The Ultimate Blog Podcast - The Neuroscience of Storytelling and Why Our Brains Crave Stories with Susan Lovett

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

If you’ve ever gotten lost in a book, teared up during a movie, or felt instantly connected to a stranger online because of something they shared – you’ve felt the power of storytelling in action. But did you know there’s actual science behind why our brains respond so strongly to stories?In this episode of The Ultimate Blog Podcast, we interviewed writer and storytelling expert Susan Lovett about the neuroscience of storytelling – why our brains are hardwired for it, how it shapes our decisions, and how bloggers and content creators can harness that power to truly connect with their audience.☀️ Grab our free Summer Startup Checklist🔨 Get Susan’s freebie: 19 Reasons Your Stories Aren't Working and How to Fix Them🔗Start your blog today→ Join The Ultimate Blog Roadmap🔗Check out the show notes for episode 179Do you love this podcast? Say thanks by leaving a positive review and/or rating!  

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.

Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. Welcome back to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. We are just diving into more of this topic about storytelling and how impactful it truly is. As Jennifer was kind of chatting before we hit record, the shift with Google and everything, for those of you who have been, you know, writing to the Google gods for a long time, you're seeing that there is a little bit of a shift there. And in blogging, shifts happen, pivots happen. It's just part of the game. And so

learning how to kind of do that and how you're going to look at content in a different way and why you should learn to look at content in a different way is kind of why we're going to be talking to Susan Lovett today, all about storytelling and kind of the neuroscience behind it and how it can really impact your blog, your brand and your connection with everybody that you are trying to reach. So Susan, welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I am really excited to hear what you know about storytelling because you wouldn't think that it would be like a thing, but it really is. You really know like the neuroscience behind storytelling, and

I think that is fascinating. So let's get this started by just kind of saying a little bit about your story, your own story, and what got you started in storytelling when you did like 30 years ago. Well, I started as a child. I was a military brat and we moved all the time. So the only thing that was consistent to me were my friends on the page and I loved story. So I could always find Trixie Belden on the page or Nancy Drew or whoever I was reading at the time. They were always lived there and I just fell in love with it. So I pursued it. In college, I studied linguistics, psycholinguistics, writing.

I was also a music major, which informed a lot about rhythm and flow and writing. I studied theater. After that, I went to Disney and became a writer there and learned so much more than I've ever learned at the college. And then I've been an independent writer for 30 years doing storytelling, mostly corporate, but I do documentary and corporate films and was the president of Women in Film. And I've been diving into story my entire life. And in the 1990s when neuroscience of story was discovered, I jumped in headfirst and

I spent at least one day a month at the Library of Congress researching the latest developments. I'm that into it. I love that though, because it's obviously something that even as a child deeply impacted you. So you recognize that it's deeply impacting others. And I think that it impacts even those of us that we don't realize our stories impact all of us because they are so, so important. So let's just like kind of rain this back in a way to kind of let's define neuroscience and storytelling from there. And so we can kind

of give our listeners an idea of where we're taking this today. Okay. Well, when it comes to story, there's actually two responses. There's the neuroscientific side, which is the physiological response, and then there's the psychological response. And they both play into how we tell stories and how we receive stories. So the neuroscience is how our brains actually react. And it comes down to neural coupling. There is a neurotransmitter in our brain called mirror neurons. And Italian scientists in 1996 discovered that when they had a group of monkeys and

observing one monkey doing something, that all of their brains fired up as if they were all doing the action. That is what mirror neurons do. It sinks our brains. So when we listen to a story, read a story, watch a movie, our brains light up the same way as the main character or the presenter, depending on what kind of story is being told. That is neural coupling. And it's a biological response. It happens every time we hear a

story because we are wired for stories. Our brains are built for them. It's how we store our history, our memories, our experiences. Everything is story. Then there's the psychological side. And that is where you get the emotional connection and the engagement. And that's what businesses want. They want to have that engagement. And that happens when you achieve narrative transport. And that is when you're so immersed into a story that you feel what the characters are feeling. You're reaching for the tissues, you're rooting for them. You are devastated when things happen to them. You are completely immersed, and that is narrative transport. And to achieve that, you need to write your story

