If you ever find yourself in a position where you really want to teach something, whether you’re giving a speech, a presentation at work, or just plain old advice to a friend, stories are the way to do it. They’re one of the most effective tools when it comes to really “planting” our points in people’s minds. We may be tempted to just state the facts and the points that we want to get across, as well as the logic to back them up, and just repeat them again and again for emphasis, hoping that the good old strategy of attrition will do the trick, but we find that won’t be the case.
People forget. That strategy doesn’t “stick”. Stories have a much better “sticky” factor and it’s through stories that people remember the points. People remember the tortoise and the hare, and then they remember the point that slow and steady does indeed win the race.
So why are stories so effective when it comes to teaching?
One of the biggest advantages that stories have over just stating facts, logic, and reasoning is that it provides a big enough framework to allow people to see a bigger “experiment” going on so to speak. They can see how different types of actions interact with one another to create different results, and then how those actions can somehow result in a certain tangents being created, or attracting certain circumstances, etc. It’s taking a step back and seeing how the many variables interact with one another rather than just focusing on a fixed, narrow point of view of space that comes along with just stating the points and logic behind them.
Because of the “space” that stories provide, it’s big enough to show the results and outcomes and to prove the points effectively through the analysis of the actions that led to those results and outcomes. It also provides a forum where our own objections can be answered to remove any mental barriers we might have and to allow the story and its points to “sink” into our minds.
And last, but not least, people can relate to stories, especially if they come from the speaker’s own experiences. Don’t get me wrong, stories that don’t come from your own experiences are great too when trying to get across a point. Parables are great at doing just that. But there’s something about telling a story from your own experience that just doesn’t compare to telling a story outside of your own experience.
Your whole being goes into telling the story when it comes from your own experience. There’s a certain emotional X factor that injects itself into the story that the audience feels, an X factor that makes the message you’re trying to get across that much more “stickier”. The stories of our own experiences, when shared, help us to connect with each other on a deeper level because we find that we can always relate to it somehow, in some way, shape or form, and it helps to paint the picture of logic AND emotion, emotion that comes from telling your own story to help ingrain your message into the minds of others that much more and to really anchor it.
You’ll find that a lot of popular best selling self improvement and business books are popular and best selling, just because they incorporate this idea of telling a good story.
Let’s take a look at Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. The main points of the entire book can be summed up in more or less these four sentences.
- Become financially literate by understanding the difference between assets and liabilities: Assets are things that put money INTO your pocket and liabilities are things that take money OUT of your pocket.
- Instead of spending your money and saving what’s left over, save your money FIRST and use it to buy assets that put money INTO your pocket and keep your liabilities to a minimum as well so you can build your assets quicker.
-You want to possess enough assets that can produce enough cash flow to exceed your liabilities: These assets include owning your own business, rental income from real estate, “paper” assets such as stocks, mutual funds, and bonds, etc.
- Know how to leverage the tax system in your favor.
Certainly one can go through the “hard logic” route to get these points across, but would the book have been that much of a success if it did go that route? Chances are, the answer is no. It would’ve just been another one of those “dry” financial books.
The story of how he grew up with a rich dad and a poor dad (which some say is just a made up story that Robert concocted), and how he weighed their two philosophies, and the experiences he went through putting them into action (working at the grocery store, starting his own comic book reading business, etc), it allowed the reader to see everything in the big picture and how the different types of actions he took resulted in different types of outcomes.
The reader is able to see the “sequence” of actions Robert took and all the tangents that resulted from it, as well as what Robert realized along the way. And the book relates to most people, especially those who feel that the educational system does absolutely nothing to help people make money, who feel that people don’t really “need” it, that it just serves to put them on the treadmill toward a job for life – a very sensitive and highly debated subject indeed.
The story was able to do all these things – it made people FULLY understand one of the biggest points that Robert was trying to get across – the difference between assets and liabilities, it showed all of Robert’s experiences in the “big picture”, and it helped relate to all those who felt that something was wrong with the educational system when it comes to helping people make money.
You’ll find that most bestselling books utilize the power of story and therefore are in the format of “story -> reasoning -> point”, like in the case of Rich Dad, Poor Dad or the reverse, “point -> reasoning -> story” in order to get their message across. Either way, both routes utilize the power of stories to drive home their respective points into the minds of readers.
