We’ve talked a lot about persuasion on this site, sales by another name. I truly think it’s one of the most important skills that you can learn to function in the modern day and age. Essentially to get anything you want today you need people skills and understanding of human nature. While people skills have always been important in the not so distant past you could get by on strength of arm, hunting/survival skills, or simply living an isolated existence.
Things that aren’t going to get you nearly as far and may even work against you in today’s day and age. What you need today to succeed is soft skills, again people skills, sales, persuasion, whatever you want to call it. It is through the developing and sharpening of these skills that we can accomplish the major goals we have for our lives, most of which are tied to making money.
And making money which in most part tied to people skills. But it goes beyond this. We also want to change and shape the world around us, it’s a pretty natural thing being men. We all have a certain way of living that we enjoy and thoughts about how things should be run. Doesn’t mean we’re right but if we even put more than ten minutes thinking about it, we’ve already put more thought into it than all the current world leaders combined.
Human Nature, Soft Skills, & Changing The World With Ideas
There was a time when I would have said that public speaking was the biggest skill that you could have to change the world around you. Look at Hitler or Roosevelt or Churchill or any of the dictators from WWII or really any point in history. However I’d say that this is changing, while public speaking is still a great skills and something I think everyone should at the very least dabble in, I don’t think it’s the number one thing anymore.
Now on a quick side note, there’s really not a “soft skill” meaning persuasion skill out there that I think people shouldn’t dabble in because of the ROI, but that’s a topic for another time. Regardless I don’t think public speaking is as powerful as it once was, now why is this? First is technological changes sure. They’ve changed the landscape and how communication happens.
But it’s more than that. For example you can use YouTube or BitChute for “public speaking” today but if your ideas or anything even slightly off mainstream you risk getting banned and deplatformed. Same with writing books, essays, and in general making arguments, even good arguments based on emotion over logic. So while it certainly has utility if your ideas don’t line at least 80% up with the mainstream you run the risk of getting the plug pulled on you.
So What Works Then?
You have to go about it a different way now. Instead of speaking things directly through essay and argument, though these things are still needed, I think the best way to do it is through story. Now this can be TV, YouTube shorts, blogs, movies (good luck with that), but I think the most accessible form is the novel. Now understand I’m not saying use your story as a soapbox to preach from.
Rather what I’m saying is that if you want to change the world around you and have your ideas affect it and have an effect on it then learn to tell stories and tell them well. Stories are the greatest teaching tools that we have as mankind. They’re the most powerful, even over sales. If you have any skin in the sales game then you’ve likely realized how much story telling gets talked about in modern sales.
That’s because it’s powerful. To boil this article down to a single point it’d be “tell stories to change the world with your ideas” myths, stories, fables, novels, whatever. It could be stories around a campfire, learn how to tell one and tell it good. That’s how you communicate, that’s how you get through to people. Not by sermonizing, preaching, or bashing someone over the head with it.
Tell them a story and let them see, and most important feel, for themselves.
The Practicality Of This
Not everyone is going to be a professional novelist I get this, but you don’t have to be to benefit from telling stories. It can be small scale stories you tell with your family about what’s happening in the world, it could be writing novels, it could even be writing a play, making jokes, whatever. Once you have the skill it’ll come out in a variety of things that you do. Learn it, maybe master it, and watch your ideas take on more impact.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
