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I
have always admired a well-told story. I guess you could
say that I’m a bit of a sucker for the shock and awe variety:
the ones with twists and turns that spiral my emotions into
peaks and valleys, and leave me completely captivated. You
know the type—the ones with the end that you never saw
coming. But my absolute favorite stories are, quite honestly,
the ones that I get to tell.
A few years ago, one of our employees at Magnolia had
a sign made for my office with this quote from comedian
Tommy Smothers: “When you don’t know what you’re talking
about, it’s hard to know when you’re finished.” I laughed it off
because while it wasn’t entirely a compliment, it was, in fact,
100 percent accurate. I’ll admit that, more than a few dozen
times at the office, I have talked more than my fair share in
what was scheduled as a “quick touch point.” It goes without
saying that if you’re in a hurry, I’m not the guy you want to
run into.
I genuinely love to engage with people. I always have. As a
kid I’d tell stories to anyone who was willing to listen. But it was
never just any old bland anecdote. I would tell heroic fables
and grand fairy tales—most without a grain of truth in them.
But then, somewhere along the way, I started to blur the
imaginary with my own life. My stories began to take shape
as an alternate reality, like I lived in a mansion with a fleet
of fancy cars or my dad was a professional football player
who’d tackled some of the greatest legends of the sport.
You might consider what I was doing to be a cry for
attention, and it probably was. But the way I remember
it is that it was never the fabrication of the lie that made
me want to do it again and again. It was the thrill
of storytelling—the way other kids’ eyes would
get big when I’d reveal something they didn’t
expect, and the questions they’d ask when
they couldn’t wait to know more. I also
think I genuinely enjoyed the connection it
created with people, even if it was built
on something entirely make-believe.
As you can imagine, my myths
were almost always found out. The
more that happened, the less often
anyone wanted to hear a story of
mine. Even though we were only kids,
I realized that I’d used this gift—a natural
ability to connect with and captivate people—to build a wall
around who I was instead of using it to bridge whatever gap
there might have been between us.
Storytelling is one of the oldest arts in the world. And as
I had already experienced, it can be used to mask reality, or,
as I became more interested in finding out, it could shine a
light on it. As I grew up, I realized that there is a profound
freedom in being around people who know who you are
down to your studs. Portraying a made-up version ends up
confining you to that narrative and that narrative alone. It
becomes a keeping-up-of-appearances kind of lifestyle; and
anything that superficially constructed can collapse all too
easily by real life.
I still love to tell a good tale. Nowadays though, I’m less
interested in embellishment for the sake of fanfare. I want
only what’s true, because even if it’s not pretty, it’s always
gonna be brave. When I tell a story now, it’s to be understood
and to better understand myself. It’s my desire for people to
walk away from any amount of time spent with me and be
pretty dang clear about who I am. It’s a way of holding me
accountable to my character and the things I value. It’s also
an incredibly freeing way to live. No facades. No heightened
portrayals. I want what you see to be what you get—and I
want what you get to be real.
It seems to me that there’s no direct path to being
truly known if we don’t allow ourselves to be fully seen—
for better or worse. But this kind of living will always
require vulnerability. I don’t believe that you can have
one without the other. There’s no doubt that it’s
uncomfortable to share the parts of our story
that bring shame or embarrassment
to the surface, but I’ll take a few
moments of painful exposure over
a lifetime of hiding in halfness.
Because that’s not really living; that’s
just pretending.
I bet the stories that you could
tell about yourself are profound.
And because they’re likely very
different from mine, I bet they’re also
profoundly unique. And anything that
rare is surely remarkable—and very
much worth telling.
story by CHIP GAINES
Chronıcles
THE
Chip
ILLUSTRATIO
NS BY
GARY HO
VLAND
