Think Week – No. 1 – October 22, 2023
Clarity from the brightest minds on the internet. (Read the archives)
Read
10+ Years of Losing on the Internet
— written by Jason Levin
What if everything you tried to achieve failed for a decade?
Our feeds are full of everyone’s wins and it creates a false narrative that success is just around the corner. What if it isn’t? Then what?
I’ve been losing on the internet for 10+ years. It feels good to finally be succeeding.
In high school, I started a YouTube channel with friends. We racked up a few thousand views, but gave it up when we didn’t go viral.
As a freshman in college, I started a music blog with friends. We interviewed some famous musicians, but we gave it up because we didn’t know how to make money.
When I found Tim Ferriss’s work as a junior, I started a newsletter, but gave that up because I didn’t see traction after two months.
Somewhere between 2020 and 2022, I learned the value of patience. Maybe it was from COVID, but I genuinely think it was from learning to code.
— Source
Watch
It’s Time To Write.
David Perell interviews legendary investor Marc Andreessen.
Listen
Jay Clouse sits down with Alexandra Watkins, founder of Eat My Words, to help listeners learn how to create a great brand name.
Think
Do you consume more than you create? Applied learning is critical to your growth.
You should always have a project "in progress" that's aligned with whatever you're learning about. Otherwise, what you're reading, watching, and listening to won't stay with you. Passive learning won’t produce results.
Do
Write to One, not Many.
With more individuals entering the creator economy every day, it’s imperative that you don’t try to please everyone.
Find your big idea and develop content pillars around it. Focus on a niche audience and stay true to it. Be consistent. This is the path to earning attention and keeping it.
Find one person that resonates with what you have to say.
One person who finds value in your writing. Better yet, find one person who changes their behavior based on what you said or wrote.
Then, find more people like them.
Fin
Give yourself a break.
This is a friendly reminder that succeeding 3 out of 9 times isn’t bad in the right context. For example, batting 33% will put you in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In the context of writing, it’s truly a numbers game. Just like baseball, you need to swing the bat hundreds of times to be any good. Thousands of times to be great.
Keep swinging.
Thanks for your time.
See you next week,
— DKH
P.S. 50 lessons learned from writing 50 newsletters
P.P.S. If you want to submit an article, essay, or thread to be featured in the newsletter next week, simply reply to this email. I read every single one.