I wrote this down in my notebook the other day and it pretty much sums up "me" better than I can explain most of the time. I even changed my bio to add this little credo.

Before I get into my argument, I want to gloss over some elements of story and how they're used in Hollywood. if you like this, I'd suggest picking up a copy of Don Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Have you ever noticed how things change in movies? More specifically, the main character. He/She almost always goes through some huge transformation. They are not the same slob they started out to be. They don't have the same job or think about things in the same way. It's because of their experiences. At some point in the movie, something happens that basically is "the point of no return." This incident starts them down a path that will change them forever. Literally. They walk through a door, they get dumped or they move to a new city.

With change comes problems but not necessarily problems the way we think about them. More appropriately, the term is conflict. Conflict is difficult. In any other case the main character would probably avoid conflict. But because of the inciting incident or "point of no return," they embrace conflict as something they must conquer. At the end of the movie the character is different. Whether or not they overcame the conflict, they view the world through a different pair of eyes.

So that's the crash-course in movies and storytelling. That's why we like movies. Now here's the kicker: Do you like conflict? Probably not. Do you like doing things that make you uncomfortable? Depends. Eating vegetables and flossing are kind of uncomfortable for me but I manage to do both of these things regularly. How about going to a party or event where you don't know a single soul? That's a little more uncomfortable. How about picking up and moving to a new city? Now that's just crazy.

In most cases, people are unwilling or unable to change themselves.

People don't really change. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule but on a whole, it's a good bet. People don't usually change by themselves. That why movies have some incident that forces the main character  down a path of transformation. The character could just run away or avoid the conflict, but then the movie would be over and you'd be out ten bucks.

I guess the flip-side to this would be a character who is always changing. That's probably just as bad as the character who never changes. If I had to pick one, I'd say I'm closer to the person who changes more frequently. There is always a part of me that stays the same but I'm not afraid of change. In fact, I'm afraid of staying the same. I'm afraid of not going somewhere. I have to be going somewhere. I want my life to be more like a movie. Even for someone like me who likes to change, I still don't really like conflict. That's just a natural reaction. If humans intrinsically liked conflict, well we probably wouldn't have made it this far.

Aaron Goldman is the author of the forthcoming book, Everything I Learned From Marketing I Learned From Google. Wait. Before you say, "Great, another book on Google" check out this video. His book isn't at all about telling the story of Google. It's about taking something as simple as "googling" and turning it into strategy that companies can use creatively.

When you're thinking like a consumer, answers are easy to search for. When you're thinking like a company, knowing what to search for isn't that easy.

He sums it up nicely in this quote on his site, "If Google’s mission is to 'organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,' then my mission is to organize all the marketing lessons learned from Google and make them universally accessible and useful."

I'll be chatting with him about his new book today and will post the interview later this week.