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The audience is the start of the story, not the idea.
It's the same thing for branding or marketing.
I have what I call the five factory settings of the brain.
And this is the way your brain is just naturally
going to respond to information or communications.
The first factory setting is...
Today on Influence Anyone, I'm joined by Karen Eber.
One of the leading experts studying
how stories change the brain.
Karen isn't just an at a storytelling coach.
She's advised fortune 500 companies delivered
a blockbuster TEDx talk seen by millions
and wrote the best-selling book, The Perfect Story.
If you've ever wondered why your story felt flat
or even why your brilliant pitch
just got blank stairs, Karen will break it down.
She's going to share how your brain's factory settings
decide if your story sticks.
The five shortcuts your audience's mind takes
and why details and conflict beat big drama
every single time.
I'm Howard Chan, Influence Strategist
and Founder of the Behavioring Company.
Let's get into it.
I said, I want to do that as much as I want to braid my eyelashes.
It was a specific detail.
When you hear somebody talking,
and they're using interesting language,
interesting expression, the brain pays attention.
Don't be afraid to be unique in what you're saying.
Set the scene, describe that conflict,
what happened, and then the takeaway message.
What you don't want to do is...
Karen, I want to start off with one thing
where you were part of the marching chiefs
at Florida State University.
How did you feel when you left your shoes on the field,
symbolizing the last time you were going to be on the field?
This is a deep cut.
I'm very impressed.
So there is a tradition in the marching chiefs
that you leave your shoes in your very last performance.
And it was in the Orange Bowl in Miami.
And I think it had been raining and it was gross
and a little anticlimactic.
But I stepped out of my shoes
and I had shoved a camera up my sleeve
back in the days when we didn't have them in a phone.
And I took this photo that I still have.
It's like you can see the black tips of my socks
on the field and the shoes.
And then this was back when dates were stamped in the photo.
So I got the date stamped on it.
And I left and you're like, that's it.
And you get to the sideline, you more top the field.
And then some poor fool is running around the field
trying to pick up all these shoes that were left there
before they get penalized, before the game is over.
But I went, got the photos, did I collect?
Got double prints.
And I took one of those prints to the band director
and he framed it and put it in his office,
which I thought was really sweet
because he has tons of people graduating every year.
But it was really more symbolic than anything in the moment.
Yeah.
Well, I bring that up because part of my world
is activating brand.
And a lot of people think brand is just external.
It slow goes and all that.
But a lot of it is internal,
which is the culture, which is behaviors, which is values.
So it's really interesting that story
that all that tradition is a story,
but it's also practiced every generation.
And it becomes a thing because you have said it's a thing.
You told the story of why it's meaningful.
So that's why I started with that.
I think it's really important and powerful.
It's a very powerful idea.
Well, and to build on it, it's this tradition
but we all have our own version
and our own experience of it
because dozens of people every year are going through it,
but what they experience and what they feel
is different every time,
which is why I kind of love that the band director
took the photo and framed it
because it's meant to symbolize whatever that is for everybody,
not just me, it was meant to be for everybody.
And so much of branding is the expression of who you are
and what it means to you.
Yeah.
So we often hear about stories
why are stories so influential?
How does it actually influence someone
to make a decision to do some things?
How does it actually happen, Karen?
There's layers of things that are happening
in the brain when we experience a story.
The first thing is as you are listening to someone
tell a story,
you feel a little bit of compassion and empathy towards them.
If you feel like they're being genuine
and you're getting the true sense of them,
even if they're telling a story
about someone else,
you feel this empathy and that empathy
creates the release of oxytocin,
which is that bonding neurochemical
that you can't fake it and you can't command it.
It's this genuine response to someone
that we feel in these moments of connection
and that leads to an increase in trust
and so if you think about when you've had the chance
to grab a coffee with someone you didn't know well
or maybe you were a part of the meaning
or an offsite and got the chance to talk over dinners
or meals or more informally
and you came away feeling closer to people,
it's because of that.
It's because there's this neurochemical shift
that can happen when we experience a really compelling story
that we feel is genuine.
Even if it's a story about someone else
and so for people and business and life,
it's such an important way to be authentic.
Like one of the things that I love is people always say,
we want authenticity and we want trust
but they're terrified to tell a story
because that's what we do that in our fun lives.
We don't do that work
and there's nothing more trustworthy or authentic
than being able to get up and convey a story.
So that's one of many things that's happening.
Another thing that happens is that we really make
decisions subconsciously based on our long term memory
of experiences and I oversimplify it
but I like to think of it as is we're taking in information
through our senses.
They get stamped with emotional metadata
and stored in our long term memory.
So if you take a photo on your phone and you swipe up,
there's all this metadata on the date, the location,
f-stop, like everything you would need
to recreate the photo is just stored on it
without you doing anything.
As we're having experiences,
they get stamped with this emotional metadata
and it's stored in our long term memory.
So when we're going to make decisions,
our brain goes through all of that subconsciously
to see if we've done this before, is this familiar?
What do we know?
What can we draw on to make these decisions?
And it's not even a decision.
This is happening all the time.
Neurons are firing all the time in our brain
so that we can know how to walk downstairs
and we can be able to respond
and not react to the environment around us.
And that's all happening based on our experiences
and what we know.
And stories connect us to these moments.
They connect us to these emotions.
They allow for us to even form these new experiences.
Even when we've never lived the events
that are described in a story,
that gets all stored in there.
And so what neuroscientists have found is that
we do make decisions subconsciously based on our long term
memory of knowledge and experiences and these emotions.
And stories connect to that
and can help shape people's decision-making.
Yeah, no, I think that just sparked so many things
in my head as I think about how you need stories
to remember those moments.
And in the world of brand, you remembered them
because of the great stories that have been told
and that influences your decisions over time
as you continue to build those associations.
What also springs up for me, Karen, is the idea that
I feel like there's almost like an internal story
that we tell ourselves.
And then obviously you can tell external stories
to influence others.
How do you think about that?
And how do we leverage stories to influence our own selves
to do things that we want?
There's always a story running, right?
There's our internal story.
There's what other people experience.
Sometimes our internal stories helpful.
Sometimes it's where we are hyping ourselves up
or it's how we're seeing a situation
and it makes us come away selling excited or hopeful
or whatever that is.
And sometimes it's not helpful
because we're telling ourselves a story that isn't true.
So I have a friend that is so good at calling out
when I'm doing one of those stories,
when I'm just spinning and conjuring up something
that isn't based on any evidence,
but I've just made this up in my head.
