A few days ago I felt scared to the point of nausea, although at first I thought it was just a stomach reaction. I could feel in my churning guts the power of emotion that paralyzes to the bone. In fear I slowed down, I slowed down and slowed down, while instinct invited me to run away quickly and hide deep. In that morning I would have run uselessly without route or destination.
No argument, no idea, no sale or feature, neither of a product or a service, of a candidate or a new company, nothing and no one will be able to connect better by any other way than by a well-told story.
Opening the heart, showing vulnerability, laughing at oneself, sharing feelings and touching our emotions, just to name a few, is more powerful than any presentation. PowerPoint brought us a format that led to an endless chain of presentations, and less and less to well-told stories.
After all, we are“storytelling animals,” or so says Jonathan Gottschall in his recently published book.
Storytelling should be the focus of anyone who wants to connect. Peter Guber says so in his book Tell to Win, as he reminds us in this video that I invite you to watch. Truth be told, I’ve had to make an effort to focus on the message and ignore his verbal delivery which I find heavy as strong cheese. However, the message is a good one.
“Reasons lead to conclusions, while emotions lead to actions,” so well-told stories will always make the difference in connecting and achieving a movement, a step forward, a business, a project or an accomplishment.
From presentations to storytelling, from selling to storytelling, from data to storytelling, from hard-sell to trust-sell, from how we used to do it to how we will do it better.
To storytelling.
