Julian Shapiro: recommendation

Transcript context

…Cool. The fourth topic we want to talk about is topic selection, how meta, essentially picking what to write about, and you have a bunch of great advice on what's worth writing about and the framework around that. And then the fifth idea is something you called it the Creativity Faucet, which is essentially how to get more creative. I will turn it over to you to share your thoughts on these topics. Sure, sure. My pleasure. The way I think about topic selection, meaning what is it you should write about for your blog posts, for your newsletter, Twitter, company blog, whatever, books, is you choose topics based on two factors, what would you actually be able to complete so you're not going to give a pathway through and what will actually be high quality. I have a framework for helping you figure out what that is. Basically I believe that your likelihood to follow through on something you start writing is a function of the objective you have with writing that piece and how strong your motivation is for seeing that objective to fruition. Here's what that looks like more specifically. Anytime that I write something, I'm first trying to identify what is my objective. Here's a few examples of objectives that I'll use before sitting down to write. Number one, I want to open people's eyes to prove the status quo wrong, or two, I want to articulate something that everyone's thinking about, but no one is saying. I want to cut through the noise. Another objective might be, I want to contribute original insights to my own research and experimentation. Hence, some of my handbooks. Another objective is just telling a suspenseful and emotional story that maybe imparts a lesson. These are all clear cut objectives that give me a guidepost. I know that I'm done writing a piece if I can read the piece and say, "I've accomplished that particular objective," because people don't know when they're done writing, "Oh, I petered out here and this seems like a good place for an outro." With an objective, you know whether you should actually stop. But then the question is, how do you sustain the motivation to see through an objective? Again, an objective might be something like open people's eyes by proving the status quo wrong. To do all the work necessary to accomplish that, you need a motivation in my opinion. I'll pair one of those objectives that I've selected with a motivation. Some example motivations are, does writing this piece get something off my chest that I really badly need to get off? Or does it help me solve a nagging unsolved problem that I've been dealing with and this piece is way for me to explore and find the solution? Or is it like me obsessing over a topic that I want others to also geek out about? These are all powerful motivations that I pair with an objective to guarantee my follow through to get done writing the piece. By the way, everything I've mentioned in this entire chat with you, the novelty stuff, the topic selection, PLA, state building, everything we've covered, I have tons of examples on Julian.com. That's why I'm not trying to go through every single one. Yeah, and we'll link to all that.…

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