He says, how's that story working out for you?
And he just cuts through the noise.
And every time I have it, I'm like, fine.
And make me step back.
But it does make me the way I think about it for myself
is is this story working for me?
Is there anything that backs this up
or is this something I have completely filled in the gaps
and made up something that isn't true?
Because the data's there more often
that I have made up caps and come up with a story
that just isn't true more often than not.
The best thing is we're starting to notice
and coming up with stories,
but you have to then step back and say,
is there anything here that teams valid
and, or am I just building this elaborate team?
It also feels like internally, it's almost,
I don't know, maybe it's more of a macro story
to your characters, but of course there are certain events
or instances where you're like, oh, this is happening
and then you're like, therefore this must be it.
Do you feel like internally we can actually use
a framework to craft a story there?
It's more powerful for ourselves.
And it's a thing that we can do.
Karen, I think the way you tell a story
is gonna be the same whether it's the internal piece
of it or you're building it externally.
I think the difference internally though is to just step back
and take some cues of why you're building this story.
So one of the things that is really important
to recognize in storytelling is the audience,
is the start of the story, not the idea or the story,
whether you're telling the story to someone else,
it's the same thing for branding or marketing.
It's not about me, it's about what I want other people
to be experiencing.
So when you're telling yourself a story,
you aren't the aukey.
Yeah, we're telling ourselves like,
what do I need to be doing?
Yeah, but it's important to step back and see.
So if we take like a fear everybody has
about public speaking, that anticipation builds
the closer to that speaking event happens
and some of might tell themselves this
on the worst public speaker and I feel so nervous
and how am I going to get out there
and nobody wants to hear what I have to say.
But if you step back and you say,
okay, I'm the audience over this story
and you know what, I can get up there and do this
and I'm excited to share these ideas for people
and your goal for yourself is,
you want to just center yourself in that moment
and a goal of those emotions and reframe them
to be focused on excitement for sharing
and idea or excitement for connecting with people,
then that's really different than when you're allowing yourself
to spend and it always just comes down to you.
What are you trying to do?
What is it that you're trying to have people experience
and are you the person who makes the experiencing it?
Yeah, no, did something that I felt is true as well.
I remember a few years ago,
I had a medical scare where I had to go to the ER.
It couldn't find anything that was wrong with me
but I was passing blood,
like it was pretty scary, super painful experience,
like literal pain.
Then I realized after I left the hospital,
it was about two days later,
I had eight weeks to train for a half marathon,
which I sucked up for thinking I would have more time
because the last time I took me 12 weeks.
So I literally wrote down a story.
So I took a piece of paper and pen and I wrote down,
all right, this is what's gonna happen.
I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna feel like,
I don't want to go for a run
because I feel like eight weeks,
I'm never gonna be prepared,
but I'm gonna go anyway,
I'm gonna run when it's raining,
I'm gonna run when it's cold,
I'm just gonna go do the thing,
and eventually I'm gonna finish the race
and I'm gonna do it in a way where I'm gonna get
a personal record.
So I just wrote like a short thing
and I pinned it to my computer,
I'd see it every day and I just did the thing
and it became true.
Not that it will become true every single time,
but it gave me this motivation
where I read the storm, all right,
I'm a protagonist in this story that I just wrote,
I'm just gonna play it out, it's character.
That's awesome, congratulations.
But it's also like you're centering on,
this is what I want me to experience
and I want future me,
this is what I see for future me.
This is the heart of visualization
or manifestation or all of that.
It's getting really clear on what is it
that you're trying to have
is that experience where outcome
and getting to the point where you see it.
That's all reason why that stuff works is
you're not spinning and you're not stuck.
You have very specific things
that you're then able to work towards.
Preparing your brain for that
is so much of the journey.
Once you get really clear on what you want,
you can get there.
That's why a vision boarding is your thing
that comes true if it's manifesting.
Right.
It comes true.
It goes heading like,
it's just helping get yourself clear
on what that story is
that you're trying to achieve.
So let me flip it to the external side
for yourself as you step back
and keep probably getting a sense of
what you want to accomplish, what you want to do.
If you were talking to an audience
and if the audience is not homogenous,
so they all have different thinkings and these,
how do you figure out the who?
What do you think about what's your process?
Yeah, I face this pretty often
because the big part of my work
are giving keynotes
and there's such a wide variety in an audience,
but I always start with
what is this group sharing common?
So who is there and why are they there?
Is an easy place to start,
whether that's a conference
or whether that's a meeting you're presenting at
or whether that's even your audience.
Like what do they share in common?
So maybe that's a demographic
or maybe it's a company or a career
or maybe it's a problem that they share
or a common mistake they face.
And once I can see that,
then it's much easier to see them as similar.
There are sometimes differences
that you want to account for,
but I try to start first
with what are the things
that people sharing common?
Yeah.
So I did a talk that's on TED
that was for university students
at Purdue University.
So in person in the theater,
I was planning this for university students,
but there was a secondary audience of people
that were gonna see it online
and that was generally business,
life, older demographic.
So I went and really defined two audiences
and worked through what is it
that I know about these audiences
and what do I want them to experience?
And what's their mindset today about my topic?
And what might be an obstacle
in getting them to this different place?
I want them to be thinking
or doing different things.
And so when I did this for both of the audiences,
I found there was much more in common
than there were differences
and it made it easier,
but you can work in specific details for each.
So start with what do they have in common?
And then when there's enough differences,
you can start to come up
with almost these different personas
because it's truly what happens in marketing, right?
It's truly bright,
of what are the personas?
But you don't want to have more than three, really,
because then there's a point where you're splitting it
into so many different things that it's not helpful.
The other thing you don't want to do,
I feel like we do this a lot,
especially in business presentation,
because we focus on the outlier.
So if there's like a voice in the room
that we think is very polarizing
or that loud it or yeah,
we tend to focus our presentation
for that one person or the 99.
And it's not that one person isn't important,
but what's the point of residing to the 99?
That person probably needs something different anyway.
And they've been needing before the meeting
or after and to don't focus on the outliers,
focus on the majority.
Often that can sway those outliers
when they start to see the discussion
and the things that other people have.
Got it.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
It's almost like you have your audience
sure there are different types within that,
but then what's the commonality,
almost like putting them in a segment
just by asking that question.
And then if you subset something
into personas where you can have specific examples
that help you hit like a more detailed point,
no, I love that.
