The power of story in making learning irresistible

Since the dawn of time we have learned best through story. Story captures
our attention and involves us in an experience instead of submitting us to a
lecture. Stories also facilitate retention by creating neural connections
to familiar expereinces. Lastly well designed stories evoke emotion
providing powerful anchors to new ideas. We are not thinking beings that
have feelings, we are feeling beings that have thoughts. The feeling part
of us is far more powerful than the thinking part.

I have had clients express concerns about my focus on the "Affective"
component of communications as it relates to Content Vs. Emotion. Content
and emotion are inseparable. The emotional component is merely the weight
of the content and the "weight" is the inclination to act. We have all
heard the phrase "knowledge is power" but if we know things we don't act on,
are they really powerful? I believe our responsibility as a meeting
planner, speaker, teacher, parent is to communicate information in such a
way that action is irresistible. Daniel Goleman in his book Primal
Leadership reminds us that the most important responsibility of a leader is
to "Prime good feeling" in those he leads. I highlight this in my
presentations because it is the component most often overlooked primarily
because it is the most difficult. This is particularly true in times of
stress, when our primitive systems kick into high gear limiting our higher
cognitive abilities. A good friend of ours is the man who started Sylvan
Learning Centers. One of the great lessons he taught me, which is really
the foundation of Sylvan, is: "We don't teach people to make them
successful;we make them successful to teach them".