Perspective
The Power of Narrative
Storytelling helps us create a workable vision of the world that we occupy and form our individual identities and our place within it.
“You must figure out your place in this world. Most people want others to do that for them.” - Michael Kurcina
The basic framework of storytelling helps us create a workable vision of the world we occupy and a statement of our place within it. For any story framework, if we think of ourselves as the ‘hero’ experiencing the journey there are two types of heroes that undergo transformational journeys: reluctant heroes and proactive protagonists.
Those of us who want to have a say in our place in the world and in the outcomes of our actions willingly accept the fact that the world as we once knew underwent massive, generational change and for all practical purposes is gone and actively embrace participating in an adventure into the unknown - we represent proactive protagonists.
Conversely, those who are forced to acknowledge the realities of their new situation and admit to themselves there is no ‘new normal’ but conversely, that they are in a constant state of change, facing new challenges and are begrudgingly accepting their role in the journey ahead - those hesitant individuals represent reluctant heroes.
Readers of this newsletter and specifically the inaugural post here know that The New Zero™ is more than a concept, more than a system, it represents a new worldview.
This worldview offers perspective in times of almost unimaginable ambiguity and lack of certainty. Consequently, a concrete and defensible worldview combined with a perspective grounded in clarity, critical reasoning and emotional relief provides the owners of this worldview with a set of filters, through which to make decisions on how to navigate their new and changing world.
These filters provide tangible benefits in all aspects of life and work, allowing the possessor to evaluate, reason, strategize, communicate and execute with high levels of confidence.
This worldview is fundamental and measurably beneficial to the adopters of each pillar and aspect of the New Zero™ system.
While the rest of the ‘new normal’ crowd is peering through their rose-colored glasses, those who embrace the New Zero™ are seeing threats and opportunities exactly for what they represent, operating without a scarcity mindset, and are cautiously yet bravely moving forward with Pragmatic Optimism.
Proactive protagonists living and working in the new economic and cultural landscape spawned in the Spring of 2020 have very specific qualities. They are leaders or aspiring leaders who want more than reactivity as a response to the last crisis and as their main plan for dealing with the next crisis.
These individuals are actively preparing for the next crisis, including making tradeoffs in their businesses and lives to learn and adopt the skills and tools necessary to survive and thrive after the crisis.
Proactive protagonists don’t begrudgingly accept their new environment; they embrace it and value having a detailed and proven system to operate in going forward.
The goal of proactive protagonists accepting the responsibility of their new journey and the unpredictable nature of their situation is to not let others or outside forces dictate their fate.
Instead, they seek to be an active author in their story and its outcome - they are choosing to be the hero that we all want to be and making the tradeoffs and hard choices to undergo each part of the journey, including all the necessary highs and lows.
Since the summer of 2020 there have been a series of rolling aftershocks and mini-crises each with the very real potential to develop into their own full-blown and farther-reaching crisis.
In this new environment the core pillars of the New Zero ™ system are more relevant than ever before (psychological performance, data-driven storytelling for stakeholders and performance-based execution strategies).
Leaders need a system, tools and resources that are foundationally secure yet flexible as in today’s environment it must be capable of generating highly confident strategies and predictive outcomes in environments of intense ambiguity.
The stakes haven’t just changed for leaders and their stakeholders; they have substantially increased while simultaneously their room for error and time to make and implement decisions to satisfy stakeholders’ needs has significantly decreased.
Relevant tools and systems are as equal in importance to leaders and the more personalized those systems can be the shorter the implementation time and quicker the ability to deliver quality results.
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[Editor's Note: This article was originally published on August 18, 2025, by Damon D'Amore via Results Over Regrets. It is republished here with permission.]