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this podcast is brought to you by knowled of [Music] Warton welcome to knowledge at Wharton
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I'm Angie basuni I'm here with one of my favorite guests marketing Professor
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Jonah Burger he's here to talk to us about his latest research on storytelling his co-authored paper is
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titled seeing your life's story as a hero's journey can increase meaning in
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life and it's all about how people can find uh more well-being and more resilience if they make themselves the
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hero of Their Own Story Jonah thanks for coming back thanks so much for having me
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so let's get into this uh in your paper you have this great quote that says people's minds are made for narratives I
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love that I think it explains why we all love a good story a good biopic explain
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what this research is about yeah so first it might be worth talking about what a hero's journey is right so if
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you've ever watched a famous movie like Star Wars or Harry Potter you're
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probably familiar with this old idea of a hero's journey which is there's some
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sort of protagonist maybe it's Luke Skywalker maybe it's Harry Potter maybe
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it's someone else uh and they go through a journey to reach some sort of outcome
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at the end right um there's a shift in their lives that things start ordinary
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and then suddenly they become extraordinary they go on a quest they meet allies or friends along the way
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think about Yoda or Hermione and and others they deal with some challenge there's some foe or enemy they must
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overcome they undergo some transformation where they change and and eventually they sort of have a positive
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outcome at the end and so things like a hero's journey make stories really engaging right they make movies fun to
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watch they make books fun to read but we wondered okay Beyond these things for entertainment value beyond the value of
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a hero's journey for sort of being engaging could using a hero's journey
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and the way we talk about our own lives actually make us better off well how did you go about studying
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this so so we did a number of things so so first really tried to quantify what the hero's journey is uh we looked at a
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variety of types of stories and content to sort of figure out what the key dimensions are and and there're some of
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the things I talked about before right there there needs to be a protagonist that proverbial sort of hero in that
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hero's journey there needs to be some sort of shift right of going from daily
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life and ordinary things to something more unusual uh happening there needs to be some sort of quest or goal uh and
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along the way they need to overcome something there need to be some sort of barriers or challenges whether they may
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be a villain or connecting with someone else or creative problem solving often they meet allies along the way that they
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connect with often there's some sort of transformation and there's some sort of
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positive outcome at the end and so we started by figuring out what these key dimensions are looking at a lot of
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different stories and a lot of different context um and then we said okay given we understand what Hero's Journeys are
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now can we use these Journeys to to help people and so we started by looking at just a natural study of existing stories
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and and meaning in life we looked at hundreds of different people and we measured both how they saw their lives
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we asked them to write sort of the story of their lives and we measured this dimension of of a hero's journey did
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they tend to see their lives as a hero's journey or not um and then we looked at
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how meaningful uh they saw their lives looking back on sort of what they had done so far uh what they had overcome uh
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either in their personal or professional lives how much meaning they saw in those
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in those personal profal lives what we found sure enough is that seeing one's
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life as a hero's journey was related to seeing it as more meaningful people who
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had more of these things in the way they saw their lives that the way they talked
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about their stories had more allies and challenges and quests and sort of overcoming these barriers to reach
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positive outcomes they tended to see their lives as as more meaningful now that by itself is interesting right but
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it's not enough maybe people who tend to see their lives as a hero's journey
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naturally see their lives as more meaningful but it's it's not that the hero's journey made them see their lives
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as more meaningful they're just certain types of people that tend to do both
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both and so we wondered okay could we encourage people to see their lives as a hero's journey and in so doing help them
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make their own lives seem more meaningful and so what we did there is we prompted people to reflect on
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important elements of their lives and connect them into a compelling and coherent narrative we gave them this
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idea of a hero's journey and encouraged them to see their lives along those lines and what we found is sure enough
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doing that for one set of people made them see their lives as more meaningful taking the same life that you may have
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had but organizing in that way rather than seeing it as sort of a random set of things that occurred over time really
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seeing it as hero's journey made one's life more more meaningful and that can
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be both in our personal or professional lives right seeing your work life seeing
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your resume for example not just as a a bunch of different jobs over time but thinking about okay what's the what's
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the journey you've been on what are some of the challenges you've had to overcome
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what is that Quest or goal you're hoping to achieve who are some of the allies
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that you've met along the way how have you been TR transformed by that process
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all of those characteristics that make hero's journey so engaging to listen to
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his stories also help make our own Journeys seem more meaningful and they also help us be more resilient as well
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folks that were encouraged to see one's life as a hero's journey uh or one's uh
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work Life as a hero's journey it ended up making them more resilient uh as well
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and so I think this has some important implications both for our personal and our professional lives tell me what the
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takeaway from this research is when I'm listening to you talk I almost feel like
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there's a component of self-confidence uh that comes along when you rewrite or shame fra Fram shift your
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own narrative instead of going oh I I had this problem and I couldn't solve it
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you can think about all the ways that you met that challenge and how you either overcame it or you know you're
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like oh next time I'll do better I've learned these things so it can help
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build your self-confidence so talk about what's the biggest takeaway for folks in
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this research yeah I think the biggest takeaway is this you know our lives are what our lives are our work Journeys our
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work experiences have been what what they are and so we can't change what they've been but we can change how we
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see them right we can change how we organize them we can change how we think about them um most of us really are on a
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journey right there have been things we've done along the way but we had some
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sort of vision of who we hope to be and and maybe we've gotten there maybe we've
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changed that Vision but we we have been on a journey and so seeing Our Lives as that Journey organizing it in that way
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recognizing those challenges that we've overcome those those barriers that we've
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dealt with the ways that we've been transformed the the goals that we had and and how we've achieved them seeing
