In this enlightening episode, Cesar Castro delves into the transformative power of storytelling in leadership. He articulates how strategic narratives can significantly impact persuasion, motivation, and lasting influence.

Cesar, with his rich background in psychology and expertise in communication, unravels the science behind storytelling, emphasizing its role in shaping beliefs and driving actions. He introduces the "COSA" Method," a structured approach to crafting impactful stories, ensuring leaders not only capture attention but also inspire change. The conversation illuminates the innate human connection to stories, highlighting their pivotal role in effective leadership and organizational success.

Want to learn more about Cesar Castro's work? Check out their website at http://www.cesarcastro.com.

Connect with Cesar Castro on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cesarcastrov.

Key Points with Timestamps:

• 00:00:30 - Craig Andrews' profound personal story and the significance of team solidarity.
• 00:01:23 - Introduction to Cesar Castro and his expertise in storytelling for leadership.
• 00:03:34 - Castro’s insight into the common challenges leaders face in communication.
• 00:04:22 - The critical role of storytelling in inspiring and motivating teams.
• 00:10:47 - Discussing the intersection of emotion and logic in effective leadership.
• 00:19:35 - The importance of first impressions and non-verbal cues in establishing trust.
• 00:24:03 - Addressing the skepticism of engineers and logically minded professionals towards storytelling.
• 00:27:33 - Detailed explanation of the "Cosa Method" for strategic storytelling.
• 00:33:41 - Closing thoughts and ways to connect with Cesar Castro for more insights on storytelling in leadership.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;23;10
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Cesar Castro. How states are what he does. And he says, I help business leaders and entrepreneurs become great storytellers. And it's not just for the sake of telling stories, but for the sake of leading people. So it's much more than just a story. Sascha is a psychologist with dual master's degrees, one in organizational psychology and the other in professional communications.

00;01;23;13 - 00;01;51;17
Craig Andrews
he's an adjunct professor of public speaking and strategic storytelling. He's founded three companies. SA obviously has been very busy, founded three companies, two in Latin America and now one in the United States, that focus on helping business leaders and entrepreneurs develop their influence and communication skills. He's worked with some of the leaders of some of the top companies in the world, and he lives with a conviction.

00;01;51;20 - 00;02;07;00
Craig Andrews
He's convinced that we can all become better leaders and better communicators if we do one thing, and that one thing is if we become better storytellers. Cesar, welcome.

00;02;07;03 - 00;02;15;25
Cesar Castro
Thank you. Greg, thank you for that wonderful introduction. I think I couldn't have said it better myself, but you did a great job.

00;02;15;27 - 00;02;43;13
Craig Andrews
So, you know, a little context when when we first met you, you say, I'd love to be on your podcast. And I went to your website and I looked at it. I didn't understand a word of what you had there. It was all in Spanish. And so you've been busy doing something, one that. Where where were you working and why was it in Spanish?

00;02;43;15 - 00;03;03;19
Cesar Castro
Well, the last almost 20 years of my life, I've been living in Latin America, in Chile, actually. Beautiful, long country. And, I've been living there because I was I was actually born in Chile. And then my family moved to United States when I was about 6 or 7 and lived here until I was about 19 and went back on a trip.

00;03;03;21 - 00;03;34;16
Cesar Castro
Met a lovely Chilean woman, got married, and decided to stay a little bit longer than what I had initially expected. And while in Chile, obviously I studied, did my my I studied psychology, did my masters, and then started my own business companies, initially in leadership development. I was always very attracted to leadership development and as I started working with with big companies and leadership development, I kept running into just one, one rock.

00;03;34;17 - 00;04;03;11
Cesar Castro
I'll say just just one problem, one constant issue when I was working with leaders, and that is that most leaders, at least the ones I was working with in the corporate world, are not real good communicators, smart people, brilliant people, no numbers, no facts. But when it comes to communicating it in a way that makes others, connect and engage and just feel emotion, because we as human beings make decisions based on our emotions, a lot of them don't get training on that.

