Original subtitles

suppose you're American and you decide

to lose weight and get healthy awesome

we Americans are really good at some

things like building telescopes in space

but unfortunately we haven't cracked the

code on staying slim keeping health care

costs down or living long but we do

dominate the market for nutrition and

weight loss books Let's see if our

best-selling authors now provide a clear

and consistent message we can all rally

around to solve our problem I have

written about agriculture nutrition

cooking and this is everything I know

about food the best wisdom we have can

be reduced to seven words eat food not

too much mostly plants I'm Dr Ken Berry

a family physician well I've been

virtually plant free in my diet for the

last three and a half years emphasizing

basically plant Source types of fat

essentially if you can pour it it's

going to be a healthy type of fat as

long as we haven't partially

hydrogenated it remember oils are rancid

products they oxidized really easily

they go rancid and bad they they do they

don't have no shelf life stability and

then the Cornerstone of all every

longevity diet in the world is beans if

you're eating about a cup of beans a day

it's probably worth about four extra

years of life expectancy so the lectins

particularly in kidney beans are so

mischievous in making red blood cells

Clump it was a saturated fat at least

they're not research in many of my

colleagues research is the combination

of these these fats especially in

combination with too much copper iron

and zinc that is really harmful to the

brain next fat let's talk about

saturated fat well I could write a whole

book on that in fact I kind of almost

did called eat fat get thin and how we

got to the view that saturated fat was

bad and why it's not the boogeyman

anymore and they say red meat is bad

well actually red meat probably is bad

so why do we believe that red meat

causes colon cancer I'll tell you why

the 2015 iarc International Association

for research on cancer which is a who

working group that is where most of our

misconceptions regarding red meat and

cancer come from the people who consume

uh between one and two cups of dark

leafy greens every day have brains that

perform up to 11 years younger the whole

produce department is a human invention

attempt to make plants edible

if you are an American so the odds are

stacked against you and you don't have a

strong Science Background or the time to

sort out this mess how is it even

possible to decide who to trust I

sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have

less of a problem if we weren't so

obsessed by the latest diet Trends I

have had an unnatural fascination with

nutrition books so somehow I've read

over 200 of them over the past few

decades some date back centuries and one

was published last week with the help of

Google translate I read a book from a

Japanese nutrition Professor who was

sharp until he died at 105. I also read

a book from his Chinese counterpart who

was sharp until he died at 110. this is

just the tip of the iceberg for my book

problem because only so many would fit

on this table and most of them are on

Kindle or audio when I'm running or

biking or doing chores I almost always

have a book playing in my ears Tony and

I also started a technical bookstore in

our garage in the early days of the

internet which grew to 100 billion in

sales in four years went public on the

NASDAQ and was bought by Barnes and

Noble when they were riding high so I

think I know a few things about what

makes non-fiction books sell but of all

genres how did I get so fascinated with

nutrition books for one thing I find the

question of how we came to our beliefs

so fascinating and how did we become so

convinced in them and that that other

idiot on the Internet is wrong and for

another so much is at stake with

nutrition obscene healthcare costs we

can't afford and so much sorrow when

nutrition goes badly and so much

happiness when it goes well so I made a

spreadsheet of the most influential and

best-selling authors of recent decades

Sudden Change in venue I'm at the

hospital and my daughter's about to have

a baby on New Year's Eve whoa she's a

New Year's baby

first baby born of the New Year in the

hospital okay we were talking about my

spreadsheet because I was curious as to

what patterns would emerge do doctors

sell more books than celebrities and

internet influencers how about

scientists I made columns for the

background of the author their

scientific stature if any the main

message ratings on Amazon sales when I

could get them whether they made the New

York Times bestseller list what the

author stood to gain and even whether

any of the authors had descended into

conspiracy territory as I believe a few

have you're probably wondering how I

judged their scientific stature if they