The other thing that you talk about,
which I would love for you to get into,
is so now you have the audience,
you're starting to tell them things, but then audiences
are people and people have these default factory settings.
You talk about these five default factory settings,
which I really love because we often don't think about them.
We think, oh, you know, they're just gonna take a message.
They're gonna get to love it
and then they're gonna go do something different.
But no, I actually don't.
Not until it's happened.
Yeah, so I have what I call the five factory settings
of the brain.
And this is the way your brain is just naturally
gonna respond to information or communications.
I talk about it in the context of storytelling,
but it's the same thing when you're communicating,
because the first factory setting is your brain is lazy.
Like the goal of the brain is to keep you alive,
and to be the broker of calories for the body.
Part of that keeping you alive is making sure
that it has enough calories to keep your circulation,
your respiration, all of the major bodily functions happening.
So that's one bucket of calories, the non-negotiables.
It's always gonna make sure that it can protect and defend
that there's a second bucket that's discretionary
that is attention and focus and how engaged you are
and all of that impacted by, are you hungry?
Have you slept?
Are you cold?
If not, where the brain is the stingy bank
or where it decides when it's gonna grant calories
to have you pay attention,
or when it's gonna save as a good moment to be lazy
and step back, because those moments
when you drift off and I'm eating,
it's not that you're not focusing
or that you're not eating attention,
we're just not meant to be immersed all day every day.
Yet much of our work is designed in this way
where we're doing that.
And so the moments where you've drift off
are this natural surviving mechanism of the brain
to step back and take on a less cognitive load for a moment
before it comes back and pays attention.
So that's the good news.
When you're drifting off, it's not true fault.
The bad news is other people are drifting off
when you're talking, right?
You're not absolved of it happening to you.
And this happens particularly in stories
when it's too predictable or when it just,
there isn't any tension in the story
if there's not enough conflict that's happening.
So this is when you give up on the book
or you stop watching the movie or something you're streaming
because it just, you already know what's gonna happen.
And what you wanna do in your stories
are put in specific details
that makes the brain head to speed bump
and makes it, hey, attention and lean in
or the way you're structuring your story,
you're putting it so that your building has tension
in a way that you can't help it think,
well, then what happened?
What did you do?
Because when you start to do that,
you're automatically pulling the brain in
as though you've caught a fish and you're reeling it in.
So that first one that the brain is lazy,
think about that anytime you're gonna be communicating
to people, think about,
am I getting the brain out of lazy mode
or am I just handing in a permission slip to drift off?
And the second one pairs with that
instead we constantly make assumptions
and this has to do with our neurons firing all the time.
So we want to respond and not react.
Reacting is really expensive metabolically.
So when you think of really uncertain times
and like you're constantly being hit with.
It's stressful.
Yeah, it's very stressful
and it's because your brain is predicting
and it's getting it wrong.
So we predict for things like how we walk downstairs,
we predict for what's happening around us,
but we predict and what is this person gonna say
or when we put up a chart of data,
we try to make sense of it.
And so when you're telling a story,
you either wanna lean into assumptions
that people are gonna make or you wanna challenge them.
So leaning into assumptions might be
if I was telling you a story about someone that came
from a town was one stoplight.
Your brain's gonna keep working on that
and whatever that means to you.
And you can also disrupt an assumption
by putting in that unexpected events
that or a really specific detail
or engaging a sense that has you say,
wait, oh, I didn't expect that.
Communions do this when they give you the punch line
and you're like, oh, yeah, from.
Blist, exactly.
Yeah, so the lazy brain and these assumptions
go hand in hand as you start to build your story,
you get to think, am I trying to
how am I building complex data?
Am I gonna lean into an assumption here or challenge it?
And these two pair with the third one,
which is our memory is really this long-term
hiling system of long-term memories.
Think of it like here Windows Explorer for your brain.
There are all of these files that are stamped
with the emotional metadata.
To win, we're hearing a story,
when we're looking at a chart,
all of that, we're trying to make sense of it.
And think, have I experienced this?
Is this related to something that I know?
And there's a way to really harness
what people know in your stories
that make the brain like involuntary pay attention.
So if I said that the incision was the size of the paperclip
and asked everybody to hold up what that looks like,
there would be a big variety and how big that is.
Oh, wait, I said that wrong.
Sorry, I said it was a small incision.
But yeah, I said it was a small difference.
Yeah, thank you.
My brain went off into lazy mode first, like, didn't that?
But when you say something like the incisions
the size of a paperclip, when you use it to compare us
and when you're using a metaphor,
you are harnessing what we already know
and it almost builds this image
that you get the brain spending calories
without it consciously even knowing.
So this lazy brain and leaning into assumptions
and harnessing what we know are different choices
you can make when you're building your story
that's gonna get the brain to be a more willing participant.
And then the last two are paired together.
So it's really about what people experience.
The first is that we naturally seek in groups and out groups.
In groups are those that we feel a sense of belonging to
or aspiration.
So in sales, that's the, I'll have what she's having.
I went the idea of that when you're telling a story
that makes people want to be a part of it
and out groups are where we notice our differences,
which is what the charity's doing
when they're telling the story of the family
that lost their home due to an actual disaster
and don't have plumbing or electricity or food
or clothing in your experiencing this story
while you're in electricity with food and clothing
and you notice how different your experiences are.
So one of your choices are are you telling a story
where people feel a part of something
or where they notice their differences?
Like in a job interview,
you want to show where you're a part of the group
you're interviewing for where you would be a nice fit
without competing in a negative way
or a nice addition to it.
But you also want to show where you're a member
of an out group where you're bringing different knowledge
and experience and perspectives that adds to that.
So the experience that you want people to have is key
and paired with that is the fifth factory setting
that at our most simple level,
we seek pleasure and avoid pain.
We've got these pleasure neural chemicals
like oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin
that are released in moments of connection
and moments of feeling good and bonding
and you can't will or fake them.
And so in a story, you can tell a feel good story
or you can tell an uncomfortable story
where the adrenaline, the cortisol are released
because we undergo these neurological shifts
from the experienced stories.
When you watch that horror film
and you feel your heart rate increasing,
there's a reason for that.
You are getting some adrenaline being dropped into your body
as your brain is saying, we're in danger
because you are experiencing a version of that story.
So you get this choice of am I telling a feel good story
or an uncomfortable story or both?
Am I telling a story people feel a part of something
or notice their differences?
How am I connecting to their long-term memory
to their experiences and what they know?
