Welcome to the Action Digest, where hesitation disappears faster than an open box of Krispy Kremes left in the break room.

A glimpse at the action we’re bringing you this week:

• 🥊 We learn some incredible storytelling advice from the author of Fight Club (that makes writers hate him!).

• 🖼️ We discover the technique that high performing teams rely on to make great decisions under intense pressure.

• 🤖 A Cornell University research team teaches us how to get better responses from AI.

P.s., you can check out editions 1-35 here in case you missed them, including insights such as the mindset that helped an entrepreneur build seven different billion-dollar companies, how Steve Jobs cultivated great creative taste, and a brainstorming strategy recommended by Stanford professors.

Seriously, there are some gems you’ll appreciate in these earlier editions ;-)

1. Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Just show.

Chuck Palahnuik is the New York Times bestselling author who penned Fight Club, the novel that inspired the iconic movie of the same name. 

“In six seconds, you’ll hate me,” Palahnuik warns those storytellers who seek his advice, “but in six months, you’ll be a better writer.” 

“From this point forward,” Palahnuik instructs, “at least for the next half year – you may not use ‘thought’ verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.”

The reason for this, Palahnuik explains, is that “thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.”

In the sprit of showing, Palahnuik offers an example. First, what not to do:

“Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take..”

This version uses a thought verb, “worry,” to tell the audience how Mark is feeling. 

“A better break-down,” Palahnuik offers, “might be:  ‘The schedule said the bus would come by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic accident…’”

This is the much touted concept of “show don’t tell” and storytellers of all kinds—marketers, screenwriters, lawyers, TED speakers, cocktail party orators, and beyond—can wield its power to better engage their audiences. 

• You can tell someone you love them, or you can prepare a candle-lit dinner. 

• You can describe a character’s backstory, or you can show a flashback of the moment that forged them. 

• You can tell a child they’re creative, or you can proudly display their art on the fridge.

Or, as Palahnuik writes, instead of saying “Adam knew Gwen liked him,” you might describe how, “between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume.”

When you need to tell an engaging story: remember the power of show don’t tell.

But storytelling isn’t the only domain where show don’t tell applies…

2. A prototype is worth 100 meetings

Whether it’s making a payment, sending an email, or streaming a movie—many of us now rely on dozens of software products throughout the course of a single day.

This means the talented teams of people behind each of our apps, sites, and systems have to deal with a lot of pressure. They must frequently wrestle with decisions that will impact millions of users and stakeholders across the globe.

When your team holds a meeting to confront these high-stakes choices, how do you ensure that everyone walks away with the right answers?

As a leader and investor working with software giants such as Adobe, Behance, and Uber, Scott Belsky has been in the room for thousands of these decisions. Scott has found that one way of dramatically improving the odds of success is showing rather than telling.

“When I help our team drive decisions,” Scott explains, “I’ve learned to use design to show, rather than tell. Oftentimes, even as recently as last night in an airport on the phone with our leadership team, I was saying—can we please wait to form an opinion until we see the prototypes for this? We’re talking around each other, we’re making a decision, we’ve got to see the prototypes to understand what we’re really doing.” 

“A prototype is worth a hundred meetings. Almost all product meetings that aren’t grounded with a prototype are a waste of time (or worse),” Scott continues, “a meeting without a prototype is like a jury deliberation without a court transcript, you’ll start imagining different things and become untethered. A prototype immediately surfaces gaps in logic or business concerns. It is the fastest way to drive alignment. It is hard to argue with an amazing experience, but all too easy to critique ideas and mince words.”

When you’re ready to start creating or sharing an idea—regardless of whether it’s a plot in a movie, a new food recipe, or the results of a scientific experiment—default to showing it rather than telling it.

Making your idea presentable is a valuable exercise even if you never show anyone. By going through the process of showing, you will expose flaws in your thinking and force yourself to confront realities. 

Once you are ready to share, you will engage people’s senses and emotions—leading to faster alignment and more productive feedback. 

Storytelling and creation are two places where showing can play a powerful role, here’s another… 

3. A demonstration is worth 100 explanations

In 1986, NASA’s Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members on board. 

The tragedy of the disaster was clear but its cause was a mystery.

A commission was set up by the U.S. government to investigate but NASA was no ordinary organization—it was one of America’s most prized institutions—and so most officials had little desire to conduct an ordinary investigation. 

