Erik_8_I

I connected to this chapter more than some of the others... even though I thought that this chapter was much more so about listening (as it begins) than it was about storytelling.

Specifically, I find it curious how you can influence people by listening to their stories. This seems to be an extension of the belief that to get people to trust you, you have to make them think that they're your friend. I've read other such texts where there's a heavy emphasis on the 'think' part of the prior sentence. In other words, people are convinced that a person is invested in their personal life, but what is really going on is that this person is just being used... the other individual is simply ACTING like they care to use the person for their own devices.

However, Simmons seems to genuinely believe that the listener of a personal story not only gets the trust of the teller, but also gains something more meaningful from the transaction. Simmons suggests that the listener is enriched by hearing others' personal stories. Compared to other texts on how to influence people, I found this concept to be quite charming.

Indeed, Simmons says that you learn from hearing other people's stories. You learn something about life. Perhaps this all comes down to the age-old idea that you can learn from others' experiences... that you can live something out vicariously through hearing about it.