were a journalist or an internet

influencer without a scientific degree I

gave them a low if they were a doctor I

automatically gave them a medium unless

they were involved in scientific studies

and published papers and then I gave

them a high if they were a scientist

actually doing science and Publishing

well-sided Publications then I gave them

a high otherwise I gave them a medium

and that's what I would give myself it's

fascinating to see what patterns emerge

but before we get to that we should see

what best-selling authors and Publishers

know about what makes a non-fiction book

sell here are two Awesome books about

that for example in every Thriller the

protagonist must be at the complete

mercy of the villain at some point in

the story think of Indiana Jones also to

completely win over an audience the

protagonist must be willing to give up

everything for the cause think of Matt

Damon giving up his career for his kids

in the movie We Bought a Zoo oh you

don't think those story lines apply to

nutrition books we'll see about that

diet and nutrition books are often

considered self-help books and the part

I really don't understand if you're

looking for self-help why would you read

a book written by somebody else

that's not self-help that's hell

and one of the keys to self-help books

is the promise and the second thing even

a non-fiction book needs is suspense as

a professional book editor my job is to

help writers strengthen their stories

actually most narratives of any kind

fiction or non-fiction use suspense to

engage the reader so this really is a

key element of any type of narrative for

example here are two unlikely best

sellers with strong promises and a sense

of suspense right on their covers

scientists are notoriously weak

storytellers with a few exceptions so

they come out with covers like this

that's from arguably one of the most

credible sinus in my spreadsheet and

gets great reviews from other scientists

for how airtight its references are but

it didn't sell well that's a promise

used by many book skeletons passed by

credible scientists that didn't sell

well either and there's no suspense

because I could tell from the cover you

want me to eat broccoli same with Walter

willett's book week promise low suspense

if you are a liberal arts major with no

nutritional Science Background you can

still have a bestseller in America if

you make extraordinary promises Tim

ferriss's book makes promises like reach

your genetic potential in six months

sleep two hours per day and perform

better lose more fat than a marathoner

by binging best seller I wonder how many

Americans found out sleeping two hours

per night and binging didn't work for

them and moved on to the next book with

big promises although scientists can't

write books like that without destroying

their reputation they can get on the

best seller list if they made genuine

discoveries like Nobel Prize winner

Elizabeth Blackburn made with telomeres

or brain scientist Lisa mosconi did with

how menopause increases Alzheimer's risk

they both worked with co-authors which

usually helps scientists who are usually

storytelling impaired a great example of

what a co-author can do is for the

multi-million book seller how not to die

co-author Jean Stone has a bachelor's in

English from Stanford a masters from

Harvard with an editor for Esquire and

Simon and Schuster and the force behind

many New York Times number one best

sellers how they constructed that book

reminds me how another great Storyteller

who I used to work for Steve Jobs

constructed Apple Stores Steve hired Ron

Johnson from Target to help design the

stores the initial thought was to design

the stores around products so Macs and

iPhones would have their own sections a

traditional design but Ron suggested

they organized them around the problems

customers wanted to solve so the same

products may appear in several sections

of the store this story the store tells

to customers as they walk in the store

is we know what you're interested in and

here's everything you need for that the

book how not to die is organized around

our leading diseases with a chapter for

each the story it tells is we know it

concerns you losing your mind getting a

heart attack and here's what you can eat

for those the same Foods appear across

many diseases which brings up another

mystery book how did The China Study

become a multi-million book seller and

stay on the Amazon top 200 list for

almost a decade it's a vegan book and

only three percent of Americans are

vegans and from a minor publisher with

no promotional budget and some pretty

heavy science to understand that is to

understand what makes great non-fiction

who better to explain that than Rachel

Aviv the celebrated non-fiction

journalist for the New Yorker when I'm

looking for a story I try to make sure

