Yesterday’s email, about a strange scientific experiment on kittens, provoked some response.
One reader said I should have included a trigger warning. (“Deeply disturbing content. Cruel. CRUEL.”)
Another reader said we “look at Nazi scientists and cringe as we click our tongues” but we allow our own scientists all sorts of license.
A third reader wrote to say he loved the line, “The scientists are wearing white lab coats. The kitten is not.” He thought the line was priceless.
I highlight these responses because they focus on exactly the two things that got me about the strange kitten experiment.
The research was bizarre and cruel. At the same time, the image of two laboratory scientists in white lab coats, working hard to startle a kitten into blinking, was ridiculous and made me smile.
There was a point to my email yesterday. If you read the email, do you remember the point?
If you don’t remember, no problem. The point was not the value of the email.
In general, value in an email is not the how-to. Value in an email is the emotional spike it creates.
I could tell you how to create emotional spikes in your emails, but really, what would be the value in that?
Instead, I’ll just tell you that you can create emotional spikes even without talking about cruelty to kittens, without creating outrage, and without trying to be funny. In fact I’ve created a course all about the how-to of “intellectual” emotional spikes. You can find it here: