[Applause] I want to tell you a story, but more importantly, you want to hear a story. I know this because I've been writing and researching stories for a long time, and I've come to the conclusion that stories are a fundamental part of who we are. Stories offer two things that the human brain desires.The first of these is empathy. We are social creatures. We want to know and understand each other. And stories give us this opportunity with characters that we can get to know and understand.But more than this ...