You’re probably judging your story by the wrong signals. Not all signals mean the same thing, especially early on.
That’s what we’re uncovering today.
Issue #003
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When I was a kid, I played piano competitions on weekends. Which sounds impressive until you understand what most of that actually looked like.
Scales.
Endless scales.
Every practice.
Every lesson.
They were boring. Mechanical. (Where are my fellow piano players? You know.) And for a long time, they felt like proof that nothing was happening.
My teacher had two grand pianos in her living room. One for lessons, and one only she played on, performing duets with students who reached a certain level.
Most weeks, that piano just sat there.
Then one day, she said,
“Get ready. We’re going to play this as a duet.”
I was thrilled. Then immediately panicked.
I knew the piece. I had it memorized. But I’d never played it with someone before, especially not her.
We sat down to play.
And it was effortless.
My fingers knew when to pause. When to soften. When to move. When to blend instead of push ahead. It felt like magic.
What it actually was?
Years of scales.
Not performance practice. Capacity building.
The real change hadn’t happened at the duet. It had already happened— weeks and months before, long before anyone could hear it.
Except my teacher. She knew.
Most of us don’t.
Because when you’re inside the work, scales don’t feel like progress. They feel pointless. Frustrating. Boring. Like you’re practicing for a recital that will never come.
And that’s where most storytellers make the wrong call.
They quit right before the duet.
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🔎 Under the Magnifying Glass
Let’s look at an example that’s easy to misread as an “overnight success.”
Mel Robbins.
If you discovered her in the last few years, her work looks fully formed. Clear message. Signature ideas (and that iconic yellow.) A voice you recognize instantly, wherever you encounter her.
She’s playing her duet. With you.
What’s harder to see (and so much easier to dismiss) are the years of signals that came before it.
I met Mel years ago, when she keynoted at a small tech conference for a company I worked for. Nothing of this felt big yet. Her 5 Second Rule message was just taking off. But it didn’t feel like a breakout moment.
We took a photo together because I loved her shoes.
Sparkly sneakers. No high heels. No power pose.
It didn’t register to me as a “brand move.” It just felt like… her.
Here’s the thing: Those shoes didn’t SAY the message.
They carried it.
Comfort. Ease. Humanity. “Stop feeling the pressure to wear something that hurts.”
Nobody claps for sneakers. There’s no metric for them. But they were doing the same job as her language, her tone, and her stories — making the message livable.
Long before the world noticed.
And here’s where storytellers veer off the cliff:
They use amplifying signals to judge work that’s still being built.
They ask:
- Is this getting attention?
- Is it landing?
- Is it spreading?
The real question at this stage is simpler:
Can someone live here yet?
🏛️ The Rules That Hold the World Together
Rule #1: Amplifying signals only matter after something can hold people
Applause, attention, and spikes tell you whether something is spreading.
They do not tell you whether it’s solid.
Before a story can spread, it has to be stable enough to return to, recognize, and trust.
Change doesn’t begin when people notice you.
It begins when people start using your story to orient themselves.
That only happens after story, meaning, and belonging are already in place.
Rule #2: The signals that matter most feel unremarkable while they’re working
Early signals do not look impressive. (They don’t always feel it, either.)
They look like:
- One person repeating your language back to you
- One reader saying, “This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say.”
- People returning without needing novelty
- Decisions getting easier because the story is holding together (without constant changes)
Those are Build signals. And truth be told? So many storytellers overlook them — even though they’re the biggest directional signals you can get.
They don’t announce themselves. They accumulate. They stack — just like stories that stick. (And yes, I love alliteration.)
If you miss these and keep shifting because the noisy signals aren’t there yet, you’ll abandon the story right before it becomes inhabitable.
The duet was always going to wait for the scales.
🧠 Why Your Brain Calls This Magic
There’s a simple reason all of this gets mislabeled:
Hindsight bias.
Once an outcome is visible, your brain rewrites the story to make it feel inevitable. It credits the last loud moment (the duet, the viral idea, the big launch) and erases the years of reinforcement that made it possible.
You see the sparkly sneakers at the keynote.
You don’t see her wearing them at the kitchen table, recording take seventeen of a video nobody’s watching yet.
We are wired to look for noise.
Even when what we actually need is structure.
What this changed for me
It’s been decades since that duet, and I’ve thought about that moment so often. Not just the wonder of playing, but because she knew. My teacher saw it. She knew the difference between building and performing, and when I was ready to move from one to the other.
It’s a trained skill, and it’s not one we often see ourselves when we’re in the middle of it.
If you’re a storyteller, building your skills isn’t just about writing or telling stories.
It’s about creating meaning. It’s about building a sense of belonging that carries people. It’s about creating such a clear path for action they are called to change.
But first, you have to know which signals tell you you’re getting there.
👀 Where To Look Now
If you’re building (not amplifying), look for these signals instead:
Recognition: Are people seeing themselves in your language?
Reuse: Are they repeating your phrases without prompting?
Return: Do they come back even when nothing “new” is happening?
Consistency: Does this feel like the same story everywhere it shows up?
If those are happening, your story is forming. If you don’t see them yet, the answer isn’t to “make it louder.” It’s to reinforce what’s already there until the structure can hold.
🙈 Why Brands (and Stories) Stall Here
The problem isn’t that people don’t know the difference between building and scaling intellectually.
It’s that they make decisions from the wrong lane.
When you’re in the building stage, the work is forming: its shape, the rules, the internal logic. That’s when your story is learning how to hold itself.
But instead of reading formation signals, people start reacting to external ones.
Brands chase engagement patterns, audience reactions at scale, and whatever seems to make the algorithm happier.
Writers and storytellers chase what feels exciting today and whether something feels “interesting enough” yet to share.
It’s the same mistake.
It’s like trying to play a duet before you’ve done the scales.
The stall here isn’t a loss of momentum.
It’s a loss of structure.
The work hasn’t failed you. It’s just being evaluated before it knows how to hold together.
🧡 One Thing To Do Differently This Week
Before you change anything, pause and ask:
What signals am I using to decide what comes next?
Then sort what you’re paying attention to into two columns:
Signals that tell you about reaction:
- Likes, comments, responses
- Emotional spikes (yours or theirs)
- Whether something feels exciting, impressive, or validating
Signals that tell you about structure:
- Does this reinforce the same idea, rule, or worldview as the rest?
- Would removing this make the story feel less clear?
- Is the logic of the story becoming easier to follow?
- Am I returning to the same questions, themes, or tensions on purpose?
If you’re still building, the second set is the one that should guide your decisions.
Reaction tells you how something lands after it’s formed.
Structure tells you whether it’s strong enough to be lived in.
The duet will come.
But only after the scales.
🐘 The One to Remember
Stories don’t spread because they’re loud.
They spread because they’re lived in.
Until next time,
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We had a snow day here in Raleigh! It was quite the drama, as everyone around us was getting multiple inches of snow. We eventually got about 3 inches — just enough to play in, and the dogs loved it.
Mollie and Wyatt send their love. 🐾🐾
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