The most prominent people across the world are storytellers. They attract the world and it's resources towards a story and enable people around them to make incremental progress to achieve the desirable outcome. It's tough to master such a skill, which has no objective measures. However, it's a skill which compounds extremely well. Whether you're building your startup, managing a team, building your career or something else, there's something special about the power of stories.
Education in it's oldest form was conveyed through stories. People realized that associations formed in the human brain are driven by stories. Stories are usually referred to only in their fictional form. Every idea is a story. Every piece of information, when tried to communicate is a story.
Storytelling at the ground level is communication. Communication is probably the most important frontier in human co-operation. Some people believe early developments in language (proto-language) to be traced back to Homo Habilis. This could have easily been a few million years in the past. Progress has been directly proportionate to co-operation based on a neutral communication platform.
A lot of people describe knowledge's sole purpose to be action and experience. Stories are special because they're a painless way to experience reality. The best stories in any form (text, visual, oral) are closely related to emotions that drive humans. The brain can experience things through emotion.
There's no limit to what can be conveyed through stories. Fiction is the most primitive form of storytelling (imaginative). For any action to be taken, there is an incentive or desire. Stories are the basic structure which make it possible to feel the incentive and work towards it.
Stories can bind people together, they align them on the basis of a shared purpose. Any progress in history has an involvement of such stories. Raw information or incentives which cannot be felt have never been enough to drive human forces to make progress.
Simplest form of storytelling is sharing your life experiences. It allows others to live through what you've been. It can convey important messages which would've been difficult to understand if it were raw facts. It is a form of art. Molding information and experiences in a form that's relatable, appealing and emotional.