Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now,

with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed.

We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time.

So search for rapid response in your podcast player

and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes.

I'll see you on the other side.

Why does stories pull us in?

I think a story has sort of an ancient virtual reality simulation.

Not unlike a flight simulator.

That's Jonathan Gotchel, author of the storytelling animal, which digs deep in the humanity's abiding passion for stories.

This shows producers are obsessed with his book.

So a pilot goes into a flight simulator. He gets this imaginative simulation of what it's like to face different problems while he's flying a plane.

Uh-oh.

Come on. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Come on.

Oh yeah.

And he gets better at flying the plane, but without taking any risk.

And Story may have served the same function for humanity as a way to go into rich, imaginative,

emotional simulations and train up on all the big problems that humans might confront in their lives. But without any danger. the In his extensive investigations, Jonathan has immersed himself in stories from across different ages and cultures.

There are three basic elements that all stories share.

So what's a story? A story always has a character. A character not

unlike Scott Harrison, the founder of Charity Water who started his career

...