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Stories make the world go round. I strongly believe it, and I have dedicated my life to the art, craft, science, and magic of persuasive storytelling. Persuasive, because that’s the real power of stories. And this power is invisible. Like gravity. And love. But its forces are mighty.
Anyway, before I drift away in a soliloquy about the force of stories behind every culture, movement, religion, cult, brand, and what not, let’s get back to who the best storytellers in my very well-read opinion are.
But first, did you answer the question in your mind? I hope you did. It’s no fun otherwise.
In fact, let’s make it even better. Before reading any further for the answer, hit reply and tell me who you think the best storytellers are. Then you can come back and check if you got it right.
This reminds me of the riddles and puzzles in books and newspapers that used to have the answers at the bottom of the page, printed upside down, so that you could not sneak at them without doing a little bit of hard work.
I wish I could write the answer upside down here. In fact, come to think of it, I can. All I have to do is attach an image with the answer upside down. That will give you some homework if you wanna cheat. 😄
Your options would then be to turn your head upside down, or turn the screen upside down. And id you are on a mobile device, you’ll need to first turn off your auto-rotate. Or, you’ll need to edit and rotate the image 180-degrees.
But then again, creating and attaching that image would require a little bit of additional work from me too. So, thanks but no thanks.
Anyway. Depending on your inner dispositions, you might get pissed at the answer I am about to give you. People do get pissed at this. Especially the creative types. Many stubborn, self-proclaimed bohemian souls have unsubscribed at the mention of this one sensitive, but extremely important, topic.
The best storytellers of history, my friend, have been salespeople!
If you have the good fortune of sitting with or reading something by a true salesperson (they’re rare, by the way), you will have the time of your life!
That person would make you feel as if you have known them since forever. And they will tell you stories after stories that will make you laugh, cry and gasp. And regardless of how many minutes or hours you spend with them, your life would have changed before you part ways.
Because that’s where the real power is stories lies. Stories entertain. And stories sink in the depths of heart. They change viewpoints, beliefs, and lives. Without you ever realizing what happened.
I had always been told by my friends that I was good at selling. I never believed them. Because I hated selling. And I could hardly ever ask anyone for a favor, let alone money. I just loved telling stories.
But when push came to shove, and I realized one the most creative people on this side of the world (yours shamelessly) was still broke, I had to dig deeper into marketing and selling. And it all started to make sense.
I had never been comfortable asking for money (which is the goal of professional business selling, and which is why i was broke), but I had been changing people’s lives without even knowing. By the sheer power of my Passion, Personality and Philosophy (now you know where the 3 P’s of my personal branding philosophy come from).
Just the other day, I was telling a group of friends that I have stopped using camera on trips and events, because it pushes me into the camera’s lens and pulls me out of the real, personal, first-hand experience of everything that’s going on.
And one of my friends started screaming at me, “You hooked me to photography and then quit it yourself!” And he also mentioned a couple of bad habits I hooked him on to and then quit them myself. 🤣
And it made me realize, I have always been “selling without selling”. Changing people’s likes, dislikes, beliefs, habits, and lives. The coveted “selling without selling” and “without being salesy” (which I don’t believe in by the way; there’s no such thing as selling without selling) was already ingrained in me. I just didn’t know it.
And when I started studying the masters of salesmanship (using the classical term for convenience; I don’t mean to exclude women), I just started being more deliberate about what I had been doing intuitively.
And to my greatest delight, successful marketing and selling didn’t require me to abandon my passion of stories. It actually required me to double down on it.
So while you are thinking about the persuasive power of stories, check out these collections of stories and see how they change your life:
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