organizations and thousands of individuals we meet each year to improve in the power of their story—short of dynamiting and rethinking the many tired, entrenched practices and beliefs of corporate culture and myths about creative entrepreneurship—is to help those who come through the Hero’s Journey & Heroine’s Journey programs to commit genuinely to improving themselves. And the only way to do that I have learned is to get participants to confront the truth about their current flawed stories.
Our stories shape how we see ourselves and the world. They are the lens through which we interpret success, failure, creativity, and leadership. Yet so often these stories are incomplete, limiting, or simply outdated. The Hero’s Journey and Heroine’s Journey programs are designed to help people recognize these limitations and take responsibility for rewriting their narratives.
We start by inviting participants to face the uncomfortable truth: the story they have been telling themselves might be holding them back. This confrontation is essential because it breaks the spell of unconscious patterns and myths that corporate culture and creative entrepreneurship often perpetuate. Once this truth is acknowledged, participants can begin the real work of transformation.
Through guided reflection, storytelling exercises, and immersive experiences, we support creative professionals and entrepreneurs in crafting new stories that align with their authentic values, strengths, and aspirations. These new narratives are not just inspiring words but living frameworks that guide action and decision‑making.
The power of this approach is that it empowers people to become the authors of their own lives. By committing to personal growth and storytelling mastery, they unlock resilience, clarity, and purpose. This, in turn, enables them to lead with greater impact and creativity.
At the core, the Hero’s Journey and Heroine’s Journey are about more than storytelling. They are about transformation—helping people break free from limiting beliefs and step into their fullest potential. This is why every day, I see the profound difference it makes when participants embrace the challenge to confront their current story and commit to writing a new one.
What do I mean by “story”? I don’t intend to offer tips on how to fine‑tune the mechanics of telling stories to enhance the desired effect on listeners. And I do not mean the boilerplate, holier‑than‑thou brand stories often found in the Mission Statement of corporate websites, or the “Here’s‑why‑we’ll‑absolutely‑meet‑our‑fourth‑quarter‑numbers” narrative yarn turned pep‑rally that team leaders often like to spin to rally the troops.
No, I wish to examine the most compelling story about storytelling—namely, how we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves. Indeed, the idea of “one’s own story” is so powerful, so native, that I hardly consider it a metaphor, as if it’s some new lens through which to look at life. Your life is your story. Your story is your life. When stories we read or watch or listen to are triumphant, they are so because they fundamentally remind us what is most true or possible in life—even when it is an escapist romantic comedy or sci‑fi fantasy or fairy tale. If you are human, then you tell yourself stories—positive ones and negative, consciously and, far more than not, subconsciously. Stories that span a single episode, or a year, or a semester, or a weekend, or a relationship, or a season, or an entire tenure on this planet. Telling ourselves stories helps us navigate our way through life because they provide structure and direction. “Just seeing my life as a story,” said one of my clients, “allowed me to establish a sort of road map, so when I have to make decisions about what I need to do, the map makes it easier, takes away a lot of stress.”
Indeed we are actually wired to tell stories: The human brain, according to a New York Times article about scientists investigating why we think the way we do, has evolved into a narrative‑creating machine that takes “whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently random” and imposes on it “chronology and cause‑and‑effect logic.” Writes Justin Barrett, psychologist at Oxford University: “We automatically and often unconsciously look for an explanation of why things happen to us and ‘stuff just happens’ is no explanation” (which feeds one possible theory for why we need, or even create, God or Gods). Stories impose meaning on the chaos; they organize and give context to our sensory experiences, which otherwise might seem like no more than a fairly colorless sequence of facts. Facts are meaningless until you create a story around them.
The Remains of the Day (1993, James Ivory)
In The Remains of the Day, the English butler Mr. Stevens has lived a life of strict service and self‑discipline, constructing a story around loyalty, duty, and emotional restraint. Over decades, that story becomes his identity; he becomes the very character his narrative describes. The film illustrates your point that “our stories shape how we see ourselves and the world” by showing how Stevens interprets success, love, and sacrifice entirely through the lens of obedience. Only later, looking back on missed opportunities and suppressed emotions, does he begin to see how deeply that inherited story has shaped his life. The film mirrors the moment when participants in the Hero’s Journey confront the truth that the story they have been telling themselves might be holding them back. Stevens’ quiet realization that his life could have been different if he had allowed himself to tell a different story—of love, risk, and authenticity—parallels the recognition that many executives experience in your programs: the story of “I am responsible for everything but my own happiness” is not a destiny but a choice. For your work, The Remains of the Day becomes a metaphor for the shift from living someone else’s story to writing one’s own.
What Do I Mean by “Story”?
A story is our creation of a reality; indeed, our story matters more than what actually happens. Is there really any difference, as someone famously asked, between the life of a king who sleeps twelve hours a day dreaming he’s a pauper, and that of a pauper who sleeps twelve hours a day dreaming he’s a king?
By “story” I mean those tales we create and tell ourselves and others, and which form the only reality we will ever know in this life. Our stories may or may not conform to the real world. They may or may not inspire us to take hope‑filled action to better our lives. They may or may not take us where we ultimately want to go. But since our destiny follows our stories, it is imperative that we do everything in our power to get our stories right.
For most of us, that means some serious editing.
To edit a dysfunctional story, you must first identify it. To do that you must answer the question: In which important areas of my life is it clear that I cannot achieve my goals with the story I have got? Only after confronting and satisfactorily answering this question can you expect to build new reality‑based stories that will take you where you want to go.
Is this all starting to sound a little vague? I’m not surprised. But hold on. I understand you may be thinking, Life as a story? The whole concept strikes you, perhaps, as a tad… soft. “I don’t look at my life in terms of story,” you say. I disagree. Your life is the most important story you will ever tell, and you are telling it right now, whether you know it or not. From very early on you are spinning and telling multiple stories about your life, publicly and privately, stories that have a theme, a tone, a premise—whether you know it or not. Some stories are for better, some for worse. No one lacks material. Everyone’s got a story.
