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In 2009, a man, a journalist
by the name Rob Walker,

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wanted to find out this:

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Is storytelling really
the most powerful tool of all?

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And in order to do this,

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he went on his computer,
and he bought 200 objects from eBay.

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And the average price of the objects
was about one dollar.

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He then called 200 authors,
and he asked them,

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"Hey, would you like to be part
of the 'significant object study'?

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Which means that I would like you
to write a story to one of the objects."

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And 200 authors said yes.

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So there he had 200 objects,
he had 200 stories,

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and I assume that it was
with nail-biting anticipation

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that he went on eBay again
with all the 200 objects.

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Would there be a difference?
Would there be a change?

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Do you think there was a change?

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One of the objects was this,

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this beautiful horse's head.

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There we go.

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The beautiful horse's head.

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Now, this beautiful horse's head
was bought for 99¢

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and was sold, when the story
was added, for $62.95.

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(Laughter)

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That is a slight increase of 6395%.

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So, was this a one-off situation?

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Not really,

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because he bought the 200 objects
for a total of $129,

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selling them for $8000.

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Now, that's insane.

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But you know what's even more
intellectually challenging to understand?

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How can you and I

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go to the movies and pay good money
to watch movies like James Bond,

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[that] are absolutely unrealistic?

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And we sit there;
we enjoy the movie.

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And some of us, we really enjoy the movie.

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And we leave the theater,
going like, "God, what a man!

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I would like to be more like him.

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I'd like to walk like him.
I'd like to talk like him.

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I like Bond.

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(Laughter)

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I wonder how I could be more like Bond."

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And then this weird revelation
hits you like from nowhere,

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and you come up with a brilliant idea
to walk to a watchmaker shop.

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And wow! It just happens
to be an Omega watch in that shop

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that resembles the one
that Bond was wearing in the movie.

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And you pay $10,000
to put that watch on your wrist.

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And you leave that store
feeling more like Bond.

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How is that possible?

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PQ Media tells us
that 10.5 billion dollars

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is turned over in product placement
revenue every single year.

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How is it possible for you
to be so easily tricked

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by something so simple as a story?

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Because you are tricked.

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Well, it all comes down to one core thing,

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and that is emotional investment.

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The more emotionally invested you are
in anything in your life,

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the less critical and the less
objectively observant you become.

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And the greatest
emotional investment of all

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is falling in love.

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Now, falling in love
resembles a good story.

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Do you remember
the last time you fell in love?

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Yeah? Good for you.
It's a beautiful feeling, isn't it?

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(Laughter)

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Do you remember how you longed
and how you yearned and how you dreamt?

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Then you looked at her,
and maybe you thought,

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"God, I love the way you chew that apple -

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so crunchy.

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(Laughter)

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And the way you slurp that tea,
just over the edge, you know.

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Oh, it's so sexy.

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Love it!"

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And then about 13 months later,
when you biochemically fall out of love -

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13 months later, on an average,
you fall out of love -

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suddenly you find yourself
sitting in the sofa, and you go,

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"Jesus Christ, where
did this thing come from?

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Oh my God! And where are my friends?

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This is a weird thing."

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Then suddenly you hear a sound;
you go like, "What's that?"

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You go over to the kitchen,
and you look, and you go like,

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"Oh, it's you!
You're eating an apple there.

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Could you just keep that down
just a little bit?

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You're kind of spraying the table there.

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Please, please don't."

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And you sit down comfortably again,

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and just a minute later,

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you hear somebody drinking tea
from the kitchen, going (Slurp).

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And suddenly, this is all annoying to you.

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Have you been there?

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Sadly enough,

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13 months later,

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our critical thinking and our cortex
comes home from a one-year-long vacation,

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and we start questioning things.

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During those 13 months, what happened
was that your brain was flooded

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with neurotransmitters and hormones
hijacking your cortex,

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throwing your objectively
observant skills out of the window.

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And the thing with storytelling
is that the same thing can happen.

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In stories, the same hormones
and neurotransmitters can be released.

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Hormones like vasopressin, oxytocin,
serotonin, dopamine, endorphins.

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And you know what?

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That's what I would like to do
during my talk.

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I would like to induce
three hormones into your brain.

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I call it "the angels' cocktail,"
so it's a nice cocktail.

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I would like to start with radically
increasing your dopamine levels.

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And I need your consent on this.


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Is it okay?

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Cool.

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And if you don't like the idea of that,
you'll just have to cover your ears.

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So, dopamine. This is what it looks like.

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And when you have that in your blood,
these are the beautiful effects:

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you get more focus, more motivation,
and you remember things in a better way.

