Red Threads is presented by:
AI Tools I Love: Wispr Flow
Don't type, just speak.
The voice-to-text AI that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app.
4x faster than typing, AI commands, and auto-edits.
After 150 years of using the same keyboard, voice that actually works is finally here.
When you create, code, and respond faster, you free up time for more.
Speak naturally at the speed you think and let Flow handle the rest.
Red Threads subscribers can try Wispr Flow FREE for 30days!
Just click the button below to get started.
Welcome to Red Threads
💌 Know someone who’d enjoy this email?
Forward it!
Was this forwarded to you? → Sign Up Free.
The Red Thread This Week:
"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." — Muriel Rukeyser
This is the final issue in our 5-week brand strategy series.
We’ve covered:
What a brand is (a shortcut and a promise)
Where trust compounds (The Brand Clock)
How to evaluate positioning (3 Hurdles)
Why an exceptional product is critical (End of average)
All of that builds toward one skill.
The skill that makes positioning stick.
That makes your Brand Clock work.
That turns your content into something people actually remember.
Storytelling.
Not as a buzzword or platitudes like "be more authentic."
Storytelling as a strategic skill.
The ability to look at your experience, find the pattern that matters, and make someone see their situation differently.
You might think you're in the software business,
or the music business,
or the coaching business,
or the education business,
or the lead generation business,
or the wealth management business…
And you are.
But if you're creating content to market your work — a newsletter,
posting on social,
running a podcast,
buying ads on Google or Meta,
You're also in the “telling stories to grow your business” business.
So the Red Thread this week…
In a world where AI can generate nearly all flavors of media — text, images, audio, video — your ability to be an effective storyteller might be the most powerful skill you have.
~ Jaime
🔑 The Unlock
Information vs. Story
Most operators creating content to grow their business are doing something that feels productive…but isn't building anything durable.
They're sharing information.
Tips
Frameworks
Lists
Industry observations
All useful. All competent. And now, all easily generated by AI.
Here's the distinction that matters:
Information answers a question.
A story changes how someone thinks about the question itself.
1️⃣ AI Can Write. It Can't Decide What Matters.
AI can produce a clean, well-structured post about leadership, or fitness, or financial planning.
It can summarize research, organize ideas, and mimic your tone.
But it can't do the part that matters.
It can't sit across from a founder who just lost their biggest customer and feel the tension in that conversation.
And know what story might help your unique insight land, to help them really move forward.
Storytelling isn't arranging words. It's judgment.
What to emphasize.
What to leave out.
What emotion to activate.
A management consultant can ask AI to write a post about organizational change and the output will probably be fine.
But it won't include the story about watching a leadership team realize they'd been solving the wrong problem for two years.
AI can't source that, because AI wasn't in the room.
For operators: If someone could replace your last piece of content with a ChatGPT prompt and get something 90% as good, you have an “unremarkable-information” problem.
The fix isn't more content.
It's better stories that could only come from your experience.
2️⃣ Stories Are How People Decide to Buy
A lot of operators think storytelling is for writers and creatives.
Something separate from the "business" side.
But storytelling is the business side.
People don't buy expertise.
They buy transformation.
And transformation is communicated through narrative, not bullet points.
A financial advisor doesn't grow her newsletter by listing tax strategies.
She grows it by telling the crazy story of the freelancer who owed $40,000 to the IRS because nobody explained estimated quarterly taxes.
Parents choosing a tutoring program don't just compare curricula.
They choose the program whose content tells stories about kids who went from hating math, to asking for extra problems to work on at home.
For operators: Your newsletter isn't valuable or meaningful because it has “tips.”
It's a narrative about who your reader becomes by working with you.
If your content could be written by anyone in your industry, it's not telling a story, it's just filing a report.
3️⃣ Stories Compound. Information Expires.
Information has a shelf life.
A post about "5 LinkedIn tips for 2026" is useful today and irrelevant in six months.