And thank goodness. Because our capacity to tell stories is, I believe, just about our profoundest gift. Perhaps the true power of the story metaphor is best captured by this seeming contradiction: we employ the word “story” to suggest both the wildest of dreams (“It is just a story…”) and an unvarnished depiction of reality (“Okay, what is the story?”). How is that for range?
The challenge? Most of us are not writers. “I am not a professional novelist,” one client said to me, when finally the time came for him to put pen to paper. “If this is the story of my life, you are damn right I’m intimidated. Can you give me a little help in how to get this out?” That’s what I intend to do with the Hero’s Journey and The Heroine’s Journey project. First, help you to identify how pervasive the story is in life, your life, and second, to rewrite it.
Every life has elements to it that every story has—beginning, middle, and end; theme; subplots; trajectory; tone.
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
In The Third Man, the protagonist, Holly Martins, arrives in postwar Vienna to find his friend, Harry Lime, supposedly dead under mysterious circumstances. As he investigates, he uncovers a far more complex and morally ambiguous version of the story than he imagined. The film dramatizes precisely what you describe here: the realization that the story one has been told is not the whole truth. Like the participants in your program, Martins begins with a simplistic narrative—one of heroism and innocence—but as he confronts the reality of Lime’s duplicity and the environment of betrayal that surrounds him, his story fractures and must be rewritten. The film becomes a powerful metaphor for the moment when a previously unquestioned worldview collapses under scrutiny. The transition from certainty to confusion, and from there to a deeper understanding, mirrors the experience of your clients as they begin to question the stories they have been telling themselves and others. For your work, The Third Man illustrates that storytelling is not about comforting fictions, but about the courage to confront ambiguity, complexity, and the possibility that the story we thought we knew is not the one that reflects reality.
Story is Everywhere in Life
Story is everywhere in life. Perhaps your story is that you are responsible for the happiness and livelihoods of dozens of people around you and you are the unappreciated hero. If you see things in more general terms, maybe your story is that the world is full of traps and misfortune—at least for you—and you’re the perpetual victim (“I’m always so unlucky… I always end up getting the short end of the stick… People can’t be trusted and will take advantage of me if I give them the chance…”).
If you are focused on one subplot—business, say—then maybe your story is that you sincerely want to execute the major initiatives in your company, yet you are restricted in some essential way and thus can never get far enough from the forest to see the trees. Maybe your story is that you must keep chasing even though you already seem to have a lot (even too much) because the point is to get more and more of it—money, prestige, power, control, attention. Maybe your story is that you and your children just can’t connect. Or your story might be essentially a rejection of another story—and everything you do is filtered through that rejection.
Stories are everywhere. Your body tells a story. The smile or frown on your face, your shoulders thrust back in confidence or slumped roundly in despair, the liveliness or fatigue in your gait, the sparkle of hope and joy in your eyes or the blank stare, your fitness, the size of your gut, the tone and strength of your physical being, your overall presentation—those are all part of your story, one that’s especially apparent to everyone else. We judge books by their covers not simply because we are wired to judge quickly but because the cover so often provides astonishingly accurate clues to what is going on inside. What is your story about your physical self? Does it truly work for you? Can it take you where you want to go in the short term? How about ten years from now? What about thirty?
You have a story about your company, though your version may depart wildly from your customer’s or business partners. You have a story about your family. Anything that consumes our energy can be a story, even if we don’t always call it a story. There is the story of your relationship. The story of you and food, or you and anger, or you and impossible dreams. The story of you, the friend. The story of you, your father’s son or your mother’s daughter. Some of these stories work and some of them fail. According to my experience, an astounding number of these stories, once they are identified, are deemed tragic—not by me, mind you, but by the people living them.
Like it or not, there will be a story around your death. What will it be? Will you die a senseless death? Perhaps you drank too much and failed to buckle your seat belt and were thrown from your car, or you died from colon cancer because you refused to undergo an embarrassing colonoscopy years before when the disease was treatable. Or after years of bad nutrition, no exercise, and abuse of your body, you suffered a fatal heart attack at age fifty‑nine. “Senseless death” means that it did not have to happen when it happened; it means your story did not have to end the way it ended. Think about the effect the story of your senseless death might have on your family, on those you care about who you are leaving behind. How would that story impact their life stories? Ask yourself, “Am I okay dying a senseless death?” Your immediate reaction is almost certainly, “No! Of course not!”
I’m not trying to be morbid. Story—which dies if deprived of energy—is not about death but life. Yet if you continue to tell a bad story, if you continue to give energy to a bad story, then you will almost assuredly beget another bad one, or ten. Why is abuse so commonly passed from one generation to the next? How much is the recurrence of obesity, diabetes, and certain other diseases across families a genetic predisposition, and how much is the repetition of a dangerous story about food and physical exertion?
The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is driven from their Oklahoma farm by the Dust Bowl, poverty, and corporate exploitation, only to find uncertain hope in California. The film dramatizes the idea that “stories are everywhere” and that collective hardship can be transformed into a shared narrative of resilience. The Joads’ story is not just about survival, but about the creation of meaning in the face of chaos. Their journey becomes a myth for an entire generation of displaced workers, illustrating how personal stories can become collective ones. The film underscores the danger of “senseless stories”—narratives of despair and helplessness that keep people trapped in patterns of deprivation and abuse. Yet it also shows how those stories can be rewritten into ones of courage, solidarity, and the pursuit of dignity. For your work, The Grapes of Wrath mirrors the moment when participants realize that the stories they tell about family, work, health, and death have consequences beyond their own lives—they shape the stories of others, and sometimes entire communities. The film becomes a powerful reminder that the stories we choose to live are not just personal; they are cultural.
