Did you know that 1 in 4 Americans have lost a friend or family member over political differences?

It's a sobering statistic that highlights the growing divide in many countries. But what if there was a way to bridge that gap and bring people together who have different points of view?

The answer lies in the power of storytelling.

Storytelling is the communal currency of humanity. It's the one thing, long before we had money, that every culture on the planet give their time and attention to get more of.

And it's not just a universal currency, but it's arguably the most powerful way to say something that can't be said any other way, if you want it to be heard.

We’ve all seen or been in a situation where two people who hold very different views, lock antlers and ‘relating’ flies out the window.

It happens all the time. When people strongly disagree, they frequently do the exact opposite of what will be effective at getting the other person to really hear them. Instead, they do a frontal assault on the other person’s mind.

Triggering the fight or flight response … in a battle to maintain that they are right!

One person tries to force their point of view on the other. When that fails, the situation escalates to shouting and the relationship breaks down.

Has that ever happened to you?

When people feel attacked for holding their point of view, they usually shut down and reject the other person’s message entirely - even if it is well intended.

On the other hand, when you wrap your point up in a compelling story and engineer it so it triggers no alarm, something very cool happens:

..It meets no resistance and is listened to.

If the point is an action, it frequently gets acted upon.

Why does this work so well when a direct assault on logic and facts does not?

Because stories, when delivered like I’m outlining here, allow the other person to come to their OWN conclusions. And people rarely resist their own conclusions.

This special capability of stories to get past people’s defenses is the #1 reason why everyone needs to be able to tell good stories...

…if you want to be more influential and effective with others.

In today's world, we need better tools for communicating and influencing. Simply telling people what to do or what they're doing wrong isn't enough.

Yet stories delivered in the right way have the power to soften even the most crusty of worldviews. To create connections. To set up conditions where real listening and a real openness to see things a different way becomes possible.

And when you know how to use the brain’s inference engine so the listener's brain jumps ahead and is moved to think and act differently, a whole different class of outcomes is possible.

See for yourself here.

Thankfully, while only a very small group of elite communicators have the knowledge to use stories in this way, Michael Breen and I have been working on something cool that makes this capability available to anyone.