How much airtime should this story get?
We went to Cam Ranh, Vietnam for a few days this week.
We reconnected with great friends.
We rode lots of water slides.
We played in the sand next to amazingly beautiful warm blue water
We ate all the pho.
We ate boxes of freshly picked strawberries (thanks, Lai!).
We loved the resort.
The trip was…..
AND….
It was hard.
It was a two-leg journey each way.
A flight got delayed which meant a five hour layover in Ho Chi Minh.
James yells in a way that will make you “that” person on every airplane.
Kids got sunburned which led to some meltdowns.
Leah and I sat down at the end of each day exhausted.
So, what should I do with all of this?
Years ago, I would have felt guilty about feeling like things were “hard” and would have tried to ignore it. My life is great overall and this was an incredible opportunity so I would tell myself to ignore the j hard stuff and focus on gratitude.
I’m not saying that’s the wrong approach but the reality is, both stories can be true.
The real question is:
How much airtime should each story get?
We live our own 24 hour news cycle each day. We have lots of experiences which we turn into stories. The events themselves don’t hold any meaning until we layer our story on top of them. The flight delay is just that, a flight delay. It’s only once I attach meaning to it and place it in the context of everything else happening that the story takes shape. And then once the story has been formed, I have one more choice to make, how much airtime should I give this story?
This question can change everything.
It’s not bad to experience hard things or have challenging stories. In fact, the hard stories can serve us in many ways. But as the executive producer of the Kyle Channel (I need a better name) I get to decide how much time I allocate to each story that gets played.
It’s my channel so the stories I decide to run should serve some kind of purpose. The cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad in 2023 was roughly $7 million. How valuable is the airtime in your mind?
And one of the questions I like to ask as a follow up is, “how is this story serving me?”
So yeah, I think it was good for me to run the story about the challenges of the trip this week because it’s healthy to see things from all angles. And, if you ask me which story is still getting strong viewership, I’d say it’s this one.
So today, as you collect stories to run on your own personal network, take a minute to ask yourself how much airtime each story should get.
As one who has traveled a lot with children, I love the honesty and contrast of the two stories. This example reminds me of a concept in sociology called the Social Construction of Reality. While a falling tree still makes a sound regardless if a person hears it or not, how we perceive our existence affects our actions. If behavior and emotions reveal our beliefs, then the meaning we associate to an experience makes a huge difference with our overall satisfaction. From a cognitive behavioral standpoint, the more I can change my beliefs/meaning associated to circumstances, my behavior will follow. I know there is a lot of talk these days about abundant VS scarcity mindsets. I think we should focus on the positives and strengths, but it's also helpful when we have contrast. A basketball or football game without lines is not as fun. I think about Victor Frankl's book on Man's Search for Meaning, and how even in dire circumstances, finding meaning and purpose is what carries us through the fire as we are refined.