Peter Guber - American Film Producer, Executive and Author
“Story forms have evolved continually since the days of the shaman. Literary genres from epic poetry to drama to the novel use stories as political or social calls to action. Technological breakthroughs — movable type, movies, radio, television, the internet — have provided new ways of recording, presenting, and disseminating stories. But it isn’t special effects or the 0’s and 1’s of the digital revolution that matter most — it’s the oohs and aahs that the storyteller evokes from an audience. State-of-the-art technology is a great tool for capturing and transmitting words, images, and ideas, but the power of storytelling resides most fundamentally in ‘state-of-the-heart’ technology. At the end of the day, words and ideas presented in a way that engages listeners’ emotions are what carry stories. It is this oral tradition that lies at the center of our ability to motivate, sell, inspire, engage, and lead.” — Peter Guber
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Totally agree. There’s this one bit of knowledge I finally grasped yesterday after over a year of public speaking practice with Toastmasters and a Dale Carnegie course, that is a consequence of the “state-of-the-heart technology”, and that is a sense of proximity to the audience. There’s this magic quote I read in Lilly Walters’ book “Secrets of successful speakers” from Cavett Robert that says, “They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
Thank you for the comment, Sebastián. The “know how much you care” quote is one of my favourites and, as you point out, so very important for speakers to understand.
John