The Real Risk Isn’t Misinformation… It’s Meaning

We like to believe we’re rational.

That we look at the facts… weigh the evidence… and come to a logical conclusion.
That if someone just had the right data… the right chart… the right argument…
They would change their mind.

With each passing day… the less true that feels.

And the more I listen to conversations like the one I just had with Will Storr (author of The Science of Storytelling, A Story Is A Deal, The Status Game and many more) on this week’s episode of Thinking With Mitch Joel… the more I realize that the power of the story is more important than the power of the truth.
We don’t experience the world as it is.
We experience the world through the stories we believe.
That’s the filter… and we have to remember that.
Whether we’re the one telling the story… or the one listening to it.
And, while I know this, our conversation was a good reminder.

Because it explains a lot.

Why facts don’t land the way we expect them to.
Why smart people can look at the same information and come to different conclusions.
Why entire organizations commit to ideas that don’t quite make sense… and defend them long after they stop working.

It’s easy to call this misinformation… more slop.

It’s easy to say the problem is bad data… bad actors… bad incentives… bad tech.
And sometimes it is… but that’s not the whole story.
The deeper issue is meaning… and what we believe.
We’re not just trying to understand the world.
We’re trying to make sense of our place in it.

We’re always trying to maintain a story about who we are.

Competent… smart… in control… on the right side of things.
And when new information threatens that story…
We don’t calmly reassess (… most of us don’t).
We defend… we dig in… we look for other stories… data points.
Not because we’re irrational… because we’re protecting something deeper.

Will made a point that stuck with me…

Stories aren’t just how we communicate.
They’re how we navigate status.
They signal where we stand… what we believe… who we belong with.
Which means when you challenge someone’s belief…
You’re not just challenging their thinking.
You’re challenging their identity.

And that’s a much harder thing to move.

You see this everywhere.
In politics… in culture… in investing… in organizations.
And when the story doesn’t “fit,” it would require someone to realize that, maybe, they got it wrong.

And that’s where most facts (and reasoning) die.

It becomes the story that people are unwilling to rewrite.
The greater work is understanding the story people are telling themselves… and whether your strategy fits inside it… or threatens it.
Because if it threatens it… it doesn’t matter how right you are.
It won’t land.
And maybe that’s the real risk in this moment.

Misinformation spreads because it offers something powerful…

A story that fits someone’s identity.
A way to make sense of a complicated world.
Truth… is rarely that clean.
It requires emotional trade-offs.
And those are much harder stories to tell.
Which is why they’re harder to accept.

So when you think about your brand and storytelling, what you should really be thinking about is…

What story are people protecting… and what would it take for them to rewrite it?
Because until that changes… The facts don’t stand a chance.
The battle was never about information.

It was always about identity… and who we’re willing to become when the story breaks.

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