How “And, But, Therefore” Beats PowerPoint Bullets Every Single Time

My parents started telling me to stop telling stories in the third grade.

Apparently, people weren’t quite believing everything I was sharing with them, even though I seldom bent the truth (hey, I was nine).

Fast forward forty years, and I’ve made a career out of the very thing I got in trouble for as a kid. Go figure.

But here’s what I learned the hard way through decades in advertising and branding: your audience’s survival brain doesn’t give a damn about your logic until you’ve connected with their emotions first.

I recently shared this on Susan Lindner’s excellent Innovation Storytellers Podcast, and Susan nailed it—innovation is fundamentally about behavior change. You can’t get there without the bridge that is story.

Last Time You Heard a Great Story

Did it make you laugh? Cry? Feel the hair stand up on your forearms?

That’s energy transmission. A disembodied narrative creating physical, visceral reactions in your body.

I call it the applied science and bewitchery of story.

The applied science are the narrative frameworks you use to move people – the ABT, Five Primal Elements of a Short Story for BIG Impact, and the 10-step Story Cycle System™.

These are the algorithms of story that create the bewitchery. The energy.

But most business professionals walk into presentations thinking logic and data will carry the day. They lead with features and benefits, speaking directly to the executive functioning brain.

Big mistake.

That logic-driven brain crosses its arms and says, “Okay, expert, prove it to me.”

You’ve just positioned yourself for an uphill battle against skepticism.

Three Words Changed Everything for Me

AND. BUT. THEREFORE.

I can picture you rolling your eyes. Really, Park? Three conjunctions?

Yep.

I learned this from Dr. Randy Olson—Harvard PhD evolutionary biologist who went to USC film school and started teaching scientists how to communicate. His whole body of work boils down to helping big thinkers evolve complex messages into simple, compelling narratives using these three magic words.

They’re not just conjunctions. They’re the algorithm for how your pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making limbic brain wants to receive information.

Agreement. Contradiction. Consequence.

Let me show you how this works with any boss, in this case, we’ll call her Ann.

Fifteen Seconds That Changed the Meeting

“Ann, we can all agree this is what we’ve been working hard for as a team, AND if we achieve this, we’re going to knock it out of the ballpark.”

An nods in agreement. Then the plot twists…

“BUT we’re stifled right now because of this major problem.”

Ann leans in.

“Therefore, I need a couple of minutes to share a vision I have for how we solve this.”

Fifteen seconds.

I just connected with Ann’s limbic survival brain. She’s now engaged. “Oh, interesting, Park.”

Then I follow with a short anecdotal story—under one minute. Last Tuesday, this specific thing happened to Sarah when she tried implementing our current process, and the whole thing blew up because we didn’t have the proper infrastructure.

Ninety seconds total using two story structures on Ann’s primal limbic brain: Set up with the ABT, follow with an anecdote that illustrates the problem through a real-world story.

See, Ann can and will argue with my opinions and assertions. But she can’t arge with a true story well told, in this case following the five primal elements of a short story for big impact.

Two different story structures. Zero logic. All emotion.

Ann sits up: “Oh my god, you’re right. What do we think we need to do about it?”

Now I’ve got three and a half minutes to present logic and reason to a boss who’s actually listening.

You know what typically happens? That five-minute meeting becomes a consequential thirty-minute conversation. Ann says, “I’ve got more time. Let’s go deeper.”

The Shift I Resisted for Years

I used to make every presentation about my brilliant strategy, my innovative approach, my solution.

People didn’t care.

Because they only care about what’s in it for them.

Your story isn’t about you, your innovation, or your widget. It’s about your audience. What you make happen in their lives, not what you make.

Outcome trumps offering. Every single time.

My client Trevor Hill put it perfectly: “Park, all sales is, is find the hurts. Amplify the pain. Heal the wound.”

There’s no logic in any of that. It’s visceral pain and emotion, and then showing how you fix it.

Trust Building With the ABT

When you use the and, but, therefore, you’re not just structuring a story.

You’re building three forces of trust:

Understanding: You get what they want (AND statement)

Appreciation: You value why it matters to them (AND statement)

Empathy: You feel their frustration about the problem (BUT statement)

Once you’ve built that foundation, logic becomes a powerful tool for action instead of a barrier to connection.

Christopher Vogler Taught Me About Wish and Will

Chris is the author of one of my favorite storytelling books: The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. We recently discussed his work on my Business of Story podcast.

He says that every story begins with a wish. Your audience wishes for something to happen.

But you’ve got to trigger the will to act.

Those are emotional forces. Energetic forces.

What does your audience wish for? How do you trigger their will to overcome the inertia of status quo?

Because our brains think status quo is safe. I can sit on my couch, do nothing, and probably nothing will kill me.

But in business? Status quo will kill you faster than anything, especially now with AI transforming everything.

It’s a dichotomy. Our survival instincts scream “stay put,” but our survival reality demands we shed that cloak and move into a brighter future.

What You Do Tomorrow Morning

Take your next presentation.

Structure it with AND, BUT, THEREFORE.

Start with agreement about what your audience wants and why it matters.

Introduce the contradiction—the specific problem creating frustration.

Deliver the consequence—the transformation you’re offering.

Speak to the emotional survival center first. Back it up with logic second.

Watch what happens when you make it about them, not you.

Because the power of story doesn’t rest in your brilliance.

It rests in your audience’s attentive transformation.

Story on, my friend.