“Whatever you do,” President Reagan instructed the chairman, “don’t embarrass NASA.” 

The chairman didn’t need telling twice. “We are not going to conduct this investigation in a manner which would be unfairly critical of NASA,” the chairman warned the commission, “because we think—I certainly think—NASA has done an excellent job, and I think the American people do.”

The narrative was locked in. 

And it might even have stayed that way were it not for the involvement of the great physicist Richard Feynman. 

As Feynman listened to the commissioners and the panel of scientists drone on back and forth about rocket science, he realized that all of this talk would lead to nowhere. 

Even in the unlikely event that the cause of the explosion was established during the course of the discussion, it would get lost among “the crazy acronyms that NASA uses,” as Feynman put it, and all of the technical jargon. 

It seemed the ultimate conclusion would be that the whole thing was a freak accident and that the true cause was too difficult to pin down. 

But after doing some (highly unwelcome) poking around, Feynman had learned that there was a huge discrepancy between how NASA’s engineers viewed the situation versus its leadership. 

While NASA engineers believed the odds of a catastrophe occurring was 1 in 200, management said the odds were only 1 in 100,000. 

If the engineers were correct but everyone believed the managers then NASA would face no pressure to overhaul its procedures and it would only be a matter of time before another disaster ensued. 

So when a whistleblower got word to Feynman that the rocket’s crucial “O-ring” seals could become faulty at low temperatures, Feynman’s worst suspicions were confirmed. 

But by this point Feynman realized how determined everyone was to defend NASA’s reputation. Adding to the chairman’s remarks, Feynman had been banned from buildings for asking too many questions and Neil Armstrong himself was overheard saying “Feynman is becoming a real pain in the ass,” in the men’s bathroom. 

Feynman knew that he would only get one shot to make his case and that he would have to leave no doubt in the nation’s mind that NASA was in need of procedural reform. 

So when it was his turn to speak at the hearing, he acted fast. He grabbed ahold of a scale model of the space shuttle that was being passed around the room and used some pliers to remove a rubber O-ring from the model. 

Then he dunked the O-ring into some ice water that had been prepared for the commissioners and held it up for the TV cameras to see. 

“I took this stuff that I got out of your seal,” Feynman announced, “and I put it in ice water. And I discovered that when you put some pressure on it for a while and then undo it, it doesn’t stretch back. It stays the same dimension. In other words, there is no resilience in this particular material when it is at a temperature of 32 degrees. I believe that has some significance for our problem.”

The chairman hastily tried to dismiss his remarks but it was too late. 

Feynman’s mini science experiment would be replayed on television sets all across the world and the message was clear: the Challenger disaster was preventable and NASA had a lot of work to do. 

As a fellow physicist remarked, “the public saw with their own eyes how science is done, how a great scientist thinks with his hands, [and] how nature gives a clear answer when a scientist asks her a clear question.”

When your goal is to deliver a persuasive and clear argument, consider how you might show it rather than tell it. The right visual or demonstration can leave a resounding and long-lasting impact on the minds of your audience.

4. Dozens of high-performers have these two things in common

We’ve now studied the creative process of dozens of people at the top of their field together. 

Actors, musicians, writers, architects, leaders, athletes, scientists—you name it. 

What do they all have in common? 

A lot! 

But two things stand out: 

1. They think deeply - they explore many more ideas and possibilities on average before taking action.
   

2. They act boldly - when they’re done thinking, they organize their ideas, become crystal clear on their next move, and act fast. 

The tricky part is that these two “modes” of creativity are naturally oppositional. 

It can be tough switching back and forth between them efficiently. 

That’s where the Action Book comes in handy. 

It’s designed to mirror the way high-performers think and streamline the both sides of the creative process. 

How?

By separating them. 

• On the left, a space for deep, unfiltered exploration. Sketch, doodle, mind map, or jot down every thought that comes to you. No rules. No constraints. Just a place to let your ideas breathe.

• On the right, a place to focus. To consolidate. Here’s where you bring clarity to your vision. Break down your next steps into clear, actionable tasks. Check them off one by one and watch your ideas come to life.

It gives you the freedom to think without limits—and the structure to turn those thoughts into bold action.

Elevate your creativity and order a fresh copy today.

We’ll leave you with this…

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