How am I leaning into assumptions or slowing them?
And what am I doing to keep the brain paying attention
and engaged until these become these different levers
you play with, your experiment with
when you're building a story to get one
where the brain is the most engaged in what you're saying
and willfully or unwelfully is like an engaged participant
in the story and getting a stronger outcome.
How do we break people, the listeners right now?
How do we break them out of cruise control mode?
Because like you said, they're probably coming in and out,
maybe they're listening to this or driving or doing shopping.
What do we need to do, Karen, to get people
or then into this episode?
What should we be doing differently?
The more specific details you give and a situation,
the more unique language that's given,
the more people pay attention.
I cannot stand when people say things like
culture-reached strategy for breakfast.
What is that even mean?
And people just, especially in business,
like we feel like we have to keep repeating the same thing.
I once told the boss I was asked to,
I was violent told to do something and I said,
I wanna do that as much as I wanna braid my eyelashes.
I got out of it, but it was like vivid.
It was a specific detail.
I think when you hear somebody talking
and they're really using interesting language,
interesting expressions, the brain pays attention.
And so don't be afraid to be unique
in what you're saying.
It's still relevant in a business world.
It's still relevant in what you're doing,
but it makes you memorable.
So, Karen, you're gonna help me if I may ask selfishly,
put together a story.
Let's make it uncomfortable.
Let's make it jarring.
Well, let's say the audience is or entrepreneurs
or would be thought leaders.
These are folks that want to put a voice into their world.
And I want the story to help them understand
that brand building is not about the visuals.
It's really about helping people understand your values,
your behaviors, crafting, a differentiating.
They need to craft a differishing story
to attract the people that will work with them.
So, let's say I want to give a talk
to a room full of entrepreneurs to start it
and get them to think differently.
How would I go about piecing this together, Karen?
Yeah, so let's start with your experiences
of when have you experienced someone
that is on that side of not really recognizing
what a brand is?
Like, do you have a specific example in mind
that we can use?
Yeah, let's call this person Dave.
Dave is an executive.
And he is more on the operations side of things of business
so he does operations.
Marketing was never really a thing.
It's all about getting things from point at a point B.
And Dave wants to be a thought leader online.
But then he says, I don't want to do any sort of marketing.
I don't want to do any sort of quote unquote branding.
I want to help people understand operations.
I want to teach my skills.
I want to use that to help huge leaders
be successful in operations.
OK, yeah.
So we've got Dave.
Yes.
We're going to lean into Dave in a moment.
But Dave is our main character that doesn't understand
the value of marketing and branding,
but does see there's information
that he wants to share with the audience
and wants to connect them to.
Yeah.
So first rule of all of this is, I don't get hung up on definitions.
There's a scene in the movie Pretty Woman
where she's truly a Robert's character
stopped in a hotel and they say, what's your name?
She says, what do you want it to be?
I'm all for what are they understanding or marketing?
You can still take people through the process
and then they'll get to the other side
and not realize that's what they did.
So let's lean into Dave so that we can connect with who Dave is.
So I want to start a very simple level of telling us about Dave.
And I'm going to give you this metaphor that I love.
It's a little bit in this, but it's such an easy way
to quickly connect people to the characters in your story.
Quick break here.
Before Karen drops this metaphor,
what she's about to explain is one of the simplest ways
to create memorable characters in a story.
But you know what's the real problem
about telling stories?
It's hard to tell good stories.
So what I've done is I've put together four AI prompts
using frameworks by master storytellers.
Storytellers like Will Store, Ashworth Thought, Karen Eber,
and Michael Margolis.
Between them, they've shaped stories
that influence millions to advise global brands
and help leaders build billion dollar narratives.
Destructured in a way to help you craft stories
that tap into identity, create connection, and really move people.
You can use them in presentations, pitches, podcasts,
wherever persuasion matters.
Best of all, they're free.
Download the four master storytelling prompts
using the link in the description.
Or if you're listening to this podcast,
it will be in the show notes.
Now, back to this metaphor that Karen calls a little bananas.
Dolly, a list wake.
Who has this theory called Muppet Theory?
Are you familiar with that?
Okay, I was in either and I was so excited when I found it.
The theory is that there are chaos Muppets and order Muppets
and every Muppet can be categorized into this.
So your order Muppets are permit and beaker and scooter.
And these are the ones that they crave that order and planning
and business world.
These are the people that have an agenda for every meeting
and their offices are super tidy.
And if they're going on vacation, they pack,
they plan out their packing and Excel
and there are no notifications on their mobile phone, right?
Everything is clean and in a folder and organized.
The chaos Muppets are Ms. Piggy and the scientists
and the chef.
Yeah, the chef, exactly.
And in the business world, the chaos Muppets are people
that don't want to have an agenda
that certainly don't have an actuary when they're traveling.
Let's just go and see what happens.
And so have every notification on their phone.
It makes sense to them.
Their rooms are a mess, but they could tell you exactly
where everything is.
So let's use one or two sentences to describe Dave
because Dahlia's theory is that we all are chaos Muppets
or org Muppets.
I don't believe it's that simple, but I
think you have moments where we're chaos or order.
So where would Dave fall and how would we know?
How would you describe him?
He was a Muppet.
Probably more on the order Muppet.
I think that-
Give us this job, it's in detail.
This is where we're going to connect to that in that library
of files.
Great.
What would we see that helps us see that he's
that order Muppet?
Yeah, so I think part of his job and why he's so good at it
is he's able to take a whole mess of information
and put it in very specific plans.
That's why getting things from point A to point B.
So that's his dream zone.
That's where he feels the best is when things are organized
and put into rows and columns.
Yeah.
So what we're doing, the reason I like doing this
is this also lets us lean into assumptions, right?
Because you could have some creative liberties
when you're describing Dave Craves' order.
He's at his best or everything's in rows and columns.
And he has, I actually twitches when he's like,
you could play it with that a little bit.
And our grains make these assumptions about the Dave's
we know in our lives.
Yeah, yeah.
So you start to connect.
You start to even see these people.
Yes, completely.
And also, we want to connect to what Dave is feeling.
So we've got a little sense of who Dave is
and what's going to drive him.
So tell a little more about why he maybe isn't open
to marketing or branding or what universe.
Yeah, so Dave sees the world of brand and marketing
as unreal, it's very fluffy, it's not tangible.
It can't be neatly put in rows and columns.
So it doesn't fit his idea of a frame.
