see it, feel it, believe it
Hi Reader
In 2019, I published Story 10x: Turn the Impossible Into the Inevitable.
This book is where I first wrote about the SFB Narrative Method.
In case you never read it, here’s the quick Cliff Notes version:
Make hard-to-explain work easy to fund, buy, and believe in.
The more complex, disruptive, and world-changing it is, the better.
In short, it goes like this:
See It: Context for Change
Feel It: Emotional Dilemma
Believe It: Evidence of Truth
This is what makes a narrative most compelling and hard to resist.
Treat SFB as a series of decision gates that must be followed in a precise order.
The problem is that most of the time, we lead with Believe It. Forcing data and conclusions on an audience that isn’t primed or enrolled. Then we wonder why we hit so much pushback. Often it’s because they don’t get the big picture (see it), and they don’t feel it’s for them (feel it). In my experience, this is why 90% of pitches fail.
Agreement and readiness are different states.
A case built to win the argument often never builds the sense that saying Yes is the only responsible thing to do.
Belief Is Inevitability, Not Agreement
A room commits when you make the decision feel inevitable.
Not louder. Inevitable.
That happens via three decision gates, in sequence.
See It: makes the shift undeniable. You zoom out and give shape to what’s already happening, so the room shares your read of reality before you ask for anything.
Feel It: makes the stakes irresistible. You zoom in on what standing still actually costs, so the decision matters instead of merely being correct.
Believe It: makes the yes irrefutable. You price in the risk with proof and a staged path, so acting becomes the safe move and hesitating becomes the expensive one.
Undeniable, irresistible, irrefutable.
Run in that order, they build the conditions a Yes comes from.
The Blank Check Nobody Argued For
A little while back, I worked with an exec who needed to pitch their CTO on an ambitious AI bet.
Big tech company you’d definitely know. This was when budgets were being cut, layoffs were rampant, and my exec’s org was wildly misunderstood and undervalued.
Yet despite the odds stacked against them, my exec client exceeded expectations. They got everything they asked for and more. And the pre-read did the whole job.
The CTO didn’t even want to have a meeting about it.
Not “should we fund this,” but “how much headcount can you hire, and how fast?”
My exec was shocked how they were just handed a blank check.
That’s the moment you dream of. The one where someone just hands you their wallet and says, “take my money.” Because staying put just became the riskier bet.
Anyone who allocates capital, like CFOs and investors, thinks this way.
They hold a thesis, price the risk, and model the upside. Then they stage the commitment against a series of gates. A decision narrative does the same. It leads the room to where the downside is capped, the upside is too big to ignore, and saying no is the larger mispriced move.
The Layer AI Can’t Automate for You
Your AI can draft the deck, the memo, and the model.
It can generate every version of the argument you’ll ever need.
But it can’t make a room ready to decide.
The output layer is now a commodity. The decision layer is the one still worth your name on it. See It, Feel It, Believe It is how you run it. It’s the difference between producing a case and building the readiness to act on one.
Strip the setting and the move holds. A philanthropic venture fund just put a structural bet in front of a top investor in their own language, a concentrated position on a mispriced problem, staged against gates so the first commitment de-risks the next.
Board vote, investor wire, budget commit. Different contexts, same sequence. Undeniable, irresistible, irrefutable.
The diagnostic falls out of it too. A stalled decision isn’t a verdict on your case, it’s a read on which of the three gates is thin. If the room is lost, it can’t see it. If it’s indifferent, it can’t feel it. If it’s hedging, it can’t yet believe it.
You fix the blocked decision-gate, and you have a winning narrative.
The Audience That Decides With You
There’s a version of this where the audience doesn’t just agree with you.
It decides with you.
The next time you carry a decision you need won, take 5 minutes before the meeting and name which of the three decision gates your case is actually missing. Not the slide that needs polish. The gate. Then solve for that one.
Because the goal was never a better argument. It’s the moment the YES stops feeling like a risk and starts feeling inevitable.
That whole sequence is teachable, once AI actually knows your worldview, your stakes, and your evidence. It can run it with you instead of just drafting words. That’s what we’ve been building with Storied AI: an ontology for strategy and comms.
The Claude MCP server just went LIVE this week.
This is getting real. Fast.
Michael
P.S. If you haven’t read Story 10x yet, you can download the PDF here for free. Or find it on Amazon in all the formats: hardcover, audiobook, kindle. And yes, it also wired into Storied AI as a set of Claude skills.
P.S.S. When you’re ready, here’s three ways I can help:
If you want a second set of eyes on your narrative, reply and tell me more
If you need narrative architecture, I help CEOs & operators do just that. Apply for Q3
If you need a keynote speaker, I do them on a select basis. Let’s talk