Last week, I was visiting my best friend in Tennessee. As we mapped out the agenda for the next day, she said, “Well, if you want to get up early…” Let’s pause here for a moment. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that’s a no for me, but I decided to hear her out.

“I found this place I think you’d love for breakfast,” she continued. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, and the menu is painted on the side of the building! I drove by it a few weeks ago and immediately thought of you.”

When I was a kid, my family moved several times. We first moved five hours away during the semester break when I was in Kindergarten. Our second move was two hours away the summer before my freshman year of high school.

I have a workshop that I enjoy doing with teams and organizations. At the heart of this particular session is the question, “What else could it be?” I share the idea that, as humans, we tend to make up a story when information is missing. My experience has been that we often fill our information gaps with negative things.