It's very feely, it's feelings.
Feelings is not a thing you can touch.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
So I'm going to keep pausing us as we go and explain
what's happening.
So we're learning more about Dave.
We're leaning into assumptions.
But at this point, you would also
want to think about who you're telling this story to.
And is there anything about your audience
that you typically hear protests or complaints
or questions about that you could give a description of Dave
that helps connect to things you hear them say
so that they're like, am I Dave?
So would this be the audience that feels more connected?
Like the in or how do you look at that point of view?
You can do either way.
Yeah, you can do it either way.
The important thing about characters in a story,
it's not, I think people get wrong.
And here's how to elevate your story to them.
But people get wrong is they list the events.
And that's a little bit like, I went on a vacation,
I went to Rome and I saw the Pantheon and I saw the Vatican
and I saw the Sistine Chapel.
And it's just listing events.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not super exciting.
But if I told you what it smelled like a Mrs. Tine Chapel
far over the coast for good while hunting
or I brought you into what I felt,
now you're connecting with it differently
and you might be like, I don't want to see that.
So same thing here of what you want,
you get a choice with the characters of you
weren't people to maybe feel like a maybe on Dave
or oh, I know a Dave or I get why Dave is struggling with that.
I can understand it.
And so you get to play with what you point,
you want to experience with it.
So maybe I think most of the people in the audience
are older, they probably have families,
they probably have kids.
So one of the things they would be like,
I try to be super logical with my kid,
but then it always fails because the kid
just doesn't get the logic.
Then I'm like, oh, how can I actually influence someone
if I'm just being 100% logical?
So am I like Dave that I just care about logic
and not any emotions?
And so you know, even in just a few sentences
we can start to give a little bit about Dave
that lets people connect to it.
So Dave is, let's say I'm guessing he's not
in the first third of his career,
he's probably in the middle third of his career.
So let's say like 10, 15 years experience, right?
Dave has been working for X number of years
and is it this place where he needs to expand
or each needs to connect with people.
He comes with a really logical structured world
like his kids activities are mapped on the calendar
and everything has a measurement and a value with it.
And so you can give us a few sentences
and cannot just to Dave being this older man up there.
And now we get to the problem in the tension.
Yes.
So how would you describe how that came to fruition
of what Dave wanted and how you were trying
to help Dave recognize the difference?
Okay, so the problem, so the problem.
So basically the problem is when I speak
or when I post on social media,
when I share about how you can be a better operations leader,
there's no engagement like people don't care.
I don't get anybody clicking on it.
There's barely any comments.
I feel like when I'm speaking to the void,
what is wrong with these people?
Right, where oh, the algorithm was changed out.
Yeah, but actually in me over,
I used to Dave like this that's an engineer.
So all the things you describe a very organized measurement
and is super consistent with posting
but not getting any engagement because there's nothing
in the post that makes people see themselves in it
like all the things we're trying to do
to make Dave relatable.
These are generic things that people are guessing.
All right, I or there's just nothing there.
It feels very flat.
What happened when Dave realized,
I'm not getting the engagement I want.
What did you do?
How did you move them forward?
Yeah.
So part of the process was to help them understand
that we're all humans.
I talked to him about how do you make decisions?
Sure, you have all your spreadsheets and everything,
but have you ever gone on a vacation before?
How did you actually know that you're going to enjoy the vacation?
Did you actually imagine yourself there,
show you did all the research, you have your spreadsheets?
How do you actually know?
And you got him to understand that actually he doesn't really know
and the only way to could know is to visualize
and like, is that real?
Or is it tangible or not tangible?
Is it as tangible?
Voila.
Visualizing telling you several stories
actually a tangible thing,
much like what brand of marketing is doing.
So that almost sparked like, oh, whoa,
that's a different way to think about it.
So that cracked open the door to be open
to whether it's telling stories
or where it is sharing more about himself,
but it gets into the more emotional part of the world.
Keep going.
What did he then do once he was the door was cracked open?
Yeah.
So then the key thing for him was to figure out
how to position himself,
which is the ability to be relevant
to the people you want to talk to
and to be different than all the other people
that's talking about the same thing.
So we got into that conversation at work,
which was understanding the audience,
which we talked about Karen,
like who is he trying to talk to?
So it's up and coming ops leaders, right?
Engineers and operations and the folks in that world.
What do they want to do?
They want to go up in their career,
they want to climb ladders, much like how Dave has done.
So he wants to teach him skills, leadership,
soft skills, but also hard technical frameworks
to think about.
And then from a different shooting factor
then he sees other leaders talking about the same thing.
So for him, his big difference is the fact
that he has all these international relief
on an interesting experiences that makes him different.
So he wants to bring part of that in.
What was that and product?
What was the outcome?
Yeah, so the outcome was him having a way
to describe himself, his position as a thought leader
by bringing in the international flavor
that you can teach soft skills, technical skills,
that's not local, but from a global cultural way.
So that was his thing.
Yeah, I mean, so let's break down how you can do this
because we now have so many different pieces
and many different options.
And this is where experimenting comes in.
So let's say your goal in sharing this story
is to help your perspective audience recognize,
okay, yeah, I see the value in brand and marketing
and I get there's a different way to do this.
Like maybe I can be more open
and you want them to see themselves in this, right?
You want to connect with the devs of the world
and maybe your skeptical and don't realize it.
And so the goal is the desired outcome
is this awareness and openness
and following you engaging, you're reaching out with you
or if you have a call to action, right?
But you get to why am I sharing this?
Because then you can get into,
you really lean into what are the insecurities of that group
which we described with Dave, right?
I'm here doing stuff, but what's wrong with people?
They're not engaging, they're not whatever.
That's what you want to lean into.
You want to find the, when you're reaching an audience,
it's often what are their insecurities?
What are the things, the punch them in the bruise
that they're like, oh, yeah, I struck with that.
Or what are those aspirations that they really want?
I'm tired of being a best cup secret.
I want people coming and knocking on my door.
And so you play with that of what angle
are you looking to get to?
And then you start to map out the story of,
let me tell you about Dave, he's this person
that's 15 years in his career
and like so many things have been going really well,
but here's the thing that he keeps struggling with.
And so we would we then that organize
a lot of it and stuff, but we get to the things
that he's struggling with.
And I would put some a few specific details in there
because your goal is,
whoever is reading this or watching a video or however,
we're at the keynote, they feel like you're talking
exactly about them and the more specific, the better.
