Top Highlights

• Great stories make a promise. They promise fun or money, safety or a shortcut. The promise is bold and audacious and not just very good—it’s exceptional or it’s not worth listening to.
• A great story is true. Not true because it’s factual, but true because it’s consistent and authentic.
• Great stories are subtle. Surprisingly, the less a marketer spells out, the more powerful the story becomes.
• Average people have too many different points of view about life and average people are by and large satisfied. If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one.
• You believe things that aren’t true. Let me say that a different way: Many things that are true are true because you believe them.