Story telling is also an essential component of successful businesses. Many thrive thanks to great story telling.

For those who like to be inspired, I highly recommend reading a great interview from PingMag (Highly recommended read BTW).They went to interview Yoshihara Shinohara, a Furin Craft Master – to discover what Furin is about, go check the interview…

My most memorable extract:

But, wasn’t it difficult with the cultural differences and everything?

Well that’s the tricky thing, isn’t it. In Japan, people have emotional associations with wind chimes and they are a part of the culture. But if you go over to America it’s, “What’s all that racket?!” (laughs) So I thought about it. Yeah, just like in Japan, in America the ghosts come out at night. And my furin come in five colors; red, green, yellow, blue, and white. I could put a meaning to each color. Red is for the sun, so if you have this you can keep the ghosts away. Blue is for the sea and the sky, two things that people all over the world can’t live without. Then green, that’s the color of plants and trees. Thanks to that green, we can have clean air. So green is for health, you won’t get sick if you have this. Next, yellow. In Japan in the autumn, the fields go golden yellow with the rice crop. This rice represents money. So if you have a yellow furin, you won’t have any worries about money. And lastly, white. Pure white, like a wedding dress. In other words, you’ll have good luck with this one. Once I did that, it was off to the races. No one said they were a noisy racket anymore after that. They flew off the shelves. That’s how you sell things.

Inspiring isn’t it?