Unhealthy storytelling is characterized by a diet of faulty thinking and, ultimately, long‑term negative consequences. This undetectable, yet inexorable progression is not unlike what happens to coronary arteries from a high‑fat, high‑cholesterol diet. In the body, the consequence of such a diet is hardening of the arteries. In the mind, the consequence of bad storytelling is hardening of the categories, narrowing of the possibilities, calcification of perception. Both roads lead to tragedy, often quietly.
The cumulative effect of our damaging stories will have tragic consequences on our health, engagement, performance, and happiness. Because we can’t confirm the damage our defective storytelling is wreaking, we disregard it, or veto our gut reactions to make a change. Then one day we awaken to the reality that we have become cynical, negative, angry. That is now who we are. Though we never quite saw it coming, that is now our true story.
It is not just individuals who tell stories about themselves; groups do it, too. Nations and religions and universities, companies and sports teams and political parties each tell stories about themselves to capture the imagination of their constituencies. Companies tell their stories to engage their customers and, increasingly, their workforce, stories which must be internally consistent and powerful if they’re to succeed over time.
8½ (1963, Federico Fellini)
In 8½, the filmmaker Guido Anselmi is preparing his next movie, yet he finds himself trapped in creative paralysis, haunted by ghosts of the past, and unable to reconcile the story he wants to tell with the one he has been living. The film dramatizes the concept of “unhealthy storytelling”: the process of creating rigid, self‑serving narratives that lock us into repetitive patterns. Guido’s struggle is not merely artistic; it is existential. The story he has told himself about his life—his success, his failures, his relationships—has become a prison of stereotype and expectation. His neurotic, fragmented thoughts mirror the mind “hardened” by narrow, self‑defeating stories: perceptions narrowed, possibilities collapsed. The film shows how the breakdown of storytelling can precede the breakthrough: only when Guido lets go of the neat, edited versions of himself can he begin to imagine new, more authentic stories—both for his life and his work. For your work, 8½ becomes a metaphor for the moment when participants realize that the story they have been telling themselves must be shattered before it can be rewritten. The film’s iconic dream sequences and surreal imagery parallel the inner chaos that often precedes transformation in the Hero’s Journey: the moment when the story becomes so broken that it must be rebuilt from the ground up.
Throughout this seminar I will detail how such organizations and their employees have reworked their story to the great advantage of both their business and their culture.
For twenty‑five years I have studied human behavior and performance, and been privileged to witness many success stories of positive behavioral change: better relationships at home and at work, better job performance, weight loss and all‑around improved health and lowering of health risks; love, excitement, joy and the discovery of talents heretofore buried. My experience has led me to see that these changes may be brought about by a unique integration of all the human sciences.
Over the past 30 years, my work has been deeply rooted in exploring flow experiences—those moments of deep engagement and creativity where challenge meets skill perfectly, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. What I have discovered is that flow is not just a psychological state but a transformative journey, especially when combined with the power of storytelling. Storytelling provides the narrative framework that helps individuals and leaders make sense of their experiences, integrate their passions, and sustain flow beyond fleeting moments.
In my leadership journeys, such as the immersive three‑day experience in Venice, I use storytelling archetypes like the Hero’s Journey and Commedia dell’Arte to create conditions that naturally foster flow. These timeless narrative structures help participants embody roles and challenges that align with their skills, creating a balance that triggers flow states. Storytelling here is not just decoration—it is a tool for meaning‑making and motivation, enabling people to connect their personal and professional challenges to a larger, inspiring narrative.
Client feedback has been essential throughout this journey. From the earliest workshops to the latest leadership retreats, I have consistently integrated participant reflections and stories to refine the frameworks and exercises. This iterative process ensures that the storytelling methods remain relevant, practical, and deeply resonant. Clients often report that framing their challenges within a story helps them gain clarity, see new possibilities, and sustain the passion that fuels flow. Their feedback has confirmed that storytelling is the bridge between abstract flow theory and real‑world application, making flow accessible and sustainable in everyday leadership and creative work.
In sum, my three decades of work show that flow and storytelling are inseparable partners. Flow offers the experience of peak engagement, while storytelling provides the narrative structure that helps individuals understand, sustain, and share that experience meaningfully. This synergy, continuously refined through client collaboration, is at the heart of my approach to leadership and creativity.
Of course, some people who have travelled with me on the Hero’s Journey & Heroine’s Journey are utterly unaffected by what we do and what they’re exposed to. Why? Some feel their ‘story’ needs no major reworking (and perhaps they’re absolutely right). Some fail to buy in to what we do because they’re just moving too fast. For some, the timing isn’t right (though, as I intend to show, it is always the right moment to change: now). Whatever the reason, for virtually every group I encounter, 20%—the percentage is like clockwork—are simply not interested in what we have to say.
I respect that. The Hero’s Journey and the Heroine’s Journey was not designed to push an agenda. While I passionately believe that the story metaphor is universal and, with awareness, can be extraordinarily beneficial, it ‘works’ only when the individual is willing to look hard at the major problem areas in his or her life, explore why they’re problems, then meaningfully change the problem elements, be they structure or content, which are causing a profound lack of productivity, fulfillment, engagement, and sense of purpose. We work with people. We don’t stand over them and make them do something they don’t want.
Unlike many practitioners in the field of performance improvement, I do not believe you can have it all. It’s an absurd proposition. I don’t believe that every day will be a great day, that you can eliminate regret and despair and worry, that you will always be moving forward, that you will always succeed, that you won’t veer off track again. I do believe that you can have what is most important to you. And that this is achievable if you’re willing to follow the steps of the process advocated in this seminar.
Who are the people who come to The Hero’s Journey & The Heroine’s Journey with dysfunctional life stories that need serious editing? They are, simply put, among the smartest, most talented, most ambitious, most creative people in their communities and professional circles. Some participants even bring, or return with spouses, friends or parents. They tend to have lots of responsibilities, they’re accountable for a great deal that goes on in their companies, they often make lots and lots of money… yet, perhaps ironically, for all their accomplishments they can’t seem to get their stories right. On the questionnaire I ask clients to fill out before they come down to a world city for our two‑and‑a‑half‑day journeys (or to the one‑and‑two‑day events we conduct around the world) they are asked, among other things, to write down some of the most important parts of their life story. “My father died young of emphysema,” wrote the CEO of his family’s company. Later on the questionnaire, he wrote, “I smoke two packs a day.” Still later, describing one of his goals for the now fifty‑year‑old company, he wrote, “On the evening celebrating our company’s seventy‑fifth anniversary, I want to be able to look back on yet another quarter century of quality, growth and profitability.”
How can these three sentences follow from each other without their author acknowledging that, taken together, they add up to utter nonsense? Especially when the author is superbly gifted in so many other areas?
“The most important thing in my life is my family,” wrote one client, “and if things continue in the direction they’re going, I’m almost certainly heading for divorce and complete estrangement from my children.”
I’ll give him this much: At least he saw the tragedy coming.
In a previous Hero’s Journey book I argued that one of our biggest problems is rooted in our flawed belief that simply investing time in the things we care about will generate a positive return. That belief and the story that flows from it are simply not true. We can spend time with our families, be present at dinnertime, have lunches with our direct colleagues, remember to call home when traveling, put in 45 minutes on the treadmill five days a week—we can all do all of it—but if we’re too exhausted, too distracted, too frustrated and angry when ‘doing’ these things, the positive return we hoped for will simply not materialize. Without investing high‑quality, focused energy in the activity before you, whatever it may be, setting time aside simply takes us from absenteeism to presenteeism.
All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
In All About Eve, the aging actress Margo Channing sees her career and personal world upended by the arrival of a seemingly devoted fan, Eve Harrington, who turns out to be a calculated manipulator. The film dramatizes the risk of living a story that is externally validated but internally hollow. Margo’s narrative of success and self‑worth is built on the applause of others; when that applause begins to waver, her sense of self fractures. The film exposes the danger of stories that are shaped solely to meet expectation rather than truth: Eve crafts a false narrative of humility and devotion that Margo’s story is too eager to accept. The moment Margo steps back from the illusion and reassesses her life—not through the lens of others’ opinions but through her own values—parallels the “aha” moment in the Hero’s Journey when a participant realizes that the story they have been telling themselves may be pleasing to the world but not to themselves. For your work, All About Eve becomes a metaphor for the importance of authenticity in storytelling: the power of a story lies not in its polish, but in its alignment with the storyteller’s inner truth. The film illustrates that the greatest transformation begins when we stop performing stories for others and start living ones that honor our own integrity.
Presenteeism and Energy
Presenteeism is a condition increasingly plaguing entrepreneurs, a vague malady defined as impaired job performance because one is medically or otherwise physically or psychologically compromised. Is an entrepreneur who is too fatigued or mentally not there for eight hours really better than no one? How about a parent? A spouse? Time has value only in its intersection with energy; therefore, it becomes priceless in its intersection with extraordinary energy—something which I call full engagement. Or flow. Or bliss.
In what areas are you disengaged right now? Whatever the answer, you’re likely to lay a good deal of the blame for this disengagement on external facts—overwork, the time and psychic demands of dealing with aging parents, frequent travel, an unsupportive spouse, not enough hours in the day, debt, not my fault, out of my hands, too much to do, always on the call—but such excuse‑making is neither helpful nor accountable.
We enjoy the privilege of being the hero, the final author of the story we write with our life, yet we possess a marvelous capacity to give ourselves only a supporting role in the ‘storytelling’ process, while ascribing the premier, dominant role to the markets, our family, our kids, fate, chance, genetics. Getting our stories straight in life does not happen without our understanding that the most precious resource that we human beings possess is our energy.
The energy principle still holds, and is crucial to ideas in this seminar, too; I maintain that it is at the heart of the solution not only to our individual problems but also to our collective, national ones—our health care problem, our obesity problem, our stress problem, our multi‑tasking problem.
In recent years I’ve come to see that, amazingly, the key to almost all of our problems, more fundamental even than poor energy management, is faulty storytelling, because it is storytelling that drives the way we gather and spend our energy. I believe that stories—again, not the ones people tell us but the ones we tell ourselves—determine nothing less than our personal and professional destinies. And the most important story you will ever tell about yourself is the story you tell to yourself. (Mind if I repeat that: the most important story you will ever tell about yourself is the story you tell to yourself.)
So, you would better examine your story, especially this one that is supposedly the most familiar of all. “The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best—and therefore never scrutinize or question,” said paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Participate in your story rather than observing it from afar, make sure it is a story that compels you. Tell yourself the right story—the rightness of which only you can really determine, only you can really feel—and the dynamics of your energy change. If you are finally living the story you want, then it need not—it should not and won’t—be an ordinary one. It can and will be extraordinary.
After all, you are not just the author of your story but also its main character—the hero. Heroes are never ordinary.
The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch)
In The Straight Story, an elderly man, Alvin Straight, embarks on a slow, deliberate journey across Iowa on a lawn mower to reconcile with his estranged brother. The film turns what could be a mundane trip into a pilgrimage of presence and meaning. Alvin’s story mirrors your distinction between “just showing up” and living with full engagement. His pace is far from impressive by external standards, yet his journey is saturated with attention, honesty, and emotional clarity. Each encounter along the way becomes a story that reshapes him, just as each conscious choice reshapes the participants in the Hero’s Journey. The film dramatizes the idea that energy is not about speed or volume of activity, but about the quality of presence. The Straight Story becomes a metaphor for what you describe as “full engagement” or flow: the merging of action and meaning, the alignment of what we do with why we do it. For your work, the film illustrates that the most heroic journeys often look quiet from the outside; their power lies in the story’s inner coherence and the energy that flows through it.
In the end your story is not a tragedy. Nor is it a comedy or a romance or a thriller or a drama. It is something else. What label would you give the story of your life, the most important story you will ever tell? To me that sounds like a hero’s journey.
End of story.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, a small‑town lawyer in the American South, defends a Black man accused of raping a white woman, knowing full well the social and personal cost of that choice. The film dramatizes the core idea : alignment between the story you tell yourself about who you are and the stand you take, regardless of pressure. Atticus lives by a quiet, consistent narrative of justice, courage, and decency, even when the community around him prefers safety and silence. His story is not one of triumph in the conventional sense; it is one of integrity over victory.
PART ONE – Old Stories
That’s Your Story? Slow death.
An uglier two‑word phrase it’s hard to find. But if you’re at all like the people I see in The Hero’s Journey and The Heroine’s Journey seminars, then I’m afraid you understand the phrase all too well.
How did it come to this?
What am I doing?
Where am I going?
What do I want?
Is my life working on any meaningful level? Why doesn’t it work better?
Am I right now dying, slowly, for something I’m not willing to die for?
Why am I working so hard, moving so fast, feeling so lousy?
Slow death: what a harsh phrase. Is that really what is happening to all those people, the ones who start out contented by what is good and pure in life—a simple cup of coffee, a few seemingly reasonable life goals (a nice salary, say, and one’s own home)—and who, once they have achieved those goals, can’t even be satisfied because they’ve already moved on to life’s next‑sized latte (six‑figure salary, second home, three cars), only to move on to something double‑extra grand when that’s achieved, a continual supersizing that guarantees one can’t ever be fulfilled?
Okay. Not everyone I see or hear about is dying slowly. But to judge from the responses I get, workshop after workshop, year after year—and each year it gets worse—whatever it is they’re doing sure doesn’t sound fun. It doesn’t even sound like getting by. I read the frustration and disappointment in their self‑evaluations and hear it in their own voices, if and when they’re comfortable enough to read aloud from their current dysfunctional story, the autobiographical narrative they attempt to write the first day at The Hero’s Journey or The Heroine’s Journey, but usually don’t finish until the night before our last day together.
As the Hero’s Journey & The Heroine’s Journey progresses and people’s defenses start to melt away, I hear more and more of these stories. By almost any reasonable standard, these stories exemplify failure; in many cases, disaster. There is no joy to be found in them, and even precious little forward movement. In every workshop, nearly everyone has a dysfunctional story that is not working in at least one important part of his or her life: stories about how they do not interact often or well with their families; about how unfulfilling the other significant relationships in their lives are; about how—despite all that extracurricular failure—they’re not even performing particularly well at work, or, if they are, about how little pleasure they gain from it; about how they don’t feel very good physically and their energy is depleted.
On top of all that (isn’t that enough?), they feel guilty about their predicaments. They know, on some almost buried level, that their life is in crisis and the crisis will not simply go away. Their company is not going to make it go away. And so they wake up one morning to the realization that the bad story they for so long only feared has finally become their life, their story. Not that this development is their fault. No. Nor is there a heck of a lot to be done about it.
It is a competitive, cutthroat world out there.
God knows, I want to change but I simply can’t. I’ll get eaten up and beaten by someone who’s willing to sacrifice everything.
The world moves faster today than it did a generation ago.
What am I supposed to do—quit my job?
These are the facts of my life. There’s nothing I can do about them.
My life is a known quantity; so why mess with it even if it’s killing me?
Let me repeat that one: …… even if it’s killing me.
People don’t need new facts—they need a new story.
Consider Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): George Bailey feels exactly like many of my seminar participants—as if he’s in slow death for something he’s not willing to die for. His life looks successful to the outside world: family, business, respect. But emotionally, he’s drained, trapped, and convinced he’s meaningless. The film shows that his “story” of sacrifice and obligation has become his slow death. George’s crisis comes not when he loses money, but when he loses hope in his story. His redemption arrives when he’s shown a world where he never existed—and suddenly realizes that his life was not a slow death, but a story he never allowed himself to see as a legend. In our workshops, people often say, “I’m like George: I did the right thing, and now I’m empty.” The film’s lesson is: slow death is not in the circumstances, but in the story you tell about them. The hero’s journey is about rewriting that story so the same life becomes a different legend.
Is Your Company Even Trying to Tell a Story?
We’ve examined the corporate story the worker hears. Let’s see what story the company is typically telling.
First they need you and you need them. (Ideally, they also want you and you also want them, but that may not be part of your company’s story.) The typical company is saying that the fast‑paced business world being what it is—what with globalization and outsourcing and downsizing and sustainability and AI and synergies and streamlining—it must make increasing demands on your life. Keep swimming or die. Which means longer hours for you, ergo less time for your family and yourself. It means holding meetings during lunch or before or after the workday proper, which essentially kills your chance to exercise and stay in shape. (And let’s just order in any food that’s fast during meetings to maximize efficiency.) Oh, right; and while all this is going on, the company—continually stressing its imperative to move forward if it is to survive at all—also demands that you frequently change directions, reinvent the very way you operate, completely alter how you conduct business.
Everyone who likes that story, raise your hand.
Older workers, in particular—those who have seen it all before—are likely to undermine the story for such a company. So, too, anyone else who fears that he or she may be easy to eliminate, or may have a diminished role in the transformed company. To these employees the story their company is telling may be exciting in the abstract, or to investors, but it’s potentially humiliating for them. Among these workers, suspicion, cynicism, and distrust run rampant. While the defiant worker publicly may appear vested in the change process, privately he tells himself: New thinking be damned. He works subversively to undermine the new directive. He knows that, for the new initiatives to take, everyone must embrace them. Not him. He will go through the motions but he is not going to make any real course corrections.
And so, like a dinosaur, he moves closer and closer to extinction.
