When David Protein launched frozen cod for $55, the internet thought it was a joke.

But while everyone laughed, David executed one of the year's smartest marketing play, and made their protein bars look like genius by comparison.

WHY IT MATTERS

David's cod offers 23g protein and 100 calories. Their popular bars offer 28g protein and 150 calories—more protein, fewer calories, zero cooking required.

The cod wasn't designed to be profitable. It was designed to be a comparison anchor that makes the bars look like the obvious choice. Instead of spending millions on ads explaining "our bars are packed with protein," they launched a product that shows it.

GO DEEPER

First, let's talk comparison anchors.

A comparison anchor is when you put your product next to something else—usually something worse, more expensive, or more inconvenient—so your product looks like the obvious winner.

Think Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. The PC guy was stiff, boring, and buggy. The Mac guy was cool, relaxed, and just worked. Apple didn't have to explain why Macs were better. The comparison did it for them.

Or Guinness with "Good things come to those who wait." While other beers brag about being fast and refreshing, Guinness made their slow pour look like craftsmanship. Suddenly, waiting wasn't a bug, it was a feature.

David Protein took this idea and cranked it to 11.

Here's what actually happened.

The numbers make the case. If you're serious about protein, you could eat raw boiled cod...or you could unwrap a bar that gives you more protein, fewer calories, and actually tastes good. How would you like to consume your 25g of protein?

They made it real. David didn't just announce the cod as a joke. They actually launched it for $55 per four-pack. You could buy it. They shipped it. And Happier Grocery, a respected New York health-focused retailer, now stocks it in-store for $52.49. That retail partnership transformed this from "viral stunt" into "legitimate product line."

They knew their audience. David's customer isn't grabbing a snack on the run. They're tracking macros, optimizing nutrition, and thinking about protein density all day long. These are people who would actually consider eating plain boiled cod if it meant hitting their numbers.

This isn't new, but it's rare. Most brands try to tell you why they're great. David showed you by launching a comparison so absurd, it grabbed people’s attention. That's the power of the anchor.

TAKEAWAYS

Create your own comparison anchors. What's the most extreme version of what your product does? If you're a copywriter, compare your service to hiring a full-time writer. If you're a coach, compare your program to a four-year degree.

Design content as a marketing vehicle. Not every piece of content needs to drive profit—some exist purely to communicate your value better than traditional advertising. A free email course, a viral post, or a comparison guide can be worth more than a paid ad.

Know your customer's real motivation. David's customer are motivated by protein optimization, not convenience. What's the deeper psychological driver for your audience? Build your message around that, not surface-level features.

Calculate marketing ROI differently. Instead of asking "Will this drive sales?" ask "Will this generate more brand value than traditional marketing spend?" Your viral LinkedIn post that doesn't convert immediately might be worth more than a paid campaign.

BOTTOM LINE

The world uses marketing power to sell what's hollow.

We'd better get creative at using it to point people toward what's holy.

You can't compete on volume. You compete on clarity.

David launched fish to sell bars. They created an unforgettable way to communicate their superiority while competitors spent millions on influencer partnerships and paid ads.

This is what sharp looks like.

Study the way the world wins attention. Reverse-engineer it. Then aim it at the Kingdom like a laser.

BEFORE YOU GO

If someone in your network needs this, share it ♻️

And if you're a Christian founder or marketer who wants to write content that sticks (without spending hours staring at a blank screen), Very Good Ghost will handle the writing while you focus on building. Let's talk.

Keep writing what matter,
—Payton

P.S. I found a few little tricks that are making click engament on CTAs go bonkers….

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."

That sentence changed history. JFK spoke it once, and 60+ years later, people still quote it and bumpers of cars still flaunt it.

I’ve spent some time studying what makes sentences like this one stick in the human noggin and if it could be recreated over and over and over again.

Here’s what’s fascinating, it's not just what JFK said that made it so memorable. It's how he structured what he said.

Today we are going to have a quick chat about chiasmus: a sentence pattern where the second half mirrors and reverses the first.

It's so powerful, it can rewrite your audience's memory.

WHY IT MATTERS

Chiasmus is a brain hack. Our minds crave symmetry and rhythm, which is why we remember balanced patterns more easily than scattered thoughts. When you flip and mirror ideas, you create sentences that stick, even when your audience forgets everything else you wrote.

GO DEEPER

Let’s look closer at how chiasmus works and why every Christian creator and marketer should steal it:

The structure: Chiasmus reverses the structure of a sentence to create balance. Think: A-B → B-A. Example: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Biblical precedent: Scripture is full of chiasmus. Matthew 19:30 says, "But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first." 

Other famous examples in culture:

• Neil Armstrong: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

• Mae West: "It's not the men in your life that count—it's the life in your men."

• Shakespeare: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." (Macbeth)

The memory effect: Chiasmus doesn't just sound good, but lodges in your brain. Researchers call this the "symmetry bias." When information is balanced, we process it faster and recall it longer. That's why people often misremember movie lines as chiasmus even when they're not. 

• (Example: Most people swear the Wicked Witch said, "Fly, my pretties, fly!" She didn't. She said, "Fly, fly, fly!" But chiasmus feels right, so that's what we remember.) See for yourself.

The persuasion advantage: Chiasmus makes your argument feel unavoidable. The mirrored structure creates a sense of completeness, like the idea was always true. That's why politicians, preachers, and poets reach for it when they need a line to land.

Practical Takeaways

The best part is you're already swimming in chiasmus, you just don't know it yet.

Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That book is 160+ years old, and people still quote that line. nobody write a Chiasmus on accident.

Here's where chiasmus makes the biggest impact in digital writing:

Headlines and subject lines. This is where chiasmus earns its keep. "Build your business to serve your life, not your life to serve your business." Or: "Don't chase the platform, build the platform that chases you."

Social media hooks. Your first line determines if they scroll or stop. Try: "Most people consume content to kill time. Create content that makes time come alive." Or: "Stop growing an audience. Start serving one."

Landing pages and sales copy. When you need conversion, chiasmus creates inevitability. "Don't wait for the strategy to find you—find the strategy that works for you." Or: "We don't build software for your business. We build your business with software."

The Flip Test (works anywhere): Write your main point. Find the verb-object pair. Reverse it. "We help you work smarter and live better" becomes "Don't live to work smarter, work smarter to live better." Takes 30 seconds. Works on headlines, CTAs, bios, taglines, sermon titles—anywhere you need a sentence to land hard.

Chiasmus isn't a party trick.

Use it in subject lines for higher open rates, social hooks for higher engagement, CTAs for higher conversions, and body copy.

Just don’t overuse it….like this email is at risk of doing.

Bottom Line

People won't remember everything you write.

But they'll remember the sentence that sounds like it it didn’t just get spilled out with CrapGPT.

Chiasmus does that. It turns ordinary ideas into lines that stick, if you can stick the landing.

Your move: Find one sentence in your next piece of content and rewrite it as chiasmus.

BEFORE YOU GO

If someone in your network needs this, share it ♻️

And if you're a Christian founder or marketer who wants to write content that sticks (without spending hours staring at a blank screen), Very Good Ghost will handle the writing while you focus on building. Let's talk.

Keep writing what matter,
—Payton

P.S. Kindness wins the day again

..."hut"

Pizza Hut teamed up with Tom Brady for a campaign called "Pizza Before the Hut."

The premise is simple: Get a quarterback to say "pizza" before "hut" during a nationally televised game, and that city gets a free pizza party.

WHY IT MATTERS

Every single time a QB steps up to the line and shouts "Hut!" millions of people will now think about Pizza Hut. They hijacked the most repeated word in football and tied it to their brand.

GO DEEPER

• The setup drives fan behavior. Fans are now hoping their QBs to say "pizza" first. That means even MORE people are thinking about Pizza Hut during the game..

• It's not truly "zero spend." The campaign required hiring Tom Brady and launching the promotion. But the ROI is insane—every game becomes free exposure on national TV, repeated hundreds of times per broadcast.

• The ad itself is brilliant. It shows Brady delivering pizzas and getting tackled by a grandma who tells him to "shake it off, gramps." They made the GOAT look human, which makes the brand feel approachable.

• This is "word ownership" in action. Brands like Starbucks own "Venti." Game of Thrones owns "Winter is Coming." Pizza Hut just claimed "Hut" in the context of 200 million football fans. Take that Sunglasses Hut.

• The psychology works because it's participatory. Viewers aren't passive. They're actively watching for it, talking about it, posting about it. That turns every fan into a brand ambassador.

Practical Takeaways

Find your "hut." What word, phrase, or moment already exists in your audience's world that you can attach your brand to? A pastor might tie a sermon series to a cultural moment everyone's already talking about. A coach might link their framework to a problem clients mention constantly.

Make your audience the activation mechanism. Pizza Hut didn't just run ads, but made fans participate. How can you turn your audience into raving fans of your brand? Give them something to share, a phrase to repeat, or a challenge to post about.

