2M Views TEDx Speaker: Your Brain’s “Factory Settings” Decide If Your Story Influences or Gets Ignored

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.