The employee loses and the company loses as well. Entire organizations have been undermined by storytelling that excludes a significant portion of their workforce. Failure to align the evolving corporate story with the aspirations of the individual employees, up and down the workforce—the very ones who have been enjoined to help write that new, improved story—has systemic implications. Athletes routinely give up on playing hard for coaches they deem excessively punitive or inconsistent; the bond of their mutually aligned stories—to win a championship—is undermined because the coach’s story does not seem to allow for the inevitable particularities of any individual athlete’s story. Mutiny is not just what happens when ship captains indefensibly change or robotically stick to the rules but also when CEOs and schoolteachers do it. Organizations have been undermined by refusing to alter their story when it clearly wasn’t working.
If alignment of stories, yours and your company’s, is to be achieved—and I believe it’s neither as lofty nor as complicated a task as it may sound—then it is ideally generated both from top down (the company side) and bottom up (the workers side). But let’s not get carried away. For our purposes, we’ll presume zero input from the company. It is, after all, corporate culture.
That means the burden to change stories is on you.
In Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960), C.C. Baxter lives your company story literally. He’s the young man who internalizes the “keep swimming or die” narrative and becomes its perfect servant. To climb the corporate ladder, he gives his apartment to senior managers for their affairs, sacrificing his integrity, his relationships, and his sense of self. The company’s story is unspoken but clear: be useful, be available, say nothing. Baxter’s response is to perform that story perfectly: he’s always there, always on, always ready to please. But his body is present while his soul is absent. The film shows how a corporate story that glorifies availability and compliance erodes personal boundaries and moral courage. In our workshops, many participants live Baxter’s pattern: they say yes to every project, every weekend call, every “I just need you for five minutes,” and wonder why they feel hollow. The turning point comes when Baxter finally refuses to cooperate and reclaims his apartment—and with it, his own story. The film proves that the first step in the hero’s journey at work is to stop surrendering your life story to the company’s story.
Presenteeism
What if the most important adventure of your working life was not about the projects you complete, the titles you hold, or even the outcomes you deliver—but about the story you tell yourself? What if the office, with its familiar routines and relentless pace, is both your crossroads and your call to adventure?
Those who know me understand I see life and work as journeys—epic quests each of us must undertake. Every working person is a hero in the making. And every workplace challenge is a shadowy threshold, begging us to re‑examine the story we live by—and the roles we choose.
The Hidden Malaise: Presenteeism as the New Modern Monster
There is a villain in modern workplaces, silent and unassuming. Unlike its sibling, absenteeism, which is easy to spot (an empty desk, a missed meeting), presenteeism is stealthy—a quiet theft of energy and engagement. It happens when we show up at our desks, day after day, body present but mind, spirit, or health elsewhere.
You’ve seen it. Maybe you’ve lived it: the colleague who comes in sick, answering emails through a headache. The team member who’s present at every meeting but never really there, their thoughts dulled by exhaustion, anxiety, or the ache of something unspoken. The leader who pushes through burnout, convinced her presence alone holds the ship together. We show up because we must, because we’re heroes—aren’t we? Or are we stuck in someone else’s version of the hero’s story?
Presenteeism, the experts warn us, costs businesses billions each year in lost productivity, far eclipsing the costs of absenteeism. But monetary loss is only part of the story. The truer, deeper cost is the erosion of meaning, vitality, and connection—the essence of any hero’s quest.
In my journeys with creative professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, and artists worldwide, I notice a repeating theme: too many of us are living by default stories, not the ones we would choose if we remembered we had the pen in our hand. Even the most ambitious, purpose‑driven individuals fall prey to this trap. We tell ourselves stories like:
“I am valuable because I am always here.”
“If I slow down or admit I’m struggling, I’ll be replaced.”
“To be a hero is to put others before myself, no matter the cost.”
These are powerful myths, but not always true or empowering for the modern workplace hero. They lead us straight to the quicksand of presenteeism, where showing up becomes a prison, not a purposeful journey.
Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998) is the purest cinematic metaphor for this kind of presenteeism. Truman Burbank’s entire life is a TV show, scripted and directed by others, while he remains unaware. He “shows up” every day—walks the same route, drives the same car, waves to the same people, acts the same role—but he’s not the author of his story, only the actor. The film exposes how a story assigned from outside can turn a person into a presentee: physically active, emotionally hollow. Truman’s slow death is the steady erosion of authenticity. The turning point comes when he begins to notice the cracks in the story—the repetition, the improbability, the uncanny sameness—and starts to question the narrative he’s been living. That’s exactly what happens in The Hero’s Journey workshops: participants begin to see that the story they’ve been living doesn’t fit, and they start asking, “Whose story is this?” The lesson from The Truman Show is that presenteeism is not just working too much; it’s living someone else’s story while pretending it’s yours. The hero’s journey is to step off the set, rewrite the script, and become the author again.
How Did We Lose the Plot? (Or: The Seduction of the Wrong Story)
In my journeys with creative professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, and artists worldwide, I notice a repeating theme: too many of us are living by default stories, not the ones we would choose if we remembered we had the pen in our hand. Even the most ambitious, purpose‑driven individuals fall prey to this trap.
We tell ourselves stories like:
“I am valuable because I am always here.”
“If I slow down or admit I’m struggling, I’ll be replaced.”
“To be a hero is to put others before myself, no matter the cost.”
These are powerful myths, but not always true or empowering for the modern workplace hero. They lead us straight to the quicksand of presenteeism, where showing up becomes a prison, not a purposeful journey.
