From The Beach Boys to branding—emotion is a new growth lever

Good morning you animals —

While I Was Writing Today’s Signal // Noise:

From sound to signal—let’s get this baby rolling with what’s on my mind this week…

// The Signal

Feel First, Then Format

Brian Wilson wasn’t just a pop icon or a songwriter - he was an emotional architect.

The Beach Boys’ frontman—who died last week at 82—crafted Pet Sounds in 1966 like someone who knew the clock was ticking. Partially deaf, battling mental illness, and taking an increasingly crazy amount of acid, he still managed to create one of the most emotionally rich albums of all time.

One thing that he understood - more so than many artists of his time - was how an emotion or a tone could be reflected in the structure of his music… particularly, using things like bicycle bells, French horns, and the electro-theremin (!). He layered sleigh bells, bass harmonicas and string instruments - and he pushed and pulled at your eardrums and your heart in a way that felt like an enormous exhale.

And, he did it all without digital tools—no endless undo button, no software looping, no AI to spit out harmony and harmony on-demand.

He wanted his songs to land on the charts—but more than that, he wanted them to land in your gut.

Today, this feels like great advice for any founder, marketer, writer. Building a company or building your brand, it doesn’t really matter.

Most content today hits the right notes… but plays the wrong song (damn i crushed that metaphor, playas 💥).

Most of the things on LinkedIn or X or in my inbox feel flat - topically, it’s in the right zone; it’s technically solid, but emotionally, it’s fucking flat.

The other day, I got the best compliment ever possible on my newsletter:

A friend text me and said, “Literally, this feels just like I’m talking to you”…

Boom. I effing love that. That is my bar.

And yes, I use AI (obvs). It’s incredible.

But it’s not running wild and it’s not starting from scratch every time.

I’ve created my own 4-page “Voice & Editorial Guide” from scratch that I feed into the various AI’s I use, and it’s my own mini version of Pet Sounds (please forgive that comparison 😢 ).

In all seriousness, this is what’s in my 4-page PDF:

• Tone: What’s your emotional vibe? Are you dry and witty, punchy and bold, warm and reassuring? What do you want people to feel after reading your stuff?

• Grammar: Are you buttoned-up, or more relaxed and conversational? Think about contractions, sentence fragments, whether you care about split infinitives or dangling prepositions.

• Structure: How do you organize your thoughts? Do you always start with a hook? Do you build toward a story or a takeaway? Do you like lists, or do you prefer flowing narrative?

• Style: What’s your rhythm? Short punchy sentences? Long, winding paragraphs? Do you use metaphors? Pop culture references? Parentheticals? What sounds like you?

• Word Choice: Are there words you always use—or words you never would? Do you lean more “plainspoken” or “poetic”? Do you curse? How much do you love the word jawn? What’s the appropriate number of times to mention Wawa in any given newsletter?

• Formatting: How should your content look on the page? Do you use bold lines, subheads, bullets, lots of whitespace? How long is too long? Do you want it scannable or immersive?

• Editing Priorities: What do you optimize for? Clarity? Emotion? Brevity? Do you care more about sounding smart—or sounding real? Where do you dial up precision, and where do you let rough edges show?

Again, whether you’re writing a newsletter, building your company’s brand, or just sending 9,000 emails per week, you should be consistent with your content - not just moar, and not just faster.

But try for consistency. Voice. Feel.

Build and write for mood, aim for being emotionally resonant.

People don’t buy, click, or return just for the product - they come back because of how you make em’ feel.

🔖 The Blog Round

The Slide Deck That Got Me Hired

2009: I sent 20 cold emails. Got ghosted. Rejected a stock pick. And still landed the job.

This one’s a good post to share with anyone trying to break into a competitive role—or stand out in a crowded pile of resumes.

Here’s the story behind how I got my dream job, step by step:

👀 A few Jawns to Check Out

🎧 Sweet pod | 30 for 30: The Sterling Affairs. This is definitely an oldie but somehow escaped me at the time it came out. A five-part pod series that’s like a combo platter of Succession meets SportsCenter. It’s about the disgraced former Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, his rise to power, and his descent that covered racism, power, infidelity and the messy underbelly of the business of the NBA. Check It Out Here. 

📕 Great post | The Ultimate Founder Tech Stack. Spotted this via my girl Steph Smith in her latest Internet Pipes - it’s a great quick list. Andy Yeung puts together the SaaS stack for early-stage founders: banking, websites, forms, hiring, contracts/invoices, and moar. Check It Out Here.

📚 Book rec | The Cost of These Dreams by Wright Thompson. Continuing the sports theme, I read this one a few months ago and it hit. Dope-ass Sports writer Thompson goes into great detail on profiles like Tiger Woods, MJ, Urban Meyer, and Pat Riley - guys obsessed with winning & haunted by legacy, often wrecked by the things that made them great. Not so much about box scores, but more about identity, ego, and what chasing immortality actually costs.. Check It Out Here.

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Love yous.

Jordan