A while back, we turned down a client. Their method was clear: tell a story that creates fear, use that fear to grab attention, then use the same fear to sell the service. We said no.

It wasn’t a hard decision. But it stayed with me, because the method wasn’t wrong about how the brain works. It was wrong about what to do with that knowledge.

That’s not weakness on the listener’s part. That’s wiring.

The brain built for bad news

Our ancestors who noticed danger survived. The ones who shrugged it off didn’t get to pass on their genes. We still carry that alarm system today. Threat and loss get processed faster and remembered longer than good news ever will.

Fear also releases cortisol, which narrows the mind and pushes us toward fast, instinctive decisions, largely below conscious awareness. A listener under its influence isn’t weighing your story freely.

That’s the mechanism the client wanted us to use. It works. That’s exactly the problem.

The line between witness and exploitation

The same wiring that once kept us alive now gets mined for clicks and conversions. Disaster stopped being something we needed to survive and became something we’re served to keep us scrolling, and buying.

You can see it right now on LinkedIn. Floods in Nepal. Bushfires elsewhere. Filmed and posted within hours, not to inform or help, but to ride the wave of attention. No blurred faces, no thought for whose worst day this is. Someone else’s disaster, repackaged as content, for likes. We do not support individuals or companies who work this way.

The same mechanism shows up in politics too, including here in the EU. Fear-based messaging spreads faster and wins more attention and votes, and it’s growing because it works, not because the argument underneath is stronger.

Responsible disaster storytelling doesn’t hide the hard parts, but it gives people somewhere to put that weight. A way to help. A lesson to carry. A reason the story was worth telling beyond the momentary jolt of fear.

This is close to something I come back to often: not all vulnerability is equal. What separates witness from exploitation is whether the story serves the listener or just uses them.

The other side of the room

Not every client walks in wanting more fear. Just as often, we see the opposite: a culture of control built without meaning to. Negative goals. Managers who go quiet in good times and only appear when something breaks.

What these companies are really asking for isn’t a better fear story. It’s a different one, one that rebuilds trust and respect in place of control.

Fear as a hook, not a cage

None of this means fear has no place in storytelling. Used well, it’s one of the strongest hooks there is.

Andy Weir opens The Martian with his stranded astronaut calmly summing up just how doomed he is, in a handful of blunt words. You’re in the story immediately.

The difference is what happens next. The character acts, and the fear resolves into momentum. Used this way, fear opens a door instead of locking you inside a room. Sustain that cortisol spike without ever releasing it, and you get something closer to Orwell’s 1984: a permanent, low-grade alarm that keeps people compliant, not engaged.

Ask this before you tell a hard story

Before I bring a hard story into a workshop, a pitch, or a piece of content, I check one thing: am I telling this so people understand something true, or because I know it will grab them and I haven’t earned that grab yet.

If it’s the second, the story needs more work. It’s also, as that client learned, a reason to turn work down.

Our brains will always be drawn to disaster. That isn’t optional, and it isn’t something to be ashamed of. What’s optional is what we do with that pull.

So no, we won’t help anyone mine other people’s pain for engagement. But we understand exactly why it works on the brain. Understanding it is the first step to breaking its hold on us.