Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.
Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can't be faked.
My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What, was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.
Without social cohesion, the human race wouldn't be here: We're not formidable enough to survive without the tactics, rules and strategies that allow people to work together.
A gun can be dangerous. But a gun can protect you, you can hunt for food with it - you know, the tool itself is a tool. The intention of the party using the tool is a part of the process, right? You know: the knife cuts the steak, stabs the person, saves somebody from danger, cuts somebody out of a car.
Social cohesion was built into language long before Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter - we're tribal by nature. Tribes today aren't the same as tribes thousand of years ago: It isn't just religious tribes or ethnic tribes now: It's sports fans, it's communities, it's geography.
The seminal elements of what makes a story great - challenge, struggle, resolution - are the same whether we're talking about story content for a movie such as 'Rain Man,' or telling a purposeful story to forge new business relationships or conclude a fruitful transaction, such as acquiring an NBA franchise.
I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.
The portal into people's hearts is being interested in them.
The arts tend to be more liberal. There tends to be more social relevance in the arts.
Are you motivated? Are you coherent? Is your intention aligned? Are your feet, tongue, heart and wallet congruent? That intention shines through.
In today's roller-coaster economy, hyper-competitive, fear-based, flat and global world, convincing anyone to do anything at any time requires getting their attention, creating their intention and turning it to action.
In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce. Telling to win through purposeful stories is situation, industry, gender, demographic, and psychographic-agnostic. It's an all-purpose, everyone wins tool.
We tend to become social core groups, whatever our similar interest and background where we came through. It tends to be a filter through which people see themselves. It can be all different ethnicities. They can see themselves as San Franciscans, or Warriors fans. You want to build a tribe of viral advocates for that team.
When somebody is enthusiastic about a job opportunity - but gives off the feeling that this is not the only one they have on the table - they become more seductive in the employer's eyes. You become more desirable because it shows that you're making a conscious and thoughtful decision for the right reasons.
I think any new technology that helps connect and create social cohesion is great. But at the end of the day, you and I are analog creatures. We have to take 'oohs and aahs' and convert them to 0s and 1s and then convert them back to 'oohs and aahs.' Narratives that work in social networks are the exchange of stories that are told well.
So when you tell a joke, you want to make someone laugh, or if you tell a story about someone who had a heart attack, it may be because you want the listener to exercise. Stories are tools to create social cohesion and to get humans to strategize together.
I never look in the rearview mirror.
I was born curious.
Tribalism isn't a bad thing. If you're a Facebook user, or Twitter user or Foursquare user or LinkedIn user, those are all tribes... and they may even have sub-tribes. It's not pejorative, it's declarative.
