What’s Up MWF Community!
Today’s post is a reflection piece on my experiences writing the past year. I don’t get the chance to say thank you to all of you who have supported me in my writing venture enough. So if nothing else, take today’s post as one big thank you to the MWF Community. From the offers to proofread, messages after posts, and efforts to share it with friends, I can’t take credit for this without you. Round of applause to you 👏
For all the newbies (welcome), make sure to check out why MWF @ 8 is valuable to you
If you’re a regular, share MWF through the button below or by forwarding the email to someone else who would enjoy today’s content. We could use some more readers like yourself!
Lastly, follow me on Twitter and the newsletter on Instagram for ways to connect. I want to hear from you on how to make MWF better!
Let’s reflect 👇
I put out my first MWF article on July 1, 2020. I only sent it to a few friends to get their thoughts on what a newsletter would look like from me. The feedback was positive, so I ventured on a year-long journey of 72 different newsletters for a total of 90,000+ words which equates to about a 300-page book - Ipso facto, I've written one of the strangest books of all time.
Writing has led my brain to thoughts I had no clue existed. It's produced some of the best conversations I've had with friends. I've been able to impact people I have never met. I've uncovered areas of interest I would have never found otherwise. It has also led me to new spaces of the internet that I'm connected to.
But it hasn't been easy. In fact, it's been downright draining at multiple points. I've had several mornings and nights where I've felt dejected because I couldn't piece a thought together or hated what I had written altogether. My poor parents often times probably thought they were dealing with a moody teenager again.
Now that I can look at a bigger picture, all of the valleys were worth it. On the outside, it might not seem like the biggest success story, but to me, it is. You and I face the struggle every day of getting out of bed and going to make something of ourselves. And it's hard, and often no one is there to pat us on the back, and people are skeptical, but it's worth it. There is value in rigorous things. Monty Williams, coach of the Phoenix Suns who is in the NBA Finals, was recently quoted:
You're not going to find greatness on the beach. You're going to find greatness in the struggle.
I wanted to write a thought piece of what I have learned from writing online. More broadly than that, maybe I can shine a light on what it's like to put yourself out there online. At the very least, hopefully, I inspire you to know that now is the perfect time to start something. I'm very far from being a great writer, but continually pushing myself to get better has shown its benefits (The last post I had, Solving Trust in Tech, was my most viewed to date!). I'll lay out a few things I have learned and then answer the FAQs I have gained along the way.
1. Write it down to find out how you really feel
Abraham Lincoln is famous for the unsent letter. During the Civil War, he constantly dealt with egotistical military men who would play by their own rules. Numerous accounts say Lincoln would often pen an emotional letter immediately after receiving unfortunate news. He would write how he really felt in the moment. Before sending it, Honest Abe would go on a walk. After Lincoln spent some time in thought, he would send the letter out if he still felt the same way. More often than not, though, Lincoln would develop a change of heart and throw the emotional note in the fire and pen a new one.
One of the best things about newsletters is I can write about whatever I want. If something is going on in the world, and I feel strongly about it, I can have 1,000 words typed up in two hours. But, I will spend five hours editing it. Why? Because emotion is only for an instant. If I were to slap you in the face and then say, "Now, write 100 words about me." It would be an emotional, profanity-laced description. Alternatively, if I slapped you and said, "Write 100 words about me later tonight." You still wouldn't like me, but you would have time to combine emotion with logic.
We live in a right now world. You have to have the immediate superior thought, or it doesn't count. But the people who continue to win are those who dissect all of the facts instead of acting out of pure emotion. That is what writing is for. It's not saying that those immediate emotions aren't still there, but it's packaging them up in a presentable way.
Writing will show you how you really feel. At the same time, it will show you how best to say it.
2. If teaching is the best learning tool, writing is second
I started MWF out of a frustrating sentiment toward education. As I found my groove, I realized that I wanted to be an outlet for continual quality content because we consume a lot of worthless content. I quickly found a community of you who felt the same.
There is a reason why Twitter became so popular. Of course, it's tremendous for its news-breaking capability. But going deeper than that, Twitter allows you to write. You can write, edit, write, edit, write, edit until your tweet is perfect for sending out into the world. Alternatively, before online messaging platforms, these were actual conversations being had. How many times have you been in a conversation and held your tongue on something? If we had data attached to this question, you would have kept quiet a very high percentage of times. Often, I find myself not knowledgeable on what's being discussed or in the minority of opinion (scared to speak up) or in the majority of view (why add another voice?).
So we nod our heads and move the discussion along, occasionally indulging in a good argument.
Meanwhile, writing takes all of what you would blurt out instantly and relaxes those words into a structure. I've looked at a draft of a tweet for over an hour before. Maybe longer. It's only 280 characters, but the structure possibilities are endless, and the message has to be just right. Otherwise, it's not going to get 100k likes.