that I have two strands that intersect

the first is that I want to make sure

I'm writing about an issue that has some

social or political or cultural

significance and relevance

but that on its own is usually not

enough in order to explore that issue or

theme or Trend or dilemma I also need a

second strand which is a character who

can act as a kind of through line a

guide who allows readers to care about a

particular trend for me picking this

guide or this character is one of the

most important parts of writing the

story I found that is often the

difference between writing a story that

someone will read and writing a story

that someone won't read The China Study

is told with sinus Colin Campbell as the

protagonist it's the story of his

adventure of Discovery his struggles

with politics and the mean people who

tried to thwart him here's what experts

in non-fiction often say so the answer

is to bring yourself and your story Into

the book even if it is a non-fiction

book on a topic that's meant to be quite

serious when your heart bring your life

Dr Bernstein did that masterfully with

his low carb High meat diet books for

type 1 diabetics and became a legend Dr

Bolsa which did it for his best seller

fiber fueled who knew that a guy who

does colonoscopies for a living could

write a bestseller building an honest

narrative around human stories is called

creative nonfiction and the name of one

of its Godfathers is spelled gut kind

I'm not making that up his name would be

amazing for a gut health book and you

can't make this stuff up as a complete

guide to every aspect of creative

nonfiction the traditional writer will

just talk to you and tell you things and

the fiction writer will tell you lots of

stories but those stories could be made

up or exaggerated but when you write

creative nonfiction you are promising

the reader that you're going to

entertain them cinematically with

stories but promising the reader at the

same time that whatever you say is going

to be accurate and true the trouble with

creative nonfiction is when the

characters aren't heroic or evil enough

authors sometimes dramatize it into a

work of seminar fiction my co-workers

from my Steve Jobs years were profiled

in a movie about Steve written by Aaron

Sorkin they said Aaron could not resist

embellishments so they said it was no

longer the Steve they knew when the film

came out I agreed and that exactly

explains the influential bestsellers

from Gary taubs and Nino taishals both

authors are very talented very well

trained journalists and great

storytellers they have one of the most

powerful promises you can have in beef

obsessed America meat and butter can be

part of a healthy diet and the suspense

is over the top how can that be after

all we've been told are sinus

incompetent are they evil great stories

like this require a great villain so

they chose to semi-fictionalize the most

influential nutrition scientist of all

time and he was easily the most influent

he still is the most influential

nutrition scientist in the history of

nutrition science they said it was all

the things we love the hate a bully he

was called arrogant and a bully even by

his friends dishonest Keys did a lot of

you know there's hardly a better word

for it than kind of saying fudging the

data incompetent I literally got off the

phone with this guy and I called my

editor at science and I said you know

this is clearly one of the worst times

you can tell a bad scientist I said one

of the worst scientists I've ever

interviewed I don't know what the story

is but I'm going to pursue it because if

this guy was involved in any substantial

way I know there's a story there

oh look grandkids and they all want me

to play tag why aren't you dressed

warmer

and I forgot it oh and they implied he

catalyzed the low-fat craze in America

and made us all fat it started with

Ansel Keys getting himself onto the

nutrition panel at the American Heart

Association in 1961. the problem they

had is it is an obvious fiction because

he popularized the Mediterranean diet

which is not low fat and right on the

cover of his best-selling book is olive

oil fish and cheese none of which are

low-fat but the Great Advantage they had

is he has long gone and his best-selling

book is long out of print who would even

know about it anymore much less read it

just me and nutrition scientists

unfortunately I'm very familiar with

books like this because before I moved

to Silicon Valley to work in Tech in

1990 when no less of a figure than the

head of NASA Goddard space Studies

Institute testified to Congress in 1988

about the greenhouse effect which he

understood better than anyone because he

figured out that's why Venus was so hot

we are sinus thought awesome now the

public will finally know what we know

what do I know

that would cause me a reticent