00;04;03;11 - 00;04;22;13
Cesar Castro
So in their job description, it says, you have to be a good communicator and you have to be able to motivate, inspire teams. And it makes sense. But when it comes to motivating and inspiring teams, they really have no idea how to do it. And that's where storytelling comes in, because storytelling is the best skill, communication skill that we have as human beings.

00;04;22;15 - 00;04;26;22
Cesar Castro
When we want to connect, when we want to motivate and we want to inspire others.

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;34;18
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and Steve Jobs famously said, the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. Yeah, yeah.

00;04;34;20 - 00;04;50;29
Cesar Castro
And he was saying that because at that time he was he was chasing Walt Disney. He was seeing their brand and seeing how how iconic they were. And one thing that he learned from them is they were great storytellers. So he wanted to follow that example. Well, you know.

00;04;51;06 - 00;05;28;07
Craig Andrews
You unearth something really neat there. maybe unintentionally, maybe intentionally. You know, they there's a belief that we have to come up with these great ideas. And I think there's some relief for some. I is if even Steve Jobs came up with something where he's stealing an idea from another visionary, you know, Walt Disney. Yeah. It's if we can respect Steve Jobs for his effectiveness at stealing someone else's idea and implementing it, then we shouldn't be too bashful about stealing the great ideas of others and implementing them ourselves.

00;05;28;09 - 00;05;45;28
Cesar Castro
Yeah, yeah, and I agree with you that a lot of times when we think of innovation, we think it has to be something so out of the box, so new that no one's ever heard of it a lot of times. And the most innovative people are just able to grab something that already exists and make it a little bit better.

00;05;46;00 - 00;05;46;18
Cesar Castro
Well.

00;05;46;20 - 00;05;52;19
Craig Andrews
Is there anything older than the story?

00;05;52;22 - 00;06;18;20
Cesar Castro
I don't know. I mean, water, the creation of of of Earth. But but I think when it comes to human beings, we've been telling stories for over 100,000 years, so almost as long as we've existed as a species, once we started communicating, stories came into play as, as a way to communicate. I mean, initially, what anthropologists say is that the first stories that we told were all about the things that were outside of the cave, right?

00;06;18;20 - 00;06;31;25
Cesar Castro
The the adventures that were out the other side of the mountain or where we could go find food and stories in a way, became the the vehicle for us to communicate to others these important aspects that help their survival.

00;06;31;27 - 00;06;45;20
Craig Andrews
Now, I'm going to hit you with a question and this may be an unfair question, but do you know how many years language preceded writing?

00;06;45;23 - 00;06;52;14
Cesar Castro
I don't know the exact. I know that obviously language existed before we ever wrote, but I don't know the exact number of it.

00;06;52;17 - 00;07;13;04
Craig Andrews
Yeah, but, you know, before and before we had history books, cultures would tell stories of what happened. Yeah. And that's why it's that, you know, that's why I'm was that there are few things that are older than stories. Stories are older than history books.

00;07;13;06 - 00;07;34;18
Cesar Castro
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Stories are so old and so hard wired in us that the way that we understand the world and the way we communicate our internal world to others is naturally through stories. It's actually one of the good news that I always tell my clients when they hire me, because they want to be good storytellers.

00;07;34;20 - 00;07;52;01
Cesar Castro
I tell them right from the very beginning, the good news is that you are already a storyteller, because we as human beings, we're naturally storytellers. We don't come home at night after a hard day's work, and I want our kids or our wife ask us, hey, how did it go today? We don't pull out a PowerPoint presentation, right?

00;07;52;01 - 00;08;05;02
Cesar Castro
We don't we don't pull out bullet points. What we do is we start telling stories, because that is a natural way of how we, as human beings try to organize and especially try to give meaning to what's going on in the outside world.

00;08;05;05 - 00;08;33;26
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and, you know, one of the things that we were talking about in the green room was changing people's minds. we have this false belief that we can present, more data. You know, if if we just give people the right data, the right facts, eventually they'll come to the right answer. And the thing that we're running into is people have, you know, broken belief systems that are anchored in deeply held beliefs.

