Mfonobong Inyang: Why Storytelling Should Become A Superpower For You in 2026

Now and then, certain concepts gain notoriety and especially in the age of social media, they quickly become buzzwords. The issue with buzzwords is that many people use them to trend, exploit algorithms, or appear as subject-matter experts. Storytelling has, unfortunately, suffered the same fate. It has become one of those words forced down people’s throats, often without the meticulous interrogation or didactic value that should accompany it.

I have been sharing insights and perspectives on storytelling, and here, I hope that you become more aware of how much the world around you is driven by stories and how important it is for you to weaponise your personal and professional narratives.

Without Your Story, You Simply Don’t Exist!

In digital marketing, it’s said that if people cannot find you on Google, then you simply don’t exist. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you cannot have an off-grid brand or business that is successful; it just means that the average person doesn’t know about you or the services you offer. The same is true for storytelling in a broader sense; ability without visibility limits your viability. Contrary to what many people think, your brand doesn’t start with your aesthetics – real brand power stems from its intangibles: goodwill (the predominant story held by the public about it), core values and intellectual properties. Although these designations are used interchangeably, storytelling for people is branding, storytelling for organisations is known as public relations and storytelling for countries is known as diplomacy.

There are two questions you must ask when running diagnostics for your brand: the first is this: “What are people saying about me?” Now, I’m not asking you to surrender the appraisal of your brand entirely to random people on the internet; I’m asking you to undertake an objective social listening. Rightly or otherwise, what do people think whenever your name or business is mentioned? Collect that data and decompose it; find out in granular terms the drivers of those sentiments. The second question you must ask is: “How can I favourably influence what people are saying about me?” I broke down in great detail how you can do this in my amazing book, It’s All Write. Your brand story can be engineered; however, for that to be effective, you must first identify the specific gaps to be plugged because what is good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander. 

Write The Vision, Make It Plain

There are many reasons why your story should be properly documented. I will share just two. First, one of the many signatures of great leadership is documentation: whether it’s a journal, standard operating procedure, bookkeeping or contract. Moses understood this principle; virtually everything he espoused was codified. The Mosaic Laws have shaped many civilisations till today; if you interrogate it carefully, you will find out that many elements of constitutions around the world, such as natural justice, ethical behaviour, and national security, were lifted from the Torah but modified for contemporary use. Can you imagine if Moses had died with all that knowledge without documenting them?

Second, nobody can show up from somewhere and claim propriety to a literature that is well-documented. Someone told me one time that I must be a protégé of a certain fellow because he saw me use certain phrases in my communication. Thankfully, I had a copy of one of my books nearby, so I just quietly brought it out and showed him where I had used that particular phrase and the publication date of the book, which clearly preceded the Johnny-come-lately. He was shocked to find out it was actually the other way around. That someone popularised something doesn’t always mean he or she created it. In fact, I showed him several websites that plagiarise my content without my express approval – the reason I’m indifferent to such things is that at this point in life, I see imitation as a compliment. I don’t have to fuss over everything.

Authoring Books

If you understand the concept of thought leadership, then you will agree that fewer things give you credibility like authoring books, because for every school of thought, there has to be a body of literature that educates people about its postulations. Ever wondered why it is that in international media, before the interview with a guest commences, the book(s) he or she authored are first highlighted by the host? The subliminal messaging there suggests that such a person is a subject matter expert or, at the very least, is invested in the subject enough to produce a book that amplifies his or her convictions. This is why religions have holy books: there has to be something people can meditate on and reference as authoritative. This is why products come with manuals, because users would want to be educated on how such things really work. The same logic even applies to constitutions, which is why you hear things like “the letter of the law”, because beyond what is believed or accepted as culture, what is written has a profound influence on national cohesion.

This is big 2026; the excuse that you don’t know how to write or don’t have the time is no longer tenable. Chances are you don’t know how to fly an aeroplane, but I’m sure that if you decide to visit the other side of the Atlantic tomorrow, you will be there. Will your lack of a pilot’s license stop you? Of course not, and that’s my point exactly! There is something that quietly drives the modern world, it’s called leverage – if you ask me, it’s a fancy word for trade by barter. Just like you use the money you pay as flight ticket to leverage the absence of flying skills, you can also engage the services of a ghostwriter to leverage your constraints, either in writing skills or time. There is simply no universe where you can do everything yourself; even when you think about it, human beings move from dependence, independence, to inter-dependence. Translation: I need you, you need me, we need us.