Invest in high-ROI exposure, not just "free" tactics. Yes, the campaign had costs (Brady, production, pizza giveaways). But the return—millions of impressions per game—dwarfs the spend. Don't be afraid to invest if the multiplier effect is there.

Use humor and humanity to cut through. Brady getting tackled by a grandma is funny because it's unexpected. When you show vulnerability or humor, people remember you.

Bottom Line

If you're building something that matters, you need a sharper message that hooks into what people are already saying.

Pizza Hut didn't invent "hut." They just made sure you'd never hear it the same way again.

BEFORE YOU GO

If someone in your network needs this, share it.

And if you're a Christian founder who needs help translating your ideas into emails, newsletters, or courses, Very Good Ghost helps you build audience assets that honor God and people.

Keep writing what matter,

Payton

P.S. A breakdown of close to 100 digital trend reports distilled into one list of “trending trends” for the year.

..."er"

By adding "er" to the end of certain words, you turn a one-time action into an ongoing identity. It's borderline manipulative how well it works.

Don't ask someone to test your product → Ask them to be a tester.

WHY IT MATTERS

Marketing shifted from transactional to tribal decades ago. People don't want to do things anymore—they want to BE people. Nouns stick. Verbs do not.

GO DEEPER

The psychology is simple:

Changing a verb-based description (e.g., “drinks coffee”) to a noun (e.g., “is a coffee drinker”) makes it seem like that person’s attitudes or preferences were more dispensational, thus stronger and more stable.

Essentially, it becomes part of someone’s identity, rather than just an attitude they happen to hold.

This has a number of useful applications in marketing:

• ❌ "Update your plan" → ✅ "Become a pro user"

• ❌ "Learn more" → ✅ "Be an early adopter"

• ❌ "Join our list" → ✅ "Become an insider"

• ❌ "Support our mission" → ✅ "Be a partner"

Gyms don't want you to "work out sometimes." They want you to call yourself a member. Peloton doesn't want you to "ride a bike." They want you to become a rider.

This isn't new. Jesus didn't say, "Try following me." He said, "Come, be my disciples."

Christianity has always been about identity transformation—from sinner to saint, from wanderer to child of God, from stranger to brother or sister.

Identity language shaped how they saw themselves and how they lived.

The danger zone ⚠️ for Christians in marketing:

This tool works. But misused, it manipulates instead of serves.

• Bad: Creating false urgency or scarcity to pressure someone into an identity ("Only 3 spots left to be a founding member!")

• Good: Inviting people into an identity that genuinely reflects their goals and values ("Join 500+ pastors using this framework")

Accuracy and invitation, not manipulation and pressure.

Practical Takeaways

Run an Identity Audit on your current messaging:

Go through your website, emails, and sales pages. Count how many times you ask people to do something vs. be someone.

If the ratio is heavily tilted toward actions, you're leaving conversions on the table.

Use this Before/After template:

• Before: "Sign up for our newsletter"

• After: "Become a Story Lab member"

• Before: "Download the guide"

• After: "Join 2,000+ founders who grabbed it"

• Before: "Attend the workshop"

• After: "Be part of the cohort"

Warning signs you're doing it wrong:

• You feel gross after writing it

• Your identity language is vague ("Be a champion!")

• You're creating fake exclusivity to pressure a decision

Identity marketing works because it taps into real human desires. Don't weaponize that.

Bottom Line

Adding "er" to your call-to-action isn't a trick.

People want to feel like they are a part of something.

Your job as a Christian founder isn't just to get people to do something. It's to help them become who they're meant to be.

Use "er" to invite them in.

BEFORE YOU GO

1. If someone in your network needs this, share it.

2. And if you're a Christian founder who needs help translating your ideas into emails, newsletters, or courses that convert without manipulating, Very Good Ghost helps you build audience assets that honor God and people.

—Payton

P.S. I stood in a 4,000-year-old city last week.

…be slightly negative.

Most brands bend so far backwards to please people they look like the creepy girl from The Ring.

Meanwhile, the smartest marketers do the opposite.

WHY IT MATTERS

When you stop trying to be everything to everyone, you become something to someone. Negativity—when wielded strategically—cuts through the noise and magnetizes your real audience.

GO DEEPER

Here's what bold brands are doing:

• The van that owns it's not a sports car. Minivans lean into being practical, not sexy. They don't apologize for sliding doors and cargo space. That clarity wins families who need exactly that.

• The coffee shop that highlights a bad review. Instead of hiding criticism, they frame it. "Too strong? Good. That's the point." It signals to coffee snobs: this is your place.

• The watch that shows off being "dumb." No notifications. No apps. Just time. The anti-smartwatch stance attracts people drowning in digital overload.

• The Bible app that makes up a funny bad review. Self-awareness and humor disarm skepticism. Leaning into the "boring" stereotype makes the brand feel human.

Honesty about your limits attracts people who value your strengths.

Most founders fear narrowing their message will shrink their market. The opposite happens. Specificity builds an audience.

Negativity creates contrast. It tells people who you're not for.

Your brain notices what's different, not what's safe. A van that brags about sliding doors stands out in a sea of horsepower ads.

HOW TO USE THIS

You're not serving everyone. You're serving someone. Say it out loud:

• "This course isn't for beginners."

• "Our consulting takes 6 months minimum—no quick fixes."

• "We don't do cheap. We do transformational."

Negative positioning clarifies who belongs. And people who belong stick around and tell others.

The world doesn't need more vague, vanilla messaging. It needs leaders willing to say what they stand against so we know what they stand for.

THREE MOVES

Audit your weaknesses. Write down what your product or service isn't good at. Pick one. Now flip it into proof of your strength. (Example: "We're slow because we're thorough.")

Add a filter to your homepage. Tell people who this isn't for. "Not ready to invest 10+ hours a week? This isn't your program." Watch how the right people lean in.

Test a contrarian subject line or social post. Try: "Why [popular thing] doesn't work" or "I'm not [expected trait], and that's the point." Measure engagement.

BOTTOM LINE

Slightly negative, in a marketing world full of hype and empty promises, honesty is the sharpest edge you've got.

When you own what you're not, you make room for the people who need exactly what you are.

Before you go, here are 2 ways I can help:

TAKE ACTION: Forward this to someone wrestling with their positioning. Or reply and tell me what "slightly negative" angle you're testing this week.

CONNECT: VeryGoodGhost Agency gives Christian executives turnkey content (social, inbox, and beyond) that delivers scary good results without adding to their calendars.

—Payton

P.S. Pizza Hut just figured out how to get free advertising on every football game.

Hey there!

Three years ago, a beauty brand did something insane.

Lush—the company known for bath bombs and body scrubs—logged off social media. Not just one platform. All of them. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, X. Gone.

Their chief digital officer, Jack Constantine, said the tech billionaires running these platforms "don't really care" about anything except making money. He was tired of renting attention on borrowed platforms that could change the rules overnight.

So Lush went all-in on what they could control: email and their app.

Today, they have 6 million email subscribers and 1.75 million app users. No algorithm. No ad spend to Meta. No begging for reach.

Today we’re covering what Christian leaders need to understand about this move and why it matters for your organization, your audience, and your long-term growth.

First time reading? Sign up here. 
If this email is clipped by Gmail click “Read Online”.

People have been predicting email's death for 30 years.

Let me show you the timeline:

• 1995: Email is too technical for regular people.

• 1999: Spam will ruin email forever.

• 2002: Instant messaging is faster; email is done.

• 2007: Social networks will make email obsolete.

• 2014: Slack will replace email at work.

• 2018: This is peak email; it's all downhill from here.

• 2023: AI assistants will kill email.

And yet, here we are.

Email users didn't decline. They grew. From a few million in the '90s to 4.5 billion users today—and that number is projected to hit 4.8 billion by 2027.

Email isn't dying. It's thriving. And the leaders who understand this are building audiences that don't disappear when an algorithm shifts or a platform bans their account.

Here's what Lush understood that most brands miss.

Social media is a landlord's game. You're renting followers you don't own, paying rent in ad dollars, and praying the algorithm doesn't evict you.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn't wake up thinking, "How can I help Pastor Dave's nonprofit reach more people today?" He wakes up thinking, "How do I keep 3 billion people scrolling past Pastor Dave's post so they see more ads?"

Lush saw this. So they torched their Instagram account (900,000 followers), walked away from TikTok, and redirected every dollar into their email list and app.

The result was zero begging for reach. Zero algorithm anxiety. Just 6 million people who said, "Yes, send me stuff," and actually open it.

The inbox is the most valuable real estate on the internet.

Your inbox isn't where you kill time. It's where you manage your actual life. Payroll. Mortgage.

That passive-aggressive email from Karen in accounting. Leave me alone, Karen.

By contrast, social media is the digital equivalent of flipping through a magazine in a dentist's waiting room. You're not there to do anything. You're there because you're bored and your phone is closer than that 2019 copy of Better Homes & Gardens.

