Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton’s Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships…

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

By tying in the lives of others with those of people close to him, Obama gives us better reason to think he can empathize with their stories.

This focus on story-telling has been a big part of Obama’s campaign and it goes way back to his address to the 2004 Democratic Convention:

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.

6. You have given your fair share of presentations. How important is story as it relates to the world of presentations?
The story is the bun. The content is the meat (or vegetarian patty if you prefer). The bun holds it all together, it makes it enjoyable. Without the bun you have a mess in your lap. Have you tried eating a burger without a bun, it’s very messy, I don’t recommend it.