cover image Choose Your Story, Change Your Life: Silence Your Inner Critic and Rewrite Your Life from the Inside Out

Choose Your Story, Change Your Life: Silence Your Inner Critic and Rewrite Your Life from the Inside Out

Kindra Hall. HarperCollins Leadership, $27.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-4002-2840-9

Hall, the “Chief Storytelling Officer” at Success magazine, follows up Stories That Stick with an exhaustive guide to reimagining and rescripting “self-stories” that may have kept readers from progressing in their lives. She defines self-stories as often subconscious thought patterns designed to protect the thinker, but which can often be critical or limiting, and breaks down how to dismantle these “habits” of thought by addressing what she calls internal “tip-of-the-iceberg” statements, such as “I’ve got a good job, that’s enough” or “I’ll never be an entrepreneur,” which allow “glimpses into the larger stories that steer our life.” Hall lists steps (and sub-steps) to rewrite these narratives, such as “choose a story that serves you” and “insert stories at trigger moments,” bolstered by examples of clients who have used her steps to redesign their lifestyles, finances, and relationships. In a book about stories, Hall walks the fine line of sharing too many; toward the end, she weaves together so many client examples that readers may lose the thread. In true storyteller fashion, Hall leaves nothing left unsaid, for better or for worse. Agent: Kathy Schneider, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Jan.)