Feb 10 (Wed), 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PST
Ultimate distillation of the entire Write of Passage class
- How to improve ideas
- Need a better note-taking system 📓
- Consider one's capture habit for both our own ideas and other people's ideas - is it efficient?
- Inspiring
- Useful
- Easily lost
- Personal
- Other people's ideas: save everything with Readwise (affiliate link)
- Own ideas:
- Write while reading
- Journaling (Matthew Mcconaughey kept a journal since he was 15!)
- Use voice transcription e.g. Otter after an experience to quickly capture
- Questions to ask
- Stories - what are your go-to stories?
- Insightful - In what ways do you surprise your peers?
- Experiences - Write about once-in-a-lifetime moments
- Memories - What's a memory you don't want to forget?
- Modern writing isn't created. It's assembled.
- Distill ideas like making maple syrup from sap 🍁
- The Content Triangle 🔺
- Conversation: tinder for the flame of epiphany 🔥
- Feedback
- Share
- Feedback
- Create
- Feedback
- Distribute
- Don't forget about voice transcription! 🗣️
- Explain the idea in 2 minutes or less
- We are better at talking than writing—it has had more years of evolution
- Originality is overrated
- Examples 📚
- Atomic Habits was created through:
- Write articles for 5 years
- Email short articles every week
- Refine and compile into book form
- Leverage audience along the way to launch the book
- Sapiens does not contain original research but is successful regardless
- There's 1010 autobiographies of Winston Churchill!
- Myths of writing education (invert them!) 🧙🏼
- Solitude - instead, create feedback loops
- Academic - instead, anyone can do it
- Scarcity - instead, take notes and use other people's ideas
- Publish - instead, create microcontent over time
- Write CLEAR Sentences
- Create a rhythm 🥁
- Don't just write words. Write music. 🎶
- Vary sentence length (Gary Provost example)
- Diversify your vernacular
- Words people know, but don't say is the sweet spot
- E.g. cordial instead of nice, but don't use copacetic
- The Story Roller-Coaster 🎢
- Setup (gentle ascent)
- Conflict (rapid descent)
- Resolution (gentle ascent)
- Link your sentences
- Eliminate anything that's confusing
- Add colorful details
- Remove unnecessary words
- Write of Passage: Write first, research second
- Find
- Assemble
- Speak
- Teach
- How to grow your audience
- Cross public vs private bridge 🌉
- Grow your audience on public platforms, build relationship on private ones
- Build a personal monopoly
- Unusual - skills or knowledge not often found together
- Complementary - skills that reinforce and amplify each other
- Experiential - skills gained through experience
- Specific - niche
- Recap
- Build an audience of like-minded people (don't have to be like Oprah level though!)
- Niche Fame
- Niche - personal monopoly
- Trusted - they don't just know you, they respect you
- Distribution - own your distribution
- Lucrative - long-term social and financial benefits