Category: Creator Confidential
-
Icing on the cake
I’ve often written things that I don’t get paid for directly. It’s not that I never got paid directly for my writing. It’s just that I didn’t mind writing, even if I didn’t get paid for that particular piece. Writing and publishing without getting paid often led to opportunities in the long run. For example,…
-
Craft, plus
“Fashion is kinda a joke,” Virgil Abloh says to Carl Swanson for New York magazine. “I don’t get too bogged down in the clothes. For me, it’s one big art project, just a canvas to show that fashion should have a brand which has someone behind it who cares about different contexts. Social things.” Jon…
-
Declassifying secrets
“Flip your 80:20 rule for keeping secrets. Instead of classifying 80% of your information, aim at classifying only 20%. Most of the secrets you keep no one would bother reading even if you delivered them with the morning newspaper.” via The Cluetrain Todo List
-
Less mainstream, more premium
Fame is increasingly temporary, diverging away from actual influence, which means it also doesn’t generate business results like it used to. A lot of advice for creating online is built on fame and reach, almost analogous to mainstream cable. This line of advice is focused entirely on getting attention. Juice up your headlines with hooks!…
-
On quitting, failing, and, “I find a lot of people who should quit don’t”
I recently posted my friend Vin’s blog post at Hacker News, where it sparked a lot of discussion. In particular, one comment by rcme stood out to me: I find a lot of people who should quit don’t. Their taste becomes compromised and they fall in love with their own work. I have high school…
-
Contentions: If you really want to make an impact, tell a story
You may never own a pair of J’s, though there’s a chance you’ll know Michael Jordan’s story. You may not have heard one of Amanda Palmer songs, though you may know of her stories with crowdfunding. You may not watch Oprah, and you might still know her as a billionaire who started with nothing. Same…
-
In praise of the obvious
When you’re playing a word game like Scrabble, it helps to move your letters around. Just a simple shuffle of the same letters will show you combinations that your brain couldn’t see before. There’s a similar case to be made for writing about something that seems obvious. Even if the idea or story is the…
-
One with the people
Even if you come up with the most brilliant business, product, or creative idea, you’ll be limited by how well you can connect it with the people who get value out of it. You don’t just magically find these connections (and ideas!). You discover it through spending time with people and listening to what they’re…
-
I wrote every day for 365 days. Here are my results and 5 insights
In February 2022, I started #the100dayproject with the goal of writing a new blog post every day. (Here’s post #1.) Day 100 came, and I didn’t stop. I was having way too much fun. I’ve since written 110,126 words, enough to fill two nonfiction books. Over 88,106 people have visited my website. I’ve often been…
-
Interviewing experts to learn
I recently appeared at Rich Armstrong’s Twitter Spaces, and the topic of meeting other people (“networking”) came up (1:06:35). It reminded me of a draft for career advice that I pitched Forge (it was just sitting around, and this was an opening to unstick it). When I was a junior in college, I was at…