Midwestern scientist

to get myself arrested

in front of the White House protesting

and what would you do if you knew what I

know but the Koch brothers Rupert

Murdoch and Exxon flooded The Zone with

PR and semi-nonfiction books were part

of the strategy David after Dr Hansen

the scientist who had testified to

Congress over the next three decades

NASA and science lost the Koch brothers

in Exxon 1 and science took a big hit to

its reputation among the public 35 years

later my perception is more people are

seeing the fires and floods and thinking

Hmm perhaps it really is true that all

disaster movies begin with someone

ignoring a scientist Dr Henson's

testimony has stood the test of time and

I'm not aware of any legit climate

scientists who discount him like the

internet does nor have they ever Nina

and Gary have very convincing ways to

make people believe their books are

factual they flood the Zone with old

obscure references that are very hard to

fact check and they misrepresent them

for example Gary often references Hilda

Brook who wrote the 1957 book the

importance of overweight try to find

that at a rare Bookseller or scan copy

anywhere but I know one person who has a

copy me and it doesn't say what Gary

says it does nor do many of his or

Nina's references you don't have to

believe me about their references Seth

Yoder who has a master's degree in

nutrition science posted exhaustive

reference checks nutrition Professor

Marion Nestle who is very reliable

blogged about it Darius mozafarian the

dean of tough School of nutrition

tweeted about it the people who actually

worked for answer keys for decades

called Nina's references out in the

Lancet

so Gary and Nina pretty much won among

consumers pretty much wrecking the

reputation of the world's most prominent

nutrition scientist and shaking the

faith of the American public in

nutrition science overall but answer key

is one among nutrition scientists and

the dietary pattern that he recommended

the Mediterranean diet has become the

most respected diet among them I'll get

to what I think Gary and Nina's

motivation may have been but first the

story of the phenomenal bestseller the

Obesity code is quite fascinating this

episode is about the American book

market and Dr Fung is Canadian but his

books are very popular in America

nutrition scientists often point to the

Canadian food guide as less influenced

by lobbyists and more akin to the Guides

of the Nordic countries in Japan where

men live more than four years longer

than American men with half the health

care costs like in Canada the Obesity

code illustrates how doctors often speak

to the public differently than

scientists generally do for one thing

doctors often speak with a great deal of

certainty heart disease is an absolutely

toothless paper tiger that need never

ever exist if you suffer from anxiety or

depression you have a leaky gut

scientists are often more reserved and

generally speak in terms of probability

and risk and what we do see is about a

50 lower risk of colorectal cancer for

women with higher blood vitamin D levels

we're not 100 sure that that's cause and

effect as doctors know because they

interact with patients every day

patients generally like a confident

demeanor the scientists in my

spreadsheet seem more inclined to focus

on one area like brain science Dr fungdo

has books on fasting obesity diabetes

and cancer at a pretty young age many

consumers seem to take that as a sign

that he's brilliant many scientists

however tend to think really he's a

kidney disease physician and he's a

world Authority on cancer diabetes and

obesity is that really possible what I

think sells Dr Fung's books is he's

adapted the storyline of Gary and Nina

but he has the authority and confidence

of an MD for example here's what he says

about pencil keys so they said oh my God

why are Americans having heart attacks

must be the dietary fat right because it

can't be the cigarettes the guy who

really pushed that with a guy named

Ansel Keys who is a very very prominent

nutritionist he didn't actually look at

every country that he had data on he

actually just took the seven countries

that best fit the line and sort of stuck

them there so if you look at all 22

countries that he had data on it it was

a much less tight correlation so he sort

of cherry-picked the data to make his

point look better and just like that he

dismisses the most influential nutrition

scientist of all time and continues on

with a fire hose of quick references

like that if you're familiar with the

studies he cites you die each time he

glosses over one like this without

understanding it for example this 22

country chart comes from an obscure 1957

paper that relies on United Nations food

data and the authors describe as subject

to severe limitations especially in

countries like France Mexico and what's

