Tell Your Story. We are Listening

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Humans are incredibly delicious storytelling machines.

Every one of us is climbing over and through stories as they crowd our day, our lives.

Ever been in love? You told stories to each other the first time you met. Until one of them stopped you. You looked at each other, thought, ” Me too, that is my story too”.

Someone asks you how your day was, and you tell them a quick story about what happened. Meet a friend for dinner? You are swapping stories back and forth until the dessert menu finds its way to the table.

Before large cities, currencies, or organisational charts, we had stories. We told each other where the danger was, what foods are good for us, our origin stories and what we believe. We passed on knowledge, built trust, and created shared beliefs that let us coordinate in groups no other animal could manage. We didn’t just survive. We collaborated our way to the top of the food chain, and we did it through the shared understanding that stories build.

Storytelling is our survival superpower.

This is where we are unique. A crow can solve a puzzle. Dolphins can mourn. A chimpanzee can use a tool. But none of them can sit you down and walk you through the intimate details of their internal world in a film, email or social media post. None of them can share the moment they doubted themselves, changed their mind, or made a decision that cost them something. None of them can write a book about a belief system to help them navigate life. Or share it, saying, “This is how I make sense of things; maybe it will help you, too.”

We do it at dinner tables, in therapy rooms or texts at midnight. They happen in job interviews, and the things we finally say out loud after years of rehearsing them in our heads. We are always narrating and piecing together the story of what just happened and what it means for what comes next.

That internal monologue running in the background of your life? That is the storytelling machine at work. And when you let some of it out, when you share the real version of what it is like to be you, something magic happens. Other people recognise themselves in it. Connection forms. Walls come down. The distance between two humans collapses into a single moment of: me too.

We are a wonderful, complex animal. Ridiculous and tender and occasionally magnificent. And the way we get through this crazy life is not by having it figured out. It is by telling our way through it. By narrating the hard parts until they make a kind of sense. By sharing the stories that carry comfort, or a warning, or an embarrassing moment, to make someone laugh.

There is an entire world inside you. The thoughts you write in a journal. The experiences that shaped you as a child. The beliefs you built, piece by piece, to make life livable.

That is extraordinary.

Do not keep it to yourself.

Scratch the surface of any human, and you will find a story that matters. The nurse who became a marathon runner after a breakdown. The accountant who grew up on a cattle station. The team leader whose decision to stay home one afternoon changed the trajectory of her family. These aren’t dramatic. They don’t need to be. They’re real, and real is what connects us.

The problem isn’t that people lack stories. It’s that they don’t feel they have permission to tell them.

We tend to downplay our own lives; they aren’t interesting. That makes sense, we are doing it all day, every day. There is no novelty there. But other people, they are interesting. That is where you are wrong. 

What the Science Says

This isn’t my opinion; the neuroscience is clear.

Researcher Paul Zak at Claremont Graduate University spent years studying what happens to our brains when we hear a compelling story. He found that our brains release oxytocin, the chemical we associate with trust and empathy. When we engage with a narrative that has genuine emotional stakes, we are chemically engineered to pay attention. Not to a pitch or data set. But a story about human struggle, choice, and what happened next. Zak found that this neurochemical response directly increased trust, generosity, and prosocial behaviour in participants. The story didn’t just move people emotionally. It changed them on a biochemical level.

On the other side of this, it can also be used to manipulate or persuade people to act in ways that are against their best interests. That is why, before I teach storytelling, I make people raise their hands and take an oath. I, the storyteller, do swear to do no harm.

In one study, participants who received a dose of synthetic oxytocin donated 56% more to charity than those given a placebo. But what is more interesting is what happened to the control group. The oxytocin in the control group was triggered by watching a short film. Watching the narrative created the same chemical conditions for trust and connection.

That’s our superpower as humans. We can create connections on demand through the stories we tell.

The Leadership Edge You’re Leaving on the Table

Leaders who can tell stories move people.

Research confirms that when leaders share authentic stories about their purpose, challenges, and aspirations, they build connection and trust in ways that data and directives simply can’t replicate. Stories engage both the rational and emotional centres of the brain simultaneously. They help people make sense of complexity. They transform “us versus them” into “we.”

That doesn’t stop leaders from pulling out the PowerPoint deck. Slides with bullet points, metrics, and industry jargon that leave their team feeling disengaged, or their pitch falls flat. Slides don’t create a connection. Stories do.

The research from TCU’s Neeley School of Business says: leaders who master storytelling gain a competitive advantage. They communicate vision in a way that energises teams, secure buy-in with greater ease, and build trust through authenticity. Meanwhile, those who rely on stats and industry news to persuade are harder to remember and harder to trust.

The most inspiring of all stories, where so many leaders fear to go: accounts of failure. We are most moved by stories of overcoming setbacks. The messy middle, the roadblock, the moment of doubt. It’s what leaders are most afraid to share. It’s also what people remember. There is nothing more human and compelling than a story of how you messed up and then how you fixed it.

Scott Galloway’s Secret to Success

NYU marketing professor and serial entrepreneur Scott Galloway has been preaching about the powers of storytelling for a while now, and he talks about it every chance he gets.

In his No Mercy / No Malice newsletter, he wrote:

“The arc of evolution bends toward good storytellers. Communities with larger proportions of skilled storytellers experience greater levels of cooperation and procreation.”

Research shows that skilled storytellers are more likely to receive acts of service from their peers, are perceived as higher status, and are more attractive as long-term partners. Storytelling, in his view, isn’t a communication style. It’s a survival advantage baked into our biology.

Galloway also argues that in the battle between narrative and numbers, humanity almost always picks narrative. Data may hold quantitative information, but stories are what move the needle in creating action for goals or achievements. Seven in ten CEOs admit they sometimes ignore data insights in favour of gut feel. Change doesn’t follow spreadsheets; it follows the story. We are flooding every channel with AI content. But the ability to make someone feel something authentic is the best way to get through and connect.

When asked what single skill he’d give his kids to help them succeed in the AI era, he said storytelling, “your ability to look at data, create a narrative arc, and then compellingly communicate that story.” He adds, “I wish I’d figured this out earlier. Money, mates, and meaning are all moths to the flame of storytelling.”

Don’t Wait. Story Now

Grab hold of one of those stories swirling around inside you and tell it NOW. It could be the moment you changed your mind. The time you said ‘No’ to something, and it made all the difference. The decision that looked strange to others, but made total sense to you.

Nothing dramatic, just real and true.

The people in the room with you right now, your team, your clients, your community, they are also sitting on a well of stories they haven’t told. The fastest way to unlock theirs is to share yours first. Vulnerability is contagious. When you go first, you permit people to be human too.

That’s competitive advantage. Not the talking points in a polished deck. The moment you stop performing and start connecting.

Go, you beautiful story-filled creature, tell your story. NOW.

Research and references:

Paul Zak — Research & Talks

Scott Galloway — Storytelling Talks & Writing

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