Most of the time, you won’t be present when the people you want to influence make the decision, choose the behaviors you were hoping to influence, or both. You don’t have much, if any, formal authority over them and you cannot easily predict the specifics of the situation in which they might find themselves, so how do you get them to do what you want? Story is like mental software that you supply so your listener can run in again later using new input specific to the situation.”