Yeah, so they didn't feel like, oh, I think it's me
or is that me like what you were saying?
Yes, and sometimes we feel like if I go to specific,
yeah, I'm gonna lose people.
It's really interesting.
If you've centered on who your audience is,
when you're more specific, it doesn't matter
if they've had that experience, their brain
has their own version of the story running
and they think about what it is for them.
So I would lean into what he's struggling with
and that conversation and how he's opposed
to the emotions yet ironically,
it was through emotions that you helped him recognize
the shift.
It's a part of what you play with,
you have all the pieces,
we set the context for the story
and into the conflict where he feels like nothing is working
and if everyone else is all,
and you get into what you did, that outcome
and the takeaway message,
which is that really connecting to emotions
can be the thing that shifts everybody
and makes the difference,
but then you play with the sequencing.
Like where's the best place to start?
Is it that my div when he was frustrated
after his 20th post in a row got three likes
or are you jumping right in the conflict
or are you the person that was most resistant
to connecting to emotions?
Have the biggest shift when we connected his emotions
or are you starting with the takeaway
and you need to play with the order
of what feels like the most compelling order
that gets that brain out of lazy mode
that helps the audience feel like they understand
who Dave is, they can see themselves in the story
or they can understand the problems in there
that you're connecting them to the takeaways.
Yeah.
In this case that they can see working with you
like they get an understanding of oh, I get it.
Okay.
And so these are just different choices
that you then get to play with
to see which one of these feels the most compelling
for this audience that I'm sharing it with.
Oh, I love it.
Yeah, so you talked about that again.
So the context, the conflict, the outcome
and it take away.
That's like a good framework.
Yeah, I have that story.
Talk about conflict
because I think that conflict and this age
of all of the movies and streaming we have
we think conflict is like the huge explosion
in a Marvel movie or it has to be like this massive.
Yeah.
But so, so much of conflict is actually really quiet.
It's like between a person in their own values, right?
And that's a little bit of what Dave is experiencing.
I'm focused on my stuff and you're telling me
I have to do this a different way
and I don't want to do this a different way
and recognizing that maybe there's a different way
or I'm not at where I want to be
or maybe it's conflict between two people.
I worked with a woman who she said,
I don't have conflict in my story.
She said, okay, what's your story?
It was about her very first job
and she got a job wrapping presents for a department store
and she'd never wrapped presents before.
And I'm like, hi, that's conflict.
That is nerve-wracking.
And then she said, her very first client
brought a bicycle for her to wrap
but I'm like, your story is all harmful.
I'm just like, to her, it just didn't feel like
there was this big dramatic thing
but there is something that feels hard
that you're not at where you want to be
or there's a struggle or there's tension between
like that's conflict
because then we can relate to that moment.
I've never wrapped presents for a department store
but I feel my stomach's big
at the idea of someone walking up with a bicycle
saying, can you please wrap this?
My brain goes, what happened?
What did she do?
How did she, like, what then what happened?
It is so interesting as you're saying this,
you're right, I always feel like I hear
a story needs to have this stake, what's it's stake, right?
And they always say, oh, you gotta push a stake
to this like huge world ending scenario at that stake
but then the crazy thing is I feel your story
or the world of the story is how you tell it
and the world could be literally my world,
it's quite a good small world
which is also very meaningful
because it's my world, it could be small
but if it collapses, that's all there is
and that's how you tell that story.
Only and for most of us,
the conflict and tension that we're navigating every day
are big things to us
but they're not these huge dramatic moments
that used to be on TV tonight
on a very special whatever.
Right, right, right.
But it's still something where I'm not at where I want to be
or I'm struggling with this person
or maybe we're struggling with an entity or
and when you lean into what makes it complicated,
what makes it messy, what makes it hard for you,
that's when you're connecting people to it.
When story's far flat,
it's because we haven't connected people
to the nuance of it,
which is why the terrible advice is lean into this
and make it be really big and dramatic
but so much of our conflict is really quiet.
I like that.
I think you start to have an eye for it.
I feel like as you do this more and more often,
pinpointing the tension pieces.
Here, is there,
do you advise people to have a collection of stories
that you tell over and over again?
Or are these always,
it comes when you need
and then you piece something together?
How do you advise people?
In me, there.
I think the way I think it's important to think about it is
you always start your story with the audience.
So maybe it's a story you've told many times
but you always want to start with
who am I telling this to?
What do I want them to think or feel internally?
What do I want them to know or do
as a result to the story?
What's their mindset today and what might be an obstacle?
And that could be for the story I've told 50 times
because you're gonna tell it differently each time.
You wanna do it was really thoughtful.
Otherwise, it's like that relative at the holiday table
it's like telling the same story
and you don't even need to be there at this point.
If it is a story you've told several times,
it's really important to make sure
you're not on autopilot
but you're thinking about what is this group gonna do?
I mean, the limitations and here are the four stories
you need to tell are the world isn't that simple
and there are so many smaller moments
that it's important to be able to just tell a story.
When you're in a conversation with someone
and maybe they're struggling with something
and it's a coaching moment or maybe you're with a client
and you wanna shift their thinking
or they're feeling defensive and yes,
there are sometimes patterns to these stories
but just thinking, oh, here are the four stories
I need to tell it is so artificial.
I worked with a CEO right when COVID was starting
where he had been told, like here are the four stories
you need to tell like where we're going,
why we can't stay here?
And yeah, that's important as a CEO
but two weeks into COVID, okay, people were working at home
and they were figuring out technology
and how to collaborate and family members are safe
and in school and then they're like, now what?
And no one could say where we were going
or why you can't stay here.
He needed to be able to tell stories
for that specific moment and so he found that didn't work
and so we dug into specific themes each month
really each week that he could then build stories off of
that felt more meaningful and relevant.
So you have a prepared set of stories
that you know you frequently tell,
make sure you're always connecting the audience into it
and just recognize that most of the time
those prepared stories are only going to get you so far
because life is way more complicated than that.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
I didn't contact this so important, right?
What are you trying to do?
What about if you're put in a situation suddenly
and you have to tell a story, how do you do that?
How do you?
Yeah.
Start with setting the contacts.
What's the setting of the story?
Give a time in place.
The time in place helps the audience
picture their own version of that
and it doesn't have to be a specific date.
It could be, I'm in my first job
after graduating university.
It could be, I am a sophomore in college
or it could be a specific date
that that time in place invites the audience
to start the reel in their head of a story.
