Last week, I was in London to keynote a private event.
October in London doesn’t exactly scream sunshine. It was cold, gray, and rainy—the kind of weather that makes most people stay in and curl up under a blanket.
But no one in London seemed to care.
People were out in droves. Crowds gathered outside pubs, pint glasses in hand. Restaurants were packed, even the outdoor patios—people huddled under umbrellas or under heaters, but were still out there, fully alive.
That made me think about the stories we tell ourselves—and how powerful they are.
People aren’t born hating the rain. To a kid, rain isn’t a problem—it’s an opportunity. They stomp in puddles, smear mud on their hands, and laugh through the mess.
But after hearing “You can’t go out, it’s raining!” or “Get out of the mud!” enough times from adults, they start to believe it: Rain is gross. Stay inside. Once that belief takes root, it’s no longer just raining outside—it’s raining inside your head too.
What happens if we rewrite that story?
What if instead of saying, “It’s raining, you better stay in,” we say, “What a beautiful rainy day—let’s go outside and have some fun”?
This isn’t just a hollow affirmation. It’s about experimenting with a different story—putting on a coat, stepping out into the drizzle, and just seeing what happens. You might discover you love the sound of the rain hitting the leaves. Or the way everything smells richer—like the whole world just got a reset.
And it’s not just about the rain. We all have stories we live by that aren’t fixed truths. They’re just old scripts we’ve been following without realizing it.
If you tell yourself travel is exhausting, you’ll only notice the hassles—the delayed flights, the cramped seats—and miss the little joys along the way.
If you tell yourself you’re awkward in social settings, you’ll tense up before conversations even begin, missing moments that could have been easy and fun.
The point isn’t to force yourself to love every rainy day or magically turn into an extrovert. It’s about creating space—space to question the stories you’ve been living by and experiment with something new. You’re not committing to anything forever. You’re just saying, “What if?”
When you play with the stories you’ve been telling yourself, you realize they’re just that—stories. And if you don’t like the story, you can change the story.
Don’t change everything all at once. Just crack the door open. Put on a raincoat. Step outside. See what the world feels like when the rain has just fallen. See what you feel like.
The rain isn’t going anywhere.
But maybe that old story is.
And who knows? You might just find yourself outside, pint in hand, loving every drop.
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Bold