in such a way that allows for that immersion, which is deep point of view. So those are the two big responses, but they're also responsible for firing off endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline, cortisol, depending on what kind of stories you're telling. So you can get the responses for the neurochemicals and the hormones depending on what kind of stories you're telling. Comedians go for the endorphins. Yeah. Gosh, there's a lot to think about there. It's a lot. It's a big broad subject. That was a very simplified response.

No, I think it's a great introduction for us. For myself, I know for sure. It's not something I've put a lot of thought into. My background is in accounting, so I feel like my brain is always so fact-based. Here's the number. Yes, no. There's not a lot. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of story leading up to it. But like you said, you've worked in the corporate world. You work with businesses. Let's now talk about how does this translate? Why does storytelling matter when it comes to businesses, online businesses, and even when it comes to blogging as a business? Stories are your way into connection, into engagement, because it's the way to tap into the empathy

center of the brain. So if you want to increase that no-like trust factor, you need story. It's also odd because you brought up accounting and numbers. We make the majority of our decisions in our subconscious through our emotions. We validate with numbers. So if you want to tap into the subconscious and to that emotion, that's story. That's not numbers. Numbers gives you the rationale to say, to validate your decision and say, okay, yes, I do like this person. I do want to make that. I want to buy that product. That's how you justify it. But you've already

made the decision emotionally and you get there by story. Wow. So you have to let the people see or feel or experience what they're going to get. It's the difference between saying, this is what we offer and this is what you get. It's all about how you phrase things, how you say things. You can draw someone in or you can push them away with your words and your writing. And I hate to tell you, but the ick factor, it lives in emails. Ooh. You have to be careful what you say and how you say it.

OK, tell us more what you mean by that. There are certain phrases and certain stories you can tell that if they're not aligned with your audience, you will immediately push them away, push the people away. Things like, I got an email, I will not say from whom, but he talked about after he did his little pitch, he said he got to his personal section, he said he co-founded 4 Children. I'm sorry, but that just, no. Immediate unsubscribe. It's things like getting an email from someone who was trying to pitch legal templates and she started off with a story about explosive diarrhea. No, thank you. Not a good mix. If you are

going to do something like that, it needs to tie in thematically through your through line in your email from the story to what you're trying to pitch. Because in business, the thing you have to know is that we never tell stories in a vacuum. It's not like we're just telling a story to tell a story. I mean, that's the fiction world. That's what we want to lose ourselves in. And you use a lot of fiction techniques in writing for business. But in business, it's not just the story. It's about what follows. It's about the pitch that follows or the information that follows or the inspirational thing or the nurturing or the welcoming. There's always something else. You don't just tell a story.

So you have to align whatever that else is to the story you tell. And if you don't, if there's a huge disconnect, you've just disconnected your audience and they will bounce. They will get out of there. So how does somebody as a blogger, content creator, someone who's sending out emails and probably writing sales pages and things like that, how do they know what part or how

do they learn is what I should say to go back and tap into their own stories? Because we're not talking about making up fictional stories. We're talking about using real life authentic experiences that you've had in a way that can empower whoever it is you're speaking to. So what if somebody, we'll use Jennifer as an example, who's I don't know, I haven't ever really thought about stories, you know, how would somebody who doesn't really have, I don't want to say like the brain for that, because that's definitely not what I mean. But like, their mind doesn't work that way is what I mean. Their mind doesn't seek out the stories from their past or even the present to see how they can use that to connect with others.

Is there a way to like effectively learn how to do that and to like kind of go back and understand, hey, I am who I am because of these things and this is how I can share what I've been through in an authentic way that allows for connection? Absolutely. What I suggest is creating a story bank. It's a bank of ideas, of stories that you've had and experienced or observed. And that can take any form.

