What makes a project irresistible? Part two: The Universal Element

Hi fam,

Yesterday we talked about the Personal—why YOUR voice matters, why proximity and obsession give you authority no one else has.

There’s a caviat tho, if you let your project be too personal, it becomes tone deaf. Your project can be deeply personal and still speak to no one but you.

And if it only speaks to you? It's a diary entry, not art.

This is where the Universal element comes in.

The Universal is the bridge between your specific story and every human who encounters it. It's the theme beneath the theme. The feeling under the facts.

Let me explain:

A project about your grandmother's dementia isn't really about dementia. It's about losing someone while they're still here. That's universal. It’s a story about loss, about mortality, about illness and our relationship to it.

A project about gentrification in your neighborhood isn't really about real estate. It's about belonging. About what happens when home stops feeling like home. That's universal.

A project about your body isn't just about YOUR body. It's about the way we all negotiate the gap between how we're seen and who we know ourselves to be. That's universal.

The Universal themes are ancient. They show up across cultures, across centuries:

Love and loss Power and powerlessness Identity and belonging Fear and courage Connection and isolation

These are the frequencies that every human nervous system recognizes.

Here's what photographers and artists miss:

You don't start with the universal and then find a personal story to illustrate it. That makes propaganda, not art.

You start with the deeply personal—YOUR story, your obsession, your lived experience.

Then you ask: What is this REALLY about?

Peel back one layer. Then another.

Keep going until you hit something that makes you feel slightly exposed. That's usually where the universal lives.

Try this:

Write down your project concept.

Now finish this sentence: "This project is really about..."

Do it again: "No, deeper, ,this is REALLY about..."

One more time: "At its core, this is about..."

That last one? That's probably your universal.

When you nail both Personal and Universal, something changes:

Your work becomes simultaneously MORE specific and MORE accessible.

You can tell YOUR story and have it land in Tokyo, São Paulo, Lagos, New York.

Funders, curators, editors recognize immediately that this isn't niche, it's resonant. It breathes something larger than large.

The most powerful projects hold both truths at once: "This could only be made by me" AND "This is for everyone."

Tomorrow: The Timeless—how to make work that survives you.

Until then, Lola

P.S. We'll work through finding your Universal in the free workshop: Get Hired for Work You Love (Develop a Killing Personal Project). You'll walk away knowing exactly what your work is REALLY about. February 26 at 6pm CET.