Stories really help people to TRULY understand the point being given. Not just understand it in the sense that they can repeat it from memory, but to really, truly understand it from all angles and have it sink into their mind, enough to actually influence their behavior and actions in the future.
To illustrate, here’s one of the most popular points in self improvement that most people hear all the time, but just can’t “swallow” out of doubt and fear.
“Just start and everything else that you need will come to you along the way.”
Or if you want the longer and more eloquent version:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
The point is made in order to disarm people’s fears and doubts of starting to go down the path of their dreams, whatever they may be.
At first, the point is met with hard resistance. It’s a tough pill to swallow. It almost sounds like “magic”, which further makes readers resist the point that if they just start, everything will come together.
Then logic is introduced to reinforce the point and to break down that mental resistance, the logic being that if you start, then you take some sort of action which will lead to another discovery of knowledge which helps you make a decision to take another sort of action, which leads you to find this person who can help you, which leads you to this idea, which leads you to that idea, which leads you to another person who can help and teach you, and soon momentum really starts to build toward the achievement of your goal, etc.
The picture is becoming a bit clearer now with the logic. But resistance is still there.
A story needs to be heard to bring all this logic to life and to tie it all together.
So the speaker relates of his own experience. His dream was to become a bodybuilding champion. So he started to work out at the gym, broke the windows of the gym on the weekends when it was closed just so he could sneak in and work out, built his own gym in his basement, lifted the lumber at his job to get more exercise in, refused to play soccer with his friends out of fear of losing muscle, found a role model to look up to, met a mentor at the gym he worked out at who introduced him to anabolic steroids, which helped him gain muscle even faster, got the money he needed to travel to compete from people he met along the way who he impressed with his burning desire, learned about the “show business” side to bodybuilding from other mentors he met along