But how i stumbled onto the power storytelling might shock you.
In 2003 I flipped my car over on the highway and nearly killed myself.
I fell asleep behind the wheel and I woke up to my car bouncing off the divider to my left (the one that stops you from hitting the cars on the other side).
When I woke up I had lost control of the car and was headed toward the divider on the right side which was there to prevent cars from dropping over the 1 story elevated highway.
As I saw the wall coming closer I sincerely thought the car was gonna go over.
“This is it” I thought “this is how my life is going to end”.
Then I hit the wall and my car flipped.
People ask me what it felt like.
It felt like someone cracked me in the chest with a baseball bat!
That’s what it felt like.
There I was laying on the side of the highway, the CDs were in the middle of the highway getting trampled by cars flying by.
The smell of burning rubber and the fear that the car would explode told me I needed to GTFOH!
The car was upside down and all the windows were shattered so I crawled out of the driver side window.
Another driver who had seen the crash ran over to me and said:
"OMG I can't believe you're alive!"
Neither could the doctors who operated on my broken hip.
They said I was damn lucky that the crash wasn't fatal.
I was hospitalized for 2 weeks and spent over 3 months in physical therapy learning to walk again.
At time I was in between jobs and no medical insurance.
When I got out of the hospital I had NOTHING.
No job.
No money.
And tons of medical bills.
I literally had to start over from scratch.
When you're that close to losing it all you realize a few things.
First, you realize that tomorrow isn't promised and life can end at any moment so you get your priorities in order and start doing what makes you happy.
I was only 23 so I wasn't exactly sure what that was.
But I knew what made me curious.
And that was the psychology behind what makes people say "yes".
You see, the only thing I had really ever been "ok" at was selling.
And it wasn't because I knew how to overcome every objection or how to follow up with the prospect.
It was because I knew how to connect with people.
I was curious to see if there was a logical explanation for this "connectedness" I was able to form.
I started studying the greatest influencers and communicators of our time.
I studied people like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford and Martin Luther King Jr. among many others.
They all had something in common (more about that in a second).
But there was one man who fascinated me more than anyone.
His name was Tony Robbins.
You've probably heard of him.
Tony's teachings about building relationships really resonated with me.
And so did his stuff about finding your true purpose and potential.
But here's the thing.
The stuff that Tony was teaching wasn't necessarily new.
But the way he was teaching it was.
You see, Tony knew that just simply regurgitating everything that everyone who came before him said wouldn't work.
So he did something different.
He told stories.
But not just any kind of stories.
He told a specific type of story called The Inspiration Story.
The The Inspiration Story is one of the 4 main story types you're going to learn.
And it was those stories that captivated me and caught my attention.
My guess is that it also has something to do with the fact that he’s probably the most successful self improvement trainer in the world.
Tony must have known that..