00;08;33;29 - 00;08;46;02
Craig Andrews
And I personally believe I'm interested in your take on this, but I personally believe I don't know of any way of changing someone's deeply held belief except by a dramatic story.

00;08;46;05 - 00;09;11;05
Cesar Castro
Yeah, yeah, we we actually the way and psychology explains this in more details, but the way that we create these, these deep, ingrained beliefs are through emotional experiences that we've had in our life and then the story that we tell around it, and we repeat that story so many times that it becomes an ingrained belief. It becomes something that then we later don't even think about.

00;09;11;05 - 00;09;41;01
Cesar Castro
It's just part of what we how we perceive the world. So it's really important to understand this because like you said, a lot of what we see today, especially in the business world and leadership, is we try to persuade or we try to change people's people's perception or feelings or actions towards something by being logical. I if I can if I can give this person the numbers, if I can give them the stats, if I can give them the data, I will change their their way of thinking or feeling about this.

00;09;41;04 - 00;10;01;04
Cesar Castro
And I always tell my clients, if it was that easy, if it was, just show them the information and people will change, then there would be no smokers, there will be no alcoholics, there would be no no issues with with leaders in organization. We would have all the best parents in the world. Why? Because that information already exists.

00;10;01;06 - 00;10;20;28
Cesar Castro
I mean, you can buy a parenting book and have all the information of how to raise a kid, a child. Well, you can have a leadership book and know how to lead. You know, like like Nelson Mandela. You there's books tons of books that talk about the effects of alcohol or tobacco. And people still do it. Why now we sell them?

00;10;20;28 - 00;10;47;19
Cesar Castro
Because information is not enough to change people's decisions and the way they feel about things. We as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as people who want to change the world wherever we may be. We have to learn how to communicate information with emotion, because it's when information and emotion and emotion get together. That's when we have something much more powerful that hits the the the inner, the inner brain.

00;10;47;19 - 00;11;15;02
Cesar Castro
Right. The more, the brain that's older and that really where people make decisions, where people at some point made a decision. So when you want to be persuasive, when you want to get people to change, you can't do it logically. And that's where I think a lot of arguments occur, is because people just try to change people's perception through arguments, logical arguments, when that person believes what they believe, not through a logical process, but through an emotional process.

00;11;15;05 - 00;11;30;19
Craig Andrews
You know, there's there's probably some German listening to this podcast and he's saying, there's say, sorry, another Latin American talking about emotions. Yeah. They don't understand the supremacy of logic. What would you say to that German?

00;11;30;21 - 00;11;49;03
Cesar Castro
I would say to that German person, you know, awesome that you're listening to the podcast. I'm happy that you're listening to it from Germany. And second, you are a human being just like I am. And that means one thing our brains are not very different. The fact that you grew up in Germany, the fact that I grew up, I was born in tulip, I grew up in the States.

00;11;49;06 - 00;12;12;17
Cesar Castro
Our brains have not evolved differently. And what does that mean? If we really understand neurology, if we're going into more of a logical scientific perception, right, or point of view, what we know is that our brain, the part of our brain that's really, really developed, the part of the brain that's had, you know, hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to develop is our emotional brain.

00;12;12;19 - 00;12;32;23
Cesar Castro
So a lot of times we like to think that we are logical beings because it makes us feel better. Right? We are logical where we make decisions out of rational rationality. But the truth is, as you say, you talk to people who study the brain. They'll all tell you we're emotional beings trying to learn how to be logical.

00;12;32;25 - 00;13;02;09
Cesar Castro
We're not logical beings learning how to be emotional, because the way that we make decisions, how our brain works, whenever any input comes in through, through any of our senses, sight, hearing, feeling, it goes through an emotional part of our brain. First, it's called the amygdala, and it makes a decision, a split second decision. And once it makes that decision, now we use our logical brain to try to rationalize the decisions that are, that are, that our brain has already made.

