One of my favorite authors, Dr. Henry Cloud, says, “We change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.” We as human beings need pain to move into another place. Until that pain becomes bigger than actually going out into the risky unknown, we have a tendency not to change. And you know this intuitively well. It's the story you bring to try to get your clients to see the choices that they're making aren't really the choices they need to make.

Until the brain knows that you're not out to hurt me, it will not trust you. This goes with people who already trust you because you're asking them to do something you've never asked them before. You need to connect first so you create the safe space because then credibility can be used in an effective manner.

Ninety-three percent of our communication happens without using words. It's tone and body language, and we're now learning we have as many receptors for the environment around our heart as we do in our brain. Animals do this; we've just lost function of it. Earthquake comes or tsunami comes, all the animals run to the hills. We have that capacity. The ability to connect emotionally, to anticipate somebody else's emotion and their position when you're going to say something, it happens physiologically. We're just now starting to understand why. And we all know the second you throw in a high level of fear, anxiety or stress, those stressors take over everything and we go into complete shutdown, survival mode. It happens at a root instinctual brain.

Let's look at the brain. It has three parts. Neocortex: high-functioning, thinking brain. Limbic system: emotional feeling brain. Root brain: our lizard brain, what we do without thinking. Neocortex: language, logic, also skepticism, judgment. So any information that goes through the neocortex gets judged, is skeptical by nature. The limbic system is where we assign meaning to the world. It's where our emotions come in. It's where visualization happens. When you close your eyes, I'll tell you a story. You see the picture; that's visualization. What happens is, to trust, you have to start in the neocortex.

The story has to go into the limbic system. It has to bypass the judgment piece. If you communicate outside in, if you communicate with facts, features, benefits, those are all elements that need neocortex.

The limbic system is open to what's being said because it goes to meaning. It goes to emotion. We've heard that we buy emotionally and justify rationally because once people understand why you do what you do, then they'll trust that you know how and what to do. The neocortex's great job is to justify what it's already decided is going to be meaningful to you versus the other way around. Trying to drive that meaning through that judgment.

So it's super important to communicate that way. How you trigger the limbic system is through six limbic levers:

1. You have to communicate emotion.

2. It has to be visual in the sense that it creates a picture in your mind.

3. It has to be experiential. You have to be brought into the story.

4. It has to have contrast. The brain cannot assign value, good or bad, if it doesn't see contrast: $1,000 suit, sale $9.99.

5. It can’t be complicated.

6. Egocentric: What’s in it for me? Why is this important to me?

When you heard Kamal Sarma's story this morning about what triggered him to start moving into the connection game, the death of his daughter, did that story have these components? Of course it did. We all connected, we all had meaning, we all were there with him in empathy, in sympathy, and in experience. That's how you access the limbic system. Tough story; we don't all have it. But we've all got our stories.

So what's a good story? Stories bypass the neocortex and go straight into the limbic system. I'm asking you to now start being more intentional about how and what stories you tell and when. A good story framework came from Joseph Collins' work, “The Hero's Journey.”

There's an opening scene. Our main character is introduced typically in a fun, loving, great way. Then he or she encounters the problem and then they meet some form of a coach or a mentor, which gives them a plan, which gives them new knowledge, which gives them new perspective. Then there's a moment where they choose to move into that new perspective. Then they implement that plan and a new result happens, and then there's a new reality.

But let's take a different story. We call this my why story. Why do I do what I do? You connect at a level of belief and values, which means that with some people you're going to connect really well. With others it might be a bit more difficult. There's no judgment here; different people value and believe different things. Your job is to find the ones that value what you do.

So the first way to build your “my why” story is what are your three beliefs? What are the three things that drive you? What are the things you believe at your core? Who taught them to you? Who is your sage? Because the story's not about you. The story is about your experiences that were given to you, and then what you do is find a narrative. You create a story on how that person either taught you or how they behaved and you observed them in their life and how did that have an impact on you? And how is that driving you today?

The purpose of that is not the story, it's to ask the last question: “So Mr. and Mrs. fill in the blank or son or wife or husband, why do you do what you do?” You've just modeled what you're looking for. You've shown some vulnerability, you've connected, you've shown what your beliefs are. And then you ask them the question, “Why do you do what you do?”

Watch what happens. It is absolutely, stunningly amazing what comes out. People want to connect. Wouldn't it be neat that we could connect or not connect and figure that out in the first meeting instead of the 16th meeting? What you want to do is connect with people who believe what you believe because then your expertise and credibility now can impact them, as well as that connection.

Over 83% of trust comes from not what you do but how you connect. An insurance agent gets on a plane and the pilot says, "Fasten your seatbelts." Turbulence goes up and down. People are screaming, people are praying. Guess what? The agent notices a little girl reading her book. He couldn't believe it.

After all the mayhem, he goes to her and says, "Honey, how come you weren't scared?" She goes, "Well, my father is flying the plane, and he was taking me home." She had ultimate trust. How many of your clients, friends and prospects trust you to take them home? Learn the neuroscience, learn to communicate through stories and connect with them, and I promise you not only will your business change, but your life and relationships will change.

Franc Godri is the founder and chief transformation officer of Cirrus, a firm focused on neuroscience and its application through sales training, leadership development and executive coaching. Through some simple tools and techniques, Godri helps leaders build trust, create consensus and apply the science of action.