Chapter 1: The Deal for Connection
Will Storr, award-winning journalist and author of The Science of Storytelling and A Story is a Deal, has spent decades researching the links between storytelling, the human condition and our identities. In our new interview series, we speak to him to uncover how we can harness the power of our storytelling brains and unlock the full power of the story – in changing beliefs, driving action and achieving extraordinary results.
Never Miss A Story
Read the transcript of the film:
“Humans live in two realities at once. Like all other living things, we live in the reality of ‘survival’ – food, shelter and procreation. But we spend most of our mental time living in a second one: the ‘story realm’.
Story is what we do. Story is how we evolved to make sense of the world –and ourselves. It’s literally what makes us human.
“Humans are innately driven to want to connect with other humans.”
Will Storr
The ‘deal for connection is one of the essential deals that all humans want to make. Humans are innately driven to want to connect with others.
But humans don’t want to connect with just anyone. We want to connect with humans that are like us; people who see the world in the same way that we do.
We all emit a cloud of dense, social information – that’s in fashion, music, film, how we do our makeup.
One of the ways we connect with other people is by telling stories. When we meet new people, we have this horrendously painful experience of having to do small talk. Small talk happens when two strangers meet each other and they’re looking for ways to connect; they’re looking for ways in which they share reality.
But if you’re with somebody that you connect with in a more interesting way, you quickly move past that and start telling stories to each other about your life, about who you are.
It’s an essential human need; this relentless urge we all have to show other people who we are, so that we can connect with people like us and overcome life’s obstacles.”
Get Will Storr’s new book A Story is a Deal here.
