How A Simple "Reframe" Can Change Your Whole Story
Why the way you tell your story matters more than you think.
This newsletter is produced independently. If you want to support this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a one-time contribution. Your support helps keep this reporting and writing going.
My toddler asked me where we “bought” his little brother. Target? Amazon? Publix?
I laughed and told him we didn’t buy him. That his brother lived inside my belly. I pointed to my belly button. That he came to us that way.
He studied my stomach.
“From this hole?” he asked.
Something in me tightened.
I told him, actually, he came from here. I traced the long line across my lower abdomen. My C-section scar.
It’s a tender subject. That day still lives in my body. I genuinely believed I was going to die. For a split second, I was back in that operating room. Tears slid down my face before I could stop them.
He didn’t notice the shift.
He smiled.
“Wow! Qué línea más linda,” he said in Spanish. “Wow! What a beautiful line!”
Then, like he’d solved a small mystery: “It’s like a door.”
I went quiet. My heart swelled.
A door… Not a wound. Not a failure. Not an emergency.
A door.
And just like that, a story I’ve carried as peril quietly became a story about passage. It truly stunned me.
Not because toddlers say surprising and very wise things (he blows me away daily). But because I’ve spent nearly two decades in investigative journalism studying how narratives shape understanding.
In newsrooms, we learn early that facts alone don’t create understanding. Frames do.
What are “frames”?
Think of a frame as a camera lens. It’s the difference between one photo and another — even when the subject hasn’t changed.
Frames are cognitive structures that help people organize complex information into interpretable stories, highlighting what seems important and what doesn’t.
Psychologists call this the “framing effect:” people respond differently to the same information depending on how it’s presented, even when the underlying facts are identical.
Researchers like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky documented this decades ago through “prospect theory” — showing that equivalent choices produce different decisions based solely on wording and frame.
What’s notable is that this finding remains foundational today. Recent scholarly research confirms that work on framing continues to be central to understanding how people interpret the same facts in different ways.
Studies are also emerging that show framing effects extend beyond laboratory tasks into real-world decision-making: for example, research from 2025 found that even professionals reason differently about the same business information when it’s framed in different ways.
This matters because framing is not just a “cognitive quirk.” It’s embedded in how humans make sense of uncertainty, risk, and choice — whether in headlines, boardrooms, quarterly meetings or personal stories.
Narrative psychologists (yes, this is a thing!) have found something related: humans don’t primarily remember life as timelines. We remember life as stories — continuous narratives with beginnings, middles, and ends that connect events into meaning.
Which means we are constantly (and often unconsciously) assigning meaning to what happens to us.
Journalism trains you to do this with intention.
Here’s the process I use — and teach — to turn messy experiences into valuable narratives:
Step 1: Strip the story to facts
Write what happened with no interpretation.
Not: “I failed.”
But: “I launched X. It did not meet revenue targets.”
Not: “I ruined my career.”
But: “I left a role. I am not currently employed in that field.”
Facts are stabilizing. They remove shame language. They give you something solid to work with.
Step 2: Identify the impact
Ask: What changed because of this?
Skills gained? Perspective gained? Boundaries gained? Capacity expanded? Priorities clarified?
Trauma is real, but so is growth! Both can exist.
Step 3: Look for pattern, not verdict
Journalists don’t just ask: “What does this say about me?”
They also ask: “What does this reveal about the system, the moment, the environment, or the conditions?”
Try: What does this experience reveal about:
how I operate under pressure
what I value
what kind of problems I’m drawn to
what I’m unwilling to tolerate anymore
Patterns create meaning. Single moments rarely do.
Step 4: Choose the most accurate frame
Not the harshest. Not the most flattering. The most accurate. Accurate frames sound like:
“This experience exposed a constraint.
“It created a new threshold.”
“It forced a recalibration.”
“It revealed capacity I didn’t know I had.”
Accuracy builds credibility. With others and with yourself.
Step 5: Translate into language you can use
If you’re a founder: Turn the frame into your About page language.
If you’re a leader: Turn it into how you explain your path.
If you’re a writer or a journalist: Turn the frame into a thesis, lede or nutgraph.
If you’re a parent: Turn it into the story you carry about your capacity and growth.
For example: Instead of: “I took a non-linear path.”
Try: “I build at the intersection of X and Y because my work has always lived across both.”
Instead of: “I stepped away.”
Try: “I recalibrated toward work that aligns with my highest-impact skills.”
Same facts. Different language. A new picture.
That’s why my toddler calling my scar a door landed so deeply. Nothing about that day changed. But the story I was holding did.
From: Something went wrong.
To: Something opened.
That shift didn’t erase the danger. It gave it meaning. And meaning changes how we carry what happened.
Maybe the story you’ve been telling about yourself, and others, deserves a closer look.
Maybe it’s not a failure story. Maybe it’s a threshold story.
Maybe it’s not a wound. Maybe it’s a door.
If you want help applying this to your own story — for your writing, your business, your brand, or your next chapter — I offer 1:1 storytelling strategy sessions grounded in investigative frameworks and narrative craft shaped by almost two decades in newsrooms.
I examine your brand, story, message, project or newsletter the way a journalist would. You can explore booking a session.
Ways to Support This Work
Independent reporting like this is reader-supported. If you’d like to help sustain it, here are a few ways:
1. Become a paid subscriber
Subscribe monthly or annually to support original reporting and essays on Two Can Be True.
2. Make a one-time contribution
If subscriptions aren’t your thing, you can safely support my reporting directly here.
3. Help the reporting reach more people
• Share this story on social media and/group chats
• Forward this newsletter to a friend
• Reply with tips, ideas, or feedback
Every bit of support helps keep independent journalism alive. Thank you for being part of this community.
Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Threads and Facebook, and join the community chat to keep the conversation going.
Two Can Be True is published by The Madan Creative Group LLC.