The MRI Principle: Why Teaching Less Creates Better Results
Helping people go from doubt to action
In Dune, Lady Jessica Atreides says, "Fear is the mind killer," but I've found it isn't really.
It's doubt.
Doubt paralyzes us. It keeps us stuck endlessly researching and planning when we should be taking action. And as course creators and coaches, our most important job isn't to eliminate all possible doubt with comprehensive information—it's to give students just enough confidence to take that first step.
This is what I call the MRI Principle: Minimum Required Information.
What is the MRI Principle?
The MRI Principle is about identifying the smallest amount of information that gets your students from doubt to action.
Think about it this way: There's a story about Hungarian soldiers who became lost during a mission in the Alps. For two days, their commanding officer heard nothing. He feared the worst.
On day three, they walked back into camp, alive and well. When he asked how they'd managed to find their way out, one soldier showed him a map from his pocket. They'd followed it once the storm cleared.
The officer looked at the map and couldn't believe it—it showed an entirely different mountain range!
But here's what matters: Having any kind of map, even a completely wrong one, gave them direction and confidence to start moving. Once they were moving, they could figure things out and stay focused on their goal of getting home.
The map worked not because it was accurate—it worked because it got them unstuck.
When you give somebody a simplified action plan in your course, it won't be comprehensive. As an expert, you'll always feel like the complete map is the only "perfect" map.
But here's the truth: The complete map is too complicated and too hard to follow.
The best map is the one they can actually understand and use—even if it's not 100% complete.
Why the MRI Principle works
Remember the 80-20 principle? 80% of results come from 20% of actions.
This explains why there's a "law of diminishing returns" in teaching and learning. If I'm smart as a teacher, I'll focus on that critical 20% that produces most of the benefit.
But as experts, we're tempted to think, "They could get 20% more benefit if they put in a whole lot more work!"
That's just not efficient. There are few times in life where it's worth pushing to the cutting edge for complete perfection. Most of the time, it isn't. And when you're a beginner, it NEVER is.
As a beginner, you've just got to get something that's good enough.
Look at popular YouTubers' first videos. They're never as good as their 100th video. And there's no way they could have achieved the same level for the first one that they did for the 100th. It's just not possible.
You have to develop skills through action. And there's just no way to develop them other than to take that action.
The MRI Principle in practice
When I teach writing, I used to share everything I knew—freewriting techniques, detailed outlines for different types of articles, complex editing processes, and more.
The result? Overwhelmed students who struggled to finish anything.
Then I simplified dramatically. I taught just two types of outlines:
One based on answering key questions about the topic
Another about selecting three subtopics within your main topic
That's it. Just two flexible frameworks.
The results were incredible. My students started writing more frequently, with greater confidence, and produced better work.
Did they need to know how to create unique outlines for every type of writing they'd ever do? No. Having two simple, flexible frameworks they could use repeatedly was enough—actually, it was better.
In fact, for the longest time in my own writing, I used just those two frameworks over and over. Most people never noticed I was using only two different types of outlines for my articles. They don't care. The content and value still came through.
But what if it's TOO simple?
This is the doubt that creeps in for many course creators: "Am I giving enough value? Is this too basic?"
I recently taught a workshop on cleaning up phone notifications and home screens. Super simple topic with straightforward procedures.
There were two people who said, "I've already solved this problem."
This is exactly what many course creators fear—that their material will be "too simple" for students.
The truth is, if you explain what you're teaching properly, 99% of the people who show up will be the right audience for your content. Most of the time we're teaching beginners—people who aren't experts in the topic and need the basics broken down clearly.
It's easy to focus on the two people who already knew the content instead of the majority who got real value. And that's what happened at my workshop—feedback from everyone else was wonderful. People were proudly showing their cleaned-up phones on screen, sending me chat messages thanking me during the workshop, and writing positive notes afterward about how much it helped them.
The state-shifting goal
The ultimate goal of teaching isn't to transfer the maximum amount of information—it's to shift your student's state of mind from doubt to certainty about their next step.
That certainty, that framework you provide, needs to be useful and flexible enough to be used many times over.
Don't focus on how many things to teach. Focus on that ONE thing you can teach that's flexible enough and useful enough for a beginner to use over and over again.
This allows them to grow and eventually develop their own variations of what you've taught them.
The MRI takeaway
Next time you're creating a course or teaching a workshop, ask yourself:
"What's the minimum information my students need to take confident action?"
Not "How much can I pack in?" but "What's the essential core that will get them moving?"
Because movement creates momentum. And momentum is what eventually creates mastery.
Give your students an actionable map—even if it's not perfect. It's far better than leaving them paralyzed by too many options, too much detail, and too much doubt.
Remember, like the soldiers, an imperfect map that gives confidence is better than a perfect map that leads you astray.
Two ways I can help you
The Atomic Course Blueprint - Want to create a course without the usual overwhelm? Try creating a tiny course that follows the MRI Principle. Find out more here.
iPARA: How to organize your digital life for action - Is digital disorganization keeping you from reaching your goals? What if just four folders could let you not just stay organized but actually get things done. See for yourself here.
Still here? Merci.
One thing you can do for me is reply to this email and share a time when you realized a simpler approach actually worked better than a complex one.
When I read your replies, it makes my day. 🙏🏽
I did this at work. Overexplained.
Now I let people come to me for answers. And stay quiet otherwise.
That was a great shift in my perspective - I will be thinking about this in the days to come.