59% of consumers say emails influence their purchases. Not Instagram ads. Not LinkedIn carousels. Not whatever nonsense is happening on Threads this week.

Emails.

Because when someone subscribes to your list, they're not passively scrolling. They're raising their hand and saying, "Yes, I want to hear from you."

Email delivers a 3,600% ROI, but most leaders waste it.

For every $1 you spend on email, you get back $36.

Meanwhile, most Christian organizations treat their email list like that drawer in the kitchen where you shove mystery keys and a single AA battery you're pretty sure still works.

They send sporadic "ministry updates" that read like shareholder reports. They blast the same generic message to everyone—donors, volunteers, the guy who signed up three years ago and hasn't opened an email since.

And then they wonder why their open rate is 11% and nobody's clicking.

Here's the truth: email is a relationship tool, not a megaphone.

The orgs crushing it write like humans. They segment their lists. They give value before they ask. They treat subscribers like people, not line items in a CRM.

And they see results social media will never deliver.

What Lush did (and what you can do).

When Lush left social media, they didn't just ghost their audience. They replaced rented platforms with owned assets.

Here's their playbook:

1. They built their email list aggressively. Today, they have over 6 million subscribers who opted in because they wanted product updates, exclusive offers, and content from Lush.

2. They created an app that rewarded loyalty. 1.75 million people downloaded it. They offer early access to products, rewards points, and hyper-local notifications from the shop nearest to them. It's like social media, but they control it.

3. They doubled down on word-of-mouth marketing. Lush runs an affiliate program that rewards customers who talk about their products—even on platforms Lush no longer uses. They let their audience be their marketing team.

4. They reviewed their strategy regularly. Every quarter, they assess which platforms still align with their values. If something changes, they're ready to pull out.

How you can apply this tomorrow.

You don't have to leave social media to take control of your audience. But you do need to stop treating social as your primary platform.

Here's how to start building an audience you actually own:

✅ Treat your email list like your most valuable asset. Because it is. Every piece of content you create should have one goal: get people onto your email list. Once they're there, you control the relationship.

✅ Offer something worth subscribing for. A weekly encouragement email isn't enough. Give people a lead magnet—a free resource, a short email course, a toolkit—that solves a real problem. Make opting in feel like a no-brainer.

✅ Write emails people actually want to read. No one wants another corporate announcement. Write like you're talking to one person. Be personal. Be helpful. Be human.

✅ Segment your list so you can speak to specific needs. Not everyone on your list wants the same thing. Donors, volunteers, and first-time visitors all need different messages. Segment your list and send relevant content.

✅ Track what works and optimize. Open rates, click-through rates, conversions—these numbers tell you what's working. If something isn't resonating, change it. Email marketing is a conversation, not a broadcast.

The bottom line: Own your audience, or rent it forever.

Lush's move wasn't radical.

They just saw what most brands are too scared to admit: Zuck will always prioritize his bottom line over yours.

Algorithms change on a Tuesday because some VP in Menlo Park wanted to "boost engagement." Features you built your entire strategy around could be gone in an update. Accounts get nuked for reasons you'll never understand. Organic reach drops from 30% to 3% overnight.

And when that happens, you're stuck refreshing your analytics like it's a slot machine.

But your email list is yours.

No one can throttle your reach because they're having a bad quarter. No one can shadowban you for using the wrong hashtag. No billionaire can decide your content "doesn't align with community standards" and delete six years of work before breakfast.

If you're a Christian founder, executive, or organizational leader, here's the question: Are you building a house, or are you renting a room in someone else's hotel?

Because 30 years from now, email will still be here.

Can't say the same for whatever Elon's calling Twitter this week.

~

Keep building what matters,

— Payton

P.S. Did you see companies are desperately seeking storytellers?

Want to do this on your own?
Grab the 5 content pillars we use to write fresh emails for the smartest companies.

Want the VeryGoodGhost team to do it for you?
We help Christian leaders build email strategies that convert. Visit verygoodghost.com to learn more.

Safe marketing is a slow death.

Anthropic ran “safe” ads for two years: brimming with safe jargon & zero emotion. Professional copy that some agency got paid $200K to write and everyone in the boardroom was spineless and nodded right along.

🤢

Then they changed everything in September 2025. Here’s is what they did and how it can help your marketing stop sucking.

Move 1: They took a 180 from competition.

What they did: AI models primarily focus on the advancement of their tech. Anthropic responded with their “Keep Thinking” campaign keeping the client in the equation.

If everyone in your space uses sleek minimalism, go raw and personal. If your competitors lead with features, lead with a human limitation.

The opposite gets attention. Safe gets ignored.

Move 2: They made it physical

What they did: Created hats and launched in pop up coffee shops. Something people wear, touch, taste, and stood in line for.

Why it works: Digital gets scrolled past. Physical sits on the edge of your couch. A hat = 100+ impressions per week walking through an airport.

Send handwritten notes to new client. Mail a $5 book that changed your life. Create a simple one-page tool they can print and use

Move 3: They made people > product

What they did: Shifted the spotlight. Made the customer the hero, not the AI.

❌ “Our model sounds human” ✅ “Keep thinking and create better than AI-slop”

Here’s the fix: Open your website right now. Read your homepage headline out loud. Does it sound like everyone else? If yes, rewrite it as the opposite. If you’re primarily digital, where could you add a physical feature?

As promised, faithful marketing that honors God and helps people.

Want help making your content bold while still honoring the people you serve?

We give founders a turnkey process that delivers scary good results without adding to their calendars.

Don’t die slowly,—Payton

PS - Call your mom today

Hey there!

You don’t need to invent a content system from scratch—you need to steal one that already works.

Most Christian creators waste months trying to figure out what to post, when to post, and how to stay consistent. They sit at the blank screen. They second-guess every word. They compare their three followers to someone else’s three thousand and feel like quitting.

Meanwhile, someone in your niche is already winning. They’ve cracked the code. They post consistently, their audience engages, and their content drives real results: new clients, speaking gigs, product launches, kingdom impact.

The difference from them to you is they have a system.

You do not.

So today, I’m going to show you exactly how to pick one creator, map their content system, and adapt it to your voice and mission.

Let’s break it down.

Step 1: Pick one creator who’s already winning in your niche.

Don’t overthink this. You already know who they are.

They’re the person whose posts make you think, “I wish I could write like that.” The one who shows up consistently, gets comments, and somehow makes it look easy. Maybe they’re a faith-based entrepreneur, a ministry leader, or a Christian content creator who’s 1-2 steps ahead of you.

Here’s what to look for:

• Their audience matches yours. If you want to reach Christian entrepreneurs, find someone reaching Christian entrepreneurs.

• They post regularly and people engage. Look for comments, shares, saves, not just vanity metrics.

• They’re still building. Don’t pick the biggest name with a million followers. Pick someone who’s actively growing and figuring it out.

Once you’ve picked them, follow them on their primary platform. It could be LinkedIn, Instagram, email, YouTube, wherever they’re most active.

Then commit to studying them for 7 days.

Step 2: Map their content system over one week.

This is where most people stop. They follow someone, scroll past their posts, and never actually study the pattern.

You’re going to do the opposite.

For the next 7 days, track these 5 things every time they post:

• What did they post? (the topic or theme)

• What format? (story, how-to, list, case study, encouragement)

• What’s the core message? (one sentence summary)

• How does their audience respond? (engagement in the comments)

• What CTA do they use? (do they ask a question, invite a conversation, link to something?)

Write it down. Screenshot their best posts. Save them in a folder.

By day 7, you’ll start to see the pattern. Maybe they post personal stories on Monday, tactical how-to’s on Wednesday, and encouragement on Friday. Maybe they always open with a question. Maybe they rotate between 2-3 content pillars.

That’s the system.

Step 3: Decode why their system works.

Now you’re going to reverse engineer the psychology behind their content.

What makes their posts easy to consume? Look at the structure—short paragraphs, punchy sentences, white space. Notice how they break up text so you never hit a wall of words.

Identify the emotional hook. Do they lead with pain (”Here’s the mistake I made”), hope (”Here’s what’s possible”), curiosity (”You won’t believe what happened”), or challenge (”Most people get this wrong”)?

Notice their voice. Are they a coach pushing you forward? A mentor walking beside you? A fellow struggler admitting they’re figuring it out too?

And here’s the most important part, spot the mission thread. How do they tie every post back to their bigger purpose? Every great creator has a North Star, and they point to it constantly.

Write one sentence summarizing their system. For example: “They post daily vulnerability + one actionable step, always pointing back to faith-driven entrepreneurship.”

That sentence is your blueprint.

Step 4: Adapt their system to your voice and mission this week.

Here’s where most people freeze. They think, “If I use their structure, I’m just copying them.”

No. You’re not copying—you’re learning from what works and making it your own.