To set the time in place, give major characters names
so we can track them and change names
but give them major characters names
and just give us a sentence on what is the story about
and then you're going to.
So once you've set the contacts,
then you're going to get into the conflict of the story.
What is that tension?
What is that thing that is being explored?
What's messier complicated and you want to describe that
and then you want to describe the outcome
of what happens as a result of the tension
and then end on the takeaway.
What is that message that you want people coming away with?
So if you can think of that real time.
That's hard, isn't it hard?
I think it's easier than what happens today
where people just start rambling.
So set the scene, describe that conflict,
what happened and then the takeaway message.
But what you don't want to do is let me tell you a story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm announcing some's in the brain into lazy mode
just like you also don't want to say
and the moral of that story is
or what I want you to take away.
We feel like we have to nary for people to follow us
and it actually is so much more effective.
That's interesting.
Jump into the story and then just slide right into that takeaway.
Yeah, it's like anything you must be practiced, right?
The more you practice, just be able to gonna use it
in real time, probably the better you'll get.
But it just feels daunting and scary.
I think the benefit of using something like that
is makes you ramble less
because you have the major pieces to your story,
the major beads that you're adding stuff in.
Without it, what generally happens is someone's like say,
it sounds a lot like this.
I went to go meet my friend the other day for lunching.
I was Monday and I was running late and I think who's toost?
Are you sure it was Tuesday?
I forgot my umbrella and I think it was bugged.
And it's torture.
It's torture.
It's like when you go to a website or a recipe
and it just keeps popping up as a road-freshing
and you can't even find the recipe
and you're like, what's happening on your?
What's happening is genuine.
The person's trying to place themselves back into that moment
so they can recount it.
It's accurately as possible.
But most of that isn't even relevant for the audience.
We don't believe all of this.
No, and then the audience is just way to keep you done.
Like when is she done?
When is she done?
I could've just gone off and they're like,
I'm lazy braining mist.
I cannot like the buck to you.
I hope this story has a good fennet.
Yeah.
So what it does is it eliminates that
and it makes it a little easier.
I think the more you practice plan stories,
the easier it is to tell them in the moment
because you get used to that structure
and you can think in that and it goes faster.
What about other, you talked about what's being said up there
have these four stories and an origin and all that.
What about other myths or things that you see
and that you cringe about?
You repeat things about storytelling, Ken.
I think people can forget their why.
You don't think it's important to have an origin story.
You need a why now, but not an origin story.
So you keep seeing a lot of have your origin story
and tell your why.
The problem with that is your origin story
is very focused on you and not your customer
or not your client, right?
It's important for them to understand how they can see themselves
in what you're doing, not in what you've done.
And most often as entrepreneurs, it changes every quarter.
Like where you were when you started,
isn't where you are now.
Like if Amazon was telling their origin story,
they would still be talking about books
but they're completely different company.
And so I feel like there's this pressure
that we put on ourselves to have this very deep
and meaningful why story and origin story
that's going to be the reason why people want to work with you
and know the reason they're going to work with you
is for your brand and what you're offering
and how they see themselves in it
and how they want to be a part of what they are aspiring to
or connecting to what you're sharing.
So that's probably the one of take pressure off yourself.
You don't need a big why story.
You do need though a story that your customers
and clients can see themselves in.
That's so good.
You started talking about that, Karen.
You reminded me of liquid death, right?
The canned water company.
And if they actually started this whole thing
with their why, which is all we want to get rid of plastic
and we're going to do metal and recycling,
nobody would care.
Nobody wouldn't want to hear a sign.
Yeah.
All because really in the end,
people don't care about your why.
People would care about, like you said,
what can you do for me?
How can I express myself better to what you do
as opposed to your purpose?
I don't care about your purpose.
Yeah.
Another thing for NIC, particularly entrepreneurs,
do two things.
I'm probably going to forget one.
One is end on your customer, on your client.
And the other, I just forgot, okay, this, let's do.
Oh, sorry, the other is people always ask me,
like, what is the story I need to tell as an entrepreneur?
And no story can work that hard.
There's not one story that is the story
you need for your business.
It's unfair.
It's unfair to...
Completely unfair.
Because it's too generalized.
What is going to work is the more specific micro stories
of the moments that you're helping customers with,
that you're helping clients with, where it's messy,
smaller, the story, the better.
It's a series of stories.
No one has, or you can do that for you.
And we all have different customers in our base.
And so being able to connect to those different feelings
of difficulty and moments are important.
So in addition to your origin story,
take pressure off yourself for finding the story for your business.
That will certainly be stories that you notice,
resonate more, but don't rely on one story.
It's going to be a series of things,
which is why social media is so huge.
It's those smaller moments.
The other one that end on your customers,
a lot of times I see this in speakers.
We have speaker reels and it starts with you,
but then it gets to your talks and the audiences you serve.
And then when they make a mistake,
they go back to the speaker and they focus on the speaker.
And the reason this is a mistake is,
you've taken your audience through an arc
and the goal of a speaking video
is to have them hire you as a speaker.
So at this point, once you've started to connect to
the audiences you serve, your message, your takeaways,
your focus very much on what people get out of it.
You don't then want to interrupt that commercial
and come back to you.
You want to keep it on them.
And so often we mess up our messaging
where we then bring it back to us.
And you always want to end on your clients and customers
and make sure that they are,
once they see themselves in it, keep it there.
Don't interrupt that free commercial going in their head.
Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense.
The last point I think about the micro stories,
I think that's so important.
I feel like there is a larger narrative
like for a company and brand that they're saying,
but they're not actually saying that.
It's made up of the smaller stories
that talk up that have this larger arc.
So if you go at it from the perspective of,
oh, I need this one amazing epic.
You're just never going to get there.
And so then you're never going to tell these micro stories
to weave it.
So take the pressure off focus
and what you actually need to have happen right now.
Maybe you have a vision of where the larger narratives
has to be, but execute on the micro.
I think that's your about page.
Like the other page that you can be selfish
is your about page.
And think of it as a goal of the about pages
to give your audience something
that makes them want to connect with you.
Like they want to read that
and that they mentioned something from that
in your interactions,
because that is about your cry and what you offer.
It should still have an audience focus
because when you go through what you want them to experience,
you want them to work with you.
But the goal of an about page is to have them feel
like they are trusting your company
and they know a little about you.
But all the other pages need to be very focused
on the different moments and problems
and pain points that you're helping customers address
because then they see themselves in it.
Yeah, there's something that you have in your office.