I do sell a Notion database that is the one I use. But you could do a Google Doc. It doesn't matter how you store them. But it's a list of all the stories with a prompt. But the biggest thing is learning to recognize the story. The difference between storytellers and non-storytellers is that we see ideas everywhere.

I go through my life and go, oh, that's a story. Oh, there's a story there. And it's learning how to recognize when they're in front of you and to look in your past and think what made an emotional impact? It's not always a big thing. You don't have to have a deep tragic story to connect. Most people don't.

If you do, it may not be the right story to tell anyway. It depends on whether it's a scar or a wound. If it still hurts, if it's still hard, that's not something you should be sharing anyway. We live in three different worlds, the public, the private, and the secret, and you should stick to the public stories. Private and secret are reserved for trusted allies. So picking the right story is the first thing. But then recognizing that it can be something little. It could be something like observing.

This is something that happened to me just a couple of weeks ago. I was at a cafe and I was watching this man trying to shove two dozen balloons into the back of his Subaru. It was hilarious because they did not want to go in there. And so you sit there and you think, okay, well, some people that may not be a story, but to me that was a story. And the story was, things don't always go as planned. That's the theme of that story. And if I have an email that I want to write or a blog that I want to write about planning, well, there's a great story that I could insert into it. And it's all about figuring out what is the through line of the story? What's the driving purpose for that story? What is, if it's in fiction, what's the big dramatic question that needs

to be answered by the end? But in a business setting, it's what is the purpose? Why is this story here? How can I connect it to what comes after? And that's really what you need to look at is theming. It's not really theming, it's more through line when there is a difference. But being able to recognize just little things in your life, like a friend who texted and said, I really want to come over. Can I do that? And I wrote back, no.

She goes, I'm on my way. Okay. back, no, she goes, I'm on my way. That it was a short little thing, but that could be a story that you insert into a blog that connects, that makes people laugh. I think a lot of people intimidate themselves with stories and they think they need these big, grand, impactful stories and you don't. You need something that, grand, impactful stories. And you don't. You need something that's going to connect emotionally. That's all that's required. It needs a little tension.

It needs context. It needs a resolution, all the story elements. But it can be small. I mean, Hemingway was famous for writing a six-word story. I did not know that. For Sale Baby Shoes Never Worn. It doesn't take a lot. In fact, there are websites where you can go submit six-word stories. Just Google it. They're everywhere. It doesn't take a lot. Margaret Atwood has submitted quite a few six-word stories. They're very good. It doesn't take a lot. You just need all of the little elements. So once you learn that, stories are everywhere.

You can kind of look at your life and your experiences, just the day to day, like kind of like the mundane day to day as how could I use this? Because when you used to, when you just shared that story of the balloons and the Subaru Like two different things popped in my mind one of them being That could be a segue into an email about your eyes Being bigger like thinking that you have more capacity than what you actually do true And you're trying to like shove like shove it all in and it's clearly not working and everybody on the outside looking in can see that there's no way that the balloons are all going to fit into the Subaru but you're like bound and determined to make them all fit in there without popping.

And I mean, I just, it was just interesting as you said that just the different things that came and I don't think I've ever necessarily like thought of our experiences in a way that it could be that segue to make somebody think about, well, how would I have taken that? I've always wondered how comedians, I'm like, how do they remember all these things that happen to them? Like, do they write them down when it happens? Because I'm so intrigued by that. But this idea of a story bank, I think could be really helpful for bloggers especially. So you said you have a Notion

database that helps them with that, but they can use a Google Doc or anything like that. So how do you recommend doing that? Is it just something happens, you start to just kind of be more a little bit, I don't know, aware of what you're seeing and as something comes up, you're like, I could maybe use this someday, write this down or I don't want to forget this. Is that kind of how that works? Well, in my database, I have a bunch of different prompts that you can use to help. But I also advocate what Matthew Dix put into his book called Storyworthy, and it's homework for life. And every single day you

pick one story that happened, one thing that happened that you emotionally connected with, and you just write it down. One line, just one thing. And it could be anything. And you just keep on. Now, doing it daily, I admit I don't do it daily. But I do try, when I'm out and about and I'm doing things, I try to be aware of little things. And sometimes at the moment, I don't even really recognize them as a story, but I go, okay, well, that's really the only thing that stood out. So I'll write that down. And then a few weeks later, I'll go, you know what? I can use that. That's the launching pad for a story. Some stories are very long. In my database, I have over 400 or 500 stories, and I just mined my past.