Pick 2-3 content types from their system that fit your strengths. If they tell great stories and you love stories, start there. If they break down tactical steps and you’re wired for teaching, lean into that.

Set a posting schedule based on what you observed. If they post 3x/week, start with 2x/week. If they post daily, start with 3x/week. Don’t try to match their pace right away.

The goal is to just start moving.

Then write your first 3 posts using their structure but your stories, your lessons, your mission.

Keep their framework: hook + lesson + CTA. But make the message 100% yours. Your ministry journey. Your business wins and losses. Your faith convictions. Your voice.

And post them this week. Don’t wait for perfect. Just start.

So here’s your challenge: Pick one creator today. Study them for 7 days. Map their system. Decode why it works. Then adapt it and post your first 3 pieces this week.

Stop waiting for inspiration. Start reverse engineering what already works.

Write on 🤙Payton

Clutter is the disease of digital writing.

We are a people addicted to unnecessary words. We toss in meaningless jargon and pompous frills to our writing because we think it makes us sound smart.

You can hear it in corporate memos, bank statements, and “simplified” user guides that somehow require a PhD in frustration. Who actually reads all the terms and conditions? Or better yet, when did LEGO manuals become bigger than heavy machinery?

We inflate our words because we think important sounds complicated.

That’s why an airline pilot says he’s “presently anticipating considerable precipitation in the foreseeable forecast” when he could say, “It may rain.”

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest form.

Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be short, every adverb that repeats what the verb already says—these are the silent killers of clarity. A sentence should carry no more weight than it must.

Here is the easiest equation for clutter-free writing:

Clear Thinking = Clear Writing

Freedom from clutter begins in the mind.

You can’t write clearly if you don’t think clearly. You might bluff your way through a paragraph or two, but eventually the reader gets lost.

And there is nothing worse for a writer than a lost reader.

Today’s reader lives in a mess of the mind. Their attention is sliced into fragments by emails, podcasts, social media, news alerts, fitness apps, sleep apps, dieting apps, and the endless scroll of notifications.

Their 30-second short attention span doesn’t mean they’re lazy or bored—it means they’re overwhelmed.

When readers get lost, it’s usually because the writer wasn’t careful enough.

Carelessness shows up in many ways:

• Sentences so cluttered they collapse under their own weight

• Paragraphs that meander with no clear point

• Pronouns or tenses that shift mid-stream

• Ideas that follow no logical sequence

• Words used incorrectly because the writer didn’t bother to look them up

At first, readers might blame themselves. Maybe they missed something.

But that grace doesn’t last. When writing makes people work too hard, they’ll move on to someone who is better at the craft.

Meaning every writer should ask two questions again and again:

1. What am I trying to say?

2. Have I explained it clearly to someone who doesn’t know the subject as well as I do?

If the answer to the second question is anything less than “absolutely, yes,” then what you’re seeing is what William Zinsser calls fuzz.

Clear writing comes from clear-headedness. And clear-headedness is naturally given to people. It’s a discipline.

Most people think good writing “just happens.” They imagine it as something you can dabble in on weekends and get paid handsomely for if you’re lucky.

But good writing is work. Hard, deliberate work.

The clear sentence is no accident; it’s the result of cutting, rethinking, and rewriting. Very few sentences are right the first time.

So the next time you find yourself discouraged.Remember it’s because writing is hard.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• One of the CSL subs shared a podcast called Holy Ghost Stories. A brilliant encyclopedia of stories (Holy Ghost Stories)

• 21 resources that have helped me with writing and story. Maybe they will help you too (World Builders)

📧 Email

• Greg Isenberg’s lead magnet strategy is GENIUS and you’re likely sleeping on it (LinkedIn)

• It’s now EASY to grow your email list with this new platform (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• Reddit is winning the AI game (CJR)

• 95% of sellers do not understand this marketing concept (LinkedIn)

• Kevin from The Office, first day as CFO, live-streamed from NYC (LinkedIn)

👀 ICYMI

• People didn’t hold back in torturing me….okay I did this to myself (LinkedIn)

• Why some brands make it and yours likely won’t (Christian Story Lab)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. You didn’t start your business to become a full-time digital babysitter. If you’re still cranking out your own emails, it’s time to hand that off. My team can ghost your content so you can get back to growing 👻 VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency

We live in a world where our minds are bombarded.

Ads scroll past our eyes. Your email has 1,472 “urgent” messages. Your shelf is a graveyard of unread books. The human mind has become a saturated sponge dripping with excess.

Struggling to absorb one more drop.

It’s like a computer with a limited number of slots. But there’s one important difference: a computer has to accept what you put into it.

The mind doesn’t. It rejects information that doesn’t compute.

You can take two abstract paintings, write Schwartz under one and Picasso under the other, and ask for opinions. Most people will see genius in the one labeled Picasso, not because of the art itself, but because of the frame around it.

Or take two people >one Apple user, one Android user< and ask which phone is better. You already know how that conversation ends. They will die on their hill.

The mind isn’t easy to change.It bends the world to fit what it already believes.

There was once a blind taste test between two champagnes. One was a premium French brand, the other a cheaper California bottle. When the labels were visible, the French bottle “tasted better.” Removed, the cheaper one often ranked higher.

People didn’t taste the champagne.They tasted the story they’d already bought.

Try the same with Starbucks and Wawa coffee. You’ll watch someone swear they can “taste the roast notes of caramel” in what’s reheated gas station water.

The mind not only rejects what doesn’t align with its past experiences, but it’s also limited in how much it can hold. In our over-communicated world, the human brain is an inadequate container.

The average mind can only juggle about seven things at once.

• seven digits in a phone number

• seven wonders of the world

• seven days of the week

• seven deadly sins

• seven dwarves

Ask someone to list soda brands, and most will name seven. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, maybe Dr. Pepper if they’re from Texas. Ask for the Ten Commandments, and even Bible Belt folks start to sweat around number six.

If our mental storage can barely hold that, how do we expect anyone to remember every brand, book, and idea we throw at them?

We cope by ranking.

Imagine a set of ladders inside the mind. Each ladder represents a category—

• One for sneakers — Nike, Adidas, New Balance.

• One for streaming — Netflix, Disney+, Hulu.

• One for fast food — Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, McDonald’s.

• One for churches — Hillsong, Elevation, your grandma’s pew-lined hometown church.

The mind doesn’t store every brand. It only remembers the top rungs, the few it already knows and trusts.

So when a new brand, idea, or message tries to climb that ladder, it faces two impossible options:

1️⃣ Dislodge what’s already there (rare).2️⃣ Relate to what’s already known (the only real option).

But most marketers >and even most writers< ignore that. They talk as if no ladders exist. They speak into a mental black hole and wonder why no one remembers.

If you want to enter someone’s mind, you have to find an open rung. And if your idea belongs to an entirely new category, you’ll have to bring your own ladder that connects to what’s already there.

That’s why new ideas are often introduced by what they’re not.

The first automobile — A horseless carriage.Unleaded gasoline — Lead-free.Diet Coke — Sugar-free.Airbnb — A hotel with no buildings.Uber — A taxi with no cars.Tesla — A car with no gas.

Each used the familiar to explain the new.

So here’s the question:👉 What’s your sugar-free?

What book, product, service, or idea are you introducing that’s similar but different from what already exists?

Because until your audience knows what it’s not, they’ll never understand what it is.

That’s how you position your story and make it stick.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• Brandon Sanderson explains why he will finish writing the Ghostbloods trilogy before releasing the first book (YouTube)

📧 Email

• There’s no audience for “average” content. Media is a winner-take-most game (Newsletter Operator)

• Copy this email exactly and send it to anybody who hasn’t bought from your brand before (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• Ryan Deiss: 10 marketing rules that never stopped working (YouTube)

• Did the White House take it too far in their marketing (LinkedIn)

👀 ICYMI

• Failure is not something you fix. Failure is something you face (Christian Story Lab)

• The top 1% play a radically different game (LinkedIn)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. You didn’t start your business to become a full-time digital babysitter. If you’re still cranking out your own emails, it’s time to hand that off. My team can ghost your content so you can get back to growing 👻 VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency

Failure is like spoiled milk.

You can sniff it, wrinkle your nose, and still shove it back in the fridge hoping someone else will deal with it. But the longer it sits, the worse it gets.

That’s how most companies treat failure. They “reorganize.” They shift roles, rename divisions, slap a fresh coat of paint on a sinking ship. But paint can’t fix rot.

The law of failure says: Failure is not something you fix. Failure is something you face.

IBM should’ve dropped copiers. Xerox should’ve abandoned computers. American Motors should’ve walked away from passenger cars and doubled down on Jeep. Every year they delayed was like leaving that spoiled milk carton right where it was.

The Japanese have a cultural distinction we’d do well to steal. It’s one thing to say we were wrong. That spreads the guilt like butter on toast—everyone gets a thin layer, but no one actually tastes it. It’s another thing entirely to say I was wrong.

