You came from Yuanmou, YunNan,
while I came from Zhoukou, Beijing.
Hold hairy little hands
we stand upright because of love.
This poem was very popular online.Do you believe that our ancestors came from Yuanmou or Zhoukoudian?
That’s not true! Actually, they are a different species from us: they are Homo Erectus(直立人）, while we are Homo Sapience（智人）. Like donkey and horse: after crossing, the two species hardly can produce the next generation with fertility.
Although today only Homo Sapience lives on the earth, 100 thousandyears ago, we have at least 6 siblings, including Homo Habilis, Homo erectus,Homo Neanderthal and so on.
Why were our siblings distinct, except we survived? Is our ancestor smarter, stronger or more beautiful? Not really.
Take Neanderthal for example, they had stronger muscles, greater brain capacity and well organized society. The first time sapiens invaded the Middle East 100 thousand years ago, Neanderthal beat them back to Africa. However,30 thousand years later, Neanderthal was distinct by sapiens armed with bows and arrows. They also invented boats, oil lamps and many other tools.
How could our ancestors improved so fast? In such a short time, DNA mutation（基因突變） was impossible.
The answer is the power of story. Both of Neanderthal and Sapiens had their own languages. They could talk to friends 「this morningI found a lion chasing aftera group of buff，」 then gave the exact spots and discussed how to drive lions away and hunting the buff. Both of them talked gossips too.Living in a society, you need to distinguish who is reliable, who is not. Gossips made them easy to unite 50 to 150 people together.
However, only Sapiens could tell stories, especially fictitious stories.
For example, they started to say that lions are protectors of our tribe.
This picture shows that 32 thousand years ago some artists created a Lion man sculpture to represent their totem. From then on, ancestors not only talked about the real things in their life, but also nation, religion, money, etc., all abstractive conceptions came out.It is called the Cognitive Revolutionary in history.
Why is story so important to the process of evolution?
Since then, strangers from different tribes could trade or work together based on trust in the name of lion god. With the power of stories, Sapiens built union beyond the limitation of 150 people. Fictitious stories glued hundreds of strangers together, so 500 sapiens could easily beat down 150 Neanderthals.
Before Cognitive Revolutionary, the behavior pattern of human rarely changed in tens of thousands years. Since then, people adapted social behavior to new environment very quickly.
In 1950s, average Chinese family have 4 or 5 kids; in 1980s, most of family only have one child; Recent years, middle-class rush to have two kids. Chinese people changed the birth rate not because of DNA mutation, but stories of population.
Actually，we live in a world full of fictitious stories. You paid a lot on a diamond ring for proposal, because we believe that a diamond lasts forever.
Storied have a magic power, can change our lives, and lasting generation by generation. The questions is: what stories you choose to buy in?
When I was a little kids, my mom told me, on the day I were born, my dad was disappointed. He left the hospital and disappeared for two days. My neighbor found him on a basketball playground watching a game. 「Aren’t you supposed to be in hospital ?」「Never mind，it’s a girl.」
That story really hurts me a lot. However, until last year, I imagined another version of this story: A lonely man at my age sit on the basketball playground with heart broken. He truly believed that man should have a son to carry his family name. However, because of one child policy, he had no chance to fulfill his dream. He lost himself. After two-days struggling, he went back to family, to accept his only daughter. With time past, his love for her increased day by day.
It’s not facts that decide our life, it’s the story. What kind of stories you believe in and tell to others? To use the great power of stories,I urge you to find your positive stories, polish them, and spread them.
How to tell a good story? That's another topic. Let's discuss it deeper at Wendesday night, 22nd Nov. Qianliao online course.
Scan belowing QR code, join the online course with Blair.
想像一下今天就是你的大日子，你站在大屏幕前，握著翻頁筆的手心微微冒著汗，你深呼吸了一口投影儀排出的熱氣，逆著藍光， 領導同事客戶一共幾十雙眼睛看著你…講了十分鐘之後，老闆瞟一眼手機上的時間，「講得不錯，就是比較抽象，能不能講個故事？」可…我ppt上沒準備呀…咋講故事呢……
11月22日周三晚8點 千聊課堂 跟五百強企業演講教練學會講故事的三招四式