00;13;02;11 - 00;13;19;17
Cesar Castro
So I've met people from all cultures. I've had the chance to obviously train people from from Europe somewhere where they even told me at one time that smiling was not something that that was that was well seen, like smiling was. If you smile too much, you look like a stupid person. They told me once, and I'm happy. If you could see the video, right.

00;13;19;17 - 00;13;40;24
Cesar Castro
I'm always smiling because I've just, I'm just a happy guy. And that's a cultural difference. Smiling might be something that's a little bit culturally different, but what's really at the core of what they're saying is they want to be accepted and they want to be liked by others. Yeah, right. So I'm not going to smile because I don't want to look stupid in front of other people.

00;13;40;26 - 00;13;59;14
Cesar Castro
If I knew that, if I went to a room and in Latin America, if you don't smile, if you go into a room and you act all serious, people probably will see you as someone that's not friendly and they won't want to do business with you in another part of the world, if you smile, they they'll think you're someone that they should do business with.

00;13;59;14 - 00;14;15;20
Cesar Castro
But at the end, if you think about it, if we read between the lines, what's really at the core belief of both of us is we want to be accepted and we want to be. We want to have success in whatever we're there to sell or offer. So we just act a little bit different, but we're really doing the same thing, you know?

00;14;15;20 - 00;14;36;11
Craig Andrews
And I think one of the tragedies of the pandemic was the masking policy. I think it was tragic for a variety of reasons. But let me focus just on one. When you smile at some someone, it causes the uncontrolled release of dopamine. Yeah. In their system. Yeah. And we need that because dopamine makes us happy. It makes us feel good.

00;14;36;13 - 00;14;52;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And think about this. We went through a couple of years where we were being deprived, and we were depriving one another of something that's very important for us to keep a positive view on the day. yeah.

00;14;52;12 - 00;15;21;29
Cesar Castro
Yeah. And that could be I mean, obviously there are more factors, but that could be why during the pandemic, a lot of research was done on depression, anxiety, people feeling lonely, people feeling, feeling like they didn't belong. And and that could be part of it. This this, this aspect of us smiling like you said, us feeling happy when when someone smiles, if you're walking down the street, if you're in this side of the world and you're just walking down the street, you know, most people don't even make eye contact.

00;15;21;29 - 00;15;42;08
Cesar Castro
But when someone does make eye contact and they smile, you tend to smile back. You feel good. And even if you don't know that person, you leave that little interaction which could just be one second thinking, oh, what a nice person. Now that's not logical. We don't know if that's a nice person or not. That's all emotional because of how the person made me feel in that moment.

00;15;42;11 - 00;16;17;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. And it's yeah. And I think you're right. I do think there are a lot of things that contributed to depression, but that's certainly one. And we know that also, child childhood development was stunted. Speech development is stunted because they couldn't see people's mouths moving. and, and they couldn't see some of the emotions. You know, I know a guy, I know a guy, and he just has this natural twitch to just kind of smile at you periodically.

00;16;17;17 - 00;16;43;01
Craig Andrews
And it has a profound effect. I don't care who you are. It's going to stop you in your tracks. Now, he used to be a trial lawyer, and that's, you know, I think that's probably where that developed in him because, you know, it turns out winning, winning court cases is less about the facts. And probably even more about the story if we kind of use this to bring it back into the story.

00;16;43;03 - 00;16;46;26
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. It's about that emotional connection.

00;16;46;29 - 00;17;09;23
Cesar Castro
Yeah. I, I always say, and this is again, one of my like iconic phrases that I'm always communicating to my, my audience, to my clients people, human beings. We're, we're, we're social beings. We've all heard that before. We're social beings, which means we want to socialize. We want to connect. We want to belong. We want to we want to connect with other human beings.

00;17;09;26 - 00;17;35;14
Cesar Castro
And when we're communicating, if we're public speaking or if we're communicating in interpersonal settings, we always want to connect first with the messenger before we connect with his message. And this is an important principle, especially when when you're trying times to sell things or you're trying to communicate a message to someone. A lot of times we start right away with the message, with the product, with the service, when we don't understand.