That’s the kind of egoless confession that makes companies (and people) stronger.

Sam Walton understood this at Walmart. His motto wasn’t “ready, aim, fire.” It was “ready, fire, aim.” Translation: try it, miss, learn, and adjust. Nobody lost their job for an experiment that failed. They only lost their job if they made the same mistake twice.

But here’s the rub: most executive status leaders don’t think that way.

They don’t ask, “What’s best for the company?” They ask, “What keeps my career intact? Stakeholders happy? Money flowing?” Bold moves get neutered by fear. Whole product lines get dragged along, zombie-style, because killing them would bruise an executive’s résumé.

Nobody ever gets fired for the bold move they didn’t make.

Innovation often dies at the altar of self-preservation.

Contrast that with 3M. Art Fry, the scientist behind Post-it Notes, spent a dozen years developing and refining the idea. Not because it was easy, but because 3M gave it room to fail and rise again. The result became known as the billion-dollar accident.

For Christian writers and marketers, here’s the pivot: Failure is never final unless pride makes it so.

Scripture says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Sometimes the truth you need to face is simply:

• This campaign didn’t work.

• This post isn’t connecting.

• This offer fell flat.

Cool, that’s the beginning. The only true failure is choosing to quit.

Don’t put spoiled milk back in the fridge. Freedom in business, in writing, in faith always begins with confession.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

📧 Email

• LinkedIn newsletters are dead. You should do this instead (LinkedIn)

• Number 3 is the silent killer that most companies are not utilizing in their email (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• 10 timeless marketing tactics that ALWAYS work (Newsletter Operator)

• Inside NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Set - BTS vids always get attention (YouTube)

👀 ICYMI

• This shoe is worn by supermodels in London and dads in Ohio (LinkedIn)

• Good things come to those who sacrifice (Christian Story Lab)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. You didn’t start your business to become a full-time digital babysitter. If you’re still cranking out your own emails, it’s time to hand that off. My team can ghost your content so you can get back to growing 👻 VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency

I took my family to a new pizza place the other day.

It looks decent enough on the outside—clean setup, big sign, bright colors, and a line of fresh toppings waiting to be used. One of those “build-your-own” spots where your pizza flies through a blazing oven and comes out ready to devour.

Then I looked at the menu.

Along with pizza, they were also serving sandwiches, wraps, salads, hot dogs…and I’m pretty sure I saw a burger shoved into the corner.

The second I saw it, I knew this place was dead. I give them two months.

Because that’s what happens when you ignore the law of sacrifice. The more you pile on, the faster you sink. Customers can’t figure out who you are. Employees can’t figure out what to prioritize. And before long, the predictable happens—your money bleeds out, and the last thing you buy is the paper to print off “closed for good” signs you slap on the windows.

The law says if you want to win, you give something up. 

You can’t keep adding. You can’t keep expanding your menu of offers. You’ve got to make it sharper, narrower, more obvious.

• FedEx isn’t “the shipping company.” They’re the overnight company.

• Domino’s isn’t “the food delivery company.” They’re the pizza place.

• In-N-Out isn’t the drive-thru that does everything. They’re burgers, fries, and shakes. Period. That’s it. And that’s why they win.

Part 1 of the law is what you offer, and Part 2 is who you offer it to.

Coca-Cola dominated the 50s. Pepsi could have tried to be the New Coke and died. Instead, they made a hard call and sacrificed everything but one group—teenagers. Out of that came “The Pepsi Generation,” and in a single generation, Coke lost their untouchable lead.

And when the law of sacrifice is challenged, you witness some of the largest fallouts in marketing history.

Budweiser lost sight of the law of sacrifice a couple of years ago. Jaguar lost sight of the law of sacrifice last year. Cracker Barrel lost sight of the law of sacrifice last week. Every one of them forgot who they were selling to. They started trying to play the “every person” game, and in doing so, they lost their people.

That’s the thing about marketing: you’re not trying to sell to everybody. You’re trying to sell to your people. And the moment you start reaching for the crowd instead of your core, you’re building your house on sand.

And then there’s the third sacrifice. The one most founders absolutely hate. Part 3 is that you have to give up your freedom to constantly change.

If you try to follow every twist and turn of the market, you’re bound to wind up off the road. One quarter you’re chasing this trend. The next quarter you’re pivoting again. New positioning, new “must-have” feature, new product line. It looks like innovation, but most of the time it’s just panic.

The best brands don’t flinch. They don’t chase shiny things. They hold their ground. White Castle has been selling the same tiny frozen sliders for sixty years. No rebrand. No “limited-time sushi roll.” Just sliders in a crinkled white bag. And while countless “innovators” have come and gone, they’re still standing.

That doesn’t mean you never innovate. It means you innovate with conviction, not insecurity. Steve Jobs said it best: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

That’s the counterweight to chasing feedback. True innovation isn’t just asking customers what they want and handing it to them. It’s looking forward and seeing the problem before it’s fully formed. Creating something that exceeds expectations and solves pain points people don’t even have the language for yet.

That’s vision.

And whenever you find that balance—consistency without panic, innovation without flailing—that’s when your company, your book, your platform actually wins.

Growth doesn’t come from piling on more. It comes from knowing what you’re not. From having the discipline to say no—even when you could say yes.

Good things come to those who sacrifice.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• The perfect story told in 10 seconds (and what makes it great) (LinkedIn)

• 6 StoryBrand secrets for non-profits (LinkedIn)

📧 Email

• 7 mistakes most companies are making in their email marketing (LinkedIn)

• A simple email engine can run a 7-figure coaching program (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• A visual lesson on what branding looks like (LinkedIn)

• A shoes worn by supermodels in London and dads in Ohio (LinkedIn)

👀 ICYMI

• The Fourteenth Rule in writing and how you should use it (Christian Story Lab)

• The confidence I need in life (LinkedIn)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If you built something, but are now wearing every hat and still writing your own emails—that’s called digital babysitting. Let my team ghost your content so you can keep building your business —> VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency

“You’re fired.”

My friend heard the words through the computer speaker. He was in a Zoom call and never felt more alone. But where most people would panic, Noah felt peace.

Odd.

But Noah wasn’t clinging to a job.

Today’s Lab is different. You’re not hearing from a theologian or a copywriter or me riffing on story frameworks. You’re hearing from a guy who’s been in the trenches of entrepreneurship, scaled businesses, tasted success, and then had it all pulled out from under him.

I met Noah on LinkedIn (as every modern friendship now begins). When he told me his story, I couldn’t shake it. It’s not just about losing a job; it’s about losing the wrong thing to find the right thing.

And that’s precisely why I wanted you to hear from him.

Back to Noah.

~

Why, you may be wondering, did being fired give me so much peace?

Well, first let me take you back…

I grew up in what most would call the ideal ‘Christian family.’ Dad’s side was full of ministers; Mum’s side, missionaries. My entire life, I figured I’d follow that same path into vocational ministry.

That was the success metric. That was the plan.

But somewhere along the way, God started revealing something different.

In high school, I created and flipped Instagram theme pages. I started my own photography business. I dove into copywriting. I devoured business book after business book.

Deep down, I knew there was an entrepreneur inside me who was going to make something happen one day.

So I did what you do when you really want to learn: I apprenticed under people who’d already done it.

I joined different businesses. Trained under leaders who were thriving. I worked hard and progressed quickly. Eventually, I became one of the senior leaders in a small business.

Then I decided to move to a new city and landed a role at a marketing agency in London. Things were going great. We got acquired by a bigger business, and I thought, “Okay, this is cool. Let’s see where this goes.”

But here’s the thing about acquisitions: sometimes the numbers don’t add up the way they should.

It turns out my boss had overpromised. The new company didn’t have the resources they thought they did. A month or two after the acquisition, the executives decided to give half the team the axe.

Including me.

And do you know what I felt? Excited.

Over the previous few months, I’d been doing a little bit of my own side business here and there—picking up a few clients, testing the waters. It had been going okay, but nothing serious.

But getting fired forced a crossroads: get a new job or go ALL IN.

Remember, my entire family background is ministry and missionary work. Business language wasn’t something they understood. The concept of stepping out on your own felt foreign and risky to them.

I had a wedding on the way, not much savings, and no certainty of any clients. But after praying about it, I knew this moment was a gift.

This meant instead of squeezing my business dreams into evenings and weekends, I could step fully into God’s plan for my life. I could build my own business the way He intended.

Walking in alignment with God’s calling doesn’t make things easy, but it does mean He’s with you in it.

Let me be honest with you: it didn’t come without adversity.

Those first few weeks were brutal—failed pitches, family urging me to get a job. Doubts about whether I could provide as a future husband. Constant questions about whether I’d really heard from God.

Fast forward just one month, and here’s where I am now: seven clients, nearly back to my previous financial position, and more freedom than I’ve ever had.

