Photo by J.J. Pekar. All rights reserved.

4 Stories You Must be Telling Yourself

Thaler Pekar
4 min readSep 14, 2017

For years, I had a gratitude practice. In my first years of marriage, I told my husband, Tom, each evening before going to sleep how happy I was that we were married, and how he made me happy.

Later, while working in a challenging, drama-filled workplace, I would pause every evening on the bus ride home, prompted at a specific location offering a beautiful view of the Empire State Building, and silently list all the things for which I was grateful.

It was an empowering and mood-altering exercise. Patterns did emerge, and I could focus on repeating those experiences. But my gratitude practice alone was not enough.

Tom, my clients, my friends, surprising and meaningful conversations with strangers, business success — I remain grateful for all these things (and I have recommitted to my nightly expressions of gratitude!). But without an exploration of how they occurred, I was failing to recognize deep patterns in my own behavior. And now that I was running my own business, reflecting upon and learning from these patterns was crucial.

As my expertise in story developed, and I understand how the elements of a story — protagonist, setting, action, conflict, resolution — combine to equal a whole greater than the sum of its parts, I turned to story as a tool for entrepreneurial reflection.

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Thaler Pekar
Thaler Pekar

Written by Thaler Pekar

Pioneer in narrative & communication. Keynoted on 4 continents. Award-winning video producer. Public & oral historian. Renown for finding stories.

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