The pastor is preaching about protein shakes.

I’m sitting next to my fiancé. She’s been coming to this church for years.

I’ve been coming for a couple months—still not sure what I believe, but willing to sit with the questions.

The pastor is on stage, telling us about when he first started going to the gym.

He felt good because he was doing everything “right.”

But… he wasn’t gaining muscle.

Then one day, a fitness instructor slaps him across the face after class (metaphorically).

“Make sure to get your protein in. Workouts are useless without it.” he tells the pastor.

The pastor pauses on the stage to let the lesson sink in.

He then relates this experience back to faith:

“You can come to church every Sunday… but if you’re not showing up in your community, not applying anything? You’re just doing spiritual junk reps.”

And right there—in a building I’m still not sure I belong in—I notice something.

Not about church. About the room.

200 people are leaning forward.

Nobody’s checking their phone. A elderly black woman in the back saying the sacred church ‘mmmhmmm,’ (basically God’s retweet).

Over a story about protein shakes.

I’ve seen this before.

Not in church.

But in a circle of recovering addicts.

In the fever-dream Facebook groups where QAnon spread faster than most Y Combinator startups.

There’s something these communicators are all doing.

Something specific that makes people unable to look away.

And whatever it is, most content creators are doing the exact opposite.

Here’s what your process probably looks like:

So you open Substack draft and write:

“5 tips I learned about productivity this year.”

And then you list them.

Neatly (with bullet points).

Maybe some bold text for emphasis.

Maybe a nice header graphic you made in Canva because you’re a “professional.”

You hit publish. You provided value. You feel good.

And then... nothing.

47 impressions. 2 likes—and one is from a bot account selling Dubai crypto real estate.

So you think: “I need better tips. A longer list. 10 things instead of 5.

More MOTHA-FUCKIN-VALUEEEEEE!”

You go back to the drawing board. You research harder. You organize them more clearly.

You even add a “bonus tip” at the end because some guru told you to “overdeliver.”

You post again.

51 impressions. Your mom liked it this time. Progress.

But you’re solving the wrong problem.

You’re not losing because your information isn’t good enough.

You’re losing for the same reason the boring pastors put people to sleep.

Something fundamental is missing.

And adding more of what you’re already doing won’t fix it.

It’s like the pastor doing more reps without protein.

More effort. 0 results.

But what is the protein?

You want to know what’s really depressing?

QAnon grew faster than most Y Combinator startups.

A fever dream about:

And it spread like wildfire through Facebook groups full of people who can’t figure out how to unmute themselves on Zoom.

Meanwhile, you’re over here with actual useful information. Stuff that can genuinely help people.

But you’re getting outperformed by a guy in a buffalo hat who thinks 5G towers are mind control devices.

Why?

Because QAnon does what the most engaging pastors do.

What trial lawyers do.

What alcoholics do.

And what you’re not doing (yet).

My father was a crack addict.

During his struggle, I attended some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with him.

Here’s what happens at AA:

People sit in a circle in a church basement that smells like stale coffee and regret, and they tell each other what happened to them.

That’s it.

Just: “Hi, I’m Mike. I’m an alcoholic. Here’s what happened to me.”

And then Mike tells you about waking up in a Denny’s parking lot at 4 AM with no memory of how he got there, pancake syrup on his shirt, his car running with the door open, and a voicemail from his son asking why he missed his birthday party.

When Mike tells you that, you don’t think “what valuable information.”

You think “oh god, that’s going to be me if I don’t stop.”

Or: “damn, I’m not so alone.”

No tip or framework could ever do that.

Now here’s where it gets interesting...

Scientists have spent decades studying how juries make decisions.

What they found should terrify you.

Jurors start building a narrative in their heads the moment the trial begins. Before they’ve seen a single piece of evidence.

Every new fact that fits? They remember it.

Every fact that doesn’t? They forget it. Explain it away. Warp it.

Nearly half of what jurors discuss during deliberation was never even brought up as evidence.

They filled in the blanks themselves.

OJ Simpson’s lawyers understood this.

The prosecution had blood samples, hair fibers, a timeline, motive, opportunity—everything you’d want to prove a case beyond reasonable doubt. Expert after expert after expert.

OJ’s lawyer had 8 words: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

The prosecution gave the jury information.

The defense gave them something else entirely.

The something else won.

The pastor who had 200 people crying over protein shakes.

Mike in the church basement who made a room full of strangers feel less alone.

OJ’s lawyer who beat a mountain of DNA evidence with a single sentence.

They’re all doing the same thing.

And it’s the opposite of what you do when you sit down to write content.

You give people information and hope it changes them.

They do something that makes people feel like they lived it themselves.

Everything I just described?

It’s also why cults work.

Why MLMs recruit your aunt into selling essential oils and ruining every family gathering with “business opportunities.”