But a story about the moment you realized your content strategy was built on empty metrics like “follows” and “likes”, and what you changed in order to drive real business?
That's durable.
People bookmark it, forward it, return to it.
James Clear didn't build a massive audience by sharing productivity tips.
He built it by telling stories that reframed how people think about habits.
Years later, those stories still circulate.
For operators: If you're spending 10+ hours a week on content, the question isn't whether you should or should not sustain that pace.
It's whether what you're creating compounds or expires.
Information-heavy content puts you on a treadmill.
Story-driven content builds an asset.
That's the difference between “creating content” vs. building real content infrastructure to grow business.
💡 Mindset Shift
Build the Muscle
Storytelling isn't a talent you either have or don't.
It's a practice you can build intentionally with the right systems in place.
Notice what works
When a newsletter holds your attention or a podcast episode sticks with you, study the structure.
How did they open?
Where was the tension?
This is pattern recognition, the same skill you use in your business every day.
Capture raw material
The best stories come from real moments: client conversations, unexpected results, lessons from failure.
Build a habit of writing these down when they happen.
A running notes file on your phone is enough.
Operators who always seem to have great stories have a system for collecting.
Test before you polish
Before writing 1,000 words around a story, try it out loud.
Tell it to a friend or record a voice memo.
If you can't hold attention for 60 seconds, the story isn't ready for 1,000 words.
🎲 Prompt Playground
The Storytelling Audit
Use this to evaluate whether your content is telling stories or just sharing information, and to identify where your best untold stories live.
Prompt:
You are a storytelling strategist helping me evaluate whether my content tells stories or just shares information.
My Context:
What I do: [describe your business]
Who I serve: [specific audience]
How I use content: [newsletter, social, podcast, video, etc.]
My last 3 pieces of content: [briefly describe or paste titles]
Evaluate:
Information vs. Story: Am I mostly sharing facts and frameworks, or crafting narratives with tension, stakes, and transformation?
Source Material: Based on what I described, what stories from my real experience would be most compelling? Suggest 3 specific story angles I might be sitting on.
The AI Test: Could someone generate my last 3 pieces by prompting an AI tool? What would be missing?
Compounding vs. Expiring: Would my audience share my last piece 6 months from now? If not, what would need to change?
The One-Story Test: What's the single most powerful story I could tell right now that demonstrates the transformation I create?
Be direct. Tell me what I need to hear.
✅ Bonus Prompt:
"Take the single story you identified in #5 and help me structure it for [my chosen format: newsletter / LinkedIn post / podcast episode].
Give me an opening hook, the core tension, and a closing insight.
Keep it under 200 words."
Need Help With This?
If this 5-part series has you rethinking how your content works, I can help.
I work with operators who are creating content to grow their business, but feel like something isn't clicking:
You're on the content hamster wheel, posting because you feel like you're supposed to, not because it's working
Your approach feels scattershot, a little bit of everything, no real system behind it
You know content should be driving your business forward, but you can't explain how
If this sounds like you, hit reply to this email and write "Story"
We can go back and forth for a few rounds over email and help you get unstuck.
No cost or strings.
Just here to help you move forward.
~ Jaime
⚡ Before You Go
Here are a few other ways I can help:
🗓️ 1:1 brainstorming call: A quick, free call to help you get unstuck
🎙️ Podcast support: Get pro-level guidance without hiring full-time.
🚀 Speaking & workshops: Hit reply and write “Speak” - let’s talk!
📓 The 7-Day Podcast Playbook: Go from zero to podcast in 7 days (free)
🤖 AI Prompt Library: 12 prompts to use AI as a strategic thinking partner (free)
And I’d really appreciate your help:
🧶 Take a quick 3-minute survey to help improve Red Threads.
💬 Leave a short testimonial if this newsletter has helped you think or act differently.
Both make a real difference—thank you 🙏
Prefer Audio?
Thanks for spending time with Red Threads this week, I’m glad you’re here :)
~ Jaime