The year was 1998. Mark recently started a new career and his wife Mary just celebrated her birthday the day before. Their two kids, Katie (15 years old) and Kevin (9 years old), were miracles to begin with because they were told they would never be able to have children. There were so many things to be thankful for in their life. They looked like a textbook family living the American dream.
Like most nights, Mark tucked Kevin into bed and went on his evening walk to clear his head and get some exercise. He returned home later that night complaining about lower back pain to Mary. However, like every male, he brushed it off and said he would be fine. He went upstairs to grab some ibuprofen and call it a night. Fifteen minutes later, Mary walked in to find Mark lying on the ground with the ibuprofen bottle unopened in his hand. Frantic, she began giving him CPR. Katie woke up and attempted to help as well.
The worst thoughts were running through Mary’s mind. What happened? Mark was slender at six feet, four inches and 190 pounds. He had just had a check-up with his doctor and had a clean bill of health. The medics came and the entire neighborhood was standing outside.
Mark was pronounced dead at the scene. At 48 years old, he suffered a massive heart attack. Kevin slept through the entire night and woke up to his extended family all sitting in the living room after driving hours through the night. He walked in the room, asked why everyone was there, and reality hit the group like a freight train of emotion.
Flash forward to present day. Katie has two beautiful children and Kevin is engaged to be married. They recall growing up in that same house where Mark had passed. They were able to live a “normal” life after he was gone. Both of them received cars at 16 and went to college as planned.
They know that their father always had their best interest in mind because six months before he died, he increased his life insurance, knowing that the unexpected can happen. He made a choice that many fail to realize: prioritizing the monthly cost of life insurance is an absolute must for families. It can be a difficult decision because there are so many expenses in day-to-day life that are current and can take priority: car payments, mortgage, groceries, the family trip you have wanted to take — the list goes on.
Mark made this choice knowing this could happen to anyone and that he needed to support his family. As Milton Friedman states, “the family, rather than the individual, has always been and remains today the basic building block of our society.”
The moral of the story
I shared that heart wrenching story about my close friend with you because I wanted to prove something — the power of a story.
How inclined are you to consider buying life insurance now? Selling these insurance vehicles is not easy. When hooked up to an FMRI machine, imaging shows that people literally think our future selves are someone completely different. It is a common bias that we all hold because it is difficult to gain perspective when we live in the now.
This makes it difficult for someone to logically explain why you should buy life insurance. Using facts and figures can only get you so far because purchasing a product is a more emotional decision than a logical one. We use the logic to justify our emotions in the end. Many in sales forget this and just throw out statistics, saying their product will help you and that this should be a no-brainer. How do we get people to truly understand?
Science supports emotion
Stories are extremely successful in moving others because they evoke a strong neurological response. Our brains produce the stress hormone cortisol during tense moments of the story. This allows us to focus. Then oxytocin is released when we feel the connection in the story — when we realize that the same situation could happen to us — which elicits empathy. A happy ending to a story releases dopamine, which can also make us feel more hopeful and optimistic about that situation.
We are subconsciously involved when we hear a moving story. Stories help our brains make sense of the world and help us create context around the information we receive in our lives. Everyone is in the business of moving others and selling, whether we like it or not. Stories are becoming a key way for individuals and companies to distinguish their goods and services in a crowded marketplace. If you want your service or product to be remembered, it must be rooted in a story with which consumers can emotionally connect.
Share your story
So how do I tell a story with high emotional context that builds empathy? In the words of Ernest Hemingway, “Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.”
First, you need to create context to make the character relatable. Tell the reader the who, what, where, and when so they can associate themselves with the story and illicit the thought of “this could be me.” When opened this way, listeners are eager to hear the rest of the story in the hope that they will learn how to succeed in this situation, should they face it. Creating a relatable situation makes it personal and will help you come off as more authentic, natural, and believable. When they associate themselves to the story, they will not only feel sympathy for the person, but they will also feel empathy.
You then need to explain the action of the story, which shows the obstacles the characters are likely to face. This must be something that the audience is likely to see and understand. After that, describe the result of the story and explain the lesson you would like the audience to take away from it. This lesson can link back to why you told the story in the first place.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to communicate and has survived the test of time. People remember impactful stories because they resonate with us emotionally and help us see things in a new light. My friend’s story opened my eyes because they still talk about Mark and his important financial decision. They know that his goal was to provide for them, and he continues to do so to this day.