now called Sri Lanka the authors guessed

it must have to do with how data is

reported differently in different

countries if Ansel Keys had relied on

that data instead of launching a 50-year

study to collect reliable data with

blood samples and assays of actual food

eaten I would have lost respect for

Ansel but suppose for a minute that

Jason is right and that data was

reliable enough to be useful then you

have to accept what the data so clearly

shows in that paper that increases in

animal food consumption causes a very

sharp rise in mortality I have Jason's

recipe book and it has many recipes with

bacon and sausage so heat clearly does

not actually believe that data is

reliable I think the reason Jason

doesn't show that graph is he's simply

doing what a thousand other people have

done before him and simply quoting Gary

Tobbs without reading the paper Gary was

simply doing what Gary does finding old

obscure references and misrepresenting

them which brings up another key to

influential books if they can make the

best seller list they get special fairy

dust which I think explains why so many

smart people will just accept Gary's

references without checking them and use

them in their own books and speeches for

example here's Duke Professor Eric

Westman himself a best-selling author

one is the Banting diet book from

1863. that was the first diet book ever

it was a low carb diet the Banting diet

that's an old obscure 14-page pamphlet

written by an Undertaker whose only

knowledge of nutrition is that his ear

doctor advised him to avoid bread butter

milk sugar beer and potatoes Gary

eliminated the reference to butter and

called it a low-carb diet even though

toasted bread and fruit was on the menu

Dr Westman is just repeating what Gary

says about it and there were hundreds of

diet and nutrition books before that

written by actual doctors here's one of

my favorites first published in 1653 the

issues of the day were whether fish is

healthier than meat Wild game healthier

than tame and Orchard fruit healthier

than Garden fruit even Banting said his

advice was as old as the hill to be fair

to Jason Fung the Obesity code does have

some really good stuff in there about

intermittent fasting and it encourages

everyone to eliminate processed

carbohydrate Foods although as recipes

do include a lot of processed Meats it

does have the same through line as Gary

has in his books being overweight is not

your fault the experts in quotes got it

wrong he's emphatic that reducing

calories does not work although he's all

four time restricted feeding all my wild

hats were stolen by Shameless thieves

the Obesity code has a fascinating

backstory the same year it was published

Jason co-authored a book about fasting

that was immensely popular with Jimmy

Moore Jimmy was a super popular

podcaster in the day who had written a

best-selling book about the keto diet

two years before Jimmy has a big

personality and a great back story about

losing 180 pounds in a year on the

Atkins diet Jimmy kept podcasting and

writing popular books like the ketogenic

cookbook but if you've watched my

previous episodes you know I've

presented several studies showing keto

diets are phenomenal for losing weight a

year but don't do well for most people

long term so I checked on Jimmy because

he's doing all the things keto

intermittent fasting ice baths and

here's his recent message quite frankly

I've been disappointed if I'm being

truly honest which I always am

I'm disappointed

that I'm doing

all of these things

on a consistent basis 100 days in a row

and I have not seen more physical

results

as hard as I'm working

for the sustained period that I did I'm

surprised it didn't continue in that

trajectory Jason is adamant in his book

that if you're overweight it's not your

fault it's the experts who misled you

but he is the expert for Jimmy Jimmy

reminds me of another podcaster who lost

even more weight Chuck Carroll but he

landed on a plant-based message by

another best-selling doctor Dr Barnard

but I'm sitting across from Dr Barnard

right now and my heaviest yeah I was 420

pounds and I'm 5'6 on a good day if by

this point in the episode you're

thinking wait what's more important the

way the book is written or the message

that would be a good segue to my

spreadsheet to make the list the book

either had to make the New York Times

bestseller list or get at least a

thousand ratings on Amazon I made one

exception for Walter willett's book

which fell short at 834 ratings because

he is so influential in nutrition I

ended up with 104 people on the list at

least one book was from a Canadian

author and two from the the UK but I

knew them to be on Amazon America's best

seller lists these metrics are not

perfect indicators of influence because

some books have had more years to

