Vlady - the story sells. Period.

Vlady is waking. He blinks, he sniffles. He shivers. Drawing in tighter to the warm knot of sleeping children all huddled up together, he regrets coming late to bed. The outside of the sleep scrum is a cold and lonely place to spend the night. At least now that he is awake he can be early in the breakfast line so he has a good chance at some warm food. Through the window Vlady can see that the sky is just starting to lighten.

On the viewing screen in a large and opulent boardroom overlooking Chicago a young woman, Sophie McCall, is just finishing her rendition of Vlady’s story. Sophie is there to recruit the company she is visiting to be a sponsor of the children’s aid foundation that employs her. Vlady’s story is all too common and Sophie is a true artist at blending her authority of the information with hints of her feelings about the children. There are no charts, no graphs, no spreadsheets, at least not yet. Time will come for the data phase of the relationship. Right now it is time for the story to do its job and connect its witnesses to their own sense of humanity. A weighty silence engulfs the room. All the seats are occupied. The pause in the action is pregnant and everybody is waiting on the CEO at the head of the massive table to play midwife and deliver a decision.

Above is a story and then a story about telling the first story in order to sway an audience. Yes, I did sort of a story judo Inception thing there, and I have a brain cramp. But the point is that a there is nothing so connecting, so moving, so compelling to a person as the experience of another. Stories are what move people. Stories sell. Period.

(Inspired by: World Childhood Foundation - https://www.childhood-usa.org/)