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So what does dopamine feel like?
It feels like this.

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About six years ago, I received
a phone call from a woman

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who represented one of the biggest
training companies in Scandinavia,

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and she said, "Hey, David!

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We've got a lot of trainers
in presentation skills and in rhetorics,

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and we'd like to increase
the level of all of these,

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and we think you are a perfect pick.

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Would you like to come to a meeting?"

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I'm like, "Wow, I'm honored. I'd love to."

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And I come up to Stockholm,
and I'm going to their office,

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and just as I am going
to pull the handle down,

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what I don't know then

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is that I'm walking into
one of the absolute worst meetings

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I'm ever going to have in my life.

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But I don't know that yet, so it's okay.

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I open the door, and I meet this woman.

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Her name is Liana.

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And hurriedly she says,
"David, just so you know,

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I'm not the one you're having
this meeting with;

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you're going to have it
with three gentlemen, further on here."

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And I'm like, "Okay,
that's a bit strange."

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Usually you know who
you're going to have the meeting with.

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Then she progresses
with a bit of chit-chatting,

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and then suddenly she says,
"Are you ready now?"

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And I'm like, "Yeah,
what should I be ready for?"

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She says, "Just so you know -
Can you see the room over there?"

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And I go like, "Yes, I can see it."

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"Well, in that room
you have the three gentlemen.

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Just so you know, they're all
majority owners of this company.

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They've all got an ex-military background,

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and none of them wants the training
that you are going to pitch."

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(Laughter)

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I'm like, "Come on!

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Why am I here?"

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And it's like, "Well,
all the trainers want this,

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but the management are on too high horses.

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They can't see that they need it.

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So it's pretty simple.

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The only thing you have to do
is go in there and kind of, you know,

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just prove the opposite."

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I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds
simple, doesn't it?"

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And I can remember myself,
I'm walking towards this office,

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my sweat is coming down
my palms, my heart is racing,

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and just halfway there, she calls my name.

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And I still, to this day,

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don't know if this woman
is sadomasochistic

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or just downright unintelligent.

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Because she calls my name,
and she goes like, "David!"

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It's like I'm going to get the tip
or something like that,

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so I turn around to ask her,

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and she says the following -

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And if I don't tell you
what she says there, is that annoying?

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(Laughter)

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Well, actually, as an example,
I'm not going to do that.

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I just wanted to prove to you
what it feels with high dopamine levels.

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Would you say that
your focus was increased?

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Your attention was increased?

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You were creative;
you created situations around this,

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and you probably already figured out
what that room looked like, correct?

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And you'll remember that I
did that to you for quite a while.

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Now, the feeling you had there

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was high levels of dopamine,
which is beautiful.

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So how do you do that?

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Well, what you do is you build suspense,

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you launch a cliffhanger,

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and the most beautiful thing of all

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is that all storytelling is,
per definition, dopamine-creating

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because it's always something
that we're waiting and expecting.

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So just imagine, just by using
storytelling you can get those techniques.

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You don't have to do
a cliffhanger like I did.

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So that was the first hormone.

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I'd now like to go to oxytocin.

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Is that okay as well? I'll induce that?

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All right.

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The beautiful effects
of oxytocin are the following:

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you become more generous,
you trust me more, and you bond to me.

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You want to do that?

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All right.

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All right, so this was a ...

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Nine months had passed,

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and it was a planned caesarean.

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And the little brother, who was
5 years of age at that point of time,

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he was kind of really looking forward
to what's going to be -

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what's going to happen.

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He was going to become a big brother.

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And he had helped us
pick out the wallpaper,

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he'd helped choose the bed linen.

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He'd even saved his own pocket money
to buy a little stuffed animal,

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which was placed on the pillowcase.

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About two days before
the planned cesarean,

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something happened.

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Something wasn't right.

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The parents couldn't - something was off.

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And the day before, there was simply
no movement in the stomach,

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there was no heartbeat.

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You couldn't feel or hear anything at all.

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So the parents were rushed into hospital,

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laid down on a bed,

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and doctor comes in, checks the stomach,

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looks at me and sees what I see,

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and that is that the heart
is no longer beating for this child.

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This was me, nine years ago.

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It was the worst thing
I've ever experienced in my entire life.

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And, I don't know, can you just imagine
what you have to tell a five -

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how you tell that to a five-year-old?

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Can you just imagine that?

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Because he's home there, waiting
in anticipation for this coming event.

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But it won't happen.

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So a part of me and to handle that,

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I talk about it.

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And I've talked to you about it now.

