Traveling to new places is one of my favorite things to do. I have done so alone, with friends and family, and with groups of strangers. This is true even when many of those around me don’t understand why I would ever want to visit certain places. And I see little that will cause my passion for this sort of exploration to abate. Unfortunately, though, events of the past few months have fundamentally changed the situation for the worse in one of the places that I have periodically dreamed of visiting. I understand that few of you ever thought about visiting Afghanistan as a tourist, but I have. I now doubt that that will ever be possible.

I have not followed much of the news coverage—what little I have watched or read seemed more focused on a domestic political blame game than anything else and I see little utility in that. That isn’t what this post is about either. Instead, I will use these events as a case study demonstrating the power of a story in a world inundated with information.

Statistics and numbers don’t register for most people. Our brains just aren’t programmed to comprehend large numbers. But we do latch onto individual stories. The story of a single person is thus more powerful than all the facts and figures in the world. This is why most PowerPoint presentations fail and why the most effective politicians are those who compose the most compelling narratives.

A travel vlogger I watch has visited Afghanistan on multiple occasions and has recorded a series of videos showing a way of life very different than what has been portrayed on our television screens (and sadly, different than what is to come for those same people). He fell in love with the people and the landscapes of the place and his love for Afghanistan shines through in the way he presents his video essays. On each of his trips, he had the same guide, a man with a wife and two young children who spent the last decade as a guide for Westerners visiting Afghanistan. When cities began falling to the Taliban, he went into hiding along with his family. Through the power of those very YouTube videos, he was able to obtain Australian visas and made it out of the country just before flights were halted entirely. From a hotel room in Melbourne, the vlogger and the guide have an interview/conversation about their exodus. It is a different sort of heartbreaking than some of the still images that have circulated, and this is yet another testament to the power of storytelling.

Very few of the people reading this newsletter will experience anything like what has transpired in Afghanistan. That doesn’t mean we can’t extract some learning that we can apply to our own lives. I won’t touch on any of the geopolitical considerations or potential lessons, but instead on the power of storytelling. Whether you are hiring employees, seeking investors, or selling your company, you need to know that you are selling a story. The same is true if you are interviewing for a job and you need to explain why everything that has come before makes you the perfect candidate for this position right now. It is also true within a family or even within your mind as the narrative you craft for yourself can create so much momentum in your forward trajectory, whether positive or negative.  

P.S. If you want to watch the video interview discussing their exit from Afghanistan, it is HERE. If you want to watch a few videos of the same vlogger’s time in Afghanistan before recent events transpired, click HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE.