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Not Every Story Has to Inspire
Every Tuesday, The Productive Disruptive delivers storytelling science, message makeovers, cultural commentary, and a little rebellious hope for anyone still stubborn enough to believe communication can change the world.
Dorian Johnson
June 30, 2026
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Today’s issue was inspired by a text from my brother…
Out of the blue, randomly got this
Stevie Wonder’s song “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” off his “Fulfillingness' First Finale”, one of his five “indisputable, classic albums.”
I cackled.
Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5 taking shots at the Commander in Chief in the 70s.
Getting compared to FDT by YG and Nipsey Hussle. Boy, how societal shifts have been made.
But he was cooking.
The more I sat with it, the more I started thinking about other songs directed at presidents.
Stevie had Nixon.
Prince had Reagan with “Ronnie, Talk to Russia.”
Pink had George W. Bush with “Dear Mr. President.”
YG and Nipsey had Trump with “FDT.”
But underneath all of them was a grievance.
And that is where the storytelling lesson lives.
Stories are not always inspiring.
Some are indictments.
Warnings.
Open letters.
Public refusals.
And for change agents, that matters because we can get trained to think that every message and story needs to be hopeful, polished, solution-oriented, and easy to digest.
Sometimes people do not need you to make their frustration more positive.
They need you to honor the emotion clearly enough to understand what it is revealing.
A grievance is more than a simple complaint.
It points to what feels broken, ignored, denied, threatened, or betrayed.
Stevie pullin’ Nixon’s card with You Haven’t Done Nothin’
We have heard the promises. We have heard the speeches, but people are still waiting on the proof.
Prince, while still speaking to a President, took a different path.
“Ronnie, Talk to Russia” is a warning.
The grievance is: The stakes are too high for ego. Talk before this becomes irreversible.
Pink and Dear Mr. President is something I remember dropping in real time.
The whole structure is built around questions. Not random questions either. Moral questions. Human questions. Questions about poverty, war, grief, rights, pride, and power.
Can you look at what people are living through and answer for it?
Then there is “FDT.” Which is different from all the others.
It is not trying to be diplomatic. It is not trying to gently persuade. It is not written as a plea.
It is a public refusal.
The grievance is: We reject this. We reject what this represents. We are not dressing it up to make it comfortable.
And while that may not be the main lane for every change agent, it is still a story form worth noticing.
This is where emotional granularity comes in.
🧠 Story Science Side Note: Emotional granularity is the ability to name what we are feeling with more precision.
In storytelling, vague emotion can be muddy.
Specific emotion can proppel your stories.
📝 Message Makeover:
Before:
“They’re just complaining.”
After:
“They’re naming a grievance.”
Because sometimes what sounds like “complaining” is really a person or community saying:
“You promised.”
“You ignored us.”
“You are putting people at risk.”
“You need to answer for this.”
“We are not accepting this.”
🛠️ The PHacilitator’s Corner:
Think about an issue your audience cares about.
Then ask:
What is the grievance underneath this story?
Try sorting it into one of these four forms:
1. Indictment
What promise was broken?
2. Warning
What harm could happen if nothing changes?
3. Open Letter
What question(s) need to be answered?
4. Public Refusal
What needs to be rejected or no longer normalized?
You do not have to force every story to inspire.
Sometimes the work is naming what has been ignored, threatened, broken, or left unanswered.
Because a grievance is not always a distraction from the story.
Sometimes, it is the story.