Neuroscientist and author of The Brain. His key insight for storytellers: “Your brain serves up a narrative—and each of us believes whatever narrative it tells.”
We don’t perceive reality directly. We construct it from electrochemical signals in the dark. Your brain is locked in your skull, receiving only fragmented sensory data. It fills the gaps. It guesses. It makes a story.
Here’s where it gets interesting for business storytelling.
Most founders think their job is to describe reality. They list features. They cite metrics. They assume people will perceive what’s actually there. But that’s backwards. People perceive their own interpretation of what’s there. And their interpretation is governed by the narrative their brain tells itself.
This is the scientific foundation for why storytelling works. If reality is built in the brain, then changing the story changes the reality. You’re not distorting facts—you’re competing with the default narratives people already construct. Their brain is already telling them a story about your industry, your product, your category. The question is whether your story is more compelling than the one they’ve already written.
That’s why functional fiction isn’t deception. It’s recognition that truth isn’t transparent. It’s interpreted. And the interpretation that drives human behaviour isn’t the raw data—it’s the narrative built from it.
Eagleman’s work removes the guilt from storytelling. You’re not choosing between “cold fact” and “warm fiction.” You’re choosing which story gets told in the listener’s brain. Choose badly and they tell themselves a story that excludes you. Choose well and you become the narrator of their understanding.
That’s influence. That’s how you change minds.