It's a disco ball.
Thank you.
It's right above my desk.
Yeah.
So how does visual artifacts or artifacts help with story?
What's your feeling about that?
Like when you're telling a story?
When you're telling a story or you're at a company
or I think you talked about your story
and it was going to this, I think, a home.
As it's a living home, you saw that.
How does it help?
Yeah.
So the very quick version of that story,
I played the flute in the piccolo
and we were playing a concert
and assisted loving home in this main dining room.
And I looked up and in the center of this room
was this gleaming disco ball.
And I could tell like this room was used
and it wasn't dusty and you could picture the residents
getting up there for on a Saturday night.
I heard the DJ going, this one's ladies' choice
and they're probably swaying
to like Glenn Miller's moonlight ceremony.
Oh, what I realized it is that disco ball showed me
all of the values of this assisted living facility
because the residents were down there
and they were enjoying themselves
and they weren't trapped in their rooms
and you hear these horror stories
of how people are treated.
And the disco ball was like so much more
than any of the words on their website or their pamphlets.
And I realized if I am gonna go in an assisted living room,
it has to have a disco ball
because this now is a complete barometer for me
and we all have versions of this
and our company will have versions of this
and our messaging.
I am big on using metaphors, right?
Cause a disco ball now makes a fun metaphor
and when I'm talking to groups about trying
to understand the story of their culture,
we'll talk about what are your disco balls?
So it connects to that long-term memory of files
that you can easily shape understanding
but visually if you're telling a story,
a visual can reinforce what you're saying.
So your slides, if you're using slides
should never drive what you're saying
but they should reinforce it.
They should augment it and be a visual aid and support it
and we definitely have strong reactions
to images over text and whenever I use slides
when I present it is 95% images
and it just allows people to get in there
and enjoy it more than if I had words of text up.
Cause the challenge is anytime you put up a slide,
people stop listening to you
until their brains make sense of it
to the more complicated, the less they're listening to you
especially when you put charts in there
and when you are keeping things really simple,
you're keeping the attention focused
on the messages you're trying to deliver.
God, it's amazing.
If there was one thing you wanted people to do
to tell better stories or bring perfect into their stories
with an 80-20 leverage,
what was the most leveraging?
What would that be?
What would something that someone could immediately do
to amplify their stories?
Recognize no one's gonna come to you and say,
and please tell me a story or start with a story
or ask for that, it's gonna be up to you to play
with different moments where you can share stories.
There's this concern of am I gonna tell too many stories
or when is it appropriate to tell a story?
So the places I don't want you telling stories
are when it feels manipulative,
which is if there is a decision.
So in the corporate world,
you're hearing a lot of like return office mandates.
Under no circumstances should companies
be dressing that up in a story
because it's a decision that's made
and no one would trust you.
It would feel very manipulative.
So when there's decisions and policies
and things like that,
don't just treat people like adults and community.
Don't try to wrap it in a story.
But for most other things,
it's a way to lower defensiveness
or connect people to a different idea
or help them consider some different things
just like you did with Dave helping him think
about when he made decisions and work through that
and be more open to stuff.
So don't think of this as I can use this
for my next presentation or my next pitch.
Think of it as what is any moment?
I can start to work a story in
and start doing that even what metaphor can I include?
What example?
What similarly can I even hear?
Because all of this is just getting the brain
to pay attention and the more unique you are
in your language, the more vivid you are,
the more memorable you will be.
It's odd, it's amazing.
So I've read in one of your posts, Karen,
that you really don't like it when podcast hosts ask you
about your favorite advice for your 21 year yourself.
So I have something that I asked by guests.
That's a little bit different,
which I don't put a time bound to it.
So if you could write a letter to any point in time
to Karen anytime, what would it say?
When would it arrive and why?
The reason I don't like that question
is like the 21, 22 year old version of me
would have never listened.
And I don't know anyone that would have.
So I don't understand why we keep asking this question
because no one I know would listen.
But I did do something interesting that was the inverse
of what at that age was important to me
when I got older.
And so it would be the inverse.
It would be the 22 year old writing a letter to me
that is just like you described
of that half marathon you're training for.
I hope these are the way the things that you feel about life
and what you've achieved and what's important to you.
And it would be that type of message.
My 21 year was that before we said,
man, you're so boring.
I don't want to, I don't want to.
And with you, you're so boring.
I know.
That's the hard part.
I have a niece and a nephew that keep me very humble
that yes, my one of my niece's friends said,
oh, your aunt has a TED talk, is it any good?
You said, well, if you like leadership's top.
So that, yes, ask a younger person in your life
anytime you want to be taken down
and make sure something is naming.
I know if it resonates with them,
I'm going to be okay elsewhere by a brutal.
If you look back in your life,
was there any point in time you would love to have something
come from you able to give you a different perspective
on what was happening?
The only thing that I think I,
the things that you wish you do differently
is I wish I could have closed doors more softly,
meaning I always knew it was time to move on
much earlier than I moved on.
There's a transition that seems to take time
before we actually make the changes that we want.
You know, what have just been so much easier
if I could have just quietly closed that door
and said I moved on.
And then when you don't, and you stayed too long
in whatever aspect of your life,
you end up slanting the door and everybody's mad
and you're like, this terrible.
I wish there was a way to be better at that,
but I think that's life.
And so often you have to go to what you don't want
before you have that motivation to then step back
and make the changes that are important.
So that would be my only wish,
but it probably wouldn't have taken.
Gary, here's to closing doors and opening new ones.
Yes.
Thank you so much for coming on.
This has been the was a master class.
I've learned a tremendous time from you.
And I hope to follow and learn more
in the future.
Thank you, Karen.
Thank you for such a thoughtful, fun interview.
If you want more of Karen's science-backed storytelling
magic, check out her TEDx talk.
Pick up her book, The Perfect Story,
or dive deeper at KarenEber.com.
So what's the answer to today's question?
Stories changes because they hack
a brain's factory settings.
They earn trust, they fire up memories,
and help us make sense of the world and each other.
But only if you craft them with conflict,
with details and emotion.
Karen shows us that it's not magic.
It's science that you can apply today.
If you've found a negative wisdom in this episode,
do me a favor, share it.
Give a review and help us bring in more experts
like Karen to the show to help us influence human behavior.
And so until next time, my friends,
go tell stories worth remembering.
I'll see you next week on Influence, anyone.
Take care.

Influence Anyone

Influence Anyone

Influence Anyone