00;17;35;19 - 00;17;56;25
Cesar Castro
And this is all human psychology, that the person, if you are able to first get the other to connect with the messenger, which starts with all these little micro, micro signs and nonverbal things that we can do before we even have, conversation. If you get people to connect with the messenger, they'll be much more willing to connect with the message.

00;17;56;27 - 00;18;04;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think, you know, that stumbles into an area that I spent a lot of time that stumbles into trust.

00;18;04;12 - 00;18;05;01
Cesar Castro
Yeah.

00;18;05;04 - 00;18;25;07
Craig Andrews
You know, and you mentioned the amygdala. And for those who aren't familiar with that, that's that's sort of the fight or flight part of the brain. It's the thing that keeps us alive. And and when the amygdala detects something that says, you know, danger. Yeah, that triggers the flight. Well, when you're meeting somebody, they're trying to figure out.

00;18;25;09 - 00;18;32;20
Craig Andrews
Or are you going to be my friend, or are you going to eat me? You know, and so that's what you're talking about if I'm following you correctly.

00;18;32;20 - 00;18;50;29
Cesar Castro
Yeah, exactly. And those are those are decisions we make in the first few seconds of meeting someone. That's why I'm saying that that's not rational. Like, well, if I, if I, if I come in contact with you and the first thing you do is you smile, then you shake my hand. Then once you say hi to me, you have a friendly tone.

00;18;51;01 - 00;19;10;05
Cesar Castro
I'm making a decision right away that, oh, this person is nice. This is a nice guy. I can trust this guy. Now do I know? Do I know all about you? Do I know about your past? No, but. But we make decisions in those split seconds. In those first few moments, we meet somebody that at the end will influence the rest of our relationship.

00;19;10;12 - 00;19;28;01
Cesar Castro
Because you might be a nice guy, but if you come off the first few seconds as someone who's not trustworthy or credible, or maybe you come off in a way that's not very friendly, doesn't matter if you're a great guy and you have awesome things to to communicate. I'm already in my brain since I've made a decision. Emotional decision that I don't trust you.

00;19;28;07 - 00;19;35;15
Cesar Castro
I don't like you. Now I'm going to try the whole time to just find things to justify that emotional decision that I made.

00;19;35;18 - 00;20;05;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, and that's something that's really key. And you, you touched on this earlier. We even, you know, the Germans especially and I would say many people believe all their decisions are made through a crucible of rational thought and decision. Yeah. And unfortunately, that's just not scientifically true. Yeah. And the other thing that you mentioned was, you know, we make the decision, you know, in the, you know, the back part of the brain.

00;20;05;18 - 00;20;34;25
Craig Andrews
And then we try to justify it in the front part of the brain, which wasn't involved in the decision. And our brain does something fascinating is when it's missing data, it synthesizes reasons on the fly. Yeah. Complete crap. But people, you know, people would take the witness stand, put their hand on the Bible and take an oath that they're telling the truth, that this is the reason why they made that decision, and it's complete crap.

00;20;34;28 - 00;20;35;24
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;20;35;27 - 00;21;02;24
Cesar Castro
Yeah, that's that's that's human beings for you know, I think this is this is a great conversation because when you are communicating, when you're trying to influence or persuade others, your influencing or persuading human beings. So you have to understand these things. Because if I think that all human beings are rational and they're very, you know, tactical, now I will commune in that way, which again goes against science.

00;21;02;24 - 00;21;21;27
Cesar Castro
I've had many, many occasions. I work with big corporate brands and usually go through human resources. And whenever I'm going to work with the directors, human resource has a meeting with me first. And they'll they'll say things like, CSR, look, you're going to be working with this director. He's our CEO. He's he's an engineer, right. And he's very rational, very emotional.

00;21;21;27 - 00;21;42;20
Cesar Castro
So, you know, I don't know how he's going to take this thing with stories. And whenever they say that to me, I, I always have, you know, a level of empathy because I know that human resource, they, they obviously if they're going to be, you know, giving the director, a coach, they want to make sure that it's a great experience because if not, they're the ones that are going to get in trouble if they give the CEO a bad coach.