That means, in writing, your thoughts will soar to anywhere you allow your mind to go. You'll see all sides of a topic. Especially with the volume of technology topics I write on, I'm constantly challenging my own understanding and saying, "Well, what about this or that or… ?" It's pretty incredible, but all of these different paths fuel the frustration. Learning can be complex, and writing about your knowledge is even more complicated. Although, once you can put your understanding in the written word, your unique perspective is cemented.
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand. – CS Lewis
3. If you’re willing to write about it, you care about it
Rarely have I started writing about something and thought, "Ehh, I don't really care about this." With how time-consuming writing is, there is no room to be lukewarm. That would be like buying a $100 ticket to a concert you don't really care to see. It's an easy exercise, but if you had to write a newsletter, what would you write about? Trust me, it took time to find my path. I still haven't fully discovered it, which is the exciting part.
I've written my fair share of stinkers (I'm really not that great at propping up my brand here.), but I've also written some great thought pieces. If you are interested enough in something, the bad doesn't make you give up. Conversely, it drives you to keep going to find the good. Like I've said, I've unlocked areas of interest I had no clue existed. You have them, too. All it takes is a little time and research to find them.
FAQs
Why do it? / What's your end goal?
I consistently get this general question the most. Trust me, I've spent more time thinking about the answer to this than anything. It's obviously not monetization motives or growing a massive audience (although both of those things would be nice). I would spend way more time pushing my brand online if that was my only goal. Selfishly, that would have probably been a motive at the start, but now I see how difficult building an online brand is.
I'm in this interesting Corporate America life at the moment. The business minds that I come across daily are so beneficial to be around. Although, the business world can be suffocating at times. I read somewhere when I first started writing that most American CEOs in the 2010s had some sort of blog, whether that was for the company or just a personal one.
I'm certainly not on the corporate CEO track, but it's an interesting trend among some of our best minds. I think they are so siloed by their company's operations that writing serves as a creative outlet to help them think. Like I laid out above, writing has given me a fresh perspective on so many topics.
The selfish end goal? Probably to find something I love enough to "CEO" in, whether in business or not. The equally gratifying end goal? Helping you think, too. I'm not scheming anything more elaborate than that.
Where do you get the ideas for your newsletter?
Mostly by observation. I have this long note in my iPhone that is just titled "Thoughts." Anytime I'm out and experiencing life, thoughts tend to flow better.
The critical part of this is being out, as in outside your house. I initially started off by downloading all the news sources I could get. My thought was if I could know everything happening, then I could write the best stories. That could not have been further from the truth. Similarly, I followed some of the most interesting people on Twitter, hoping to find inspiration. Instead, every time I popped open Twitter, it would be 95% useless mixed with the occasional nugget of knowledge.
I was in Boston for eight days this summer, and I had more ideas in those eight days than I have had all of 2021. I attribute this to walking 20,000 steps a day, experiencing a brand new place, and gaining a fresh perspective.
My ideal writing comes from something experienced, then coming back and researching/writing. I have a process of setting a timer on my phone and writing for that allotted time. No phone, no lyrical music, no distractions… just a few hours of writing where I put all of my thoughts down.
Lastly, and most time-consuming, I edit the thoughts to make sense. That’s it.
Are you worried about what you write online and it coming back up in a negative light later?
I have no clue what the future holds for me. Even still, this is the most straightforward answer I have, and it's no. This past year has taught me a tremendous amount about what I can do if I put my mind to it, and just like anything you do in life, there are mistakes along the way. Sure, I might have written or will write something insensitive. There very well could be someone in 20 years that protests my promotion because of it.
If that's the case, so be it.
I wouldn't trade the past year of what I've proven to myself for anything. If someone down the road doesn't like what 23/24-year-old me had to say, I will not lose any sleep over it. Someone will always claim they are the most morally just person in the room. Won’t be me.
I guess to answer it less egotistically… That's the biggest issue with being an opinionated person; someone will always find a problem with it. And I'm not blind either to the fact this personality trait wears on people. I hope I'm always perceived as a good guy, but at the end of the day, you can't worry about what other people think about you, primarily online. This is the biggest inhibitor of why people won't begin online ventures, and it sucks because I know people who are more talented/creative than myself.
As the great Lin-Manuel Miranda rapped in the play, Hamilton:
“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”
Again, Thank You.
I appreciate everyone who has read MWF the past year. Seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It's been such a fulfilling endeavor partly because of all the times you've told me it's been valuable to your day. Even if it's not your cup of tea, thanks for supporting me. Can't wait to see what we uncover in year 2!!