This quote come from an excellent YouTube video on "Narrative Identity and the Constructed Imagination". It captures really neatly the way in which our identity is tied up in the stories we tell about ourselves, and the video (over an hour, but worth it if you like this sort of stuff) elaborates on how we use narrative to reconstruct our past, experience our present, and imagine our future. There are also some really poignant case studies of business leaders whose success has been fuelled by their own life stories (e.g., "I'm a survivor", "I make people feel special"), but have found in mid-life that those stories don't work so well for them any more.
The existentialists knew this too - and understood the risks and opportunities around stories. For Nietzsche, the fundamental human project was to create ourselves, as we might write a story or a poem (indeed he said we should be "Poets of our lives"). Sartre was very alive to the risk that we get caught up in others' narratives about ourselves, to the point where we deny our own agency and freedoms. He called this "bad faith", and linked it in particular to the world of work (there's a nice School of Life video here that touches on it, narrated in the honeyed tones of Alain de Botton).
The most poignant example comes from my own favourite existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir. In her analysis of growing old, Coming of Age, she tells the harrowing story of Beau Brummell (pictured). Once the dandy par excellence, (whose name is to this day synonymous with extravagant style and fashion) and the darling of English Society, he quarrelled with the Prince Regent and fled to France, where he spent his declining years in sickness and penury. His valet wrote of how, penniless, he would dress up in his motheaten blue coat and entertain imaginary aristocratic guests in his apartment, before collapsing weeping in his chair. His identity and self-image, which had been so carefully constructed and curated, seem to have proven too precious to evolve and change - even in the face of radically changed circumstances.
Part of what coaches do is to help clients explore the stories they tell themselves about their lives and careers - and whether they are still helpful. Sometimes we can help clients discover new perspectives and narratives about themselves, that help them realise new opportunities and start new chapters in their lives.
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