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our lives in in that way can impact how we feel and and how we resilient we we are and So Stories aren't just fun and
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interesting and engaging they also have important implications for how we see ourselves and and how we may perform in
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the future So This research really does fit squarely into social psychology but can you translate for us uh the business
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context how can people use this information in a business context yeah so um uh I'll start with a couple uh
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examples and then I'll get to one that's close to my own heart which is which is
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marketing so um first just from a personal well-being standpoint right seeing Our Lives as these Journeys can
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have a beneficial impact right they can help us see our own lives uh as as more meaningful I think secondly though right
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we should think about how we pitch ourselves how we tell our own stories and and there's been a lot of interest
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in the in the past few years in the idea narratives and telling our story um uh with the the Advent and sort of growth
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of social media more people are online dripping details of their life out on a momentto moment or daily or weekly or or
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monthly basis but in in dripping out those moments and in talking about what's happening to us we have the
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ability to shape that narrative both when we post on social media but also when we go in for an interview for for
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example what should we talk about how should we frame our experience and and how might the way we tell our story
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shape how we are perceived and and so I think this this work has some important implications for for those types of
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questions right when we're in an interview and someone asks us about our work experience not just saying well I
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worked here and there and this other place but really talking about it as a journey right helping the The Listener
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see well what quest were we on what did we overcome what challenges did we deal with how have we been transformed by
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that process organizing in that coherent and and engaging narrative will not only
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be fun to listen to but will increase our likelihood of of getting that job and then in terms of marketing you know
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it's interesting marketers are also telling narratives and products and services often feature heavily in those
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narratives right products and services help consumers solve problems and and achieve their goals but there different
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ways companies can talk about the role of products and services in those narratives a couple years ago I was
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working with a large multinational uh consumer packaged goods company uh and they had a campaign where um uh people
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could buy their product and be entered in a chance to win a college scholarship so it was sort of uh in De in the
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developing world uh it was very hard for many individuals to to get the money to
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go to college um and this program gave people an opportunity through essentially a lottery or a raffle uh if
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you bought the product you were entered in this thing and you could have an opportunity to go to college now this
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program is a great program doing a lot of social good but it wasn't getting a
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lot of positive attention it wasn't getting a lot of Word of Mouth people weren't talking about it a lot and so
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the company reached out and said hey how can we get more earned media for what we're doing how can we help this program
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have more impact and and one thing we did is we analyzed this program in terms of of a hero's journey and what we
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realized is the hero of that story was the company right there was a consumer the consumer had a problem right there
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was a in some sense a challenge they wanted to overcome they wanted to get more educated um and the company was the
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hero by buying the company's product the consumer could uh have a positive outcome but here's the problem if the
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company's the hero that makes the company look pretty good but it doesn't
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really make people want to talk about it that much right the couple people that win yeah they were very excited and told
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others but a whole bunch of people lost most people didn't win the prize right
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and so how could we get them more engaged and what we realize is well a better story isn't a story where the
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product or service is the hero but whether the consumer or customer is the hero right that's a much more engaging
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story where they're more likely to be a part um and so rather than making sort
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of the the company the the hero if you will the the sword that slays the dragon uh in this hero story what we realize is
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hey wait a second actually the customer is the hero right by voting on which individual should get the opportunity to
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go based on their story or helping people in their Community get upvoted to have more of a chance to win this prize
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they can now participate they have a role in this narrative and yes the company's still there right the company
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is helping but the consumer is enabling this Dragon to be slayed by by leveraging this program the company has
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and so by seeing that program as more of a hero's journey we enabled it to be
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more effective overall by by reconceptualizing the the way it was expressed and you're actually pulling
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the audience or the consumer into the story Into the hero's journey making them a part of it which would ultimately
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make it more effective for the marketing certainly right I mean I think we often
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have to think of who is a hero in the hero's journey and who is a villain right there needs to be a hero and there
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needs to be a villain that's that's often what these Journeys have or a challenge doesn't have to be a villain
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um but what should the product or service or different individuals play in that in that Journey right allies serve
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a nice role because they can be helpful and so maybe it's better rather than the
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company being the hero that that overcomes the challenge which is a neat story but doesn't really feature me as
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the consumer maybe now hold on I'm the hero in my own journey I want to overcome my own personal Challenge and
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the company is the Ally or the tool that that helps me get there when you were speaking earlier about uh management and
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interviewing techniques it made me think about these very common interviewing questions when people go to apply for a
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job and and you're often asked tell me about a problem that you solved at work
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or tell me how you get along with other people or you your conflict resolution skills so I think if you if if you think
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about your your hero's journey story you can sort of come up with better answers
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during an interview yeah and and rather than the the aners seeming like individual examples of things that don't
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fit together you can make it more of a common hole right what is the story you want to tell about yourself right what
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what is the hero's journey you're on what is the transformation you've
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already uh had and what's the quest you'd like to be on in the future right
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and how does this new role help you in that journey and and the more rather than oh you know here's a thing that
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happened to me the more it's part of a cohesive narrative that showcases how
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you've overcome things in the past and been transformed and how you're likely
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to do that in the future the more engaging it will be for the audience and and the more impactful it will be as
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well that's what we're all about thank you for being here Jonah thanks for
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having me all right his study again is titled seeing your life story as a hero's journey increases meaning in life
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it appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology if you enjoyed this
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conversation we invite you to check out more of our content on our website just type knowledge at Wharton into your
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search bar I'm Angie basuni thanks for listening for more insight from knowledge at Wharton please visit
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