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The Story Lab
The go-to podcast for business owners and marketers who want to harness the power of storytelling to stand out, connect, and grow their brands using the power of stories.
The Story Lab
Storytelling Magic: The Fastest Way to Build Trust Ep. 5
Your brain isn't just processing a story—it's dancing with it. That's the fascinating revelation at the heart of this mind-bending exploration into why stories stick with us when facts fade away.
Dive into the neuroscience of storytelling as we uncover how narratives activate your entire brain—not just language centers, but sensory regions, motor cortex, and emotional pathways. When someone mentions touching a microphone's foam cover, your sensory cortex lights up. When they describe running from a bear, your motor cortex activates. This full-brain engagement creates memories that last, unlike isolated facts that barely register.
The chemistry gets even more fascinating. Great stories trigger oxytocin release—the trust and bonding hormone—creating genuine connections between storytellers and listeners. This biological response explains why we feel drawn to compelling narrators and remember their messages. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense: our ancestors who paid attention to stories about which plants were poisonous or which neighbors were dangerous lived longer and passed on their story-receptive genes.
Most remarkable is the phenomenon of neural coupling—when your brainwaves literally synchronize with the storyteller's. Princeton neuroscientist Uri Hassan documented this brain-to-brain alignment, revealing how narrative creates a shared mental experience that transcends ordinary communication. This explains why magnetic storytellers seem to cast a spell over audiences—they're bringing your neural activity into harmony with theirs.
Want to make your message unforgettable? Wrap it in a story. Science shows it's not just effective—it's how our brains are designed to connect, learn, and remember. Your audience won't just hear your words; they'll experience them at a neurological level that facts alone can never reach.
How cool would it be if you could control somebody's brain by doing one simple thing. We're going to talk about that a little bit later, but first the theme song Hello and welcome to the Story Lab. That was weird because it caught me off guard, except I was the one pressing all the buttons, so it shouldn't catch me off guard. But welcome to the Story Lab. Today we are jumping into why stories stick. Why are stories so important? What makes them actually stick with people? Why do they resonate? And we're going to go through a whole bunch of reasons. But also I'm going to talk to you about a little bit of brain control at the end of the episode. Let's jump right into this, because I love to talk about this stuff. It's a little bit nerdy. I'm just going to give you some information. Bear with me, it's all going to make sense and it's all why stories stick. Bear with me, it's all going to make sense and it's all why stories stick. So let's start with the fact that your brain is wired for stories. Your brain loves stories, your brain lives for stories, but your brain is wired for those stories. So what happens when you tell your brain a fact like I'm 24? Well, well, the language processing area is going to light up a little bit little blip. The comprehension area of your brain is going to light up a little bit little blip, but that's it. It's a tiny little flicker of of uh activity, nothing really major. But when you hear a story, if it's a story where somebody talks about the texture, the mic has this foamy feeling cover on it. That's going to have your sensory cortex light up because that's touch. Then, if I say that I was running for my life and I was barely able to stay ahead of the bear that was chasing me, well, that motion that lights up your motor cortex, that activates it whenever there's action, and then I share how I escaped running that bear, because I'm 24 years old. I escaped running from that bear and I got to get home to see my family and I never thought I would see them again because I thought I was going to be eaten by a bear Lights up your emotional centers. It lights up those emotional centers Anytime there's conflict or feeling and excitement. It's going to light up those emotional centers. And that's why I tell you, whenever you're telling a story, you got to make them feel something, because it's that feeling something that gets that story to stick. So let's talk about oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone, but it's a hormone that builds trust and bonding. So when you hear a narrative that's about struggle or triumph or overcoming the odds all those things your brain is flooded with oxytocin, which means that the person telling the story has built trust and you're bonding with that person. That's what makes you feel empathy and a connection to the characters as well as the storyteller. So it's no surprise that we remember messages that are wrapped in a story. That's why it's so important for you to build stories around what you're trying to do in your business.
