FURTHER FOREWORD

By Harry Beckwith

This is beyond doubt: You and I are story-based.

When humans first appeared on earth, we gathered around fires for warmth. And all teachers, leaders, and entertainers shared one trait in common, regardless of culture or country; they were the men and women who told the stories. Stories conveyed historic events, life lessons, diverse perspectives, and the chance to learn from mistakes and successes. They inspired emotion and action, and offered a sense of healing, community, and interconnection. Stories wove the original “World Wide Web” when they were shared by travelers to and from distant lands.

The great religions sprang from storytellers, too. Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus of Nazareth were gifted at the art. The great military leaders have been, too, not least of all because the world’s hardest sell is to convince a young man or woman to risk his or her life for their country.

We crave stories, in part, because we were made this way. “The oldest neural pathway in the human brain,” a renowned brain scientist once told me, “is for the narrative. Our brains—and from that, our entire beings—are hardwired for stories.”

Look around you, everywhere. For example, what is our evening news? It’s a series of stories, told one after the other. We are surrounded by stories. Our movies, novels, and plays? Stories. Our dances, artistic creations, favorite songs, or TV shows? Stories. The stuff of every issue of People (or any other magazine or newspaper), our everyday gossip to our friends, how we perceive ourselves and our relationships? All stories.

The skeptics and the bottom liners step in now and argue, “Business is different. Business is rational.” They insist, “Business is selling a good product at a good price.”

Well, no and no. Success in business is about offering something that appeals to you and me. And nothing appeals to you and me, and every other you and me, than a well-told story.

Richard Krevolin realized this and built a business teaching businesses the art he learned from making movies: the art of storytelling. These are his lessons, nicely conveyed, of course, and I urge you to learn them. They will make you a more effective leader, teacher, and marketer, too.

And they’re a lot more fun to be with while just sitting around a fire.

—Harry Beckwith, Business Advisor and Author of Amazon’s #2 Rated Business Book of All Time, Selling the Invisible