Ep 151 Proof that Stories Alter Your Audience's Brains - Public Speaking May 30, 2016

New evidence that stories have a transformational impact on your audience's brains.

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work, and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Folks, let me preface today's program with an alert. There is such a thing as confirmation bias. We all have various biases. I'm certainly not above them. Confirmation bias is when you find information and it confirms what you already believe, what you already think is right. I want to be careful that that's not what I'm doing. Those of you who've heard this podcast before, or heard any of my videos, or seen me in person the last 30 years, will know I'm often talking about the power of story. In fact, the biggest differentiator between great speakers and mediocre and awful ones is that great speakers illustrate every key idea, every key point with a story. Bad speakers don't have time for stories because they're going through all the data and all the message points and all the slides. I've said it till I'm blue in the face. And yet most of my corporate clients and government clients come in ready to practice presentations that are totally devoid of stories. So with that throat clearing, let's hop right into the news of the day. This comes courtesy of the New York Times. This was a story that was published in April of 2016. The title of the story is this Is yous Brain on Podcast. But what it looks at specifically is brain activity. When audience members were hooked up to an MRI machine when listening to podcasts that tell stories, they specifically looked at the Moth Radio Hour, which is a fantastic podcast. Great storytelling there. And this was put in a scientific journal. This was published, the research by the journal Nature. This was a research team put out from the University of California, Berkeley. And some of the findings, again, confirms what I've been thinking and knowing, but still fascinating. And what they found is when human beings hear stories and certain story elements, it essentially turns their brain inside out, almost into a trance, and it takes people into a different state. What they found is there were 12 different categories that tend to get activated in people's brains when they're told different aspects of a story. So, for example, just when someone hears the word dog, this is a quote from one of the doctors involved. Hearing that is going to make you think about how a dog looks, how it smells, how the fur feels. The dog you had as a kid, a dog that you. That bit you on your paper route, it's going to activate this entire network for dog. And they looked at different words and what goes on. And part of their study was that people's concepts of time completely changed when they're listening to a podcast that involved storytelling, as opposed to a straightforward newscast that has lots and lots of facts. It's a fascinating story. More on that in just a moment.

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So, yes, it turns out that the brain processes information very differently when it's told in the form of a story. Now, this is, again, this is confirming my bias. Whether I'm guilty of confirmation bias, I don't know. But let's do a test. The reason I like stories is not because I'm a failed actor or I really wish I could be a stand up comedian. That's not why I like stories. When it comes to presentations, I like them for one reason, one reason they work. When I test audiences all over the world, people I speak to, when I work one on one or with small groups of six people, or if I'm giving a presentation to a thousand people, I always ask the question, think about the best speaker you've seen in the last year, last five years. Now tell me every element of content, every message you remember from that presenter, not whether you liked them or they were funny or they walked around on the stage or didn't say ums of their icon. None of that stylistic stuff. I want to know what you remember. And consistently, only two things stick. Number one, the passion someone shares for this subject matter. But number two, the stories. Now, I have to check myself. Maybe this is a confirmation bias. Even in my trainings where I'm priming myself to hear that. So that's my challenge to you, is what else do you find works? And I don't mean working in the sense that people tell you afterwards. Your speech was great, you gave a fantastic presentation. Completely irrelevant. I define what works in a very, very specific way. What do people remember? Because people can always lie to you and tell you that you gave a great presentation, but if you gave them a data dump and it's boring and unmemorable, they can't then tell you they remembered your key points. So that's my challenge to you. If you have something that you think is more effective than telling a story that brings your ideas and makes them come alive, let me know. Now, one of the things that is coming up these days and getting a lot of attention is Chris Anderson's new book. He's the head guru and guy who Runs the TED conference. He has a new book out which I'll be reviewing soon, shortly. And obviously one of his main points and something you see in basically every TED speaker is a great compelling personal story, because that's what works. That is what people do in fact, remember. But I want to know from you, do you have something else that works? A lot of PowerPoint experts are constant. I get these emails, newsletters, websites all the time. They show up in my Google alerts because there's a gigantic industry around PowerPoint creation and people have all sorts of thoughts on the size of the graphic, the color scheme, how many words can be on a screen. Better to have one bullet point and three words. There's all these theories out there, but I've never actually found any conclusive evidence that when you put up text on a screen while you're giving a presentation that people actually remember it. Now there's all sorts of evidence saying if you enter your slides at a PowerPoint presentation competition, judges looking just at your slides might like, you know, this style graphic over that or this color scheme. Completely irrelevant for most business people or executives in any industry giving a presentation, unless you're in a PowerPoint slide competition. But I want to know from you, certainly I don't know everything and I could be guilty of confirmation bias. So that's why I throw this open to you. I would love to hear from you. If you have evidence and I mean you've tested people, it doesn't have to be a formal focus group research with the one way mirror, a professional pollster doing it. But if you have some evidence that ideas you communicated were remembered by your audience and it wasn't through the device of telling a story, I would love to hear from you, especially if you want to make the case that your method is more effective on a regular basis and not just a one off. Because I ultimately I care about what works. I always kid to my clients, I said, look, if we could somehow take all the knowledge you have on a subject, put it on a thumbnail drive and just walk around to the audience and stick it in the back of people's heads and they get it and go home. Great, let's do that. Let's gather up as many facts, let's create 120 page PowerPoint slides, put on the thumbnail drive and stick it into people's head. Unfortunately, number one, it's probably illegal to try to do that. Number two, it doesn't work. There simply isn't a way of doing that yet for people. Maybe there never will be. I want to know what works. So if you have a different theory, send it to me. You can tweet it jwalker. You can email me tjediatrainingworldwide.com you can also post your comments wherever you are. Listening to or watching this program, whether it's on iTunes, SoundCloud, live, Facebook video, YouTube video, Dailymotion. Doesn't matter. We try to get out everywhere. But I want to hear from you because too many executives, I find tell themselves. Yeah, I like stories. That's nice. Nice for motivational speakers, nice for presentation coaches like tj. But I'm a serious business person and it's not for me. I got to stick to the facts. I got to stick to the meat. I hear that stated overtly sometimes, but often it is a subconscious belief system people have. And that's why I do feel it's important to put a spotlight on actual scientific research. Because you can say that any one independent presentation coach like me is just making stuff up. But here we have more independent confirmation from some pretty respectable universities. University of California, Berkeley. I mean, we're not talking about University of Helsinki's research on hair regrowth that we used to see in infomercials. This is pretty reputable organization and I would urge you to just Google the phrase this is your Brain on Podcast or go to the New York Times and search this is yous Brain on Podcast. Fascinating story. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks so much for spending a few minutes of your day with me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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