00;21;42;26 - 00;21;55;16
Cesar Castro
So they're trying to they're trying to help and set up everything so they can have success. And I always tell them, let me ask you a question. Is your CEO a human or is another species?

00;21;55;18 - 00;21;56;07
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;21;56;10 - 00;22;22;27
Cesar Castro
And they're like, he's a human. And I'm like, then he's emotional. There's no human being because our I, we just haven't evolved that way. That is a robot that's just rational 100%. And everything is all about facts and numbers. Even what I've noticed is when people are very, very focused on facts and numbers, what's really behind that? Because again, you have to be able to read between the lines is fear of making a mistake.

00;22;22;29 - 00;22;43;12
Cesar Castro
Yeah, fear is emotion. So you're using the facts and the numbers as a way to predict success because you're scared of failure. So who are the people that are usually the most, focused on numbers and data? They're usually the people that are most scared of failing and losing their power or authority.

00;22;43;14 - 00;23;02;11
Craig Andrews
You know, this is a conversation I've had with a few people recently, and it was they brought the context of engineers. And when one fellow told me, he said, I don't work with engineers because they won't make decisions. I'm like, well, that's not true. Did you? We're meeting here for coffee. Did you get in a car and drive here, or did you walk?

00;23;02;14 - 00;23;28;07
Craig Andrews
It's like, well, I got in the car and drove and said, you were only able to do that because a bunch of engineers made decisions. Yeah. And if you drove over a bridge on your way here, you did so because an engineer made a decision. The thing that you have to understand about engineers is when they make a wrong decision, it usually costs millions of dollars or results in people's death.

00;23;28;10 - 00;23;40;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that's that fear that you're talking about, you know, to before they'll make a decision. They have to overcome their fears. They have to feel confident that the risk has been sufficiently managed.

00;23;40;13 - 00;23;41;16
Cesar Castro
Exactly, exactly.

00;23;41;19 - 00;24;03;00
Craig Andrews
So if you were talking so let's pretend your audience is engineers and you're trying to persuade them, you're trying to lead them and they're saying, just give me the data. Just know they're doing. yeah. What was that? that that cop, Joe Friday. Just the facts. Yeah. Just explain. What would you tell the engineers?

00;24;03;03 - 00;24;27;19
Cesar Castro
Well, I my advantage. My advantage, okay, is when people hire me, they know they're bringing in the storytelling guy. So there's already a certain context that's developed and kind of created when I come in where people know that when they're having conversations with me, it's because they're going to learn how to tell stories. And an engineer might look at stories as something that's more emotional or something that's more, you know, that flaky stuff.

00;24;27;22 - 00;24;55;09
Cesar Castro
But once they really understand that there's a method and that that method is is anchored in psychology and psychology and neurology and all these principles and science and things that have been, you know, studied and research once they understand that. So I would if I'm teaching storytelling to an engineer, I would use some of that research and maybe more neurological and psychological studies and things to give them that certainty that, okay, it's okay.

00;24;55;11 - 00;25;18;20
Cesar Castro
Okay. What he's teaching me is based on on science. It's it's a it's good. I'm not going to fail if I use it. Yeah. That is the main difference. I still with engineers, I still share stories because I already know that we as human beings, we're hardwired to pay attention. When someone starts telling a story, it doesn't mean if it doesn't, doesn't matter if you're an engineer, if you're a an artist, if you're a psychologist, if you're a lawyer.

00;25;18;22 - 00;25;47;12
Cesar Castro
The moment we start perceiving that someone is telling a story, our brain, our brain gets active because our brains are built to to just want to listen to stories. Now, the story is not good. We'll disconnect, obviously, but if the story's good, we'll usually stay connected and we'll be there listening. And then at the end of that story, you're able to anchor a principle or an idea that adds value to them now becomes much more memorable as well.

