Rumors Are Stories That Stick
March 3, 2010
Rumor, definition: a statement or claim of questionable accuracy from no known reliable source, usually spread by word of mouth, an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person.
Stories are very popular right now especially in the area of marketing and branding. I’m not exactly sure why since they’ve been around for thousands of years but suddenly everyone is talking about them. Rumors are stories that stick. What does this mean for our everyday lives?
Well if you think about it, a rumor is a story that you tell over and over again, whether you know it is true or not. What a powerful thing. What’s disconcerting though is that since rumors have such a powerful emotional energy, they tend to stick. Why is that?
Think about it this way – did you ever watch a soap opera or a tele-drama? When I was in college, a girlfriend lent me her TV while she was away for the summer. She lent it to me on one condition – that I watch Dallas for her and keep her up to date on the story. 
I hated Dallas but I did it just for her. The funny thing is that by the time she came back to claim her TV, I had gotten hooked on the show and I didn’t want to let her have it back! Those larger than life characters like JR Ewing and Sue Ellen, made those stories stick in my mind.
Don’t we have at least a few ‘characters’ like that here in our lives? People that we’ve only heard about but never actually met? People that we are so curious to know about them that we just can’t help but cling to and share every little bit of story (i.e rumor) that we hear? It’s no different than watching TV is it? Don’t you hear people all the time talking about television characters as if they are real? “Oh did you hear what so and so did on such and such a show?” It’s very common.
Rumors are stories that stick because they are have real life emotion in them. They are interesting and satisfy that curiosity seeking part of our mind. We can’t help ourselves. We love a good story, especially mini dramas – whether they are in real life or on TV.
So that said – what do we do with the negative power that stories and rumors have on our lives? Think about it – whether we know it or not, our human lives are all intertwined, as if we are all in the same boat. Let’s literally imagine that we are in one giant canoe traveling down the river together. It’s like that in the sense that our personal and economic well-being is all linked together right?
So here we are in the same boat and there is a big JR Ewing type in the back. Those of us who are in the front just can’t help ourselves. We start out with just tiny twitters, “Oh did you see who’s in the back?” Then it gets a little louder – “Did you know that he just bought a gigantic new property?”
Now we can’t stop ourselves – “What do you think he’s going to do with it?” which really means – how is what he’s doing going to affect us here in the front of the boat.
The answer is yes it will affect us. We are all affected by each other in ways that are obvious or not so-obvious. Take JR for example. How do you think he’s going to feel if he hears us talking about him, which inevitably he will? We think we’re not doing harm right? We’re just curious or we tell ourselves that we are looking for information and wanting to understand. All true.
But now put yourself in the back of the boat, be JR for a moment and consider just how it feels to be talked about in whispers. Not good right? For good or for bad - rumors are stories that are told about us.
We’re not involved in the communication and are hearing it from the outside, thus we have no direct participation. That’s the part that makes a rumor deadly. When we feel cut off from other people, we feel like we’re unfairly picked on even when the rumor is not meant to hurt.
Even when we are curious or just seeking more information - telling stories about other people when they are not directly involved, does harm.
But here’s the cool thing and the point of change – we can just as easily spread “appreciative stories” – i.e. rumors that highlight a person’s greatness, not their weakness. The more we do this the more we grow together. Imagine what happens when we start circulating positive, inspiring stories about everyone in the boat.
Imagine just how much faster we are able to row to the shore through uplifting feedback rather than rumor.
Now I am NOT saying that we should never be honest or be real about things. We need to tell the truth but these things are not mutually exclusive. And appreciative feedback is not just some nice thing relegated only to those ‘touchy feeling’ types.
Believe it or not, positive feedback it is the single biggest thing that makes a difference in terms of human motivation. That is what every great leader knows about making great people – to create greatness you first have to look for the greatness in others, then point it out to them since they often don’t see it themselves and finally pass it on and share it with others.
This is called a ‘positive feedback loop‘. Yes there’s actually a name for it! And it generates much more than the original story and lasts long after the story is done being told.
We are all in the same boat, heading to the same shore. If we start today spreading stories of inspiration and goodness about each other, just imagine how quickly it can generate new energy. We can do this.
Each of us can start today by sharing new stories. We can also commit to being the of the end line for spreading stories don’t contribute to our well-being or success. We’re all in this together.
Thanks for listening and please feel free to share….
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