Storytelling for truth. A few years ago, I was doing a workshop on influencing skills with a large IT company. It's actually the same company that built the gyroscope in your phone so that when you turn it from, you know, like this, it goes from landscape to portrait mode. And I only been in corporate leadership training for a few years at that point. And for whatever reason, I was a bit more hesitant to share too many personal stories at that point. But this time, I had a spontaneous 22nd story that I shared about appreciating my wife.

At the end of the day, I asked by people, you know, share your biggest takeaway from today. Three of them stand up and say, Man, I gotta appreciate my wife more. I'm thinking that was 20 seconds. This was an eight hour day we didn't we weren't even talking about influencing So we're talking, we're talking about appreciation. We're talking about influencing skills. And moreover, I never told them to apply this to their life.

They just, they just did it. But the story even gets better. So at the end of this day, I'm cleaning up my laptop. And this one person Santos comes up to me after the train. And he says, you know, Kevin, sir, can I talk to you? And I could tell he was a little bit nervous.

So I said, Yeah, go ahead, you know, sit down here. I said, what's happening? He says, Well, I have a problem. Okay, because I, I can't communicate. Okay. You see, my wife thinks I take her for granted.

But but it's not true. I I do I just I just, I just don't know how to communicate it. So I said, Well, have you ever tried Just saying, hey, love, you know, I love your cooking. Thank you. Right so that guy stands up he goes, thank you. I'm gonna try that.

Like this was really, you know, genius insight I had and he goes off. The next morning I'm coming back to the same workshop. I'm setting up my laptop in the PowerPoint. And he comes in Santos. She comes to me, he says, Hey, Kevin, Kevin, guess what? So what I said, Well, yesterday, when I went home, my wife was cooking.

And so I came up to her behind her in the kitchen and I said, Hey, I really appreciate your cooking for our family. And she turned around. She says, What happened to you? And this guy's grinning ear to ear. He's so excited. And I'm thinking all that for me telling him a 22nd story.

So let's deconstruct this. This guy knew he had a problem. He knew what to do. And he couldn't do it. Until he heard my, by the way, 22nd story modeling it. After that happened, he thought, you know, after that happened, I should say, I thought, I gotta triple the number of personal stories I share.

Because if they're making this many applications, this is great. So I did that. And I kept finding the same thing. The more stories I told, the more applications people made. But the more I told people what to do, the more they just think about it, tell them a story, and they'd run home and they'd apply it. So this was a bit counterintuitive to me.

So I began to wonder what what makes this work you know, scientifically speaking by Logically, when we hear a good story, two things happen. First, our brain releases oxytocin, which is an empathy hormone. Second, the neurons in our brain actually fire in the exact same way they would if we were actually in the story. This is called mirror neuron effect. And so as a result, we actually see ourselves in someone else's story. And our brain actually can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined, which is kind of crazy.

And, but when Santos then heard Kevin's story about appreciating his wife, he wasn't listening. He was actually doing it himself, in his own mind. The story was a mental rehearsal for the real thing. And so when he told his wife that night, you know, love, I really appreciate this. It was the first time she had heard it, but it was the second time he did Now, there is no way to imitate those results with PowerPoint and perfectly constructed paragraphs. So, what does this have to do with storytelling for truth?

We think stories are for kids. The fact is that the deepest truths of our lives can only be communicated by story. I mean, how do you answer the question? Who are you? Or? Or, you know, how did you fall in love with your spouse?

So, there's, there's no answer this question. anything short of a story is glib. You know, it's, it's boring, it's, it's blah. We can't we can't turn the most important things in life into sound bites, and we actually shouldn't even try. We should answer the questions like who are you? or How did you fall in love?

Or Why are you doing what you're doing with a story? They're the only Way to capture truth without sounding trite. So how does this apply to our work? All of us want more influence. Problem is those that we want influence over our people like our co workers, our our boss, maybe some clients and we don't have any authority over them. So what can you do?

We can do with Ivan elixir. Tell a man a better story. To change someone's behavior, model it with a story. So after my experience with Santos, I included that 22nd story about appreciate my wife into the workshop every time. Almost every time someone would come up to me that at the end of the workshop and say something like, wow, Kevin, that that story about appreciate your wife. That was the most life changing part of the course.

So, without me telling them go appreciate your wife. She works hard, you know, they, they actually hear the story, they get inspired, and they model what they've just heard. All on their own. It's like, it's like a magical spell or something. I don't force anyone to do it, but they choose it. So if you want to influence your boss, and you know they're going to oppose your idea, if you present it directly, present it as a story and let them come to their own conclusion.

If you present it directly, they'll shut their ears. But if you tell a story, the story will induct them into it, it will release the empathy hormone and it will keep the ears open. And that's your best chance of having them hear your truth and changing their mind. If you want to if you were going to client say to think you're the You're the best of the best of the best, tell a story which sincerely model It. Now, I'm not trying to say this is about bragging, this is actually not bragging if it's true, and it serves them. And it serves their client if it genuinely shows them what you have to offer.

So don't tell them a list of your services. This doesn't capture, you know your excellence, but tell them a better story. Finally, if you want to say influence your kids, give them a good biography. Because if they connect with the biography, they will imitate their behavior. And you don't have to tell them what to do. Paul Smith said, experiences the best teacher but a compelling story is a close second.

So to teach the deepest truths of life modeling with a story