Someone might be tempted to ask me, “Mfon, shebi we can use hay high?” Here is the thing: when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse becomes inevitable. Artificial Intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT are effectively generative tools, meaning that they aggregate pre-existing or pre-trained information. If something already exists, that means that someone else put it there. So the question of appropriation isn’t just a matter of ethical use but also that of legal jeopardy. That’s why you will hardly see any consequential book that was entirely written by AI; please note that the operative word in that phrase is “consequential”. AI is supposed to help you with suggestions by throwing up information that is entered into the prompt, not replacing your brain. That’s why in my contracts to clients as a ghostwriter, I always include a clause that states that AI-generated content will NOT feature in the book; it may aid research, but must never be included in the manuscript as its final form. My job isn’t just to develop content but also to protect my clients from legal jeopardy and reputational damage. Anytime I see some ads on Obasanjo’s internet encouraging people to misuse AI, I just shake my head. We wey dey the game know wetin dey sup. I go lie for you?

Narratives vs Numbers

Good storytelling can move your products and services from the realm of economic conversation to that of a cultural staple. When the primary consideration for a commodity is how much it costs, that’s economics – demand and supply. When the primary consideration evolves to how important it is to lifestyle, then it’s gained cultural notoriety because synonyms for culture include normal and consensus. For example, Dufil Prima Foods has invested so much into storytelling that the average person assumes that Indomie is the brand name for generic noodles. It has become a staple for most children, which makes the economic conversation secondary – hence the reason Dufil can comfortably price their products higher than their competitors. The same is true for a product like Air Jordan, it’s not just a shoe – it taps into sneaker culture. The Jumpman Logo, which is a silhouette of the legendary Michael Jordan, evokes feelings from his storied career. That’s why customers will pay more, not just to buy shoes but to associate with that brand – it’s beyond economics.

Storytelling In Statecraft

Empires are not just built on economic and military might alone; they are built on stories. Did you know that Alexander the Great, king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, took scribes alongside his army during wars to document history and also publicists to embellish his achievements? Callisthenes of Olynthus didn’t just record Alexander’s exploits; he prepared an exaggerated version of events in his work, The Deeds of Alexander, which largely became a tool for propaganda. Did you know that Caesars in the Roman Empire used staged fights in the Coliseum to control public opinion and sometimes to deploy entertainment as a distraction from their governance failures? Sounds familiar, right? There was something I saw in the bible one time when reading about how Joshua led his army across the Jordan River on dry land. When the Ammonite and Canaanite kings heard that their number one geopolitical foe had successfully made an incursion through a river that effectively served as a line of defence during a period when it was supposed to be overflowing its banks, they gave up on the war even before it started. They knew Joshua and his military didn’t come through such an arduous journey and destroy their naval assets just to play hopscotch with them; the defences of an entire region were paralysed because of one story they heard.

When the imperial powers colonised a territory, they didn’t just conquer those vassal states merely through military might – they weaponised stories. The colonies would have their identities, history, culture, institutions and language heavily assaulted because colonisers knew slavery was more than chains – the subjugation was more mental than physical. That’s why I’m writing this in the English Language instead of my native Ibibio. Imagine someone taking your pristine artworks and convincing you that they are inferior, only to turn around and place them in museums for tourists to view for a premium. Till today, some people demonise Sango but celebrate Thor when both figures are supposed to be thunder gods because somewhere in their heads, they believed a story that was designed to disempower them.

Why do you think that some leaders will assume public office, and they may have one or two economic advisers who are really figureheads, because the real people calling the shots are men in grey suits from the other side of the world (find time to read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins), but they employ an army of media aides and influencers? They will spend more money on lobbyists than on critical areas of development in some cases. The problem with this model is that it doesn’t know how to find the balance between governance and propaganda; that’s why there is an Orwellian dystopia where people are brazenly told to reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears.

Empires don’t joke with narratives; don’t be so easily distracted with the fireworks caused by military personnel and hardware that you miss the information war that is being waged simultaneously. There is a country currently experiencing a revolt from some of its erstwhile colonies, and has been outrightly kicked out in some instances. The new strategy, which is hidden in plain sight, is evidently to make non-military incursions in an attempt to regain lost influence, and one of the first things they did was to acquire a storytelling machine. In other instances, they have infiltrated through policy formulation and “revived investment” drives. If you don’t gerrit, forget abourrit.