Every founder has a pitch. Every company has a mission statement. Every CEO has a LinkedIn summary that sounds like it was written by the same AI. Meanwhile, the ones winning – the ones pulling in the best talent, the most engaged customers, the most interested investors – aren’t necessarily the ones with the best product.

They’re the ones with the best story.

Standing out isn’t about being louder. It’s about being different. And the only thing that’s truly different about you is your story – where you came from, what you saw that others didn’t, why you’re willing to do this when you could do anything else.

That story is your unfair advantage.

Think about it. Two founders pitch nearly identical products. One leads with market opportunity. The other shares why they personally had to solve this problem, what they saw others missing, and the moment they decided “I’m doing this.” Which one do you remember? Which one would you want to work with?

Here’s the uncomfortable bit: if your story sounds like everyone else’s, your product will too – no matter how good it actually is. You’ll compete on price. You’ll compete on features. You’ll grind in a race you can’t win.

But if your story is authentically, unapologetically yours? You don’t compete anymore. You occupy the category.

The gap between the leaders being followed and the ones being ignored isn’t talent. It’s not timing. It’s whether they’ve learned to tell the story only they can tell – in a way that makes people want to follow.

What’s the one thing about your journey that nobody else could say? That’s where you begin to stand out.

When someone bombards you with data, only the language processing parts of your brain activate. You hear the words. That’s it. But when someone tells you a story, something different happens. Your brain doesn’t just listen – it synchronises with theirs. The motor cortex, sensory cortex, frontal cortex all light up as if you’re experiencing it yourself.

Stories activate five senses. Data activates one: hearing. Or sight, if you’re reading it of course,

This is why you remember a client’s win better than a quarterly report. Why you remember your founder’s journey better than their pitch deck. Stories create memory, emotion, and action in ways that spreadsheets simply can’t.

It’s also why you remember exactly where you were on 9/11, but would be hard pushed to say where you were the previous day.

Your brain evolved over 200,000 years to trust stories and discount statistics. We’re not wired to buy things because of features. We’re wired to follow people whose stories we believe in.

So your story isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation of everything you build.

The question isn’t whether your story matters. It’s whether you’re telling it in a way your brain – and that of your audience – is actually designed to receive.

What story from a leader has stuck with you?

On reflection, I reckon The Storyteller’s Secret is a more alluring title than Letters from Andrew Morris. But it’s about much more than simply choosing the snazziest title. It reflects my own journey as a writer, and where my focus has fallen. We’re all verbs, works in progress – and the more I considered other types of writing, from marketing copy, to white papers, the more I understood how the human condition lies at the very heart of the stories I want to tell.

l’ve decided with this storytelling series to post daily, simply because there’s a lot to say, and that’s how I roll. I write therefore I am. I write to find out what it is I think.

But yes, I realise that many of you (all of you, even) are yuman beans with lives to go to, and so my expectations as to who will follow it all are quite realistic.

I’ll go one better: from now on, there’ll be a video every Sunday, outlining what I want to look at in the week, and then a summary every Saturday resuming what I said.

So here’s the video I would normally have posted yesterday, but in my excitement I wanted to get the news out. Each video begins and ends with me and includes a mini-presentation.

I hope that in the coming weeks the series will give you food for thought, whether you’re a leader, CEO, founder, or indeed a writer interested in finding out and getting to the heart of what makes us human...

They launch into features. Market size. Growth metrics. All important—none of it memorable.

The real problem isn’t that they don’t have a story. It’s that they’ve never been taught how to tell one that actually hits home. Most leaders are trained to present information, not to move people emotionally. We’re taught to be logical, not narrative. Professional, not personal.

So when it’s time to stand out, to inspire investors, attract top talent, or build a loyal customer base, they default to what they know: data dumps and elevator pitches that sound like everyone else.

What’s missing is not information, but humanity.

That’s where the Human Premium comes in.

I’ve worked with dozens of outstanding personalities who could articulate their vision in a room but struggled to capture it in a way that stuck. Not because they weren’t compelling as people – they were. We all are. But because no one ever showed them the structure that transforms a good idea into a story people actually want to follow.

In this series, I’ll be breaking down exactly why this happens, and more importantly, how it changes everything when you get it right.

If you’ve ever felt like your story isn’t hitting home the way it should, stick around.

What’s been your biggest challenge in getting your story across? Drop it in the comments – I’ll be reading every one.

If you’re interested in developing your storytelling skills for business, DM me.

Everyone has an interesting story. The difference between good and great is how it's told.

This is where you can see what most people are doing wrong, understand exactly why stories matter, tell your own story better, and learn the techniques of writing for others.

Writing like a human, not like a bot.

This series covers why most leaders can't tell theirs, why stories matter, how they set you apart, real case studies, and specific techniques that work.

Starts today.