I get to spend quality time with my fiancée. I’m on the leadership team of a local church plant. And I have the deepest fulfillment helping Christian men transform their lives through coaching.

Amidst the ups and downs, I realised something important: you’re going to experience pain either way.

There’s the pain of staying where you are—feeling unfulfilled, knowing you’re not walking in your calling, wondering “what if” for the rest of your life.

And there’s the pain of change—the uncertainty, the financial stress, the people who don’t understand your vision.

Either way, there’s pain. I’d rather choose the pain that comes with growth, with alignment, with stepping into what God has for me.

This message isn’t meant to make you think entrepreneurship is easy. It’s not.

It requires a step of faith. It requires trusting that God’s timing is perfect, even when it feels terrifying. It requires believing that His plan is better than your backup plan.

But here’s what I want you to understand: when God calls you to something, He doesn’t leave you to figure it out alone.

Every client that came my way after that initial doubt? That was God providing.

Every skill I’d developed over the years—the Instagram pages, the photography, the copywriting, the business knowledge—God was preparing me for this moment.

Even getting fired was part of His plan. Without that push, I might have stayed comfortable in my corporate role forever, never fully stepping into what He had for me.

There have been a few hurdles, but I can already see how God’s hand has been in every single step of this journey.

• The family that didn’t understand business? They’re starting to see the vision now.

• The financial uncertainty? God’s been faithful to provide.

• The fear of failure? It’s been replaced with excitement about what He’s building through me.

If you’re reading this and feeling that tug in your heart—that sense that God is calling you to something bigger, something scarier, something that requires more faith than you feel you have—I want to encourage you.

You can really do this.

You just have to believe.

Trust God’s timing, even when it doesn’t make sense. Trust His provision, even when you can’t see the full picture.

Because when you step out in faith, when you align yourself with His calling on your life, that’s when the real adventure begins.

That’s when you discover what He’s been preparing you for all along.

If you want to connect and talk about stepping out in faith in your own journey, I’m here to help. Because we’re all in this together, walking out God’s incredible plan for our lives.

Thirteen gets a bad rap. Nobody’s really sure why.

All sorts of explanations are offered like the thirteen people at the Last Supper or the thirteen steps to the gallows. Or maybe it was just a lazy screenwriter who stuck the number in a horror flick and cursed it for eternity.

But be honest: don’t you feel something when you hear it? Thirteen. You can almost see the shadow stretch across the table.

That’s the strange magnetism of numbers. They don’t just count things. They carry things.

Seven feels holy. Forty feels trialing. Three feels complete, whole, right.

(Unless you’re in China, then it’s eight. Unless you’re Vegas, then it’s double sevens. Unless you’re Tolkien, then it’s the nine riders of death.)

Our stories are stitched with numbers:

• Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.

• Three blind mice, squeaking into history.

• Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest because sixteen would’ve ruined the rhythm.

Even Disney knew better than to go with a clean hundred Dalmatians. They gave us 101. Lopsided and balanced.

And then there’s Coleridge’s albatross, tailing the ship for precisely nine days. Not ten. Not eight. Nine. Only to be followed exactly nine fathoms deep.

Which brings me to the so-called “Fourteenth Rule.”

There isn’t one. That’s the point. Twelve feels right. Thirteen feels dangerous. But fourteen is the extra chair no one wanted to set at the dinner table. Too round. Too tidy. Too forgettable.

And that is why numbers matter in your writing.

• They hook. Nobody clicks on “Tips on writing,” But “22 Rules for Life” will get a click, click, click.

• They deepen. “A spirit sank nine fathoms” is poetry. “Pretty deep” is not.

• They enchant. “101 Dalmatians” makes you smile. “A bunch of spotted dogs” makes you yawn.

God Himself traffics in numbers. He wove three Persons into the Godhead, spun seven days into creation, wrapped His people into twelve tribes. Why three, seven, twelve? We don’t know. But we feel their pull.

That’s the 14th rule: numbers make no sense and yet, they make all the sense in the world.

Not because numbers are kooky. Because humans are.

There are at least 273 other examples, but I think the point is clear. Why use words for what could be said through numbers?

Use the Fourteenth Rule in your writing.

Did this earn a share to a friend?

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• The guy who left working at Disney for his faith and what he does now (YouTube)

• My buddy Ed Oyama is killing it with videos on LinkedIn, and it’s because his storytelling is SPOT ON (LinkedIn)

📧 Email

• This is one of the most *underrated* types of lead magnets (LinkedIn)

• People who say “email is dead” don’t understand marketing in 2025 (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• Influencer-created products are taking a sharp downturn (LinkedIn)

• Is KPop Demon Hunters a Christian movie? (YouTube)

👀 ICYMI

• Million-dollar branding can cost .42 cents and still hit (LinkedIn)

• I shared my personal idea database (The Lab Notes)

• How to instantly make your writing less boring (Christain Story Lab)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If you built something, but are now wearing every hat and still writing your own emails—that’s digital babysitting. Let me ghost your content so you can keep building your business —> VeryGoodGhost(writing) Agency

I’m not a bad friend because I gossip or betray.

I’m a bad friend because I don’t say what matters.

My failure is elusive and quiet.

I often struggle to tell people I love them.

Above is my best friend.

He asked me to officiate his wedding—one of the greatest honors I’ve ever had. And when I think about him, a flood of details comes to mind:

The way he listens—never cutting in, never rushing—just head tilted, eyes narrowed, as if my words are the only ones in the world. He can walk into a room of strangers and walk out with ten new friends, no effort at all. In the pandemic, when everything felt fragile, we crowded into my living room. We played Nintendo. We worshipped. We told stories people usually bury. Half his jokes fall flat. But I laugh anyway. He cries when he talks about injustice, real tears, but then he starts asking how to fix it, how to hold the broken pieces together. He geeks out over Star Wars, yet that same nerdy passion turns into this precise, methodical way of solving problems at work. And when he’s angry, he doesn’t shut down, he doesn’t explode. He talks. He reasons. He refuses to let bitterness linger. He’s humble. He’s intense. He’s overflowing with love. He is, in every sense of the word, extraordinary.

He’s the kind of friend most people spend a lifetime searching for.

And I’ve never told him.

I didn’t tell him at the wedding.

…or when we hugged afterward.

…or a year later when he called me in tears.

I still haven’t told him.

I try to be clever. I circle the words, like a dog pawing at the door but never stepping outside. And in the end, I miss it. The rare, holy chance to just open my mouth and say the thing that matters

Expert copywriter Ben Settle once said, “If you’re saying something someone really needs to hear, it doesn’t matter how you say it. Just saying it makes it exciting.”

The simple words said often move people the deepest.

—Payton

P.S. I’m still learning this myself. At VeryGoodGhost, it’s what we help Christian founders and executives do—strip away the fluff and say what matters most.

Your writing is too serious.

It’s polished. Sounds smart. Airtight.

And invisible.

It’s because when the brain guards credibility, it stops exploring. And no exploration → no surprise.

And surprise is what makes people stop, share, and buy.

Fix: carve out a sandbox for deeply unserious writing.

Five real world proofs that unserious wins.

#1

Cannibalistic Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Cinnamon Toast Crunch once ran an ad where the cereal pieces literally ate each other.

We’re talking breakfast cannibalism. At 8 a.m. With kids watching. And it worked.

Opportunity: If your thing has gone invisible from overexposure, stop polishing it. Make it weird. Surprise jolts people awake to something they thought they already knew.

My take: Cinnamon Toast Crunch didn’t change the cereal. They changed the frame. They made you look again. That’s the real power of unserious—it forces fresh attention on what everyone assumes they already understand.

#2

The Pop-Tarts Bowl Game

At a college bowl game, a two-story toaster rolled onto the field. A giant Pop-Tart mascot popped out of the top. Everyone cheered. And then they ate him.

Opportunity: Big stages magnify everything. Safe gets forgotten.

My take: If you’ve got the spotlight, give people something worth replaying in their group chat. My favorite Super Bowl ad of all time had no strong branding upfront, but within seconds, everyone knew what they were watching and couldn’t wait for the payoff.

#3

Human-Sized Mascots (Duolingo, Cluey, others)

Duolingo’s giant green owl became a TikTok menace—dancing, staring blankly, and waddling into awkward moments. It was so cringe, it looped back around to charming.

Now SaaS companies like Cluey are trying the same thing. Human-sized costumes, awkward videos, goofy content. (honestly, these all freak me out a bit)

Opportunity: People crave tangible. If you can take something digital and make it feel physical, you instantly close the gap between abstract and relatable. Whether it’s a mascot, a physical workbook, or a giveaway tied to your story, your job is to build the bridge.

My take: But…this lane is getting crowded. If everyone else is rolling out mascots, don’t just slap a costume on your logo. Look for the side-step.

#4

The Guy Who Runs Marathons in Jeans

I don’t run marathons. I don’t follow people who run marathons.

Unless their name is Truett Hanes, the guy who runs sub-three-hour marathons, in denim.

