Carmine Gallo has written about TED talks and Steve Jobs, as well as inspiration secrets from other sources in half a dozen books that have promoted the idea of story as the way to reach people, create great companies, and ignite social movements. His latest book, The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED speakers to business legends, why some ideas catch on an others don’t, divides all these stories and storytellers up into four kinds: Storytellers who ignite us, educate us, simplify things for us, and motivate us.

The book is primarily an excuse for Gallo to re-tell some of the best Steve Jobs stories, as well as stories from the TED talks and just about every successful business leader and celebrity of the past couple of decades. You’ll already know most of these, if you are a literate business person – Howard Schultz, Oprah, Richard Branson, Sir Ken Robinson, Malala, Gary Vaynerchuk, Sheryl Sandberg, Winston Churchill, and on and on with the familiar list of people-who-have-become-modern-memes-and-tropes.

Storytellers who ignite us do so, according to Gallo, by sharing their passions with us. Steve Jobs and his passion for improving tech design. Howard Schulz and his passion for the experience of an Italian café. Tony Robbins and his passion for success.

But these great speakers are made, through the practice that comes from that passion, not born. They tell themselves a positive story about overcoming their initial struggles – and they share those initial struggles with the world.

These storytellers give us meaning – they tell us why our struggles are worth it.

Second, says Gallo, are storytellers who educate. That doesn’t mean a dry recitation of facts – it means, once again, stories. Humor, surprise and plot twists that violate expectations – these are the techniques that storytellers use to keep their teaching interesting.

Third, continues Gallo, are storytellers who simplify. Like Sir Richard Branson, who keeps his communications in plain English, because of his ADD issues. He couldn’t understand more complicated explanations, and always insists on back-of-the-envelope level pitches, updates, and business talks. Storytellers like Branson keep it simple further by using the rule of threes to keep stories to three acts. There’s a beginning where the conflict at the heart of the story is introduced, a longer middle section where the plot thickens, and a concluding third section where things are resolved.

Finally, storytellers who motivate us, and start movements – like Malala – do so by reframing their own personal struggles to find meaning. Telling why, in other words, not just what.

Passion, education, simplicity and motivation are important parts of storytelling, and storytelling is an important way to share passion, to educate, to simplify, and to motivate. But these categories don’t feel particularly helpful for understanding real distinctions amongst storytellers and storytelling. Many of these very familiar heroes and stories could fit in any of the four categories. The categories are simply a nice way to divide up a good deal of anecdotes about current business heroes.

Unless you are one of the few people left on the planet who need to be convinced that storytelling is important, don’t spend your time on this book – read one of Gallo’s earlier ones instead. For the rest of us, this latest effort is a trot over familiar, unarguable ground with stories that have all been told before.