Why Story-Telling Is the Operating System of the Human Brain

For John Bucher, storytelling matters. It’s how we make sense of the world around us and define the boundaries of what we think is possible, and he’s spent a lot of time exploring how the Hero’s Journey, a model for telling epic stories of individuals experiencing adventure and triumph first defined by the academic Joseph Campbell, can help us see our own journey to personal growth and self-discovery. But John says that the Hero’s Journey shouldn’t be treated as the only or ultimate model for storytelling. “It's still about an individual ego on its own journey,” John tells Tim. “And so a few years ago I started to consider a better story, a new story, and that's the collective journey of all of us.” 

John started to research moments in history when groups of people came together to make a change, and how we narrate those experiences. “I think looking at these stories of how we've accomplished big things in the past by coming together as a collective can be quite inspirational to us, but it can also teach us how people found their individual roles,” John tells Tim. By telling stories about groups, we can better understand how we can work collectively for common goals, and better understand the small part we can all play. “I'm not going to be the star or the main character… because there is no main character,” John says. “We're all going to be the main characters.”

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John Bucher is a mythologist, an author, and the Executive Director of the Joseph Campbell Institute. You can find his work, including his books on storytelling, at his website, tellingabetterstory.com.

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Our theme music was written by Andy Ogden and produced by Tim Lauer, Andy Ogden and Julian Raymond. All other music that you hear in this episode is courtesy of Epidemic Sound. 

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