Why does it work? Because it’s his purple cow (Seth Godin’s phrase). Most marketing is just cows on the side of the road. You don’t even glance.

But a purple cow? You pull over, take pictures, tell your friends.

Opportunity: Your audience is numb to “better.” Faster. Smarter. Cheaper. Everyone claims it. What they’ll never forget is different. What’s your “running a marathon in jeans” move?

My take: Truett isn’t the fastest. But has more coverage, sponsors, and money than any of the other jokers in the race. That’s the payoff of being unserious—you win attention while everyone else blends in.

#5

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, knights ride into battle…galloping coconuts instead of horses.

It’s one of the most ridiculous settings on television. And it branded itself into pop culture for fifty years. People still quote it, meme it, and reference it.

Opportunity: Use the silly swap. Swap horses for coconuts. Swap jeans for running shorts. Swap polished corporate tone for childlike storytelling.

My take: People don’t remember “pretty good.” They remember coconuts.

Just don’t be yuck.

Not all unserious writing lands.

• Good Cringe = Playful, awkward, self-aware. (Duolingo’s owl waddling into TikToks. You know it’s dumb. They know it’s dumb. That’s the joke.)

• Yuck = Odd with no value. (Like this pesto ad being mailed around in Canada: a random couple kissing while asking people to fund their pesto dream with “her dead parents’ inheritance.”) Absolutely diabolical. Nobody asked for that level of detail. Nobody.

People forgive odd if it gives them something back.

✅ Odd + funny

✅ Odd + true

✅ Odd + useful

That’s why cringe works. But…

❌ Odd + nothing —> That’s just weird. And weird without value repels.

That’s the rule: odd only works if it gives something back. And it’s not just true in ads, it’s true in how I write.

Here’s where I practice my own version of deeply unserious writing:

💼 On LinkedIn — Everyone else is polishing their “thought leadership” until it squeaks. I’d rather post about TD Bank cutting literal holes in their signage so competitor logos could still show through. It’s odd, unserious, and a little sideways, but that’s exactly why people stop scrolling and pay attention.

🦖 With my kids — My boys never signed the adulthood contract that says, Thou shalt be boring. Their stories are unserious by default: ninjas who ride dinosaurs, pirates who argue about snack time. When I step into that world, I remember how freeing it is to not make sense all the way through.

🧪 Here in Christian Story Lab — This is my lab coat space. The room where I get to experiment, break things, remix ideas, and occasionally fail spectacularly. If LinkedIn is where I publish the odd stunts, and my kids are the improv partners feeding my imagination, then Christian Story Lab is the messy whiteboard where it all collides.

Final Takeaway: In a drawer full of sharpened pencils, be a crayon.

Different > Better.

Anyone can outdo you at “better.”Nobody can outdo you at “different.”

The gift of deeply unserious writing frees you to probe and surprise.

And if you want real-world examples of this in action, I keep an active swipe file called The Lab Notes—a vault of hooks, oddball marketing stunts, and story ideas I’ve been collecting. It’s the same playground I pull from when I write posts like this one.

👉 You can dig into it here: Lab Notes Swipe File

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• Answer 5 Simple Questions to Tell ANY Story (YouTube)

• YouTube storytelling at its finest. High School kid. Small budget. A group of friends. 8.7M views. (YouTube)

📧 Email

• Emails don’t have to be boring. Even ones about socks (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• Which oat milk would you grab first?…want to know why you chose that one? (LinkedIn)

• Ya’ll hear about the Hormozi takeover weekend? Of course you did. Here's a rational analysis of how Hormozi ACTUALLY makes money. (LinkedIn)

👀 ICYMI

• Why Tolkien hated Disney (Christian Story Lab)

• The fastest email SOP on LinkedIn (LinkedIn)

• I shared my personal idea database (The Lab Notes)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If there is a fellow writer, copywriter, marketer in your orbit who would benefit from these emails, here is a fancy button to click 👇

The year was 1937, and two works of fantasy, two radically different visions of fantasy, appeared just months apart.

The first opened, quite literally, in a hole in the ground, where there lived a hobbit. It was a children’s book from Oxford professor J.R.R. Tolkien, who had spent decades steeped in the myths, languages, and legends of Europe.

The second was a full-length animated film from a rising creative force named Walt Disney. It told the story of a singing young woman and her seven dwarven friends, and became the first commercially successful feature-length animated film in history: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Not long after Snow White debuted, Tolkien went to see it with his friend C.S. Lewis. (This is now one of my favorite mental images: two tweed-clad literary giants sitting in a darkened theater, watching a cartoon princess sing to woodland animals.)

But Tolkien was not charmed.

In a private letter that later became not-so-private, he called Disney Studios “hopelessly corrupted” and vowed never to let Disney’s hands anywhere near his hobbits or any of his other creations.

This was not just grumpiness or artistic snobbery. It was a symptom of a much deeper philosophical divide between Tolkien and Disney, a divide that still shapes how we tell stories today.

Today, we are dipping our toes into that tension to explore one question: Why did Tolkien hate Disney?

To understand Tolkien’s disgust with Disney, you have to see what fueled his own imagination.

Tolkien spent much of his career buried in ancient languages and early medieval texts. When you live that deep in Old English, Norse, and Finnish epics, you eventually start inventing languages of your own.

He was fantastical, yes, but not in a shallow, glitter-and-magic-wands sort of way. Tolkien believed that the old fairy tales preserved truths the modern world was too quick to discard.

For him, the magic of these stories had little to do with talking dragons or sweeping landscapes. The power was in how they wrestled with eternal realities like evil, suffering, sacrifice, and the nature of true heroism.

Myths, in Tolkien’s mind, were not a form of escapism. They were a compass for navigating the struggles of real life.

He believed all humans were “sub-creators,” made in the image of the Creator and designed to create in turn. And create he did—entire worlds populated with beauty and peril, crafted to show the evils that lie in the hero’s path.

While The Lord of the Rings ends in triumph, the victory is only earned through relentless suffering, loss, and sacrifice. Which helps explain why Tolkien reacted so sharply to Disney’s work. He did not see life as a string of cheerful songs leading to a happy ending. He saw the road to joy as passing first through the valley of death—a narrative arc Tolkien called ‘eucatastrophe,’ where joy crashes in only after real loss.

So, was Disney full of sugar, or was Tolkien full of disdain?

While Tolkien’s worlds were marked by darkness, evil, and hard-won triumph over death, he believed Disney had sanded away the jagged edges until only sweetness remained.

This likely came from what Tolkien knew of the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 version of Snow White. In that version, the young girl is hunted repeatedly by a murderous stepmother, bargains for protection with the dwarves, and watches as the evil queen is punished by being forced to dance to death in red-hot iron shoes.

A far cry from Disney’s adaptation.

** To be fair, early Disney wasn’t pure sugar. Snow White still has the terror of the forest. Pinocchio turns boys into donkeys. Bambi loses his mother. But compared to the Brothers Grimm, the darkness is curated, softened, and packaged for family audiences.

In terms of tone and substance, Disney was as different from Grimm as a roller coaster is from a rocking chair.

The dark edges of Snow White were replaced with singing birds, wide-eyed woodland creatures, and romance sealed with a kiss. Snow White is welcomed without suspicion, evil is defeated with minimal effort, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Tolkien believed that stripping a story of its darker elements severed it from its purpose. Without darkness, there could be no light, and without real trial, there could be no transformation.

In the Disneified world, suffering was optional. Redemption required no cost. Evil left no lasting scar.

So, should we write and wrestle with suffering, or keep our eyes locked forward to better days and times?

In many ways, Tolkien and Disney lived at opposite ends of the storytelling spectrum.

Disney looked to the future. He embraced new technology with open arms and filled his projects with visions of the world as it could be.

Tolkien romanticized the past. He warned against the creeping dangers of industrialization and poured his love of ancient and medieval history into every page.

It is no surprise that Tolkien harbored such resentment toward Disney’s approach. And yet, his critiques did nothing to slow Disney’s meteoric rise. Today, Snow White and The Lord of the Rings stand side by side as cultural landmarks, both shaping generations of imaginations.

🧪 Practical guardrails for your story

Face the darkDisney’s forest was scary, but Tolkien would have let you feel the hunter’s dagger on your neck. Do the same. Make the danger real enough to leave a scar. If your villain never wins, your hero’s win feels weightless. Let evil have teeth, trust shatter, and heroes betray.

Offer real redemptionIn The Return of the King, triumph costs Frodo a finger, peace in the Shire, and his friendships. Do the same. Let victories wound, friendships strain, and homecomings ache. If nothing is lost, nothing is truly won.

Honor memory and imaginationTolkien rooted his worlds in ancient myths. Disney built his in imagined futures. Great storytellers do both. Preserve the truths that anchor us while painting the worlds that could be. Let your work hold the past in one hand and possibility in the other.

