It Doesn't End This Way: The Transformative Power of Storytelling

"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." - Joseph Campbell

In honor of March Madness this is a basketball inspired post. Since I don’t get to watch Virginia basketball in the big dance this year, I will include Virginia basketball in my post.

“You must learn that it is never, never tragic when something people think is bad happens to you. Because if you can learn to use it right, [the adversity], it can buy you a ticket to a place you would never have gone any other way.”

Virginia men’s basketball Coach Tony Bennett¹ quoted the above after Virginia was the first number 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed in the 2018 men’s NCAA basketball tournament.

The quote is from Donald Davis’ Ted Talk entitled “How the story transforms the teller.” Tony Bennett played it for his team before they started practicing prior to the 2018-2019 season. It helped inspire their 2019 NCAA tournament redemption championship run. I highly recommend that you take the 20 minutes to watch this Ted Talk.²

A good friend of mine reminded me of this quote after my cancer diagnosis in 2022. It turns out that many of the things that Tony Bennett said apply not just to basketball, but to life. A good sports coach is often better than any life coach or therapist.

I have this quote about adversity sitting to my left as I type. Like many things that Coach Tony Bennett said (or quoted), this wisdom has evolved over time for me. I look at these words frequently, and I think about the importance of telling my story, of Maisa’s story, and how I relate to the things that have happened in my life. When I heard Tony Bennett quote this I never thought I would be applying it to a cancer diagnosis or the traumatic death of my daughter. This was definitely not the type of adversity I was considering when I first heard these words.

We don’t get to choose the adversity we are given. If I have learned anything over the past three years it is that we have control of so very little in life. One thing we do have control over, however, is our response. How we tell our stories, and how we move forward.

For much of my life I attempted to tell my story to people who were not interested in hearing it. I tried in vain to convince people of things, failing to realize that that is not the point. As Mr. Davis points out, the story is not for others. The story is to transform the teller. “You are not telling the story to change what happened. You are telling the story to change you.”

Who are you in your story? Are you the perpetrator? The victim? The hero? A human navigating this wild and crazy human experience? A fractal of the divine learning how to embody unconditional love? Maybe we are all of it. Who do you want to be in your story? We all have a story to tell, and how we tell it matters. It shapes how we relate to what happened to us and who we become moving forward. It is through the process of telling the story that we can become who we are meant to be.

If we let it, the storytelling can be part of the metamorphosis, the transformation, a rebirth of sorts. Through telling our story, we can alchemize what has happened to us. We can make ourselves the hero in our own story, if we choose.

Maisa understood the need to be the hero in her story. So did Virginia basketball player Kyle Guy, one of the heroes of the 2019 Virginia basketball team. For those of you who are not Virginia basketball fans, I will give you a very brief summary.³

Kyle Guy was on the 2018 Virginia basketball team that lost as a number 1 seed to a 16 seed. In the 2019 tournament it looked like that might happen again. Virginia was down at half time, again as a number 1 seed to a 16 seed. Fortunately (for us), we came back in the second half and won. We made it to the Final Four that year for the first time since 1984. Tasked with making the game winning free throws in front of a crowd of 70,000+ to send his team to the championship game for the first time ever, Kyle Guy - a kid with a history of anxiety - told himself, “It doesn’t end this way.” He made all three free throws that night, and we went on to win our first ever men’s NCAA basketball national championship title in overtime two nights later.

We were lucky to see those Final Four games in person - at least, I thought so. Maisa, who did not like crowds at all, proudly wore my Virginia flag around Minneapolis like a cape. Perhaps she thought if she presented herself as a hero among the crowds she would become one. Even in difficult moments she carried herself with quiet strength and power. Maybe something in her already knew that she is a hero, as she continues to teach us about the importance of listening to each other, of learning from each other, of considering perceptions that are different, and of telling our stories. It doesn’t end this way.

Maisa won’t be driving a car on Earth, but she is still in the driver’s seat.

With the 8 billion plus people on the planet, someone else probably needs to hear your story too, whether you tell it through writing, art, movement, music, words around a campfire or some other way. What are you waiting for? Maybe it’s messy, half finished, still in progress? Tell it anyway. Tell it now. Your story isn't just for you. Someone else out there needs it. And maybe, just maybe, telling your story will take you to a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.

1. Technically, he is now former men’s Virginia basketball Coach Tony Bennett, but I have not quite come to terms with that yet.

2. Transcript of the talk is available here.

3. For more, watch "Unbelievable: Virginia's Improbable Path to a Title." 10/10 Recommend.