How storytelling secretly rewires your beliefs

During the Second World War, up to forty percent of the German army tuned in nightly to a radio host they trusted completely. He never existed. He was invented by a British propagandist, and his death on air was staged theater.

That story is the doorway into something I think about constantly: we don't experience reality and then tell a story about it. We feel something first, and our mind writes the story afterward to explain it. The voice that does the writing rarely announces itself as fiction. It sounds like your own voice, stating facts.

In this episode of Inner Propaganda, I explore the research behind why stories are so much more persuasive than facts, including a Princeton study on how a good story literally syncs listeners' brain activity with the speaker's, and an experiment showing that an emotional story can spike oxytocin and change how much money people give to charity. I also share the six stories I believe most of us default to without noticing, and a two-word phrase I use with clients to catch themselves dramatizing an ordinary moment into a disaster.

What you will discover:

• Why you feel first and invent the explanation second
• How a compelling story can sync your brain with someone else's
• Why the tidiest explanation is often the least trustworthy one
• The six stories almost everyone lives inside, and what each one costs
• A simple way to catch yourself turning a tough moment into a trauma

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