There are big long stories. In fact, in my email sequence, I kind of ramble in my evergreen and I share different stories from my life, like the time the post office declared me dead and basically ruined my life for six months. Oh my gosh. None of my credit cards worked. My college did an obit. I mean, it was a thing. Are you kidding? I am not kidding. Who told them you died? Well, I asked them to put my mail on hold

while I was on a business trip and they marked me deceased instead. Whoops. And then they wouldn't, when I showed up to tell them I was alive, they wouldn't accept that I was alive. I needed to get a note from my doctor who said that she'd never had to do that before.

Oh my gosh. It was, yeah, it was, it was an insane story. So yes, I've shared that with my, with my people, the people on my list, because it's, it was just one of those things that it's, you got to be prepared for everything because you never know what's going to happen. Oh my gosh. That is just insane. Like who knew that like when you're alive, you're going to have to show proof of life.

That's... Oh my gosh. That's insane. But not every story is going to be of that level. Some stories are going to be tiny. Some stories are going to be huge. And you just have to learn to recognize the value in them. Basically, we're made of stories.

Our entire experiences, every memory we have is a story. So if you look at your life as an anthology of stories, that some tragic, some happy, some romantic, some horror, hopefully not too much horror, but it's an anthology and we just need to collect the stories as we go. I mean you collect memories Everybody knows about core memories. It's it's the plot of inside out You just need to collect those and then you need to write them down because in the moment when you're facing that blank page You are not going to remember them Yeah, you're gonna be like I nothing has happened to me

My wife has been so uninteresting. Yeah. But if you can go to a database and hit the tag of, okay, I want this to be about organization, and you hit the tag and pull up organization and all the little stories that you've tagged that way come up and you go, oh, that one, I remember that. And then you write it and you don't have that panic of I don't know what to say. So I do highly recommend using a story bank. Summer is right around the corner. And if you have been thinking about starting your blog, but you don't know where to begin, we have something just for you.

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start building the blog that you're dreaming of. And we'd love to help. Again, you can get it at the ultimate blog podcast.com slash summer. So then how would you start to know? And I'm sure this takes some practice and just some trial and error, but how do you start to identify a story that is going to, I guess, connect with, I'm sure you have a purpose, so you're sending an email and you want to share about a new PDF download that they can buy from you. Like how do you start to identify like a story that can have the emotional impact for something

that like you're trying to accomplish with a message you're sending out? You are gonna reverse engineer it. You start with what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get that PDF, okay, so what does that represent? What is that going to help people with? Where's the emotion in there?

What's the transformation? What are you giving them? What do they get? Not what are you offering, but what do they get? Because you want to keep it personal. Once you figure out that core of what you're pitching, then you reverse it and you pick a story that sets you up to get there. And then the biggest transition, the biggest thing missing in blogs and in email are the transitions. You can't just tell a story and then go straight to the PDF.

You have to guide your reader from the story to the sale. So it could be a sentence, it could be a paragraph, but you have to make that transition so that you say, okay, so this is the theme of the story. This is what you're supposed to get out of the story, and this is something that can help you in those types of situations. But it's never gonna be a situation where you can go directly from the story into the sale. You have to do that transition point.

And a lot of blogs and emails especially are missing that. People just think that they can throw a story in and then pitch immediately. And without that, say you're at a threshold and you lead the person to the door with your story, and then you just shove them through to the other side. That's what you're doing without a transition. If you have a transition, you're holding out your hand and you're helping them over the threshold and guiding them to the sidewalk. You're not just shoving them.