Why that crypto bro convinced you to invest in a coin called “ElonMoonDoge” that’s now worth less than the gas fee to sell it.

This thing (whatever you want to call it) is morally neutral.

A hammer can build a house or crack a skull. Depends on who’s holding it.

And right now?

You’re bringing a plastic spoon to a gunfight while the conspiracy theorists, cult leaders, and MLM Karens are flying Apache helicopters.

Here’s what that means for you specifically:

Every day you keep posting listicles and frameworks, you’re ceding the most powerful communication tool in human history to people with worse intentions than you.

And you, the person with something genuinely worth saying, are sitting there wondering why your “10 Productivity Tips” post got 47 impressions.

It’s not that the world doesn’t need what you have.

It’s that you’re delivering it in a format the human brain was never designed to absorb.

You’ve been doing content junk reps.

And some part of you already knows it.

Because if what you were doing worked, you wouldn’t still be reading this.

Here’s what alcoholics, lawyers, pastors, and QAnon posts have in common.

They don’t deliver information.

They deliver experience through stories.

And experience always follows the same structure.

Always.

Whether it’s a courtroom, a church basement, a Pixar movie, or a conspiracy theory that swallows half the internet.

3 beats:

The world as it was — Things are normal. Stable. Makes sense.

The crack — Something happens that can’t be undone or unseen.

The world after — Everything looks different. You can’t go back.

That’s it. That’s the protein.

Not “storytelling” as some vague content marketing buzzword. Not “be more authentic” or “share your journey.”

A specific structure that mirrors how the human brain has processed change for 200,000 years.

Your ancestors learned around campfires. “Gather ‘round, children, and lemme tell ya ‘bout the time your grandfather killed a mammoth with nothing but a rock and unresolved trauma.”

Your bullet points are fighting 200,000 years of evolutionary programming. And they’re losing.

Now test the structure:

The pastor: Goes to the gym, feels good → Instructor says none of it counts without protein → Showing up isn’t the same as changing.

Up: Carl and Ellie build a life together → Ellie dies → Carl has to carry the adventure alone.

OJ: The evidence looks airtight → The glove doesn’t fit, the detective pleads the Fifth → The whole case is tainted.

AA: I’ve got it under control → Wakes up in a Denny’s parking lot → I need help.

Now here’s how you use it (without becoming a crazy cult leader)…

Not the tip. Not the tactic.

What do you want them to believe about themselves or the world after reading?

Write it as a single sentence starting with “I now believe...”

For this piece, it’s: “I now believe that story is the only vehicle that actually transports ideas into behavior change.”

If you can’t articulate the belief, you don’t have a newsletter. You have a listicle with delusions of grandeur.

AA calls this “what it was like.”

The pastor was clueless at the gym. I was a skeptic sitting in church, still figuring out what I believed.

You need a scene where you were wrong, stuck, or blind.

And it needs to be embarrassingly specific.

Not “I used to struggle with content.”

But “I wrote a post about building a 6-figure business and got 3 likes. My friend posted a photo of the rash he got from a gas station hot dog and got 6,000. People were sharing it with their doctors. He got a sponsorship from Pepto-Bismol. I got a ‘great post!’ from a guy trying to sell me life insurance.”

Specificity = Credibility.

The more specific your failure, the more universal it becomes.

The instructor’s protein comment.

The sponsor’s question in the church basement.

The verdict that changed everything.

Something external interrupted your story.

Someone said something. Something happened. Reality slapped you across the face.

This is the hinge.

Most people skip this. They go straight from “I was lost” to “now I’m found” with no explanation of what caused the shift.

What broke you? What was the moment? The sentence?

Find the hinge.

This is the sentence that connects your personal story to the reader’s life.

The pastor’s bridge: “That gym taught me something about church.”

He’s not talking about the gym anymore. He’s using the gym to explain something bigger.

Your bridge sentence follows a simple formula:

“That [specific experience] taught me something about [bigger topic your audience cares about].”

Examples:

You’re taking a story that’s yours and handing it to the reader. You’re saying: “This happened to me. But it’s really about you.”

Without the bridge, your story stays a diary entry. With it, it becomes a lesson they feel like they discovered themselves.

AI can generate more tips, more lists, more “actionable frameworks” than you could consume in 1,000 lifetimes.

But AI can’t sit in a church basement and confess that it woke up in a Denny’s parking lot with pancake syrup on its shirt.

Your stories. Your failures. Your moments of humiliation and transformation.

That’s the only edge left.

Now, I’m not saying to never give steps, lessons, or tips (I use ‘em often).

But starting with stories BEFORE makes them hit so much harder.

They connect people with you emotionally.

And that’s what truly builds a brand.

So, tell your story, or keep getting outperformed by people who believe the earth is flat.

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota “Share Your Story” Robertson

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