⚠️ We're temporarily closing the doors to The Lab on June 1.
First, the good news: We just started the mastermind matching process! This only happens a couple of times per year. I literally review each member's information, priorities, and time constraints and match them with a group that works for them. We last did this in January, bringing together 10 groups of 6-12 members, and all of those groups met consistently—it was a massive success.
Standard or VIP members of The Lab can apply to join a mastermind group between now and June 1.
Now, the less good news: On June 1, we're closing the doors (to all membership tiers) for a short period while we help those groups get off the ground and make some upgrades to the space. If you've been on the fence, I recommend you join before June 1 (otherwise you'll wait until July).
Twice this week, I had what felt like epiphanies. Coincidentally, in listening to David Perell's interview with Maria Popova, I also questioned what an epiphany actually is.
David (41:41-41:44)
Describe the process of epiphany for me. Is it a sudden...
Maria (41:44-41:45)
I don’t believe in epiphany.
David (41:45-41:46)
Really?
Maria (41:46-41:46)
No.
David (41:46-41:47)
How come?
Maria (41:47-42:15)
I believe in incremental revelation. I have experienced epiphanies; it’s not that they don’t exist, but they don’t stick for me. An epiphany might be a glimpse that excites me for a moment, but it needs to integrate with everything else that predates it to truly stick. Epiphanies are often just shiny little distractions that don’t truly change much for me.
David (42:15-42:17)
They don’t change much? Do you mean they don’t...
Maria (42:17-43:03)
They don’t change much afterwards. They don’t significantly alter your process, life, or mind. They are like a curtain parting to reveal a bright light. But when the light dies down, you see the world as you knew it before.
My most profound transformations—intellectually, creatively, and personally—have only been incremental. For me, it’s never a metamorphosis; it’s always a transformation.
This rang true for me. I've definitely experienced a feeling that I've described as an epiphany. A flash of insight. At the same time, that flash dulls over time—usually pretty quickly. If an epiphany is defined as a sudden, intuitive moment of realization or profound insight, I'm not sure how profound most of my "epiphanies" are, given that they dull over time.
In any case, I had that experience twice this week, and I'm still thinking about it. The two insights seem to be in conflict, or at least in tension. So by writing about them, maybe I'll feel my way through, and you can decide what YOU believe.
Insight #1: The long way has become the shortcut
My favorite podcast right now is Plain English with Derek Thompson. I've always been a fan of Derek's writing, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I eagerly devour each new podcast he publishes too.
The topics and content of each episode feel very, well, episodic. There are some throughlines over time, but episode to episode, topics are pretty divergent: AI, healthcare, U.S. debt crisis, happiness, employment, religion, etc.
But what really impresses me about Derek's podcast is how clearly well-prepared it is. I don't mean well-produced; he's doing a remote video podcast, which I know from experience is VERY hard to turn into a compelling YouTube video—especially if your guests don't have professional video setups.
When I say well-prepared, I'm talking about both Derek's preparation of the interviews and his scripted introductions. I think both are in a league of their own. He recently hosted a three-person discussion with Morgan Housel and David Wallace-Wells, and it was so well facilitated. If you've ever been or even seen a panel discussion, you know how POORLY they are typically facilitated. To run a good panel, you need to prepare the discussion in advance AND communicate that plan to the guests—two additional steps most interviewers wouldn't do. Throughout his interviews, he constantly references specific past material and cites his sources.
And Derek's introductions are so well written that they immediately pull you in AND perfectly set the table for the discussion.
If you're not a podcaster, this may not mean much to you. But as a podcaster, it's clear to me that he's putting in rare effort and care into this, and it shows.
In a similar vein, a recent written profile of Lenny Rachitsky by First Round Review described his process of working with contributors in Lenny's Newsletter:
Rachitsky says he loves doing them because he can help shape the best ideas from the best people. Editing a guest post takes longer than writing his own posts. Author and positioning expert April Dunford, who has written three guest posts for Lenny’s Newsletter, encapsulates the three-month process: many back-and-forths on ideas, structural changes from Rachitsky’s editor, creation of graphics and proofing. “People don’t understand how much time I spend editing,” says Rachitsky. “It’s not that they write the thing and we publish it. We spend months iterating on it. My goal with each post is for it to be the best thing that person has ever written.”
