Michelle Rial
Where to hear and read about Michelle Rial1 episode or test
Michelle Rial is a chart artist and author whose simple, emotional charts spread widely, and who has since moved into children's books. The most useful thing to learn from her is to make ideas from lived experience, keep them simple, and let work sit and be revised until it still moves you.
if I focus too much on my work, I stop living life and then I stop having ideas
A behind-the-scenes interview with Lenny Rachitsky on building his newsletter and podcast
Michelle Rial: the story and the lessons
1Michelle Rial's background and the people around her work
Rial's father taught her to think in patterns and math. Her father, a geophysicist, did math with her as a child, including fractals and patterns, so she thinks mathematically.
She now does the same with their son.
Rial doubted Lenny could make money writing online. When Lenny was exploring startup ideas and writing on the side, her pushback was that you can't make money writing on the internet.
He answered that there's a pull. She also pointed out that his Venn diagram of enjoyment, value and money left out one circle: he is good at it.
Rial met Lenny on a dating site, her first online date. They met on How About We. Lenny is unbothered and Rial is messy, and the pairing works.
She says she has things everywhere, and Lenny calls her creative process messy. Cleaners help.
Rial stopped breathing during an emergency C-section. After a failed induction, the epidural spread upward and stopped her breathing, forcing an emergency delivery. She was intubated, the baby was delivered, and it took about an hour for her to come back.
She remembers only numbness in her lungs and then passing out. She read the report months later and had a relative who is a nurse go through it. The anesthesiologist called it a one in 50,000 chance.
2Why Michelle Rial's charts get shared
Rial keeps charts simple, quick and able to make people feel something. She aims for something easy to read that shows a person something they had not thought of. Short attention spans reward charts that are easy to digest.
Simple charts also take less physical labor to draw.
Rial calls a chart finished when it still makes her laugh or tear up. She has already seen the chart in her own head, so the test is whether it still moves her. She lets a chart sit until a moment shows what it needs.
Lenny judges his posts the same way, by his own sense that they are good, without waiting for outside approval.
Rial is often wrong about which charts will land. One page from her book went viral because a stranger posted a casual photo of it, and she never shared it herself.
Her charts often get passed around with the credit cut out. She has stopped looking because it does not help her.
Rial overthinks, so she cuts layers from her drafts. Her first drafts can pile up layers, and Lenny sometimes has to push her to simplify when a chart gets too clever.
She calls him her sometimes editor and says she often ignores his notes, though he is usually right.
3How Michelle Rial finds ideas and does the work
Rial collects ideas from daily life and draws them simply. She writes things down while out and then puts them on paper visually, since she is not strong at drawing.
Her fuel is experiences and almost thinking too much about them.
Rial gets ideas by living, not by focusing harder on work. When she focuses too much on work, she stops living and stops having ideas. Meditation makes her more prolific because it teaches her to watch her own thinking.
Noticing an odd anxiety, for example, lets her see it from a new angle and turn it into a chart.
Rial does her best work on one coffee, a deadline and good sleep. Her creativity peaks with one shot of coffee, a time limit and a good night's sleep. She works best when she has to be somewhere in about two hours.
Too much coffee makes her ideas erratic, which she charts as a spider's web. After a bad night plus too much caffeine she gets only frantic energy. She says the peak echoes the XKCD Ballmer peak.
Rial sets work aside and revises it many times. When she is unsure a piece is good enough, she puts it aside and often returns with a new idea for it. She says a chart takes at least five passes, then agrees the real number may be 100.
The cost is that someone may beat her to an idea she never finished. She did not claim a precise count and says it depends.
4How Michelle Rial moved from charts to children's books
Rial's first children's book came from following a pull away from her plan. She started a notebook of charts for new parents at the front. After reading many kids' books, she began writing rhymes from the back, and the two ends met in the middle.
She had wanted to make charts for babies for a long time. The first draft came quickly once she had a cadence and rhymes in her head, while she was trying to work on another adult book.
Rial found charts suit early-learning concepts. Children's book themes are opposites, colors, shapes and feelings. Charts already show big and small, up and down, and overlapping colors that make a new color.
Rial says raising her son made her children's writing work. A children's book she wrote before having kids was not as good. Watching her son grow helped her with the feelings concepts and taught her how to speak to kids.
