Good stories catch your attention, connects you by drawing you in and move you to action. Stories that don't capture your attention will fail to deliver their message.

When participants remain engaged with a story and see characters overcome conflicts, they will empathize with the characters and be more willing to act on these feelings.

"Metaphor" means "to transfer." Like stories, metaphors subconsciously encode complex ideas.

We find metaphors so gripping because we process them with sense or motor imagery in terms of those physical experiences. For instance, "I saw the light" or "I ran out of time."

The same parts of our brain we use to smell or to wave also help us understand the words we use to describe those experiences.

These neurological insights bring much-needed substance to the storytelling conversation.