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And now you got higher levels
of oxytocin in your blood,

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whether you want it or not,

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which means that you feel more human;

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you're bonding to me,
and you're feeling more relaxed.

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So how do you do that?

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In storytelling, you create empathy.

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So whatever character you build,
you create empathy for that character.

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And oxytocin is the most
beautiful hormone of all

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because you feel human.

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The third, and last, hormone is endorphin,

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and I would like to show you a woman

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which, we can say,
has overdosed on endorphins.

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Let's just look what that looks like.

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Ah, we'll go here.

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(Video) Priest:
To inspire and to respond ...

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(Muffled laughter)

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Are you speaking or listening?

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00:12:05,184 --> 00:12:07,434
(Laughter)

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Woman: To speak and to listen.

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(Laughter)

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00:12:13,130 --> 00:12:14,245
I'm sorry.

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Okay, um, to speak and to listen?

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Priest: To inspire and to respond.

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Woman: To inspire and to respond.

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Priest: And in all circumstances

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Woman: (Laughter)

247
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Woman: And in all circumstances

248
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Priest: Of our life together

249
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Woman: (Laughter)

250
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Woman: I'm sorry - of our life together

251
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Of our life together

252
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Priest: To be loyal to you
with my whole life and all my being

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Woman: To be loyal to you
with my whole life and all my being

254
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Priest: Until death parts us.
Woman: Until death parts us.

255
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Woman and Man: (Laughter)

256
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(Audience) (Laughter)

257
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Oh, the timing of that
is so lousy, isn't it?

258
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So how do you create endorphins?
Well, you make people laugh.

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What happens then is that they become
more creative, they become more relaxed,

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and again, they become more focused,
which is beautiful to have.

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Now, all these three hormones
that I've induced into your brain now

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is what I call "the angels' cocktail."

263
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But there is an opposite of that cocktail,
and I call that '"the devil's cocktail."

264
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And the devil's cocktail has high levels
of cortisol and adrenalin.

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And they feel like this.

266
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(Quick yell)

267
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(Laughter)

268
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Sorry to do that to you.

269
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So, high levels
of cortisol and adrenaline.

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The problem with that is that
if you've got really high concentrations -

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which I didn't give you there -

272
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but when you've got
high concentrations, look at this:

273
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[Intolerant, Irritable, Uncreative,
Critical, Memory impaired, Bad decisions]

274
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Is this something that you want
to have the people you talk to

275
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have in their blood, in their system?

276
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Now, in our stressful work lives,
in our stressful lives,

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many times, when you present,
communicate, deliver meetings,

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Which one do you think
they've drunk most of?

279
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The devil's cocktail
or the angels' cocktail?

280
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Most commonly, the devil's cocktail.

281
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And the problem then is that you've got
all this to work against.

282
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But all of that can change today.

283
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All of that can change

284
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by you starting to use something
I call functional storytelling.

285
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And functional storytelling means
that you do these three things:

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One, you have to understand that
you don't have to be a bearded old man

287
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in front of a fireplace with a dark voice
in order to be a great storyteller.

288
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In my experience, when I train people,

289
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everybody is a good
storyteller from birth.

290
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The only problem
is that you don't believe in it.

291
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The second thing
is write down your stories.

292
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You'll notice that you have three
to four times more stories in your life

293
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than you thought that you had.

294
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Three, index those stories.

295
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Which of your stories make people laugh,
i.e. create endorphins?

296
00:15:19,354 --> 00:15:22,604
Which make people
feel empathy, i.e. oxytocin?

297
00:15:23,328 --> 00:15:25,301
And the next time you go into a meeting,

298
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you pick the story you want
to release the hormone you wish

299
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in the person that you're talking to

300
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to get exactly the desired
effects that you want.

301
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And that's a beautiful thing.

302
00:15:41,606 --> 00:15:45,896
Now, you know me, some of you
know me as "Mr. Death by PowerPoint."

303
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I want to round off
with making my point very clear.

304
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And my point is this:

305
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100 000 years ago, we started
developing our language.

306
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It's sound to say that we started
using storytelling to transfer knowledge

307
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from generation to generation.

308
00:16:03,615 --> 00:16:09,473
27 000 years ago, we started transferring
knowledge from generation to generation

309
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through cave paintings.

310
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3 500 years ago, we started transferring
knowledge from generation to generation

311
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through text.

312
00:16:18,586 --> 00:16:20,746
28 years ago, PowerPoint was born.

313
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Which one do you think
our brain is mostly adapted to?

314
00:16:25,064 --> 00:16:26,493
Thank you very much.

315
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(Applause)