So almost like an invitation. Yes. Versus a pitch. Yes. Like a story that's relative and then and how that would connect with them and then that transition like you're talking about is more of an invitation versus a you know and this is everything that it is, is it more like and this is what it can do for you? And this is how it impacts you? You should always keep it with the person. So it's not what I can do for you or what this product does for you. It's what you can get out of it, what this allows you to do.

It should always stay to your audience because that's who you're trying to help. I mean, you wouldn't go to someone that you were trying to help and be like, well, I can do this. It doesn't make sense. And you would never do that in real life. If you came across someone who desperately needed help, you wouldn't make it about you. You would make it about them. You'd be like, well, what do you need? Oh, I have a blanket in my car or I have water. I can give you that. Here it is. But the transition is, it's a guide. You're just guiding them through. So it's a seamless process. Everything should be holistic. It's made up of different parts, but it should feel like a whole. So you have the story, you have the transition, and you have what follows.

But it should feel like a single thing, seamless. Something that they don't want to click away from. Exactly. Something that they don't want to shut down, but something that they immediately feel engaged and that they want to interact with. It needs to flow from start to the end. And if it doesn't, they're going to reach the end of the story and go, okay, that was fun and dump out.

Because people like stories, they don't like pitches. So you have to make it fun. Okay. So that brings me to another question then, as you say that people like stories, they don't like pitches. Then is that how it can feel manipulative in a way to use stories sometimes is you're not trying to like manipulate it in a bad way but you're trying to I guess kind of manipulate it in a way that like you want them

to understand. So I'm going to use the example just because we're here of we have our membership, the ultimate blog roadmap and like we help bloggers get started. And so we have a course and a membership and all that. So it's like, we know that what we're doing is for them. We're not trying to manipulate anybody into being like, oh, you must need this, but we truly do believe that. So how does somebody, when they have,

let's say a course or a membership or a product, let's come at it from that lens. How do they learn how to really say this in a way that like, obviously we're in this to make money because this is our business. But how can that impact be greater than that? Like, does that make sense? Yes. You're talking about there's three different elements at play. You've got persuasion, influence, and manipulation. And when you're persuading, that's usually on a one-to-one, you're on your podcast, the emails, it's when you have direct communication and you're gently trying to get them to do something. That's persuasion. And persuasion is innocent. It happens every day. Influence is when that persuasion extends

beyond the contact. So you're thinking about it after. You could read the blog and then four hours later, you're still thinking about it. You go, you know what? Maybe I do need that product. Maybe I do. That's when you crossed into influence. Manipulation is when you are present and you are trying to change their emotions and trying to use tricks to get them to do something that they would not normally do. And the way you can figure out if you're being manipulated is step away and if you feel badly about the encounter, you get that itch. You know that somebody's been messing with you. And if you do that, you're going to lose them permanently. They're never going to come back. And manipulation is more of a coercion tactic. You're trying to force it. If you're just laying

out and saying, this is what we've seen, this is how our clients have used this product and the results they've gotten, that's not manipulative. That can be persuasion or it might elevate to influence depending on how you tell your stories. But stories in and of themselves are not manipulative. They're connection. And if you do them in a way that makes people feel like they're being coerced, then yes, that's going to be a problem. I mean, now you're getting into like subliminal messaging and agendas buried into stories and it's a big thing. Oh yeah, it's everywhere.

