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My writing brought this woman to me – the highest ROI of my life I’ve been publishing for 20 years and wanted to pass along what I’ve learned. Giving away good information for fre…

Making sense of the collectible craze

The art of discovering Creator-Market Fit, and laying the foundation for a business you’ll love.

Six simple things you can do to market yourself, get more attention for your work, and grow your audience or business.

No matter what your field, learning efficiently (and well) is an indispensable skill. Here's how.

Every endeavor, every undertaking, every hope, every mystery, every product, every artwork, every romance, every skyscraper, every novel…

The power of third-party data has diminished. With more restrictions, data collected from external sources with no connection to the consumer is becoming harder to acquire. Newsletter audiences may…

Also: Getty Images acquires Unsplash, LinkedIn’s new creator mode, the math behind MrBeast’s businesses, and more

If you had asked me this question—How do you change a mind?—two years ago, I would have given you a different answer. As a former scientist, I would have cautioned you to rely on objective facts and statistics. Develop a strong case for your side, back it up with hard,

Everyone should write. You know why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. You don’t talk about these ideas, even in your own head, because you’ve never put them into words. They’re gut feelings. Intuitions. You use them a dozen times a day. But you’d shrug your shoulders if someone asked why. How you react to career risk. Why you invest the way you do. Why you like some people and question others. We’re all brimming with opinions on these topics that we may never discuss, even with ourselves. Like phantom intelligence. Intuition is strong enough to put these ideas into practice. But intuition isn’t a tool; it’s a safety net at best, and is more often the fuel of biased decisions. Turning gut feelings into tools means understanding their origin, limits, and how they interact with other ideas. Which requires turning them into words. And writing is the best way to do that. Writing crystallizes ideas in ways thinking on its own will never accomplish. The reason is simple: It’s hard to focus on a topic in your head for more than a few seconds without getting distracted by another thought, and distractions erase whatever you attempted to think about. But words on paper stick. They aren’t washed away by the agitator in your head who won’t shut up about the tone of an email someone just sent you. You might be able to hold focus just briefly in your head, but a sentence on paper has all the patience in the world, waiting for you to return whenever you’re ready. It’s hard to overemphasize how important this is. Putting ideas on paper is the best way to organize them in one place, and getting everything in one place is essential to understanding ideas as more than the gut reactions they often hide as. Take four questions: What is your edge over competitors? How do you react to unforeseen risk? What have you changed your mind about recently? What part of your job are you not good at? These are vital questions that most of us, if asked on the spot, couldn’t answer well. Not because we haven’t thought about them; we certainly have. But the thoughts are probably vague, unsubstantiated, or pure emotions. Many people’s response to the first question would be an uncomfortable pause, a ponder, and a lump in the throat. Which says a lot, just not in words. It’s not until you put thoughts on paper that everything from ignorance to denial to unfulfilled potential is viewed in the raw, ready to be analyzed. Sometimes writing is encouraging. You realize you understand a topic better than you thought. The process flushes out all kinds of other ideas you never knew you had hiding upstairs. Now you can apply those insights elsewhere. Other times it’s painful. Forcing the logic of your thoughts into words can uncover the madness of your ideas. The holes. The flaws. The biases. Thinking “I want this job because it pays a lot of money” is bearable. Seeing the words on paper looks ridiculous. Things the mind tends to gloss over the pen tends to highlight. Warren Buffett once said: Some of the things I think I think, I find don’t make any sense when I start trying to write them down. You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. A common question people ask professional writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?” A common answer is, “From writing.” Writers don’t know exactly what they’ll write about until they start writing, because the process crystallizes the fuzzy ideas we all have floating around. This chicken-and-egg problem is probably why writing is intimidating for some people. They don’t think they can write because – in their head, as this moment – they don’t know what they’d write about. But hardly anyone does. So, write. A journal. A business manifesto. An investment plan. You don’t have to publish it. It’s the process that matters. You’ll uncover so much you never knew.

In 1978, Dr. James H. Austin wrote "Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty." In his book, the neurologist —and Zen Buddhist— explained the roles of luck, chance, and serendipity in medical research, and outlines what we know today as the four kinds of luck: 1. Blind luck.

When I encourage people to start monetizing their knowledge through a digital course, I'm typically met with one question: "What's your best advice?" So, here it is, in 5 simple lessons...

The Cult of Done Manifesto is a special document. Written from bed with Kio Stark in our first few months of dating. It was one of those…

Perfectionism is killing me...

And the 7 trends that explain why Elon Musk coins are trading for $89,374.26?!The Crypto Social Network is Here. Meet BitClout.

You may have noticed it's practically impossible to contact me. I did that on purpose so I can spend my time how I want to spend it. I don't really use email and I have my private message inboxes on every platform closed. And they have been like that for

I recently came across a Hemingway quote that caught my attention: “My working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.” It reminded me of a time I used to spend each spring as a young professor, back when my schedule allowed it, giving short talks at so-called “dissertation bootcamp” events. The […]

By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here . Reading time: 16 mins You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.  Will try (aka take the shot) = have sufficient+ self esteem Outcome = 1. Will try * 2. How well you try If you don’t try then the outcome can never be good.&a

Ensemble averages and time averages

It’s a dance. You have to give yourself what you needed, but give your kids what they need now. Build the world you always wanted, but make sure there’s room in it for the world they want, too. (And know it will change and be constantly in flux, day by day.)

Discover what BitClout is, how it works, whether or not it’s a scam, why it’s valuable, and why it may disrupt Twitter.you can do it now if you want, so i can grab some food and i will finish once you're done?

Longtime entrepreneur and investor Mark Leslie on the inevitable truth that when small companies meet big ones, small usually wins out. Here's why.

How To Invest In Real Estate While Writing Poetry: The BRRRR Method

One of the gifts that I got was the ability to stay positive. I am grateful to my parents, my wife, and my genes (and anyone else responsible too). It is such a superpower. I don’t just mean optimism. I mean saying nice things about people. I mean keeping a smile on your face. I […]

Define, Refine, Automate, Delegate

Back when I wrote about my wishlist for Drafts 5.0, I wanted to have a custom syntax for the editor in Drafts. At the time, this was based on my usage of other text editing apps, and I wanted a the…