Story Is the Most Radical Tool We Have

Written By Kyle J. Glenn

In 2018, I read a book called Essentialism that helped me reconnect with what I care about most. It posed three deceptively simple questions:

  • What inspires me deeply?

  • What am I skilled at?

  • What meets a real need in the world?

At the time, I was feeling burned out on filmmaking and unsure of my next direction. What struck me about these questions was how they made room not just for vision and values, but also for the skills I’d spent 15 years developing.

Here were my answers:

I’m deeply inspired by story.

I’m skilled in filmmaking.

The world needs more connection.

These insights weren’t brand new—but they offered clarity. They helped me name a truth I had felt for years:

Story is one of the most radical tools we have.

What Makes Storytelling Radical?

When I say radical, I don’t just mean political. I mean transformative. Disruptive. Capable of reorienting how we relate to each other, our communities, our history, and even ourselves.

We live in a time where powerful interests profit from our disconnection. Whether through social media algorithms, partisan news, or economic systems built on competition, we’re constantly nudged into isolation and echo chambers.

Even with the internet offering infinite perspectives, most of us still consume content that reinforces what we already believe.

Why? Because division keeps us distracted. It keeps us buying, blaming, and fearing—instead of connecting, imagining, and changing.

But when we sit across from one another and share our lived experience—when we really tell the truth of who we are—we poke holes in those false divides.

We remember we have more in common than we were told.

And that’s dangerous to anyone benefiting from the status quo.

Story Is a Two-Way Street

Story is radical not just because of what it can reveal—but because of how it works.

The telling is only half of it. A story only comes alive in the presence of a listener.

It invites deep attention, thoughtful questions—and, often, the gift of another story in return. That exchange tightens the thread between people. It builds something real.

Why I Do This Work

This is why I believe the most meaningful work I can do in my lifetime is to help people find, connect to, and share their stories—and to create spaces that make that sharing feel safe, supported, and sacred.

The full impact of story is unknowable.

But when we narrow the focus to a single moment—one person speaking from the heart, one person truly listening—the ripples are real.

They travel farther than we think.

Your Turn

So I’ll leave you with this:

What story lives in you that the world needs to hear?

What truth could change everything—if only it were shared?

Kyle J. Glenn