Stories stick seven times better than facts because they create emotionally charged experiences. Sean explains how dialogue, vivid details, and disgust especially make stories memorable and shareable, and recommends using them for 20-30% of presentations.
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What is it about stories, Sean, that we should put them into practice in our own world, whatever that world looks like?
Well, I mean, the sort of logical element of it is they're memorable, right? The estimation is about they're 7 times more memorable than facts alone. So if you want someone to remember something, actually the best way to have someone remember something is get them to do something like their own experience, you know, especially something scary, something that creates an emotion is something unforgettable. But if you can't do that, the second best thing is to share a story. So it's vicarious experience, right?
Let's then get into— so if, if there are still there sitting some, uh, in, in our audience, the naysayers, that they don't still feel like they want to kind of inclined towards using the word example or even stories. What is it about stories, Sean, that we should put them into practice in our own world, whatever that world looks like?
Well, I mean, the sort of logical element of it is they're memorable, right? The estimation is about they're 7 times more memorable than facts alone. So if you want someone to remember something, actually the best way to have someone remember something is get them to do something like a their own experience, especially something scary, something that creates an emotion, is something unforgettable. But if you can't do that, the second best thing is to share a story. So it's vicarious experience, right? And especially if the story has some meaning to them, right? Like if I had to share you a story about plumbing supplies, that may not, you know, hit your button, right? But if I told you, you know, an amazing story about coaching and, you know, just how someone could turn that around in a very short period of time, I suspect you would remember that because it's meaningful for you, right?
Yeah.
Now, if you've got listeners who really are data-oriented, the best presentation of data— and because everyone's talking about insight at the moment, right? This is the big word. You've got to have an insight. Well, one of my sort of psychology friends, a guy called Gary Klein, he made a really nice observation. He said insight is when you unexpectedly come to a better story, right? So you think about when you're presenting your data, your audience already has a story in their head about how whatever phenomena you're looking at—
Yeah.
They have a story in their head about how that works. Right? You're trying to help them get a new story in their head, and it turns out you can't beat a story with just facts. You can only beat a story with a better story. So if you're not presenting your data in a narrative, you're not cutting through.
Yeah.
You're not giving them the opportunity for them to replace their old story with a new story. Yeah, right. So there's just a couple of things. Yeah, I mean, there's a myriad of reasons why storytelling has an impact, but I'm not saying that people should just tell all stories. That would be crazy, right? Yeah, you know, but you know, you should get 20 or 30% in. That would be— absolutely, that would be a great impact if you did that.
Yeah, don't try and do 46 stories in 30 minutes. That won't work.
No, don't jump there. Don't go to Brené Brown level to start with. I think Build up to it. Build up to it.
Build up to it. Yeah. But I love— so the story needs to be memorable. It needs to have meaning. And then the insight is that a story can be beaten with a better story. And so how do you come up with that insight through a story is also what's kind of really powerful here. And this Brené Brown, I'm going to watch this series because I think to hear— to just even open up to the idea of using a 7-second story to to tell so much about yourself. I think it's a, it's a, it's a powerful, powerful idea.
Yes, yes, it is. And, uh, you know, and she tells— what I love about her technique is that she tells everyday stories. Yeah, she'll sort of say, so I was in an airplane and, um, the fellow next to me turned to me and said, hey, Brené, what do you do? You know, and she'll— and one of the great things about good storytelling is it often has dialogue in it. Like this person said this and this person said that. We love dialogue because it actually brings the listener into a point where they feel like they're watching the conversation, right? So it makes it quite intimate. This is why songwriters do this quite often. If you listen to Paul Kelly, for example, great Australian songwriter.
Mm-hmm.
You know, he'll tell stories like that and it'll be the voice of the characters actually saying things to their wife, to their kids, to, you know, And this is just one of the tricks, if you like, to good storytelling. Yeah, this dialogue. So yeah, I think all these things, you know, you can learn through, okay, I need to do X, Y, and Z, but the better way to learn is just to go back to sharing examples.
Correct.
And then when, if you want to make them, your stories better, you've got to make them visual, right? A visual, like you think of again back to my you know, sort of car experience with my friend. Could you see her sort of running next to the car, right? Could you sort of imagine her finger getting caught in the door? And actually, it feels awful, right? And because it feels awful, you're more likely to remember that story, right? Because it has an emotion. And it turns out, actually, the emotion of disgust is the one of the biggest predictors of whether a story gets retold.
Wow.
Yeah, it's pretty fascinating stuff.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, if you can tell some disgusting stories—
I'm gonna, I'm gonna find some.
Yeah, find some.
Amazing how the human mind, uh, operates. Um, disgust to be on the top is, is, is a very interesting—
Oh, there's a good reason for it, because from an evolutionary perspective, um, it was always a good thing to avoid, you know, disgusting things— bodily fluids, uh, Sores, wounds, all these things were disease carriers. And so as a species, we've learned keep away, right?
Yeah.
But what's interesting in modern times is that concept of disgust has moved into things like behaviour of a CEO. So a behaviour of a CEO could become disgusting because the way they treat their people or, you know, how— what sort of they do in the workplace. So it's morphed over time and it's got broader away from that physical element, but still discussed.
Correct. Yeah. A lot of our experiences have like, like a tiger is not going to come and eat us, but a boss might shout at us and that is what's going to trigger our amygdala. So I think, yeah, we've made even our experiences extremely concrete. Thank you for watching this clip. If this was of value, then you'd love this full podcast episode with the guest that you just saw. I'm just putting this link somewhere left or right of me that you should just click on and watch the full episode. We talk about deep ideas, insights about life, leadership, you as an individual, and you as a professional in this beautiful yet so chaotic world of ours.