Yeah, so you don't want to do things like that. The biggest thing is be honest, be you. If you're honest and you're yourself and you would say it to their face in person and you would pitch the same way to a friend, you're fine. If you would be embarrassed to do that pitch to your friends, that's not good sign. Don't do it. I like that way that you explained that

because I think that is important because we spend so much time behind our computer online. And then even inadvertently you're picking up like what you're seeing other creators do and you're trying to write the same way they're writing but you have to kind of pull yourself back and picture yourself talking to somebody in person and be like okay is this what I would tell my friend who has the same problem? So I think that's one thing we've struggled with. We're not trying to convince people of something. We're not trying to be like,

it's going to be the worst thing in the world if you don't do this, but we want to bring them along on a journey and show them if you're struggling with this, this is a solution we found. And it's such a fine line, but I like how you've laid that out. And I think it's important to remember to think of every person opening your email. You got to remember they are a person and not just a number. And that can be tricky, but I think this is all very, very helpful in that regard. One thing you said that triggered something is trying to sound like other people. I have a very unpopular opinion. A lot of copywriters pitch templates and formulas and paint by number writing or AI writing,

I don't agree with that. Your voice, your individual writing voice is the most powerful thing you have. And you will not sound like yourself if you try to force yourself into someone else's formula or template, or if you're trying to imitate someone else. Your voice is valuable. And no matter how well you train your custom GPT, it is not going to sound like you. It's not going to have the same idiosyncrasies. It's not going to ramble the same way or connect the same way. And I think that AI is fantastic for research and for distilling things. I mean, it does something so well, but writing is not one of them. Even Claude, it's just not there. Even writing grammar programs like ProWritingAid and Grammarly and Hemingway, they're useful

for proofreading, but you have to really know what you're doing and be able to ignore. Hit that ignore button because that's the most important button on those things. Ignore that one. They'll do things like, I'll try to set up a cadence and I will have anaphora. So the sentence will start with the same word in a series of three because that sets up a nice cadence. And when I'm writing speeches or scripts, I want that rhythm because it's going to draw the audience in. And every single grammar program will tell you to change it. Everyone.

Yeah. So you have to know what you're doing. You have to be able to express yourself as you. It's also more genuine. It's honest. You wouldn't want to, and this has happened to me, I've gotten emails where it's bubbly and this energy in it. And then I talk to the person in real life and they're monotone, no inflection, nothing. I'm going, okay, there is a huge disconnect here. And that's when I feel

manipulated. Because- I'm kind of glad you said this because sometimes I add a lot of exclamation points and sometimes I have to go back and be like, okay, you know what? All 13 of those sentences are not that exciting, but I kind of am an excited person and so that is kind of just who I am, you know? And so like I am probably going to put in more exclamation points than Jennifer is because she can stay a little calmer than I can But I think that is such powerful advice like you saying just be you Yes, just show up as you and learn the grammar and learn that and whatever all those things that yes That's important But at the end of the day the most important thing is that you know who you are

Because who you are and like what you're saying, all the stories that make up your one big beautiful life have this ability to impact somebody at such a deep level, like even deeper than I think that we can comprehend or understand. There have been days, I can recall one in particular, a blogger who shared her journey from adopting her kids. And I spent hours and it was stories about it. I was so engrossed with their story that by the end I was like, I feel like I should adopt. It had me convinced to that point.

And I didn't feel manipulated or anything like that, but it makes you think about things in a different way. And I think that that is where bloggers, it's a gift that we have to help people see things in a different way, in a different light based on our experiences, on our interactions, on our connections with others. And that's a really powerful way that we get to connect with people. But you can't do that if you don't know who you are. And I think that that's powerful. And if you're trying to be someone else or make your business look like someone else's

in style and design and in tone, everything needs to reflect you. I mean, if I had professional shots taken and I was in bright pink, that would not be me. As you can see, I'm in black. I am not a bright color person. I would never be seen that way in public. It's just not me. And it's great. And I appreciate it. I know some business people who have beautiful shots like that and their sights are all pink and everything and I think they're beautiful. It is so not me. It's not going to work. And you have to know yourself. You have to know your voice because we are communicating in writing mostly. And especially with blogs, I mean it is writing.

It has to be you. So the biggest way to do that is if you're not sure how to write as you, read it out loud. The minute you read it out loud, you're going to notice, one, you're going to notice when there's awkward sentences and weirdness. And even if you don't know the grammar, you're going to know something's wrong. And second, you're going to stumble over it because it's not the way you would actually say it.

So you can modify it so that it comes out the way you would say it. And that will help start establishing your voice. Because getting the voice down, it does take time. It takes some skill and effort but that's the first step. That's a great way to start. That's a fantastic tip. I think I'm gonna start reading my emails out loud before I send them now. Yeah that's a great place to start. Yeah it's easy. It's something, I mean you're already reading it, you're already proving it by reading it. You know just you're just doing it out loud.

If you want a weird tip about proofreading, print it out and turn it upside down. The errors will just jump off the page. What? You print out your blog, you turn it upside down on the table, and even throw it on the floor. Errors will pop out so fast. It's an old trick that we used to use when I wrote for magazines and things.

I work for Women's Day a lot and I would go up there and they always had the stuff on the floor upside down and it was great. And it's amazing how well that works. Okay. So silly question. Do you read it backwards then? No, you just scan it. You just scan it and you can see when things just don't look right. Our brains are amazing. They recognize patterns and they can see even upside down when you're not reading it, it will recognize that there's a broken pattern and it will say, oh, that's weird. And you have to find it. But if you are proofreading, reading it from the bottom line all the way back to the top, that also works. Because our brains anticipate.

We fill in what we want to see or what we expect to see. So when you've written things and you're so close to it, your brain will automatically fill in what was supposed to be there instead of what is there. So you have to break that. And by turning it upside down or reading it from the bottom, you're breaking that pattern of anticipation. So it's called the anticipatory response. So I have a story about that. So I was just on vacation with my husband and we took our son who's 13. We spent a weekend away just the three of us. We have three kids, but we did a solo trip for him turning 13. Just have some like quality intentional time. And on the way there, we stopped at a sandwich shop and in the booth that we were at, it had a picture and like a, you know, like a paragraph and said, can you read this?

And essentially what it was is exactly kind of what you're saying. So the first letter and the last letter were of the word, but then the middle letters in the word were all mixed up. And I sat down and immediately read it and I was like, that's insane. I can't believe I actually read that because when you look at the words, they do not look like the words. So then he sat down and he's like, what is that? I was like, read that out loud.

I want to see. And he just boom, started reading it. And it was just so interesting that you're like, your brain is so powerful. Like it is so powerful. We can, we can understand more than we even realize. And subconsciously we're taking in more than we could ever imagine that we are day after day. Because the fact that I'm almost 43, he's 13, my husband's same age as me. We've obviously been reading much, much longer than he has, but he knew exactly what that was too.

You know what I mean? It was just so interesting to me that our brains are subconsciously taking in and understanding and grasping so many more things than we could ever realize. And I think stories do play a role, whether we know it or not, they play a role in that for sure. Yeah. I would argue that stories always play a role, but I'm a little biased.

We talked about that before hitting record that I am deeply impacted by stories. I absolutely love hearing people's stories. I say often, I feel like I have this imaginary sign, like, tell me all of your things that brand and people will just tell me things. And I love it. I love that I like get just so filled up by that, you know, but not everybody responds in the same way. But I don't think that just because you don't respond in the same way doesn't mean you're not impacted in some way. I think

the impact can look different. but the story is at the root of it. I think it still makes an impact on us. Truly. Totally agree with you. Totally agree. Well, Susan, this has just been really enlightening. And I hope that if you've listened to these, we've had two episodes now on storytelling and that was very intentional of us to share this because I want you guys to start really thinking about this in a way of how you can incorporate more storytelling into your blog content, into your emails, and the way that you are communicating with people

to just strengthen the bond that you are trying to form with the people that you are meant to serve and help and provide solutions for. So Susan, thanks for just sharing so willingly. And if people would like to connect with you and learn more about storytelling, can you please let them know how they can do that? Yes, they can go to figmentsandfables.com, which is my website and my blog. I've got over 300 blogs there on everything story and neuroscience and business and things and some freebies and other things. So everything's

at figmentsandfables.com. Awesome. We'll put that in the show notes and so you guys can connect with Susan and learn more. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.