Facts Tell People What Matters. Stories Make them Feel It.

Well, it seems like it might not, but think about this.

If you've ever listened to someone just communicate information, and then when you think about a leader that communicates through stories, which one do you connect with? And I think that's what we're talking about, that stories allow you to communicate what might be information or facts, but in a way that the brain connects with, your heart connects with.

And what's interesting is, Stories help build trust.

And when you have trust, it is connected to likability.

And so, you know, I think about it this way in summary.

Stories help people experience what matters.

It invites them to lean in.

It invites them to stay.

It's inspiring.

And so stories connect.

And really, at the end of the day, leadership is ultimately about connection.

Yeah, I remember reading a book from Andy Stanley, Communicating for Change.

And it blew my mind because he gives this structure of speaking called me, we, God, you, we.

And the first part, me, he says, spend time telling a story about yourself.

And my temptation always when I was speaking was to just get straight to the material.

I'm like, this is good material.

This is important information.

This is valid.

And once I started taking five, 10 minutes to just tell a story about myself, what I found is that it disarmed people.

It made people connect with me.

People were no longer sizing me up for the first half of my talk.

They sized me up during that five minutes and they said, oh, I can trust this person.

Sometimes the story had nothing...

It was loosely tied to my topic, right? But the idea was to create a connection of we have all felt the frustration of this.

His model was much more than that, right? But that me part was so important because I see that all the time in churches where maybe it's a baptism Sunday and there's a lot of guests and a pastor just jumps into the sermon without establishing that rapport.