Language can be funny.
In English ” History” can be defined as a chronology of important events (such those that affect a nation or an institution).
The term ” story “ refers to a person’s account about an incident or event.
History is a way to express objective facts, or a series of concrete, real events. Story is subjective and skewed from the perspective of the narrator.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica has stories. Harry Potter is a series of stories. World War II has passed. Anne Frank’s diaries are a story. You get the picture.
Spanish does not distinguish between ” story ” and ” history “. They’re synonymous.
Cual es tu historia?
What is your story?
We tell ourselves our lives are grounded in science. Objectivity. Stories were our way to understand the world, before science gave us better evidence. We now live in an age of logic and facts, where everything from the Big Bang onwards can be explained.
Storys are dead. Rationality and reason have taken their place. This idea is intelligent. Enlightened, even.
But it isn’t true. Stories are all that we have.
Science hasn’t taken over our stories. Science is the stories. The Theory of Evolution is the story of mankind, while the Big Bang Theory is the story of the universe. Math is not a “thing” in and of itself. We created math to help us organize the world.
Our only way to understand time and space is through stories.
The Spanish had it right: History is a series of stories that never ends. There is no single “history” because it depends on the perspective. You will get 100 different answers if you ask 100 people, “What happened in World War II?“. In 1939, the war may have been a revenge against the Treaty of Versailles for a German. For a Briton, it was the fight to survive against the Axis. For an American it was retaliation against Pearl Harbor.
The broad division of time by empires, wars, eras and kingdoms is not “history.” These eras serve as the setting for different plays, just like the Broadway stage. History is all that has happened between. History is people’s stories.
They help us understand ourselves. They help us to understand ourselves. They help us understand ourselves by connecting our past, present and future. Stories are the North Star of our lives. They tell us about our dreams, goals and aspirations. From our past successes and failures, to our relationships, to our traumas, to everything between, our pasts define who we are today.
Stories are timeless. Our ancestors painted in caves before we learned to write. We now preserve journals and time capsules for future generations so they can know the stories we tell today.
Eight billion people live on this planet. Stories are what bind us together. Harry Potter was translated into 85 different languages, from English all the way to Catalan. This is because good stories transcend cultures. Because they are prior to all these things, stories transcend skin color, language and geography.
The human experience is embodied in stories about love, anger, fear, success and failure.
The strongest connections are made when the stories that you tell about yourself.
Strangers can become friends by sharing experiences. These stories are then told at bonfires over the years. Chance encounters turn into first dates, relationships and weddings. The brides and grooms tell “the story of us”, at their rehearsal dinners.
The desire to tell stories is greater than the desire to have everything, even the most luxurious lifestyles.
Everyone wants to become rich. What about the rich? They want to share stories.
Ryan Holiday, a prolific writer and a billionaire himself, has been in touch with many millionaires. What do they all share? Each and every one of them want to write a novel .
Marc Andreessen is worth $1.7B. He launched Substack just two days ago.
Will Smith hired Mark Manson as a writer to assist him in his biography.
After you’ve got everything, the only thing left is stories. Because stories are so important to us, and because we love stories so much, being able to tell a good story is invaluable.
It’s true. A quote that is often attributed by Joseph Stalin reads: ” One death, is a tragedy. , but a thousand deaths, is a statistical fact. .”
Chip Heath and Dan Heath, authors of Made to stick, conducted an experiment in which Stanford students were asked to prepare a one-minute speech about whether non-violent crimes are a serious issue.
In the average speech, students used 2.5 facts. However, only one in ten students told a story.
Only 5% of those in the audience were able to recall the statistics, but 63% could remember the stories.
The key to landing a promotion or a new job is telling the story of your work. You can charm your partner by telling the story of yourself, as a partner. You can raise money by telling the story of the founder. The best story will win, as Morgan Housel writes.
We tend to think of investing as a math game. But stories are what multiply all the numbers.
Tesla sold 1.3M vehicles in 2022, generating $81.5B of revenue. Toyota sold 10 million cars in 2022, generating $271 billion in revenue. Tesla is worth $605 billion. Toyota is worth 352B. Tesla is worth twice as much as Toyota, despite having sold 9M cars less and earning $190B in revenue less.
Because Tesla sells stories and Toyota sells cars.
Tesla is at the forefront of the fight against climate changes. Tesla is David versus Goliath. Tesla is led by a charismatic CEO. Tesla has changed the world.
When you invest in Tesla you are investing in all these things.
Why did GameStop stock rise from $10 to over $400 in just a few weeks? The net present value (NPV) of its future cash flow increased by 40x within 20 days?
No. Investors love the story about retail “getting it back” on Wall Street.
The stories don’t need to be rational. Stories aren’t meant to be rational. A good story is postrationality. It’s not about having the most brilliant idea to be a good storyteller. It’s all about how well you can communicate the idea that you have.