François Truffaut’s 400 Blows (1959) shows how early a life story can be written against a person’s will. Antoine Doinel, a young boy, is constantly told by adults, teachers, and institutions that he’s a troublemaker, that he’s no good, that he’s a nuisance. His story is written over him, not with him. That story of failure, suspicion, and resistance slowly becomes his reality. He shows up at school, at home, on the streets, but his presence is couched in a narrative that says he does not belong. The film’s power is that it exposes how a hostile story, even if it’s unspoken, can create a slow death of the spirit. In our workshops, many participants arrive with similar stories written on them: I’m not good enough, I’m not the one they want, I’m invisible. The film reminds us that the hero’s journey is not only about rewriting your own story; it’s about critiquing the story that has been written on you. Only when Antoine begins to tell his own story, however imperfectly, does he start to reclaim himself. The same movement happens in the seminar room: people recognize that their “slow death” is not just circumstance, but a story they’ve absorbed.
The First Threshold: Awakening to the Call
Every hero’s journey begins with a call to adventure—a crisis that shakes up the old world and offers a chance, however frightening, for transformation. Presenteeism is this crisis. What if you saw your own disengagement or declining health not as a personal failing, but as a summons? A moment to examine the story you’re living.
Are you actually answering your call, or are you stuck reliving someone else’s tired script?
Pause for a moment at your desk. Close your eyes. Ask: What is the true story I’m living here? Am I the weary warrior constantly pressing on, or the resourceful hero who knows when to rest, renew, and return with deeper gifts?
Allies and Mentors: The Importance of Leaders, Teams, and Self‑Compassion
No hero travels alone. In epic tales and in real life, allies and mentors make all the difference. The modern workplace often pushes us into isolation—presenteeism thrives when we are most disconnected, convinced we are in this alone. But what if your story included allies?
Allies can be:
- A leader who models vulnerability and honesty about limits.
- A team that values open conversation, not just relentless performance.
- A workplace culture that considers well‑being non‑negotiable.
- Or, perhaps most importantly, an inner mentor: your wiser self who reminds you that even heroes need healing.
When we share our struggles honestly, we invite others to do the same; we rewrite a culture of silent suffering into one of shared humanity.
Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) captures the first threshold beautifully. Ted Kramer’s story begins with the assumption that his life is progressing normally: work, salary, status. But when his wife, Joanna, walks out, the story collapses. His presence at work, his identity as a provider, and his idea of being a “good father” all disintegrate. He’s forced to confront the story he’s been living: one of speed, work, and emotional absence. The film’s turning point is when Ted stops performing the corporate‑hero script and begins to live a new story about being a father, being present, and being honest about his failures. This is the first threshold: the crisis that makes you ask, “Is this really my story?” In our workshops, many people arrive at the same moment: they’ve been present at every meeting, every project, every family event, but inside they feel like spectators in someone else’s story. Like Ted, they must slow down, face the breakdown, and rewrite the narrative. The film shows that the hero’s journey in the workplace is not about avoiding pain, but about using it as the catalyst for a truer story.
Crossing Into the Unknown: Changing the Story from Within
The core message of the hero’s journey is this: transformation is possible. Not by fleeing our struggles or pretending they don’t exist, but by facing them honestly and letting them change us.
Presenteeism, at heart, is a warning flag. It signals a misalignment—between your body and your story, your willingness and your capacity, your presence and your true purpose. To change this, you do not need a grand gesture—just a willingness to edit the script:
Instead of “I must always be present,” try: “My best work comes from knowing when to engage and when to replenish.”
Instead of “Heroes never falter,” try: “True heroism is knowing my limits and helping others respect theirs.”
This is not self‑indulgence. Research shows that places prioritizing well‑being see higher productivity, lower turnover, and more vibrant, creative workplaces. Your organization benefits when its people are truly present.
Frank Perry and Eleanor Perry’s The Swimmer (1968) lays bare the consequences of a story lived on autopilot. Neddy Merrill sets off on a seemingly innocent odyssey: swimming across a series of backyard pools in his affluent suburban community. But as he moves from pool to pool, the story begins to crack. The friendly faces turn cold, the dates blur, the seasons shift, and the once‑glowing world reveals its decay. Neddy discovers that his marriage, his finances, and his reputation have all crumbled while he’s been showing up, smiling, drinking, pretending. The film is a portrait of presenteeism of the self: he’s always there, always “on,” but his life is a slow, unacknowledged collapse. The hero’s journey in The Swimmer is the moment Neddy stops swimming and realizes he’s lost his story. In our workshops, this is the same moment: when people stop pretending and admit that the story they’ve been living no longer fits. The film proves that rewriting your story must precede any real renewal of energy, of presence, of meaning. Until you face the truth of your disengagement, you will keep swimming, but never truly arrive.
Trials and Temptations: The Lure of Busyness and the Fear of Absence
No journey is without its temptations. In the world of work, “busyness” and “constantly being seen” are seductive false gods. We look for validation by logging long hours, replying to emails at midnight, never daring to say “I need a break.” This is presenteeism in its purest form.
But every story has a turning point—a moment when the hero sees through the illusion and claims a deeper power. What if you challenged the myth that visibility equals value? What if leadership meant championing cycles of exertion and renewal—for yourself and those you lead?
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) offers a panoramic view of presenteeism across generations. In Los Angeles, a series of characters—children, adults, parents, ex‑spouses, employees, and TV producers—live as if they must always be present, always performing, always living up to the story written for them. The children are present in classrooms, homes, and hospitals, but emotionally abandoned. The adults are present in offices, on talk shows, in family dinners, but internally fractured. The film’s turning point is not a single revelation, but a collective awakening: a moment when characters finally admit they are not okay. The rain of frogs that ends the film is a surreal metaphor for the collapse of the story: the world they’ve been living by no longer makes sense, and they can’t keep pretending. In our workshops, this is the same: the hero’s journey is the moment participants stop acting “fine” and start telling the truth. Magnolia shows that presenteeism is not a personal failing; it’s a systemic story that glorifies performance and conceals pain. The hero’s journey is the counter‑story: one that honors vulnerability, honesty, and the courage to say, “I’m not present right now—and that’s where I’ll start.”
The Return: Sharing the Boon
The final stage of the hero’s journey is the return—the bringing back of newfound wisdom to the tribe. If you can transform your story around presence at work, you bring back a gift that can transform the culture around you.