Earned-joy auditRemove the last scene of celebration. Does the story still resolve meaningfully? If not, you leaned on confetti rather than change. Joy should feel like the natural outflow of endured struggle, not a quick fix for the sake of applause.

Price of grace ledgerList your story’s final victory. Then list what it cost each character. If anyone escapes untouched, ask why. Raise the price until the reader feels the weight of the win and believes it was worth what your characters paid.

👉 In the end, both are gifts, but incomplete on their own.

The sweet spot for Christian storytellers is honest enchantment: let darkness bite, let light sing, and make grace expensive.

Disney reminds you to delight. Tolkien reminds you to bleed. Do both, at proportions that match your audience and purpose.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• The five-step process for authentic writing that nobody teaches you (How I Write)

• 5 genius tricks for writing witty banter and funny dialogue, even if you’re as dry as a Saltine cracker (YouTube)

📧 Email

• A step-by-step guide breaking down exactly how to build & launch a high-converting newsletter landing page in 90 minutes (Funnel Breakdowns)

• How to write useful stuff even if you’re a bad writer —> written in 12 rules (Newsletter Operator)

💡 Marketing

• This Times Square ad looks like it was written in a drunk text thread, and it was brilliant (LinkedIn)

• Frida made breast milk-flavored ice cream. It’s a bad idea, but they are riding the publicity nonetheless (ABC News)

👀 ICYMI

• What 5 insane ads taught me about great marketing (Christian Story Lab)

• My most popular post featured Mickey vs. Gandalf in a magic brawl (LinkedIn)

• AOL is finally shutting down dial-up (The Verge)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If there a fellow writer, copywriter, marketer in your orbit who would benefit from these emails, here is a fancy button to click 👇

Some ads make you cry.

Some ads make you laugh.

Some ads make you wonder if the marketing team spent their budget on expired cough syrup and a dare.

…and then there are some ads so bizarre, so brilliantly unhinged, you can’t stop thinking about them.

This weekend, I spent 4+ hours researching marketing campaigns that broke every rule on purpose.

And emerged with 5 worth sharing.

These are precision-engineered masterclasses in breaking patterns, hijacking attention, and making your brand impossible to ignore.

If you’re a founder, creator, or writer, there’s a LOT you can steal here.

1. BurgerKing “Moldy Whopper”

It’s just a Whopper. Sitting there.

…for 34 days…

And they filmed the whole thing, time-lapse style, as it rotted.

I’m talking green fuzz, collapsing lettuce, bun turning into a science experiment. The kind of image that makes you physically lean back from your phone.

You can almost smell it 🤢

And then the headline drops: “The beauty of no artificial preservatives.”

Pure disgust is the genius.

Most fast food marketing is a lie. Burgers in commercials are painted, pinned, and Photoshopped within an inch of their lives.

Burger King said, “Yeah, ours gets gross. That’s called real food.”

~

🧪 How you can use this tomorrow:

• Lead with the unpolished. If you’re a coach, show the messy whiteboard, not the finished PDF.

• Flip your “weakness” into proof. (Guinness – “Good Things Come to Those Who Wait”)

• Go where no one else will. Show what’s least expected in your niche.

2. Staedtler Highlighter “Get to the point”

This is what happens when a company steps back and asks:

• What do we do?

• What do we do well?

• What do we do better than anyone else?

For Staedtler, the answer was simple: We highlight things.

In a magazine full of busy ads, you hit a nearly blank page, just a line of neon yellow pulling your eyes straight to the most important words.

That’s what highlighters do. They get to the point.

The brilliance here is in the simplicity. No long copy about ink quality, no bullet points about smudge resistance. Just the result of the product, doing its job right in front of you.

~

🧪 How you can use this tomorrow:

• Show, don’t tell. Show the result, not the process. A baker doesn’t need to explain the oven, just show the bread breaking open.

• Strip away everything but the core. If you could only show one thing about what you do, what would make people instantly understand?

• Make it universally clear. If your ad was dropped in front of someone halfway across the world, could they “get it” without reading a word?

3. Innocent “iNnocent”

The next is called borrowed equity—a marketing move where you tap into the trust, familiarity, and recognition of something people ALREADY know.

Everyone knows Apple Inc.

The clean white backgrounds. The minimal product shots. The impossibly precise typography. The “this product will change your life” confidence.

So Innocent—a fruit juice company—dropped an ad styled exactly like an Apple launch. Except instead of the iPhone 12, it’s a bottle of apple juice.

And a little detail I don’t want you to miss, the “under £539” button, which is the most hilarious part of the Ad.

~

🧪 How you can use this tomorrow:

• Borrow equity from a giant. Take a well-known brand, visual style, or cultural moment, and reframe it for your offer.

• Use the “It’s like X, but Y” formula. “It’s like Uber, but for dog walkers.” “It’s like Shark Tank, but for church projects.”

• Leverage the jolt. Make people think they know what’s coming, then deliver something totally different, but relevant to your product.

4. KFC “The Copycats”

What do you do when somebody copies your idea?

You sue them.

What do you do when you see hundreds of copycats?

You showcase it.

Everybody knows knock-offs.

Fake Rolexes in street markets. “Adibas” sneakers on Amazon. And if you’ve traveled, you’ve probably seen the KFC knock-offs—same red bucket, same three letters, same smiling “colonel” that looks suspiciously like your neighbor’s uncle.

But KFC didn’t send cease-and-desists.

They leaned in.

~

🧪 How you can use this tomorrow:

• Creators: Share the “copycat” ideas or formats people have swiped from you, and use them to reinforce your original.

• Brands: If competitors mimic your features or style, make it part of your story. (“Others try. We’ve perfected it.”)

• Principle: If someone else’s attempt can point back to you, let it. That’s borrowed credibility at zero cost.

5. Nike “Just do it”

I had to save the best for last.

Just three words.

Launched in 1988, “Just Do It” became so much more than about shoes.

It was about you.

Nike could’ve gone with something safe. Something broad like “Better Performance” or “Run Farther.”

Instead, they handed the world a personal dare. It wasn’t even aimed at athletes; it was aimed at the person sitting on the couch, thinking about doing something hard.

The genius is in its universality:

A kid nervous before their first piano recital?

Just do it.

A founder debating whether to launch?

Just do it.

A retiree lacing up sneakers for their first 5K?

Just do it.

The results —> Nike sales went from $877M to $9.2B in a decade. But more than revenue, they created a cultural mantra.

People tattoo it, hashtag it, live by it, even if they’ve never owned Nikes.

~

🧪 How you can use this tomorrow:

• Create a memorable phrase. Instead of describing your product, give your audience words they want to live by. (E.g., a writing coach: “Write Anyway.” A fitness app: “One More Rep.”)

• Make it bigger than your product. Your message should work even if someone removes your logo.

• Pair it with a visual cue. Think “swoosh-level” simplicity—a single image or icon people will connect to your brand instinctively.

Why This Matters for Christian Creators

I love studying campaigns like these because they prove creativity works best when it’s clever and practical.

The kind that takes tools, trends, and cultural moments, then bends them toward a message no one can ignore.

Good marketing. Bad marketing. Grotesque marketing. Beautiful marketing.

Whether we notice it or not, marketing is rewiring how we think, what we value, and what we do.

If the world is going to use that power to sell what’s hollow, we’d better get just as creative at using it to point people toward what’s whole.

Because the truth is, you can’t out-shout the noise.

You have to out-think it.

That’s why I geek out over moldy burgers, fake colonels, and juice brands pretending to be iPhones because they remind me that ideas don’t have to be loud to be heard. They have to be sharp.

So study the way the world wins attention. Reverse-engineer it.

Then aim it at the Kingdom like a laser.

MY BEST FINDS

I scoured the internet, and here are the best things I could find this week. If you find something worth sharing with the rest of the Lab, reply to this email!

🧙‍♂️ Story

• The science of surprise and how to make it work for you and your brain (Melissa Hughes)

• A simple framework to write better AI prompts. Just like storytelling, there is an art and science to it (LinkedIn)

📧 Email

• LinkedIn and Email growth hacks that are embarrassingly simple (YouTube).

• The 1k challenge: How to get your first 1,000 newsletter subscribers in 30 days (Newsletter Operator)

• 7 of the best lead magnet & newsletter landing pages (LinkedIn)

💡 Marketing

• I found other really cool marketing tricks online for you. (Here) (Here) & (Here)

• I found a newsletter that sends out a weekly marketing roundup. I haven’t seen it long enough to have a strong opinion, but I’ll still share (Because of Marketing)

👀 ICYMI

• 3 techniques you can swipe to 10x your writing immediately (Christian Story Lab)

• Christian Story Lab made a BIG shift to Substack this week, and I share all the deets on why I did it. (LinkedIn)

~

Keep writing what matters,

— Payton

P.S. If there a fellow writer, copywriter, marketer in your orbit who would benefit from these emails, here is a fancy button to click 👇