Taking Stock
What returning can teach us about change
At the beginning of the year, I chose my Word of the Year: Reimagine.
Not reinvent.
Not disrupt.
Reimagine.
Six months later, I find myself in Madrid.
The last time we were here was 2018. We were celebrating thirty years of marriage with thirty days of travel throughout Europe. Madrid was one stop along the journey, but it became one of the most memorable. The architecture. The history. The energy of International Women’s Day March as millions filled the streets around a shared purpose.
This week, we returned.
The march still happens.
The buildings still stand.
The city still hums.
But as often happens when you return to a place that mattered, the biggest difference wasn’t the destination.
It was us.
And that realization made me think about the difference between moving forward and taking stock.
Most of us spend our lives looking ahead.
The next quarter.
The next opportunity.
The next milestone.
The next chapter.
Rarely do we stop long enough to ask a different question:
What has actually changed?
Not just in the world.
In us.
NOW
We live in an age of constant acceleration.
The pandemic may be behind us, but its fingerprints remain everywhere.
Where we work.
How we gather.
What we trust.
What we value.
Now AI has arrived as both opportunity and uncertainty, inviting some people forward while causing others to pause and wonder what comes next.
The headlines focus on disruption.
The deeper story may be transition.
We are still renegotiating our relationship with work, technology, community, and identity.
Many of us are living between worlds.
Between physical and digital.
Between stability and change.
Between what was and what could be.
Perhaps that is why this return to Madrid felt significant.
Not because the city changed dramatically.
Because it reminded me how easy it is to move through life without ever taking inventory.
Businesses take inventory.
Investors rebalance portfolios.
Winemakers assess a vintage.
Yet few of us pause to assess the condition of our own lives.
What assumptions are we still carrying?
What beliefs no longer serve us?
What strengths have emerged that we have yet to recognize?
NEW
One of the lessons emerging from this trip is that reimagining is often misunderstood.
We tend to think reimagining requires abandoning what came before.
Starting over.
Making a dramatic change.
Walking away.
But what if reimagining is something else entirely?
What if it begins with revisiting?
This journey has become a blend of return and discovery.
Madrid.
The Priorat wine region.
The South of France and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Porto and Douro.
Some places are familiar.
Others are new.
Each offers a different perspective.
And each reminds me that the most meaningful discoveries often occur when we encounter something familiar through a new lens.
A place hasn’t changed.
A person has.
An idea hasn’t changed.
Our understanding of it has.
A relationship hasn’t changed.
Our appreciation of it has.
Perhaps growth is less about becoming someone new and more about seeing more clearly who we are becoming.
NEXT
As I reach the midpoint of a year dedicated to reimagining, I find myself asking a different set of questions.
Not where am I going?
But what am I learning?
Not what should I add?
But what should I keep?
Not what needs to be replaced?
But what deserves renewed attention?
The second half of the year feels less like a sprint toward something new and more like a thoughtful act of curation.
An inventory of experiences.
An inventory of relationships.
An inventory of convictions.
An inventory of possibilities.
The future rarely arrives all at once.
It emerges from a series of small observations, adjustments, and decisions.
A return visit.
A conversation.
A discovery.
A moment when you realize the world has changed, and so have you.
Taking stock is not about looking backward.
It is about understanding what is worth carrying forward.
And perhaps that is where reimagining truly begins.
If you know someone wrestling with how to tell their story at a pivot point, a new role, a career shift, or a stage they’re stepping onto, send them this issue.
I’m Tobin Trevarthen.
I’ve spent the first 30 years inside the companies doing the work, building my Narrative Equity from a horizontal lens. I spent the last 12 years working across companies and executives to find the story that holds only to discover, somewhere along the way, that the deeper work was always about something else.
We are not linear, chronological beings. We are spatial. Cumulative. Mosaic.
Every encounter adds a tile. Every shift — in role, in identity, in what the world asks of you — changes the image. The meaning only becomes visible when you step far enough back to see the whole.
A holistic view similar to a Living Mosaic™. And the value it accumulates over time, through clarity, coherence, and conscious design, is what I call Narrative Worth™.
Today, I work with founders and executives at the moments when the old story no longer holds, and the new one hasn’t formed yet. That inflection point is where I live. My perspective represents a lived experience.
This includes neurodivergent executives whose minds were never meant to fit the standard frame and whose most extraordinary tiles often go unseen for exactly that reason.
Helping them build the mosaic that finally holds all of who they are is some of the most important work I do.
ShiftStory™ is where we do that work together.
I would be honored to help you shift your story. I believe your Narrative Worth™ is the most valuable asset you will ever own.
Hi Tobin. Lovely reframes. And speaking of frames, what can we say about the images you're generating to accompany your post? They are particularly strong in this edition and worth some commentary. How would you approach a meditation on "taking stock" and "returning" using your mosaic images as a guide, a candle to stare into? Do I see my longstanding narratives and beliefs in them or am I seeing the seeds of a new intention for a new or revised narrative?
That’s a strong perspective, Tobin. Understanding how you’ve grown and what no longer serves you is the true measure of growth.