00;25;47;15 - 00;26;17;01
Craig Andrews
Well, one of the most successful news programs in history is news shows 60 minutes. And it's it's lasted longer than most news shows out there drawn more audience than most news shows out there, and the news is generally considered dry and boring and just the facts. Yeah, but the edict of the guy who created that show when he was talking to the people presenting the, you know, putting together the show, he said, I have one role.

00;26;17;03 - 00;26;20;29
Craig Andrews
Tell me a story.

00;26;21;02 - 00;26;43;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, well, let me ask you this. And I, sorry, sorry. This is just this is such an empowering, a powerful conversation. Fascinating. and I know we've got limited time, but you mentioned something called the Kosar method. Is there is there a quick way to do a flyover of what the Kosar method is, and that.

00;26;43;28 - 00;27;05;06
Cesar Castro
Yeah. So the Kosar method is actually a four step structure to be able to craft a strategic story, because, you know, when people learn about these things and we've been talking a lot about more the psychology, the psychology and how people make decisions. And and that's all important because that influences how we communicate. And it actually gives more power to stories, right?

00;27;05;06 - 00;27;33;22
Cesar Castro
Because stories are the way that we connect and and we touch those emotional, emotional fibers that people have. So when people ask me, okay, I believe you, I think stories are great. I think stories are powerful. Now, how do I do it? How do I tell good stories in in Spanish? Since that's my origin, I usually tell them, okay, look, I'm going to teach you la cosa mas importante or I'm going to teach you the most important thing so you can craft the strategic story.

00;27;33;28 - 00;27;54;12
Cesar Castro
Because the word cosa and this is a Spanish lesson to you and the audience. The word cosa means thing in Spanish thing. So if you want to say this is the most important thing, is estas la cosa mas importante? So I'm going to teach you very, you know, in a very summarize, just very briefly what those four steps are.

00;27;54;14 - 00;28;24;01
Cesar Castro
And now if you want to then know more details, you can actually listen to the podcast. I have a strategic storytelling podcast where I talk about it in more and more details, but Cosa is actually an acronym as well to help you remember the four steps. So the first step to crafting a strategic story is that every strategic story starts with a context the C a the context and the context really what you need to do in the context to simplify this even more is just answer three questions.

00;28;24;03 - 00;28;47;24
Cesar Castro
When did it happen? Where did it happen, and who did it happen to? Time referring to one place referring to where and and who refers to the characters. Because what you're trying to do in the context of the story. And this usually if you're telling a two minute story, just so you know, the context is 20s it's not that you have to create a huge context.

00;28;47;26 - 00;29;05;12
Cesar Castro
What you're really trying to accomplish in the context of a story is create connection. You want the audience to, as they're listening to your story, hopefully start seeing themselves reflected in the story that you're telling. Because if you create connection now, you also are going to have their attention to want to listen to the rest of the story.

00;29;05;14 - 00;29;29;21
Cesar Castro
So the second step, the oh, all right, the word cosa oh is obstacle. There always has to be an obstacle. There's got to be some kind of a conflict, some kind of a challenge. Failure. Something has to happen that makes it hard for the character of the story to to get to his ultimate goal. Right? So the obstacle now, I always teach and I could go into more details.

00;29;29;24 - 00;29;52;00
Cesar Castro
If you listen to the episode of the podcast, you'll you'll get more details. But the secret sauce in the obstacle is just showing vulnerability. You as the storyteller, you're telling a story about yourself, or you're telling a story about someone else. How do you sprinkle in a little bit of vulnerability in this part of the story, so people can connect emotionally and feel emotion?

00;29;52;04 - 00;30;10;12
Cesar Castro
Because the goal here in the in the obstacle is just to get people to feel emotions. And there's no better moment to get people to feel things than in the obstacle of the story. Then after that, after you get people to feel emotions, you go to the third step, which is the solution, which is the typical happy ending of of any good story.

00;30;10;14 - 00;30;34;06
Cesar Castro
And in the solution, you try to answer one of two questions. Sometimes you can answer both, which is how did the main character of the story solve the problem? How did they get through it? How did they overcome the obstacle? Or what did he or she learn for having gone through what they went through? Because there are stories that don't have the typical happy ending where, you know, you solve the problem and everything comes out on the other side.

