We are only as good as the stories we tell, because stories put ideas into the world. I’ve never had a conversation with a consumer, direct support professional, agency owner or case manager that hasn’t shifted my thought process or given new insights. Conversations are stories. They make, prop up and bring down systems. My work focuses on shifting system conditions that hold a problem in place, specifically, by building and sustaining partnerships with service recipients and providers while ensuing policies at the local and State levels are rooted in the lived experience of communities impacted. My work with consumers and service providers models an approach grounded in systems thinking and State led innovations. Story as an approach to systems change is a powerful tool to create meaning and patterns; route to emotions, and therefore, decision making; build solidarity within communities; engender empathy across difference. Story enables the possible to feel probable in ways rational minds can’t comprehend. For stories to have an impact, they must be told and heard in a way that frames systems and transformation. When it comes to changing values, mindsets, rules and goals of a system, implementing story sparks systems change.