A Story Is Only As Good As The Reason For Telling It

Last Sunday, The UFC built a cage on the White House South Lawn. 

There were seven fights. One major upset and one hospitalization. The fighters walked to the Octagon flanked by Medal of Honor recipients and first responders as the 160-piece Marine Band played fighter’s walk out songs. Much of the country cheered. Much of the country cringed. They called it UFC Freedom 250. 

Between the bouts, something older than sport was at work, tracing all the way back to Aristotle. 

The broadcast aired short (mostly AI-generated) clips. One, “The Flag,” opens with a recording of Ronald Reagan’s 1986 address on Flag Day, the story of Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key watching imprisoned on a British ship for a sign that the U.S. was still in the fight. Then, “in the dawn’s early light, he looked out and saw the banner still flying.” “Anniversaries like Flag Day,” Reagan said, “challenge us to match that greatness of spirit in our own time. We are, after all, the land of the free and the home of the brave.” On that line, the footage cuts to a fighter, gloved up in front of the flag. 

Another clip, “The People”, shows footage of schoolteachers, farmers, waiters, soldiers, firefighters, businesspeople, construction workers. While a narrator says, “In a land of opportunity, we’re all free to pursue our own version of the American dream.” The footage shifts to a fighter walking out draped in the flag.

Finally, there’s “The Walk.” It shows Washington’s Army marching at Valley Forge, a frontier family stepping onto the open plain, the marchers at Selma, a soldier in the landing craft hurtling toward Omaha beach, Neil Armstrong leaping onto the moon, a soldier in Afghanistan stepping through the sand, a firefighter stepping through the rubble after 9/11. This time the message is: “All fights are not the same, but the walk always starts the same way. With a bold first step.” Cut to a UFC fighter draped in the flag taking “the walk” to the octagon. 

You see the pattern. The legend, then the man in the cage standing in for it. 

This is one of the oldest moves in persuasion. As early rhetoricians taught: compelling communicators recall and retell legendary deeds done by the audience’s tribe and then make the present moment the next chapter in the saga. Every modern President, from Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, did this exact same thing in their inaugural addresses. They inserted their personal stories into THE STORY. 

And every culture has one. Their version of the foundational story. The basic myth. Malcolm Gladwell calls it “the overstory.” It’s where we get our meaning, our identity, our frame, our sense of what people like us do. 

“From the first fight of the night until the main event,” UFC President Dana White said, “we will tell the story of America.” 

Except White didn’t tell the story of America, he borrowed it. He inserted the UFC into it. Because a great story, reinforced by action over time, repeated over years (or decades or centuries), becomes more than a story. It becomes the shared social object we all occupy. The oxygen of a culture. And people in that culture can’t stop retelling that story because it has gravity. People don’t tell new stories, they get pulled into the gravity of the overstory, and try to insert their stories into THE STORY, for better or worse.

To some, the night was a gift to the country. To others it was a private show that cheapened the narrative (after all the celebration mostly required a subscription to watch and came with a $60 million price tag). To others still, it was straight up propaganda. 

All interpretations live inside the same story, which is exactly how an overstory works. It’s big enough to hold the people who love it and those who don’t. 

The Founders kickstarted America’s over 250 years ago. Any leader can start one. Most never try because you can’t justify it in a spreadsheet and it won’t pay off this quarter. It’s hard to measure. And yet, it might be the most influential thing a leader ever does.