Reading many children's books kept her in the zone.
Rial has finished a second children's book on feelings. The book is done and comes out next year, about a year after it was finished.
A behind-the-scenes interview with Lenny Rachitsky on building his newsletter and podcast
Lenny explains how a series of small signals led him from Airbnb PM to a 1.2 million subscriber newsletter and a top 10 tech podcast, and how he keeps it going weekly. He covers when he added the paywall, his quality bar, the treadmill behind weekly shipping, a fraud attack on his Product Pass, and why he keeps the business small.
Rial's father taught her to think in patterns and math. Her father, a geophysicist, did math with her as a child, including fractals and patterns, so she thinks mathematically.
She now does the same with their son.
Rial doubted Lenny could make money writing online. When Lenny was exploring startup ideas and writing on the side, her pushback was that you can't make money writing on the internet.
He answered that there's a pull. She also pointed out that his Venn diagram of enjoyment, value and money left out one circle: he is good at it.
Rial met Lenny on a dating site, her first online date. They met on How About We. Lenny is unbothered and Rial is messy, and the pairing works.
She says she has things everywhere, and Lenny calls her creative process messy. Cleaners help.
Rial stopped breathing during an emergency C-section. After a failed induction, the epidural spread upward and stopped her breathing, forcing an emergency delivery. She was intubated, the baby was delivered, and it took about an hour for her to come back.
She remembers only numbness in her lungs and then passing out. She read the report months later and had a relative who is a nurse go through it. The anesthesiologist called it a one in 50,000 chance.
Rial keeps charts simple, quick and able to make people feel something. She aims for something easy to read that shows a person something they had not thought of. Short attention spans reward charts that are easy to digest.
Simple charts also take less physical labor to draw.
Rial calls a chart finished when it still makes her laugh or tear up. She has already seen the chart in her own head, so the test is whether it still moves her. She lets a chart sit until a moment shows what it needs.
Lenny judges his posts the same way, by his own sense that they are good, without waiting for outside approval.
Rial is often wrong about which charts will land. One page from her book went viral because a stranger posted a casual photo of it, and she never shared it herself.
Her charts often get passed around with the credit cut out. She has stopped looking because it does not help her.
Rial overthinks, so she cuts layers from her drafts. Her first drafts can pile up layers, and Lenny sometimes has to push her to simplify when a chart gets too clever.
She calls him her sometimes editor and says she often ignores his notes, though he is usually right.
Rial collects ideas from daily life and draws them simply. She writes things down while out and then puts them on paper visually, since she is not strong at drawing.
Her fuel is experiences and almost thinking too much about them.
Rial gets ideas by living, not by focusing harder on work. When she focuses too much on work, she stops living and stops having ideas. Meditation makes her more prolific because it teaches her to watch her own thinking.
Noticing an odd anxiety, for example, lets her see it from a new angle and turn it into a chart.
Rial does her best work on one coffee, a deadline and good sleep. Her creativity peaks with one shot of coffee, a time limit and a good night's sleep. She works best when she has to be somewhere in about two hours.
Too much coffee makes her ideas erratic, which she charts as a spider's web. After a bad night plus too much caffeine she gets only frantic energy. She says the peak echoes the XKCD Ballmer peak.
Rial sets work aside and revises it many times. When she is unsure a piece is good enough, she puts it aside and often returns with a new idea for it. She says a chart takes at least five passes, then agrees the real number may be 100.
The cost is that someone may beat her to an idea she never finished. She did not claim a precise count and says it depends.
Rial's first children's book came from following a pull away from her plan. She started a notebook of charts for new parents at the front. After reading many kids' books, she began writing rhymes from the back, and the two ends met in the middle.
She had wanted to make charts for babies for a long time. The first draft came quickly once she had a cadence and rhymes in her head, while she was trying to work on another adult book.
Rial found charts suit early-learning concepts. Children's book themes are opposites, colors, shapes and feelings. Charts already show big and small, up and down, and overlapping colors that make a new color.
Rial says raising her son made her children's writing work. A children's book she wrote before having kids was not as good. Watching her son grow helped her with the feelings concepts and taught her how to speak to kids.
Reading many children's books kept her in the zone.
Rial has finished a second children's book on feelings. The book is done and comes out next year, about a year after it was finished.