accumulate Amazon ratings for example

but perhaps Amazon didn't have the

traffic 10 years ago it has now who

knows and the position on the New York

Times list varied and so did the time on

the list but they are the best

indicators of influence I could think of

if you had an MD without a PhD but your

primary activity was research I

classified you as a scientist if you

weren't trained in a specialty I

categorized you as an author celebs

athletes and journalists got their own

categories I categorize dietary plants

which were omnivorous and favored plants

as Mediterranean I combined keto books

with other low-carb plans like Atkins

I'll link the spreadsheet in the

description and enable comments so you

can suggest additions and Corrections

the first thing that jumped out at me is

there were almost as many scientists as

doctors that was helped by me

classifying some MDS as scientists like

Dean ornish and Robert lustig because

they do so much search I was afraid

scientists would not do well on this

list because they are not known for

storytelling the second thing is the

Mediterranean pattern owns the biggest

slice with low carbon vegan duking it

out for second the elimination books

were ones like Wheat Belly grain brain

and Dr gundry's lectin books one

fascinating thing is scientists tend to

Cluster around a few diets with the

largest by far around the Mediterranean

but with doctors it's much more

scattered with low carb almost as

popular as Mediterranean my

interpretation is scientists are

immersed in the latest research and

doctors are face to face with patients

giving two different perspectives what

sinus see are the results finally

rolling in from longer-term studies of

people on keto diets what doctors see is

some very impressive weight loss and

blood glucose control quickly among

their patients who start on a low carb

diet and some very happy patients during

their 6 and 12 month return visits if

they ever do see long-term results like

Jimmy Moore's they're naturally prone to

write them off as a lack of adherence to

the diet which works so well early on

one final chart I flagged a few authors

who have cashed in with big dollars Way

Beyond book royalties and strangely they

are skewed towards low carb diets for

whatever reason it's the high meat

low-carb crowd that buys a lot of

supplements enabling Mark Sisson to sell

his supplements company to craft for 200

million dollars for Mercola to be Mega

rich and liver King to sell 100 million

in supplements just last year Mark Hyman

and Paul saladino hopped on that gravy

train as well as a few in the vegan and

Mediterranean worlds too low carb

scientist Finney and volac co-founded

virta Health to sell keto dieting

raising hundreds of millions in venture

capital and making their company worth

more than 2 billion despite the

five-year data they collected on their

customers which looks so good the first

year but doesn't look good after two or

more and finally Nina's book enabled her

to secure a million a year in funding

for what sure looks like a front group

that lobbies and does PR for the beef

industry her public appearances seem

designed to cast doubt on science which

is what front groups do so three big

questions to end the episode first is

the way the story told more important

than the message in nutrition I heard

that Robert Redford said story is more

powerful than acting or cinematography

in an independent film and here's what

he said about the most powerful elements

of story to me it's all about story it's

like it was evidence in the deep throat

scene but deep throat kept trying to say

to Woodward

find the story

second step is who are the characters

that embody the story

and the third and most important is

where's the emotion so it has to have

those three steps what's the story one

of the characters that embodied the

story and then where's the emotion if it

doesn't have all three then I probably

would not be attracted to it which

brings up question number two if you're

an American and you're caught in this

swirl of advice from various doctors and

the internet each claiming one diet is

superior to the others how do people end

up choosing one over the other and get

so emotional about it I think it's the

story and how it resonates with you if

you're a man you're much more likely to

be drawn to appeals to masculinity

mistake that's what a man eats that

means shirtless men with six packs who

claim meat gets you ripped if you're a

woman you're much more likely to be

drawn to a story that involves empathy

and that means veganism

foreign

and that's why I think most carnivores

are men and most vegans are women and

yet each side believes their diet is the

healthiest these stories have the

characters and emotions that Robert

Redford said was so powerful although

you've called the Greta twinburg