the way, which helped him to win even more competitions, got the army to support his goal to become a bodybuilding champion by getting them to give him all the food he could eat to put on even more muscle, learned to play “mental” guerrilla warfare with other contestants, and on and on and on and upon hearing the rest of the story, the reader finally begins to understand how things came together for the speaker, and gets excited at the possibilities of what might come to himself, if he just starts.
By listening and/or reading about the story, all the logic of that point comes to life and all it ties together and makes sense to him (the preceding was just the partial story of how the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger got to achieve his goal of becoming a bodybuilding champion by winning the Mr. Universe competition).
This is just another reason why I recommend reading autobiographies of successful people because when you begin to read all their stories, you’ll see this point of “just starting and having everything come together” holds true in ALL their cases which helps make that point that much easier to swallow.
Stories.
Not just great for entertainment, but for learning and more importantly, for truly understanding.
They are truly indeed, one of the most effective tools out there when it comes to teaching.
译文:
谈到教学，为何故事如此有效？
当你发现自己正处于一个你确实想教授一些东西的位置时，无论准备演讲，介绍工作，抑或是仅仅简单地给朋友提陈旧的建议，故事就是做好这些事情的途径。当们欲将自己的观点“移植”到别人脑中的时候，它们就是效的工具之一了。我们也许收到诱导观的陈述事实，或是希望别人理解的观点，我们更想有较强的逻辑来支撑我们的观点，为了达到强调的效果，我们一遍一遍地复期望着美好却陈旧的战略能凑效，然而结果总是适得其反。我们也许受到诱导观，仅仅陈述事实和希望别人理解的观点，也想有较强的逻辑来支撑我们的它们，为了达到强调的效果，我们一遍又一遍地复，希望能够这美好的旧战略的消磨，达到预期的目，然而事实却非如此。
人们忘记了，这种战略不起作用。故事有一种较好的“难对付的”因素，正是通过这些故事人们才记住了要点。.人们记住了兔子和乌龟的故事，他们也就记住了缓慢和执着确实赢得了比赛。
那么为什么说到教学的时候，讲故事会变得如此高效呢？
故事最大的优势之一就是仅仅客观事实，逻辑，原因就是它提供了足够的框架，也就是说使得人们从看到一个较大的“实验”。 他们明白各种不同的情节交织在一起后引发不一样的结果，这些情节又是怎样引发了某些正在形成的切线，或是引发了某些情况，等等。退一步考虑，就可以清这许多变化的相互作用，而不是仅仅从一个固定和狭隘的角度去看，一味的陈述蕴含着的逻辑和观点。
因为故事所提供的“空间”，已经足显露出结果和结局，通过对导致这些结果和结局的情节的分析，就可以有效地证明论点。它还提供了一个论坛，使得我们的异议得到解答，从而消除我们可能遇到的心里障碍，最后故事和它的寓意就会汇集到我们的脑海中。
最后，但并非不是最重要的，人们可以将他们自身和故事联系起来，尤其是这些故事源自于说话者亲身经历的时候。不要误解我意思，当你尝试阐明一个观点的时候，那些不是你亲身经历的故事一样意义非凡。预言尤其适用于做这些事情。关于讲故事，你亲身经历过的和你没有经历过的，这两者是没法比较的。但是有一些东西，关于你讲一个源自于你自身经历故事比不上讲一个你经历以外的故事。
当涉及到你的亲身经历时，你的整个自我就会完全进入讲故事的状态。这里就存在这某种观众能感知的，能将自身注入到故事中的感情因素，正是这种因素使得你想要使别人理解的信息“更加难以对付"。 与人分享自亲身经历的故事时，能有利于我们更深层次的联系在一起，因为不知怎么的，在某种某种程度，形式或形状上，我们总能将自己和故事联系起来，故事能够有助于在脑中形成感情和逻辑之间的关系图，同时你在讲述亲身经历的故事时所倾入的感情，这种感情能使你要表达的信息更吸引人，而且让人印象更加深刻。