Speaker 1:All right, next up, let's talk a little bit about history. We've been writing stories since we were cavemen pictures on the walls. They would tell a story, they would pass on information. It would let people know how to do something the right way, things that were passed down from your ancestors. See, stories keep you alive, because long before there was TikTok, your elders would share cautionary tales with you, or they'd tell you about the poisonous plants you didn't want to eat, or maybe even, in more modern times, dangerous neighbors that you shouldn't be near. Can't go playing with Timmy down the street, because Timmy's dad is nothing but trouble. Timmy's dad will shoot at you. Don't play with Timmy. Sorry, timmies, but those are all those stories. Now, people that listen to those stories and paid attention to those stories, well, they stayed alive longer. They didn't eat the plants that were poisonous, they didn't play with Timmy. They didn't end up dead because they ate the poisonous plants or Timmy's dad killed them. They live longer, which means that people who listen to stories passed on their genes. More people listen to stories, so it kept us alive and, honestly, the more you keep alive, those genes pass on. So evolution pretty much rewarded us for our story listening brains.
Speaker 1:Another thing let's go into a little bit of psychology. Humans are pattern seekingseeking individuals. We want to see the pattern. There has to be a pattern. So we make sense of the chaos by forming it into a narrative. We make sense of all the craziness by telling it in a way that's digestible. We assign cause and effect, we assign heroes and villains. We say this is the beginning, this is the end. It's creating a narrative and we have a narrative bias. Even our own memories are reconstructed into stories, sometimes not even realistic. Sometimes it gives us plenty of creative license. We remember a story very differently than somebody else might remember a story, because our brain commits our stories to our memory in a way that makes sense to us. It may not be what really happened. Crazy, isn't it All right, now let's talk about the crazy sorcery I was talking about earlier, and it's called brainwave synchronicity.
Speaker 1:So when someone tells you a story, your brain doesn't just passively absorb the information, your brainwaves literally start to sync up with the storyteller's brainwaves. This is called neural coupling, and this happens as you listen to certain um to a story. Certain parts of your brain start to fire in patterns that mirror the speakers. Your neural activity aligns in rhythm and it's almost like you're tuning into the same radio station. You are hearing the same music. Your brain is reacting in the same way as a storyteller. The more vivid and engaging the story, the tighter the coupling.
Speaker 1:And this isn't just hearsay. Researchers who observe this. With an MRI and EEG scans. They can see the brain start to lock into the save wavelength. It's crazy. So what's the science behind it? I'm going to have to read some of this. So a famous study by neuroscience scientist Uri Hassan at Princeton showed this in action. So a speaker told an unscripted story while hooked up to a scanner. Later, listeners' brain waves were scanned as they heard the recording. The result the brain activity began to mirror the storytellers, even in complex regions related to emotion and meaning. So it's like a brain-to-brain handshake.
Speaker 1:Stories connect people literally. So why does it matter? Because when your brain syncs with somebody else, your comprehension improves. You don't just hear the story, you understand and predict what's coming next. Your connection with that person deepens. You feel closer to the storyteller because your brains are quite literally in sync, and that means trust increases, because shared brain activity creates a rapport and empathy. So this is also why people who tell stories feel magnetic. You aren't just captivated by the words, your brain is rhythmically dancing along with theirs. It is experiencing the same thing when you're telling a story and you're hearing a story.
Speaker 1:So I know that was like crazy, right, brain syncing because of a story. But it's true. Let's make it really simple. When you tell a story, you're not just transferring information, you're synchronizing your brain with your audiences and creating a shared mental experience, an experience that you will remember. That's why stories are so powerful. That's why stories with a message the message is remembered If you want to tell a story that's compelling, that gets your audience to understand something that connects on a deep level. So much so you're actually sinking your brains. So much so you're actually sinking your brains. Tell a story, share stories, because stories are what gets remembered, and we want your story to be the one they remember. So I will see you next time on the Story Lab, where we sink brains like magic. Have a good one, take care. Outro Music.
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