Remix Recipe №73
The Unstuck Reading List
Name the fork your people are standing at, then hand them the three books that got you past it.
The hook template
If you're who is stuck, here are three books that helped me what you worked out
The hook in the wild
“If you're a consultant who has outgrown one to one work, here are three books that helped me figure out what to build next”
“If you're newly on your own, here are three books that helped me work out who I am now”
The recipe
- Topic
- Three books for the fork your people are standing at
- Take
- Why you picked these instead of the obvious ones, and the odd one out
- Format
- A simple yap, straight to camera, counting down with each title on screen
The structure
- Name the fork
Open by naming the exact person standing at the fork, narrow enough that the right viewer feels addressed by name rather than shouted at.
- Disqualify the obvious
Rule out the recommendations they would get from a search, so there is no way to guess what is coming and the only way to find out is to stay.
- Count down three to one
Give the books in descending order with a real reason for each, saving the strongest for last.
- Justify the odd one out
One pick must break the category. Say out loud why it earns its place, or it reads like a mistake rather than a choice.
Your Studio follows these beats when it writes your script.
Why it worked
She does not open on books, she opens on a person standing at a fork. "A highly ambitious person who doesn't know what you want to do with your life" is narrow enough that the right viewer feels addressed by name, and a reading list only works when the viewer believes it was assembled for their exact moment rather than posted at the internet.
The fiction pick is why it gets sent. A novel has no business on a career list, and she justifies it out loud: you do not need another how to, you need perspective. That one item proves the other two were chosen rather than scraped off a search result.