你会发现很多关于自我完善的，商业方面的书籍，它们之所以广受欢迎和荣登最畅销书籍的排行榜，仅仅是因为：他们能够很好把自己的观点有效融合起来，然后再以讲一个好故事的方式呈现出来。
让我们看看罗伯特清崎的《穷爸爸和富爸爸》，这整本书的中心思想或多或少的可以概括为下面这四个句子。
通过理解资产和债务的不同，可以增强自己的理财能力：资产就是那些可以把钱放入自己腰包的东西，债务则是那些把钱从你腰包里掏走的东西。
省钱第一，用钱购买那些可以使自己受益的资产，而不是仅仅花钱或是储存结余下来的钱，将负载降低到最低程度，这样你才能更快地积累自己的资产。
您想拥有足够的资产，可以产生足够的周转资金来超过您的负债：这些资产包括拥有自己的企业，来自于房地产的租金收入， 金融资产如股票，共同基金和债券等。
知道如何利用税收制度给自己谋利。
当然，人们可以通过“硬逻辑”路线来弄懂这些观点，但是，如果没有进去的路线，本书会取得像现在一样的巨大成功吗？ 机会是肯定的，答案是否定的。它也许仅仅是这些干巴巴的金融书籍中的一本罢了。
他是如何在穷爸爸和富爸爸的陪伴下成长的故事（有人说这仅仅是一个罗伯特杜撰出来的虚构故事），以及他如何权衡他们两个的人生观，然后把这些经历付诸行动（在杂货店里工作，开始自己的漫画书阅读数业务）读者可以看到罗伯特付诸实践的一连串行动，以及这些行动的收效，当然还有罗伯特一路走来的体会和认识。
本书涉及到很多人，特别是那些感觉教育体制在赚钱方面丝毫不起作用的人，那些感觉他们根本不需要接受教育的人，因为这仅仅使他们为了生活而跑步走向工作，这确实是一个非常敏感且争议性很强的话题。
这个故事可以做到所有这些事情——他使得人们透彻的了解罗伯特想解释清楚的最核心的观点——资产和债务之间的区别，它以巨画的形式展示了罗伯特德的所有经历，特别是提到帮助人们赚钱的时候，它帮助所有涉及到的人们认识到教育体制出了问题。
你会发现大多数的最畅销书都是利用故事的影响力，也因此形成了这样一种模式“讲故事——摆道理——得出结论，”如《穷爸爸和富爸爸》的模式一样，或是反过来“立论——摆道理——讲故事”以便能够更清楚地解释他们的信息。不管怎么说，这两种模式都利用了故事的力量，这种力量能够直接而且有效地将他们各自的观点传达给读者。故事确实能够使人们切实了解所提供的观点。不是说仅仅在意识层面上理解它，能够通过记忆将其复述，而是说真正的从各个角度透彻的认识它，以至于能够影响到他们将来的行为和行动。
为了说明这一点，这里有一个最受欢迎的观点，那就是大多数人时时听说，但是由于怀疑和恐惧却不能消化的：
“尽管去做好了，你所需要得一切，接下来都会有的。”
或者是更长更有说服力的版本：
“在一个人全心投入的时候，就会有犹豫，而在这种情况下，退缩永远是没有用的。考虑到所有创新的行为，有一个基本事实，就是忽略这些行为，往往导致无数想法和优秀计划的流失：在一个人完全投入的时候，他的预见能力也在增长。
在某种情况下出现的所有有帮助的事情，在另一种情况下可能永远不会发生。在由一个决定引发的一系列事件中，所有对人有利的不可预见的事件和物质帮助所出现的方式，往往是以人们事先没有想到的方式发生的。无论你能做什么,或是想做什么,现在就开始做吧。勇敢实践会带来灵感,力量和奇迹。”
无论人们的梦想是什么，关键是消除他们开始走上实现自己梦想道路之初所产生的恐惧和疑虑。
首先，重要的一点就是会遇上艰难的阻碍。这绝对不是件好对付的事情，听起来似乎如着魔一般，如果他们才刚刚开始的话会让读者更加的反感和抵触，所有的麻烦全部涌到一起来。
逻辑就是用来强调观点和消除抵触心理的，如果一开始你就有较强的逻辑的话，你就可以采取相关的措施来发现新的知识，而这些知识又会帮助你做出采取另一项措施的决定，这些决定又可以引导你找到能够帮助你的人，这些就会引导你找到观点，这个观点又会引导你找到另外一个观点，这些观点又会引导你找到另外一个可以帮助和教会你的人，很快，事情的趋势就会开始朝你预期目标的方向发展了。
在逻辑的引导下，这幅图画就变得更加的清晰了，但是阻碍仍然还存在。
一个故事让人愿意听的故事，必须能够活用这些逻辑，然后再将它们统一联系起来。
因此当说话者讲到自己的亲身经历的时候，他的梦想就是成为健美冠军。 因此他每天都到健身馆苦练，甚至在周末健身馆关门之后将馆的窗户打破，以便能溜进去继续训练。然后在自己的地下室建健身馆，自己包揽所有搬运木材的活，以此来加大自己的运动量。因为害怕失去肌肉，他拒绝和朋友踢足球。然后他在健身馆里给自己找了一个贤明的顾问，然后依葫芦画瓢，使自己的身体也能分泌和他一样的类固醇，这些类固醇能够使他更快的获得肌肉。一路上，不少的人被他燃烧的热情所感染，他因此从他们那里得到了足够旅行的钱，接着他又从另一位健美冠军顾问那里了解“演艺界"，这些帮助他赢得了更多的比赛。他的健美冠军目标因此由赢得了更多人的支持，这些人为他提供能使他长出更多肌肉的饮食，,他还学会了和其他的竞争者玩“心理”游击战, 故事一直持续下去再持续下去, 听者最后终于开始明白讲故事的人是怎么把所有的东西整合起来的了，而且对接下来可能发生的事情兴奋不已。
通过听或者读这个故事，这个观点包含的所有的逻辑线变得栩栩如生，当它们全部汇集于一点的时候，它就会使人完全明白了（上述故事只是阿诺德茨瓦辛格的部分故事罢了，他通过赢得宇宙先生竞赛，从而实现自己健美冠军梦的故事）
这就是我建议阅读一些名人传记的原因，当你读完他们所有的故事的时候，你就会明白，“只要开始，然后将所有的一切汇集起来”这个道理适用于他们所有人，正是这个理念使得他们能够较轻松的表达自己的想法，而且能够是人们很容易就理解。
故事：
不仅仅在娱乐方面效果显著，对学习尤为重要，更重要的是能够真正的理解。
事实确实，特别是到了教学这个领域的时候，它就成了最为有效的工具之一。