Perfect Stories Are Never The Goal: Focus On Connection | Ep 10

When the internet looks flawless, it feels empty. 

We open the studio door, let the dog bark, and make a case for why your most memorable work will always be the piece where something real sneaks through. Not chaos, not carelessness, but competence with edges. We break down how a voice crack, a pause, or an awkward laugh becomes a signal of safety that audiences instinctively trust, and why that emotional signal outperforms any perfectly scripted caption or AI-polished reel.

Across the conversation, we unpack the psychology of connection: how imperfection lowers defenses, invites empathy, and turns passive viewers into active fans. We talk through the “voice crack moment” as a turning point in storytelling, the instant your feelings become visible and your message finally lands. Then we contrast that with overproduction: flawless B-roll, sterile captions, and the glossy sameness that makes posts forgettable. The takeaway is simple and bold: people don’t connect with perfection; they want realness. 

You’ll leave with practical ways to publish more human work: record once instead of twelve times, outline instead of scripting, keep micro-mistakes that don’t change meaning, and run every post through three checks—does it match what you mean, does it feel like you, and can your audience see you in it. 

If you’re ready to trade sterile polish for memorable impact, press play, keep the crack in your voice, and let people meet you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this nudge, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Raw Start And A Rant
• 0:29 Perfection Erodes Human Connection
• 1:20 Imperfection Signals Safety And Trust
• 2:51 The Voice Crack Moment
• 6:03 Overproduction Feels Inauthentic
• 7:09 Choose Real Over Polished
• 8:36 Action Steps To Show Up Human
• 8:56 Closing Thanks And Review Request

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

That's how we start out the episode with the dog barking. Here we go. All of you, all of you, are boring as fuck. Every single post on Instagram is overedited. Every single word you say is over-rehearsed. Every single story that you share has been worked inside and out to the point where you all look the same. None of you are memorable. And if you want your story to be the one they remember, you need to do better. And that's what we're going to talk about today in this episode of The Story Lab. Because all of this perfection is killing your connection. There's nothing human left about you, and that's not helping people remember you. So today we are going to talk about why the over-editing? What are you doing? Humans want to connect with other humans. They don't want to connect with robots, they don't want to connect with this perfect version of what you're putting out there. That's not real. We don't connect with that. We don't feel like that's a person that we can get comfortable with. And the funny thing is, when you over-edit and over-rehearse and over-produce, you're killing any connection you're going to have with people. People like it when you stumble. Not because they like to watch people fail. They want you to be a real human. That's what they're looking for. They want to connect with a real human, someone they can relate with, someone that isn't perfect. So those little stumbles, the stutters, the things that don't quite go right, those are the things that connect you to people. You don't want to wipe your entire content mess clean of anything that connects you with people. It makes you feel unsafe. Because what feels safe to people, what feels safe to humans are flaws and quirks and uniqueness. And that's what you bring naturally to your content. When you wipe and sanitize your content of all of those fun things that people connect with, you're not connecting. Imperfection feels safe for people. Imperfection helps you reach your ideal people. When you're competent, but you make a few little flaws, a few little mistakes, a few little blurbs that you kind of screw up, it's natural. People connect with that. So you know when somebody's sharing a story and their voice trembles or cracks a little bit, when that emotion of that story accidentally sneaks through. That's the voice crack moment. And it's not a mistake. Because you've been going along for five minutes and you've been telling this story and you you're telling it in a powerful way and you're connecting with people you think, but it's not until your voice cracks in that moment when you're really feeling what you're what you're saying. That was fake. But when you're really feeling what you're saying and the voice cracks, and that's when your audience connects with you. Literally, that's when they connect with you because your emotion is there. They can see it, they understand that you're really feeling it. You're sharing from your heart, and that's what they're connecting with. Each and every time, that's gonna be the moment they connect, right in that moment when your voice cracks, that's when they're gonna believe you. But if you're taking out any of those emotions, if you're completely sanitizing your entire piece of content so that there is no voice crack, so that everything goes smoothly, so that you feel like you look good on camera, you sound good on camera, and everything is perfect. You're soulless. Nobody cares. It's boring. Leave the realness in your content. They hear the emotion. That's a point for them. That's something that they can trust you on. Your audience wants to see that you have a heart. Your audience wants to see the little cracks, they want to see the things that go a little bit off. Pause. That's fine. You don't have to clean that out. Awkward laughter. That's fine. You don't have to wipe that out. That's what makes you human. That's what allows you to show up and do it and do it scared and let your audience see that you're doing it scared. And they're gonna feel it too. It's not just that perfect, amazing, beautiful moment. It's not perfect because we're not perfect. And I don't know if anybody's ever seen this, but I remember when Brene Brown was doing a TED Talk early on, and she stumbled, and then she laughed at herself. That's being vulnerable in a way that allows your audience to connect. That's vulnerability that I mean is worth its weight in gold. It's that goofy moment that makes you human. So don't forget about those things. Because I will tell you, right now, when you look at content on the internet, it's all overproduced. And all that overproduction makes it feel inauthentic. That's what we're seeing right now is overproduction is just making it feel not real. It's AI polished videos, it's AI polished pictures, it's the perfect B-roll, it's captions that are written by not a human, captions that don't have emotion. Sure, it looks great. Sure. But it doesn't feel great. And that's what your audience is picking up on. That's why your audience isn't resonating with it, because it doesn't feel great. It doesn't have emotion, it's not imperfect. Because all of us are perfectly imperfect, and that's what we should be showing. Create real content. It doesn't have to be super messy. It should be genuine. It should be something that you're doing, something that you're connecting with, something where the dog barks in the background, or something else funny happens. But it's not planned, it's not scripted, it's just normal. It's raw, it's unpolished, unedited, real emotion. Everybody should be bringing this human element into their content. Tell the imperfect story, share the moment, build connection by being raw. It's your excuse to mess up because it's not really messing up. It's being real, it's doing the things that we normally do, it's connecting with your audience. So stop re-recording it 12 times. Stop trying to find the perfect caption. Stop going through and reworking the words because the words don't sound right to you in that moment. Is it does the message connect with what message you want to put out there? See, I just loved. Does the message connect with the message you want to put out there? Does it feel real? Is it you? Can your audience see you in that content? The imperfect you. If they can, that's the perfect content to put out. Let people see you. Let people know you. Go live without a script. Have fun. Let the typo live there. And guess what? Be perfectly imperfect because that's what everybody wants to see. That's what I want to see. And that's what can connect you with your audience and make your story the one they remember. So until next time, I want to thank you for joining me here at the Story Lab, where we go over stories, tips, tricks, and ways that you can get your message out there. If you enjoyed this, please do me a favor, go over to wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave a review. Let me know what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you want to hear more of so that I can serve you here in the Story Lab. And until next time, make your story the one they remember. Have a good one. Take care.