A bridge called stories

Last week, during my daily office commute, I decided to ditch my newspaper for a podcast series. I was shouldering the guilt to ditching the newspaper, and hoped the podcasts wouldn’t let me down

The first one in the series wasn’t something I was excited about – the industry wasn’t something I took very seriously. To add to that, I also held a slight grudge somewhere against the company for commercialising their industry.

Yet, 2 minutes later, I found myself completing immersed in the podcast. By the time the podcast ended, I was almost at office. I stepped out of the car, enveloped by warmth and tonnes of energy – just what I needed for a Monday morning.

Tuesday morning, I hopped into the car excited about the next podcast – an interview with a leader representing a company with a few billion monthly active users, with amazing human interest angles. Yet, despite my personal interest in the subject, I couldn’t finish listening to the podcast and was back to my good ol’ newspaper.

So, what was different between the two podcast? Well, that’s a simple one –the way the narrative was presented.

Monday podcast was a series of stories that nudged me to visualise, connect emotionally with the leader’s journey – the purpose, the pain, the opportunities, the people. By the end, even the commercialisation made some sense and I was excited about what next. I even discussed some parts of the podcast at work!

Tuesday was unfortunately a dry narrative, sans stories and emotions. By the evening, I had already forgotten most of it.

To me this was yet another reminder of the power of stories. Stories create 'sticky' memories by attaching emotions to things that happen. They forge connections among people, and between people and ideas.

From rocks (aka cave art) to digital platforms, from forklore to podcasts, stories continue to be the bridge between our past, present and future.

…and we need many more bridges today, in our complex, cluttered world!

How have stories helped you forge connections? Drop a line to share...