Sean Gill

Morgan Housel has written 4,000 blog posts and sold 4 million copies of The Psychology of Money. As a writer, he's the best storyteller I know too. Here are his principles for writing: 1. Leave out the parts that readers tend to skip. 2. Writing is an efficiency game. Whoever says the most stuff in the fewest words wins. 3. You have five seconds to catch somebody's attention on the Internet. If you didn't catch them with the headline or in the first two sentences, they're gone. 4. If you're stuck on a piece, go for a walk. 5. If an idea comes to you while you're out walking, email it to yourself immediately. 6. People don’t remember books; they remember sentences. 7. A good story is like leverage for ideas. An idea on its own might be boring, but if you tell a good story about someone interacting with that idea, you can get people to nod their heads and pay attention. 8. Great writing begins with great reading. 9. If you want to write better and more memorable sentences, ask yourself: "If somebody was reading this on Kindle, would they highlight this sentence?" If the answer is no, consider removing it. 10. Everyone should write. Why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. This means they’re also unaware of the value of their ideas, and this value can only be unlocked via writing. 11. Start with one brave sentence and see where it goes. 12. Big words mask little thoughts. They’re an attempt to fool the reader into thinking you’re smart when you have nothing smart to say. 13. Writing for others is work, and it shows. Writing for yourself is fun, and it shows. 14. Morgan calls this Selfish Writing: write to solve your own problems, and the audience will get pulled in because of your emotional involvement. But if you pander to the audience, they will sense your lingering indifference, and leave. 15. The Power Law of Success: if you do 30 things, 29 of them are going to be irrelevant. One of them will completely change everything. Keep writing—volume is your friend. 16. Most books, even by proven authors, are flops. Mark Twain wrote 28 novels. You haven't heard of most of them, but that doesn't matter because he wrote two classics: "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." 17. Mark Twain used to read aloud to his family and watch their reactions. If he saw them getting bored, he’d cut that part out. If he saw them getting excited, he’d double down on that section. 18. Success takes time. Don’t rush it. Morgan spent 14 years as a professional writer before he published his first book. In that time, he wrote more than 4,000 blog posts. 19. Morgan tells the story of two trees. One grows in the shade of a mother tree, growing slowly because the sunlight is cut off. The other, planted in a field with no barrier, receives full sunlight and grows faster. But the first one develops denser wood due to the slower rate of growth. There’s a natural growth rate in nature, and in creative pursuits. 20. Make your writing concise. 21. Concise does not mean short. It means a high density of value to words. Okay, one more... Out of all our conversations, one interaction stands out because it so eloquently captures the essence of his approach. When I asked about his marketing strategy for selling books, he said: "Write a good book." "Well, how do you do that?" "Only write things that you personally find interesting." I've shared the full interview with @MorganHousel below. He's been writing for a decade and a half, and this interview is a deep-dive into his process for coming up with ideas, refining them, sharing them, and building a career as an author. If you'd rather listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple, check out the replies below…

531,000 people read Lenny Rachitsky’s newsletter every week. He started in 2019 with zero writing experience, so what’s his secret? I asked him about writing well, growing a newsletter, and building an ultra-profitable business around creative work. 10 key takeaways: 1. What do people ask you about that you don't have a great answer to? Viral essays are hiding inside this question. If people keep asking you the same question and nobody's written the answer, take on the challenge yourself. 2. Don’t let the size of the internet stun you into inaction. Most of the content out there sucks. Lenny: “If you could just do something better than what's out there, you can rise above the noise.” 3. Lenny’s mantra: “Service instead of self-gain.” Great things happen when you just try to be consistently helpful. No growth hack beats providing real value to people. 4. The world suffers from a scarcity of well-formulated questions from inquisitive people. Lenny has worked in tech for over a decade, and he’s still surprised by how open people are to answering questions and revealing “trade secrets.” 5. Long introductions are a rookie mistake. Save your readers time and jump right into the answer. 6. How to edit: While editing other people (and himself), Lenny asks: “What is interesting to me? Where do I get lost?” Notice where your attention spikes and sags. Your own brain is a great proxy for what people will find interesting (and where they’ll doze off.) 7. You should know what you don’t want to do as clearly as what you want to do. Lenny: “I'm actively not trying to build an empire. I'm actively trying not to build a media company.” 8. Lenny’s first essay went bonkers-viral, partially because of the brilliant headline: “What Seven Years at Airbnb Taught Me About Building a Business.” Let's break it down. “Seven years” gives him credibility, “Airbnb” piques interest, and “about building a business” tells people they can expect actionable takeaways. 9. If you want to have an existential breakdown, try to make each sentence an aesthetic masterpiece. Ditch the poetry and focus on clarity instead. Lenny: “Every time I think about how to write beautifully, I just get stuck and it just slows everything down.” 10. When in doubt, make it useful: If you want to be widely read, try to solve people’s problems. The peskier the problem, and the more useful your solution, the further your writing will spread. I've shared the full conversation with @lennysan below. If you'd rather listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple, check out the replies below…