helpline if you're a grown adult who

needs to yell at a child for some reason

the Greta tuneburg helpline is here to

tolerate you

so before you go full caps lock in an

article comment section let our expert

counselors assess your situation we'll

listen no matter how ridiculous you

sound which brings up the last question

most of my sinus friends believe that

simple evidence-based science wins in

the end is that true I say I don't think

that's evidence-based I think powerful

storytellers like Gary and Nina have far

more influence over public opinion than

almost any scientist I can think of at

least in America and that brings me to

the time a great scientist schooled me

and I ran outside and burst into tears

it was here at Stanford and it was my

first day as a graduate student I was so

nervous to meet my new advisor in that

office my hands were cold he was one of

the greatest scientists of this

generation and the dean of Earth

Sciences that's the Dean's office so I

put my young son on my shoulders to calm

myself and hopefully to disarm Dr Cox

with cuteness overload he pulled out my

file and asked a question and I could

feel myself eye a little inside Chris

you did so well on your entrance exams

and anything quantitative why did you

only score in the 33rd percentile in

writing I nervously tried to laugh it

off and said I don't do English

sentences I do equations that's why I

went into science I never want to take

another English class as long as I live

he set my file down and said that's the

wrong answer in order to become a great

scientist which is what you've come here

to become you must become a great writer

he said what good is great science if no

one knows about it I'm going to grade

your Master's thesis and if it's not

good writing I won't pass you he must

have known I was starting to fight back

tears I thought I could never become a

great writer and that I could never tell

him why you can watch my tedx talk if

you really want to know outside I burst

into tears and walked around campus for

probably an hour crying with Don on my

shoulders poor kid I finally decided I

had to get over myself and so I carved

out at least an hour a day to do what I

detested in the beginning which was to

learn how to write non-fiction I read

everything I could get my hands on from

the three non-fiction writers I admired

most Abraham Lincoln Winston Churchill

and Mark Twain and thankfully Dr Cox

noticed when Stanford held a banquet for

one of its largest donors they lined up

a who's who of speakers from the

president of the university to the

Secretary of State and they wanted a

student to be the concluding speaker and

they chose me I think Dr Cox put them up

to it the traditional thing would have

been to talk about how Stanford has

great professors blah blah blah but I

told the story of growing up on the

streets with my mentally ill mom she had

a masters in biochem from Cornell and

said her greatest wish was for me to get

a master's from a great University it

was an Impossible Dream given our

situation I told the audience I could

never have been there were not for

donors Who provided scholarships to

people like me and for a university with

an admissions policy that allowed for

some a f students which I had been 12

years later I thought of Alan Cox when

Steve Jobs asked me to help with his

Keynotes Steve could not understand why

others CEOs did not obsess over

storytelling like he did you can't

imagine the effort he put into his

appearances but his investment paid off

and he changed the world Alan Cox sat in

stunned silences I gave that talk

because I don't think he had any idea

because I didn't tell anybody because it

was just too humiliating but wow that

talk opened up opportunities for us and

changed our lives tragically for

Americans concerned about health some of

the power of stories has gone to the

dark side so the next time you get

interested in cancer and wonder if a

kidney disease doctor has really brought

us a revolutionary new understanding of

a medical mystery in his spare time

claiming scientists are wrong and bacon

and sausage will help prevent it

consider if that story could have some

fictional elements to work your emotions

you could instead choose a book from a

real scientist who is devoted to cancer

he doesn't have the powerful story Jason

has unless you consider optimizing your

chances against cancer a powerful Story

one thing I learned writing a book about

pop culture hits and entertainment

is that stories are weapons

for good or ill which of your stories

make people laugh I.E crate endorphins

which makes people feel empathy I.E

oxytocin

and the next time you go into a meeting

you've picked the story

you want to release the hormone you wish

in the person that you're talking to to

get exactly the desired effects that you

want

and that's a beautiful thing