Lesson of the Week: Minimum Viable Newsletter Consistency is the most important concept for your newsletter. All the good effects of writing online only occur if you consistently publish. Once you choose a cadence for your newsletter, you've got to stick to it. A consistent newsletter will give you room to improve your writing skills, create a feedback loop for your ideas, help you build relationships, open new doors, and build an audience.
SIX at 6: Conceptual Ancestors, Seinfeld’s Shrine, A Thousand Faces, The Air Sole, A Wonderful Technique, and Combining Your Influences - Billy Oppenheimer
The Conceptual Ancestor of The Great White Magicians In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there is a character named Prospero. And in a parenthetical reference in The Creative Brain, Dr. Nancy Andreasen mentions, “Prospero [is] a great ‘white magician’ who is the conceptual ancestor of more modern wizards such as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and
Who has their hand on the dial? Talk with someone who works at Apple, Amazon, Google, Linkedin, Facebook, etc, and they’ll be happy to give you tips on how to work the platform to your advant…
Rating threads
Rob Lennon has been one of the best finds I made on Twitter in the past year.
He has grown super fast, but what I like about him the most is that he's always trying new things with his content.
The latest from him is Rating a thread:
All Success Is A Lagging Indicator - RyanHoliday.net
The other day I sat down to write. But it didn’t happen. It just wasn’t there. The words. The momentum. One thought leading into the next. I knew I wanted to say something. I knew what I wanted it to be about. But I couldn’t get much further than that, beyond just a few sentences. A classic case of writer’s block, right? Maybe. Except I happen to think that writer’s block doesn’t exist. I’m with Jerry Seinfeld who said, “Writer’s block is a phony, made-up, BS excuse for not doing your work.” The words I chose above were illustrative: It just wasn’t there. What is it? It wasn’t the muses. Or inspiration. And I’ve never been a genius so that hadn’t abandoned me. What wasn’t there then? The work. I hadn’t done the work. Writing is a byproduct of hours and hours of reading, researching, thinking, making my notecards. When a day’s writing goes well, it’s got little to do with that day at all. It’s actually a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinking. Every passage and page has a prologue titled preparation. The solution to my writer’s block that day was not to write at all. It was to stop for the day and go research the topic more. It was to go for a run and a walk. It was to do the prep work. Success as a lagging indicator is a phenomenon that holds true across most areas in life. When I look in the mirror and I’m a little flabby, that is a lagging indicator that, for weeks and months, I’ve slacked on eating healthy and exercising. When I’m grouchy and frustrated and anxious or short with my wife, that is usually a lagging indicator that I need to eat (in 2014, Researchers from Ohio State University found that most fights between couples are because someone is hungry). When I’m getting sick a lot, that is a lagging indicator that I have not been taking care of myself, working too hard, not sleeping enough . Your retirement accounts are a lagging indicator of whether or not you have your financial act together—earning enough, saving enough. Pulling an all-nighter is not a sign of dedication but a lagging indicator of the exact opposite. It means you plan poorly, you procrastinate, you aren’t proactive enough, you don’t know how to effectively manage your work and your time. Not being able to fully disconnect from your devices on vacation is a lagging indicator that you don’t have good systems in place. Hitting a personal record on the bench press is a lagging indicator of a lot of discipline and hard work. Receiving a promotion is a lagging indicator of a lot of quality work. Delivering a keynote with confidence is a lagging indicator of a lot of preparation . All my books are lagging indicators. They are a culmination of years of work . That’s actually Robert Greene’s definition of creativity. He says, “creativity is a function of the previous work you put in.” Creativity is not mysterious or romantic. It’s tedious, Robert says. “If you put a lot of hours into thinking and researching and reading, hour after hour—a very tedious process—creativity will come to you.” But so are their sales. The Obstacle is the Way sold in its first year what Discipline is Destiny sold in a week. How? Because day after day after day, I worked to build a system, a platform, that has become a flywheel that day after day spins faster and faster. Combined, over a million readers have subscribed to Daily Stoic , Daily Dad , The Reading List Email , and this RSS email lists. Of course, I have social media, too (you can follow me on Instagram , Twitter , TikTok and YouTube ). In other words, I’ve filled a dozen football stadiums worth of “true fans” who I have built a relationship with. This is what keeps me moving—knowing that I have to keep filling and refilling the creative well. Knowing that creative output is a lagging indicator of a lot of hours of tedious work. Knowing that if I want to publish more books in the future, the only question is, am I doing the work now? It’s what keeps my priorities straight as a parent. I want to have a relationship with my kids as long as I am able to—which means investing in it now. In twenty years, attendance at Thanksgiving will be voluntary. Attendance will be a lagging indicator of who I was as a parent today . It’s true as a spouse too. Fifty years of marriage is a lagging indicator of how quickly arguments are resolved today, how mistakes are handled today, the pressure of (or better yet, the lack thereof) today. And it’s true of fame and celebrity—at least the good kind, not the famous-from-a-sex tape kind. Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden would say in an interview that “fame is the excrement of creativity, it’s the shit that comes out the back end, it’s a by-product of it.” It’s a lagging indicator of years of making stuff that people like and get to know you through. Even this article is an example. It’s a lagging indicator, a byproduct of a process that started with an idea on a notecard, to an idea I kicked around with others in conversations and with myself on walks, which led to a first draft I spent time on across several days, which I returned to across several weeks whenever I had tweaks and improvements, which was edited by a team, and then finally published. Nothing comes from nowhere. Not success. Not inspiration. Not the muses. Not writer’s block. Everything is a lagging indicator. Of whether or not you did the work. Tweet Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest LinkedIn
“Twitter Algo Hack #001:
I know that 9pm-1am is my best time to tweet.
So I purposely create 2 tweets.
Post #1 at 9pm
Post #2 at 11pm
If #1 goes really well, I don’t post #2.
Don’t interrupt #1, let it compound!
Ask me how I know my best time to tweet LOL (happy to answer)”
SIX at 6: Restriction, Aaron Burr, Narrowing Down, The Puppy Brain, Washing Machines, and The Most Miserable Humans - Billy Oppenheimer
The Defining Feature of Language Language is one of humanity’s greatest inventions. And one of the defining features of language is restriction. The English alphabet restricts us to 26 letters. Bounded by these 26 letters, we can write an unlimited number of books, screenplays, poems, scientific theories, computer code, and on and on and on.
Lesson of the Week: Types of Modules Last week, we introduced the concept of the Minimum Viable Newsletter. The idea is to fit the newsletter to your lifestyle, not the other way around, so you can stick with it. The best way we have found to create the minimum newsletter is to break it down into parts. Each part of your newsletter you can think of as a module.
What Are Sanderson’s Laws Of Magic? | Brandon Sanderson
Introduction To Sanderson’s Laws I like magic systems. That’s probably evident to those of you who have read my work. A solid, interesting and innovative system of magic in a book is something that really appeals to me. True, characters are what make a story narratively powerful—but magic is a l ...
You should start a blog. Having your own little corner of the internet is good for the soul! But what should you write about? It’s easy to get hung up …
