The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don't

Why did you start your company? Why are you in your role? □ How does your company, product, service, or cause improve the lives of its customers? □ What are you passionate about? □ What makes your heart sing?

The poet Muriel Rukeyser once said, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”

“Great brands and great businesses have to be great storytellers,”3 says Apple Store chief Angela Ahrendts. “We have to tell authentic, emotive, and compelling stories because we’re building relationships with people and every great relationship has to be built on trust.”

A business is also a culture of people, men and women who are bound together to sell products and services that improve the lives of their customers and move the world forward.

Storytelling is not a luxury, wrote novelist Robert Stone: “It’s almost as necessary as bread. We cannot imagine ourselves without it, because the self is a story.”

Technology Complements the Story, but the Story Always Comes First

The technology supports the story. The story always comes first. And there’s no story without heart.

Anaphora is a storytelling device where a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses and sentences.

Storytellers motivate the largest numbers of people with the fewest words possible.