This might look like:
- Leading discussions on workplace health and well‑being.
- Creating or supporting initiatives for flexible work and mental health support.
- Building teams where checking in on someone’s state of being is as normal as checking their to‑do list.
You return, not depleted but richer, with a boon to share: the realization that the true power of presence is quality, not quantity. One engaged hour, one honest conversation, one real act of self‑care can be worth days spent pretending.
William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver (1942) crystallizes the idea of the boon. Kay Miniver lives through the Blitz, raising her family, supporting her community, and sustaining a sense of decency and grace in the face of war. She is present in all the right ways: emotionally, morally, practically. But her presence is not about being seen; it’s about being needed. Her story is not built on applause, but on quiet, consistent acts of care. The film shows that heroic presence is presence aligned with values—not just physical availability, but moral and emotional presence. In our workshops, this is the goal: to help participants shift from presenteeism (“I must be here at all costs”) to presencing (“I am here because this is where my story wants me to be”). Like Mrs. Miniver, the returning hero in the workplace is not the one who works the most hours, but the one who carries back a story of meaning, care, and balance. Her legacy is not in the battles she fights, but in the story of decency she lives and shares.
The Hidden Costs of Presenteeism: Why Organizations Pay a High Price for a Poor Story
In every organization, there is a visible ledger: bottom lines, turnover numbers, and absentee days. But lurking beneath that surface, unnoticed, is a silent leviathan gnawing at profits, morale, and growth: presenteeism. In my work on “The Hero’s Journey,” I remind leaders that the real tale of any organization is not just about presence—it’s about meaningful engagement, energy, and stories that fuel innovation. Presenteeism is what happens when people show up, but leave their passion, focus, or wellbeing at home.
The cost? More than you might imagine—and far greater than the mere sum of sick days or missed meetings.
The Numbers Behind the Narrative
Recent estimates are staggering: in the US, productivity lost to presenteeism exceeds $150 billion per year, outstripping the measurable costs of absenteeism ten‑fold. In the UK, it’s estimated at over £4,000 in lost productivity per employee each year. On an individual level, employees admit they are truly productive just three‑quarters of the time they’re actually at work, confessing to 57.5 unproductive days a year. The American Productivity Audit and international studies echo this: the cost of showing up without fully showing up is vast, and alarmingly, it’s often undetected on traditional management dashboards.
Hidden Saboteurs: Health, Morale, and Contagion
The myth is that presenteeism is a sign of commitment—a soldier’s stoic march. In reality, it’s often a sign of fear, disengagement, or low psychological safety. Employees who work while ill, distracted by stress or personal problems, don’t just underperform; they may lengthen their illnesses, spreading germs and disengagement alike. Over time, this erodes team morale, multiplies errors, and sets dangerous expectations that working at diminished capacity is the rule, not the exception.
The economic impact goes far beyond the individual: entire teams slow down, quality diminishes, and the knock‑on effects can burden entire departments or customer relationships.
Presenteeism: A Story of Lost Potential
Most organizations meticulously track sick days but ignore the far costlier days when people are present in body, but absent in spirit. The best research shows these costs are multiple times higher than absenteeism, sometimes 10 to 14 times as much. The reason? Presenteeism is systemic—it reflects not just individual struggles but a workplace narrative where burnout and disengagement go unspoken.
Financial distress and psychological challenges are core drivers: recent UK data reveals presenteeism linked to financial worries costs more than twice what absenteeism does (£6.6 billion vs. £3.7 billion annually). Psychological distress, too, dramatically increases lost productivity and associated costs for both men and women—up to $8,432 per worker per year in some populations.
The Culture Tax: When Stories Go Wrong
Ultimately, presenteeism drains growth, creativity, and the sense of purpose that fuels every hero’s journey at work. It comes from a story: one where workers believe their value is tied only to constant presence, not meaningful contribution. Such a narrative becomes a tax on innovation, resilience, and long‑term excellence.
If you wish to change your organization’s destiny, start by looking at its unwritten stories around wellness and presence. The cost of ignoring presenteeism isn’t just measured in currency—it’s measured in lost creativity, diminished trust, and the slow erasure of every heroic journey in your midst.
Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) shows what happens when an organization (or, in this case, an industry) refuses to rewrite its story. Norma Desmond is a former silent‑film star whose story was written for her in an earlier era. Now, the world has moved on, but she clings to the same narrative: she is still the star, the diva, the center of attention. The studio has no place for her, yet she lives in a decaying mansion, attended by a loyal but heartbroken Max, who humors her delusions. Norma’s story is frozen in the past, while the industry’s story moves forward. Her slow death is not physical, but professional and emotional: she’s present for every fantasy, every delusion, every melodrama, but absent from reality. The film mirrors organizations that cling to outdated stories about productivity, presence, and “heroic” overwork, even as their people wither. In The Hero’s Journey workshops, many leaders resemble Norma: they insist that the old story still works while the data says otherwise. The film’s warning is clear: organizations pay a high price when they refuse to rewrite their story before the talent walks out. The hero’s journey for the company, like Norma’s missed opportunity, is to let go of the old legend and embrace a new one that values presence, meaning, and renewal.
Writing Your Next Chapter
Let me ask you, as you read this: What would it mean to become the hero of your own workplace story? To notice, name, and gently edit the scripts that lead you to presenteeism?
If you see yourself in these words, you’re not alone. Millions experience this struggle daily, and its impacts are enormous—not just financially but emotionally, socially, and creatively for ourselves and our organizations. But you have the power to change your story, to step onto a new path.
Start by asking:
- What am I really seeking in my work?
- What stories about value, effort, and worth am I living by—and are they serving me?
- Where might I invite more honesty, more compassion, more allyship?
The future of work—and the future of your own hero’s journey—depends on the stories we choose. May yours be one of presence, purpose, and authentic creative transformation.