What does it mean that distinguish fact from story?

Facts are observable events — stories are the narratives you construct around them.

Example: Your coworker left your message on read for six hours. That's the fact — a timestamp, a read receipt, silence. The story is 'she's ignoring me because she thinks my idea was stupid.' You made two moves in under a second: you observed something, then you narrated it. The observation is verifiable. The narration is invented. Until you can tell the difference in real time, your narration runs your life.

Try this: Pick one situation from the past 24 hours that bothered you. Write two columns on a page. Left column: 'What a camera would record' — only observable, verifiable data (words said, actions taken, timestamps, measurable outcomes). Right column: 'The story I told about it' — every interpretation, assumption, motive you assigned, and conclusion you drew. Notice the ratio. Most people find the story column is three to five times longer than the fact column.