Welcome to Issue 45 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about how to use storytelling to grow your brand. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.)

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Hello Reader,

My boyfriend likes to do this thing he learned in therapy when giving me critical feedback. He'll point out all of my best qualities before layering on the stuff that’s harder to hear.

But he doesn’t just pad the critique with flattery. To ensure I'll be more receptive to whatever's on the other end of the compliment, he uses one crucial word to string two opposing things together: "And."

It goes like this:

“Renee, I love how creative and spontaneous you are…AND it would be nice if you prioritized sticking to the plan sometimes.”

Heard.

The difference with this approach is that most people say “but,” which completely discredits whatever was said before it. I hear my kids do it all the time with each other. They’ll say things like…

“I love you, but you drive me crazy.”
“You’re fun, but in a weird way.”
“I’m sorry, but you made me do it.”

The reason is that “but” is one of the most powerful words in the English language to communicate contradiction while “and” signifies agreement.

So, as any good therapist will tell you, if you’re trying to say sorry and use the word “but” in your apology, you’re contradicting yourself and demonstrating that you’re not that sorry at all.

It’s a subtle shift.

I can’t guarantee that paying attention to the power of these two little words will have a major impact on your relationships. But I am certain that understanding how to strategically use them in your business communication will make you a more compelling storytelller and a stronger brand builder.

A Good Observation

Allow me to get a little nerdy to help drill in this concept.

In terms of overall usage, “and” is way more common than “but.” It ranks 5th as the most used word in the English language, behind “the,” “of,” and “to.”

“But,” on the other hand, ranks around 20-30, depending on the corpus.

This explains why most storytelling—and most content generally—is so boring.

The way kids tell stories is the best example of this.

Though I’m trying my best to train them, my kids usually recount their days like this: “I went to school and I saw my friend. And she showed me this cool fidget. And I showed her my fidget. And she liked mine better. So we traded.”

And, and, and…you’re killin’ me, smalls.

The same goes for most adults. Ask your partner, mom, or friend about their day, and they’ll likely give you a string of events patched together with “and.” You pay attention because you’re a good human. But, if you're honest, you’re likely a little bored.

If, however, your partner, mom, or friend has good narrative intuition, they’ll use the word “but” as a catalyst to introduce something more interesting.

Here’s how I’d rewrite the same story from my 8-year-old by simply swapping out some “ands” for some “buts:”

“I went to school and I saw my friend. I thought we were just going to chat, but then she showed me her fidget. She thought it was the best fidget, but then I showed her my fidget and she liked it better. So we traded.”

It’s still not great, but it is better. It has some intrigue, some drama, some tension.

And it’s all because “but” signals the moment of change where expectations shift and the real story begins. There’s an inherent conflict after a "but", where the stakes rise and our attention sharpens.

In other words, “and” is the glue that holds a story together, and “but” is the spark that makes us care.

But, it doesn’t end there. To create a complete narrative arc and deliver a decent story, you need one more thing:

"So what?”

A Good Framework

To actually make something a story, the third word you need to strategically incorporate into all of your short-form content, blog posts, or speeches is “therefore” or one of its many variations.

Therefore signifies consequence. It’s the resolution—the part that makes it all mean something. Because without meaning, all you have is a series of events that happened to you or someone.

That said, for most people in most modern-day communication contexts, “therefore” is way too formal and robotic. More common words you can use include:

• So,
• Thus,
• As a result,
• Hence,
• Consequently,
• Which means,
• All that’s to say,
• And Ira Glass’s all-time favorite, “That’s the thing about…”

Whatever word or phrase you’d like to use, “therefore” completes the only storytelling formula you’ll ever need to develop narrative intuition:

And. But. Therefore. (Also known as the ABT Framework.)

This deceptively simple structure was popularized by Randy Olson, a marine biologist-turned-Hollywood screenwriter who saw firsthand how bad most experts were at telling stories people actually want to listen to.

After studying dozens of genuinely interesting scientific and public policy papers and speeches, he found that the ABT framework was the clearest, most adaptable tool out there.

But he didn’t come up with it entirely alone. It was actually the writers of South Park who first articulated the idea.

Just like my kid’s story about the fidgets, they found that if too many scenes in a script were connected by “and then,” the story fell flat. But if it was “this happens, but then this happens, therefore this happens,” the episode worked.

Randy took this insight, stripped it even more, and started teaching it to scientists, marketers, and anyone who needed to communicate complex ideas clearly and persuasively. He then teamed up with Park Howell to write this short-and-sweet book for business owners.

The beauty of ABT is that it works at every level, including a one-sentence hook, a full social post, a pitch, a brand story, or a keynote talk.

It’s the difference between…

See what I did there? You can do it, too.

A Good Takeaway

While the ABT creates the foundation and basic structure of any good story, it’s obviously not the only thing you need to know to tell an amazing one.

It also helps to understand all the elements of style in storytelling, including tapping into emotion, highlighting universal human conditions, using humor, and creating tension with interesting stakes.

But all those things can be learned in time. If you start practicing using the ABT in your everyday stories with friends or family, it’ll instantly boost your storytelling skills.

Then, check what you’ve written for that LinkedIn post or newsletter—does “but” show up enough times? Is there a clear “therefore" at the end? If not, go back and add them in.

And if you ever need a quick reminder of what this can look like in practice (or need someone like me to help you create a more powerful and interesting story), just think of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Siren song:

"Hey! I just met you. And this is crazy.
​But here’s my number...
​So call me, maybe?”

A Couple of Good Resources

1. Something fun: I've teamed up with April MacLean and Tyler Cook to run a 1-day boot camp that'll give you the exact blueprint each of us used to build an audience so that we could grow a newsletter to launch a community.
2. If you're a consultant, there's also this Offer Development Masterclass from my friend Jay Melone.

Hope you have a good one,
Renee