Taken together, in a world of people trying to shortcut the content production process with AI, there's a good argument that unreasonable effort is the true shortcut. It seems like nothing cuts through thin-feeling content like something truly substantive.
Insight #2: Effort matters less than emotion
Just as I was convinced that I needed to spend more time thinking deeper and trying harder, I had a Reel go viral (for me) this week. Talk about THRILLING—I did it! I finally made a short-form video that worked!
Just behind the thrill came a teeny bit of cynicism.
THIS was the Reel that hit?
It was nearly two minutes long.
The audio cuts out in the first 4 seconds.
I didn't even plan to record it. I was watching a YouTube video and felt an intense urge to say something in response. So I recorded my reaction! Right then and there. The whole thing, from start to finish, probably took 10 minutes.
...and it's arguably the most successful Reel I've published in terms of WHO it reached, conversion from views to followers, and thoughtful comments.
Isn't that the way?
We hear about bands that were surprised by which songs on their albums became perennial hits. Cherry Pie by Warrant, Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye, Another One Bites The Dust by Queen...
I don't think anyone watching that video would mistake it for something I spent a ton of time thinking about or working on. I think it works because it's rooted in honesty, vulnerability, and emotion.
So...was my first epiphany incorrect?
The barbell approach
These two experiences may not be in direct conflict. My new working theory is that there's actually a barbell approach to be taken here—publishing either a.) low-effort, low-stakes, high-emotion content OR b.) high-effort, high-stakes, low-emotion content. The former looks like yapping, the latter looks like writing by Adam Grant.
Where I get stuck is that I want to produce the high-effort stuff, but my constraints don't quite allow for it. Frequent deadlines, under-investing in revision cycles, and my own learning curve for different platforms. So I end up somewhere in the middle; I'm not making truly standout content yet, but I've traded its emotion for a single coat of paint.
There's a third door here, which is the rigor of Adam Grant with the emotion of someone like Elyse Myers, which would be a pretty potent cocktail. This is actually how I'm trying to improve as a writer. I thought about the writing styles I really resonate with and want to embody more—namely, that combination of actionable, analytical, warm, and emotionally resonant. I shared this goal with my AI assistant and developed a skill called "essay feedback." When I write an essay (like this one), I share it with my AI assistant for review and ask it for feedback. It uses the essay feedback skill and grades me on a 1-5 scale for five factors I care about in my writing:
Specific, actionable takeaways
Reframes/challenges assumption
Validates/gives permission
Sensory/emotional language
Smarter AND less alone
In the first pass of this essay, I ended the previous paragraph after "pretty potent cocktail." It told me that THIS section had the potential to be one of the most actionable takeaways, but I left it pretty thin. So, I came back here and added the list above, plus THIS paragraph you're reading right now. The AI didn't suggest these specific words or ideas, simply called out where the writing was weak.
I was actually nervous and hesitant to share that list. Will you adopt these same five factors into YOUR AI writing assistant? Am I setting myself up to create derivatives of MY writing style? ← This was some emotional language, by the way. I added this in the third revision because it was falling a little short. I often find that I'm not instinctively adding enough of my inner experience on the first pass.
Ultimately, if you enjoy my writing enough to want to emulate parts of it, that's a good thing. I would be honored.
But the magic (I think) is on either end of the barbell. To win on the low end, you need to be really in touch with your own emotions (and be comfortable sharing them). To win on the high end, your constraints need to allow for it.
I'll leave you with a message I sent my team in Slack this week:
#305: Big 3: Three Wins, Three Concerns, and Three Experiments for May
Every month inside the Lab, I do a full retrospective: wins, concerns, experiments, with all the numbers on the table. I've never felt comfortable putting the whole thing out publicly, but I do think the practice itself is worth sharing. So this episode is my lightweight version:
Three big wins from April
Three things I'm genuinely worried about heading into May
Three experiments I'm kicking off.
I'm also testing a new name for this format: the Big 3.
April was, by most measures, a really good month. A baby boy on the way, the biggest partnership deal I've ever signed, and a speaking slot at Press Publish LA. But sitting alongside all of that is a real anxiety: I'm watching my audience pull back, sales slowing, people tightening up. And I'm rebuilding a lot of the business simultaneously, too. This episode is me thinking out loud about all of it.
