From the course: Storytelling for Business Video

Born to tell

From the course: Storytelling for Business Video

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Born to tell

- Ever since the first prehistoric human told the second prehistoric human how far he ran to kill a mastodon, people have been telling stories. In fact, homo sapiens are genetically wired for narrative. In other words, we're built to create and tell stories. Every one of us has a part of her brain whose only job is to create stories to explain our world to ourselves. This built-in storyteller is called the left-brain interpreter. It gives the events of your minutes, days, and lifetime, beginnings, middles, and ends. Without the left-brain interpreter, our lives would be more like a random series of events, nothing connected to anything else, no cause-and-effect. Why did nature bother taking the time and energy to make us storytelling machines? Stories help us make sense of the world. Sun comes up, ground gets warm. Sun goes down, ground gets cold. It's not Oh, Henry, but it's a story, and it helps us link cause and effect and understand the passage of time. Now we know we'd better get into that cave before the sun goes down, or we might freeze. But it goes beyond your own survival. Stories give you a sense that the world is consistent and follows rules. That's essential if you want to feel stable, safe, secure, and happy. But this wonderful mechanism wouldn't mean very much if we kept it to ourselves. Telling stories is just as important and creating them. It's a wonderful way to communicate facts, rules, and our own worldview. Beyond that, telling stories bonds us to one another on a deep emotional level. You've probably seen those brain scans in which different portions of the gray matter light up as different topics are thought about. Well, when someone tells you a story, and tells it well, your brain lights up in exactly the same pattern as the storyteller's. The two of you are in sync. This is empathy. Telling stories is a big reason we care about one another. It's not hard to see how this innate and essential human ability can be invaluable in communicating information that's important to growing your business. The key is to communicate that information as a story. That will help you reach your audience on a deep level. That's not just me talking. A 2007 study by marketing researcher Jennifer Edson Escalas of Vanderbilt University found that a test audience responded more positively to advertisements in narrative form as compared with straightforward ads that encouraged viewers to merely think about the intellectual arguments for a product. But this magic happens only if the story is well-written and well-told. I'll help you tell your story more effectively so that your message sticks and creates a relationship between you and your listeners. The same techniques I use to write TV shows and movies, you can use to create loyalty and action in your audience.

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