00;30;34;06 - 00;31;10;26
Cesar Castro
Okay? And it's all marvelous. There are stories where you fail or where you lose, but you can still always learn something from those experiences. Now, the objective here in the solution is to show the change or the transformation that the main characters had, and that is the essence of any story. If you think about all the stories you've ever heard, you've ever watched a series or a book or whatever, you know, story that you consume the essence of every story, what they're really trying to show or communicate is the change or transformation of a character.

00;31;10;29 - 00;31;30;10
Cesar Castro
You know, that is the essence of any story that we've ever watched, we've ever heard, we've ever listened to the change or transformation of a character. We are attracted to change and transformation, and we loved to hear stories of change and transformation of others, because in a way, it helps us and it teaches us how to change and transform as well.

00;31;30;12 - 00;31;46;08
Cesar Castro
So these are three steps. I said, there's four, there's one more. But the third one, just so you know, just with these three steps, if you understand the objective or the goals of each one of these stages, you'll have a pretty good story, right? So you have the context to create connection. You have the obstacle to to generate emotion.

00;31;46;11 - 00;32;13;03
Cesar Castro
And you have the solution to show the change of the main character. The fourth step. And this is what makes your whole story strategic. It's called the application. The application and the application refers to how does the how does this apply? How does this story that I just told you apply to the audience. So usually in the application part of your story is where you would connect your idea or your message that you're trying to get across.

00;32;13;05 - 00;32;32;03
Cesar Castro
Because at the end, as the audience listens to your story, if you're telling a personal story, for example, they'll be asking themselves at some point, you know, what does this story have to do with me? Why should I care? And in the application, that's where you're you connect that that purpose or the why you should care or how does this apply to you.

00;32;32;05 - 00;32;53;08
Cesar Castro
And that is what makes your story strategic. When people can can find value from the story because it teaches them something for their own personal life or for their business or whatever situation they're in now, your story becomes memorable and you influence in and what is the objective here in this step, which is you have to try to get them to take action, right.

00;32;53;08 - 00;33;22;01
Cesar Castro
The objective in the in the application is to hopefully generate some kind of change in your own audience. And if you do that, you've applied la cosa mas importante or what I call, you know, the Cosa method. The key to create connection, the oh, to generate emotion, the s to show the change of the main character and the A to influence the change in the audience.

00;33;22;01 - 00;33;25;15
Cesar Castro
La cosa mas importante.

00;33;25;17 - 00;33;41;00
Craig Andrews
And the thing I was hearing, as you describe that, you were saying that you have a systematic process that delivers repeatable results. And that's something you make both the Germans and the engineers are delighted.

00;33;41;03 - 00;33;43;25
Cesar Castro
Super happy.

00;33;43;27 - 00;33;50;08
Craig Andrews
Let's say sorry, this has been so incredible. Thank you for coming on. Leaders and legacies. How can people reach you?

00;33;50;10 - 00;34;15;23
Cesar Castro
Well, they can go to my my website, my English Version website, which is Dot Cesar castro.com. That's one way they can find all about me there. They can follow me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn constantly showing or sharing content and showing different things that I'm doing. or they can listen to the Strategic Storytelling Podcast, which is on any podcast.

00;34;15;25 - 00;34;33;19
Cesar Castro
platform that they listen. And, it's a new project that I started now in English. And we have, I think 6 or 7 episodes up, but we'll be probably uploading about 20 episodes this year, and that will be a good way for you to learn and, and start getting your feet wet with, strategic storytelling.

00;34;33;22 - 00;34;36;29
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Well, thank you for telling this on leaders and Legacies.

00;34;37;01 - 00;34;40;06
Cesar Castro
Thank you very much.

00;34;40;06 - 00;35;09;04
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.

00;35;09;06 - 00;35;32;16
Craig Andrews
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00;35;32;18 - 00;37;43;02
Craig Andrews
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