The Stories We Tell Ourselves

How we fill in the blanks in our knowledge to make sense of the world

One of my early memories with my dad was one day in the car driving during a thunderstorm. It was just the two of us, which was unusual being in a family of six.

There was a loud boom of thunder that felt like it rattled the windows on the car. Being an average kid, I asked my dad what caused thunder. My grandmother had once told me it was “God moving furniture in heaven,” but I never really bought into that.

My dad’s response: “it’s the clouds bumping into each other.” Here was an explanation I could buy into — it sounded plausible and I had no idea what clouds were made from. And for all I know they did explode on impact.

And for all I know clouds did explode on impact.

While my dad could’ve tried to explain how lightning creates superheated air which expands rapidly, like an explosion, that was beyond my capabilities. His story was good enough to carry me to my teenage years before I questioned it again.

One of the things I learned in my years running marketing was that data is boring and stories sell. We all think we are motivated by logic and data, the truth is that nothing captures us quite like a good story.