The Power of Storytelling

There are many great stories that I'm sure you're familiar with. Such as "Footprints," where one looks behind them and sees one set of footprints during their hardest times. Upon questioning this, God answers that there was one set of footprints because the person was being carried by God.

Or the story of the builder who was underpaid and was asked to build one more house. He built it hurriedly, only to be told this was his retirement gift. There are also stories of people who don't know their life’s purpose, finally discover it, and die soon afterward. There are many stories—great stories, moving stories, real stories, made-up stories.

If you ever read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which has been all the rage for the past few years, he shares that language was only created for gossip or storytelling. Storytelling is the number one most powerful human tool at our disposal—more than nuclear weapons, more than tanks, more than massive corporations, more than anything.

I don't need to go into politics, but whoever is the better storyteller wins the propaganda war. Israel is a very poor storyteller, and in general, Israelis are not great storytellers. We had Hasidic storytellers in Europe back in the day, going from shtetl to shtetl (Jewish town) telling great, wonderful stories. Today, we also have such storytellers in the Jewish Orthodox community of Israel, but as a society, we struggle with telling our story well and often get in trouble for it.

On the other hand, the Palestinians are great storytellers. Their stories are so compelling that they are constantly bought by many. Russia is an amazing storyteller; in fact, it's definitely their most powerful weapon. The nation with the largest army in the world has convinced many that it's a victim.

Unlucky for Russia, Ukraine is also a great storyteller. For example, Zelensky, wearing a t-shirt on TV reading "Make Russia Small Again," perfectly timed for the US elections. Not "Stop Russia," not "Bad Russia," not "Invade Russia," but "Make them small AGAIN." What do you mean by "again"?

And now we have the opening title of another wonderful story. Israel has killed over 30,000 Gazans according to Gazan health officials, who, by the way, are run by Hamas. But okay, the story is sold well. On the Eastern front, we likely have over a million dead—half a million on each side—yet Russia hasn't lost any legitimacy. Sure, there are sanctions, whatever, but nobody is protesting in the streets against evil Russia for its unjust war.

Anytime many buy a story, it means the storyteller is good; it doesn't mean the story is true. On a personal level, because I am in sales and know storytelling, I don't buy this black-and-white reality of good vs. bad, because they are just stories. As much as we would like to see the world like Lord of the Rings, life is not like that.

So I'm not even going into who is right or wrong. If Coke sells more than Pepsi, it's less about product quality and more about story quality. Russia loves its stories and has always done so. Russia is not Russia without storytelling. Ukraine is also the country of poets and writers and loves storytelling.

Israel, on the other hand, doesn't care to tell stories and doesn't care to explain, but Arab culture does. Arab culture is very poetic and musical; they love their stories. So, for once in history, Russia has an opponent who is an equally great storyteller.

Israel, as always, is losing the war—even if it may be just—because it’s poor at storytelling. Trump will win if his storytelling is better than Harris's. The right in Europe is winning because their storytelling is better than that of the left. Remember, everything from a burger to nuclear weapons is storytelling. The best storyteller will sell the most burgers, win the elections, and win the war.