No BS Writing Advice for 61 minutes straight. [Compilation]

Summary

Podcast Summary: Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast Episode: No BS Writing Advice for 61 minutes straight. [Compilation]
Host: Nicolas Cole
Release Date: April 4, 2025

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Nicolas Cole, the host of Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast, offers an unfiltered and comprehensive 61-minute session packed with pragmatic advice for aspiring and established writers. This episode, aptly titled "No BS Writing Advice for 61 minutes straight. [Compilation]," delves deep into the realities of digital writing, ghostwriting, and self-publishing, dispelling common myths and providing actionable strategies for success.

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1. Romanticizing Writing vs. Embracing Practicality

[00:00]

Cole begins by addressing a prevalent issue among writers: the romanticization of the writing craft. He emphasizes the importance of overcoming cognitive dissonance—the internal conflict between wanting to write out of passion and the necessity to generate income.

Cole: "You're either writing what you want to write about, writing something purely from a place of love and passion for the craft, or you're writing to make money."
[00:18]

He criticizes the notion that being a "real writer" means living idyllically without financial concerns, arguing that this mindset often hinders writers from monetizing their work effectively.

Cole: "Your competition goes down because more and more people go, 'Eh, you know what? Whether I make 40 grand a year or 80 grand a year... it's easier and easier to rationalize not working.'"
[06:24]

2. The Genius Idiot Rollercoaster

[05:34]

Cole introduces the concept of the "Genius Idiot Rollercoaster," a cyclical pattern where writers oscillate between feelings of grandiosity during success and self-doubt during setbacks. He shares personal anecdotes and real-life examples to illustrate how initial successes can lead to inflated self-perception, which is then abruptly followed by disappointment when challenges arise.

Cole: "When things are going well, you aren't a genius. Things are just going well, probably because you executed the fundamentals consistently over a reasonable period of time."
[15:22]

He advises maintaining a balanced perspective, urging writers to remain level-headed regardless of their business trajectory. The key takeaway is to separate one's emotional state from business performance to ensure sustainable success.

3. Eight Brutal Truths for Writers

[23:23]

In the latter half of the episode, Cole unveils eight "brutal truths" that aspiring writers must internalize to achieve financial and creative success in the digital age.

Truth 1: Work Twice as Hard as Everyone Else

[23:30]

Cole stresses that succeeding as a writer requires immense dedication, often involving long hours and relentless effort.

Cole: "If you want to earn a full-time living as a writer, you have to work twice as hard as everyone else."
[23:34]

He recommends ghostwriting as a strategic way to build writing skills and increase income simultaneously.

Truth 2: Nonfiction Requires Masterful Marketing; Fiction Demands Relentless Prolificacy

[40:00]

Cole differentiates between the marketing-centric world of nonfiction and the volume-focused realm of fiction. Successful nonfiction writers often double as savvy marketers or entrepreneurs, leveraging multiple revenue streams beyond book sales.

Cole: "If you want to succeed in nonfiction, you have to realize that the game is really about marketing and, in many ways, entrepreneurship."
[40:11]

Conversely, fiction writers thrive by producing a high volume of work over extended periods, continuously engaging their audience.

Cole: "What it really comes down to is your ability to... write a lot of them and continue to do it over and over and over again over a long time horizon."
[41:15]

Truth 3: Making Money Exclusively as an Author is Unnecessarily Hard

[52:43]

Cole challenges the outdated notion that writing should be the sole source of income. He advocates for diversification, suggesting writers monetize their skills through various channels such as ghostwriting, courses, coaching, and other services.

Cole: "Making money exclusively as an author or a legacy writer is unnecessarily hard."
[52:43]

He highlights examples like Ryan Holiday, who earns more from Stoic coins than book sales, underscoring the potential of alternative revenue streams.

Truth 4: Measure Success Over Decades, Not Days

[56:10]

Success in writing is portrayed as a long-term endeavor. Cole advises against expecting immediate results, emphasizing the significance of persistence and compound growth over years or even decades.

Cole: "If you want to make it as a writer, you're not playing a year-long game. You are playing a decade-long game."
[56:15]

He shares his personal journey from a struggling copywriter to a multi-million dollar writing entrepreneur, highlighting the importance of sustained effort.

Truth 5: Writing is a Lottery—Optimize for Volume

[14:37]

Cole likens writing to a lottery, where success is unpredictable. He advocates for producing a high volume of work, increasing the chances of striking a chord with the audience.

Cole: "Optimize over shots on goal volume. How can you get as many ideas as possible out into the world and then just let the market take care of it?"
[14:43]

He advises writers to focus on quantity, allowing the market to determine which pieces resonate most.

Truth 6: Writing, Not Reading, Makes You a Better Writer

[45:00]

Contrary to popular belief, Cole asserts that actual writing practice is more crucial for improvement than reading extensively.

Cole: "Reading makes you a better reader. You have to create in order to get better at creating."
[45:15]

He emphasizes prioritizing writing over reading, using the metaphor of going to the gym—exercise (writing) trumps merely taking supplements (reading).

Truth 7: No Good or Bad Writing, Only Effective or Ineffective

[52:43]

Cole redefines success in writing by focusing on effectiveness rather than subjective notions of good or bad.

Cole: "Your goal is for your writing to be effective in helping or entertaining a specific type of person."
[52:43]

He encourages writers to tailor their work to their target audience's needs and preferences, rejecting the binary classification of their writing quality.

Truth 8: If You Aren't Achieving Your Goals, It's Your Fault

[56:50]

The final truth is one of empowerment—Cole insists that writers take full responsibility for their success or failure, avoiding the trap of blaming external factors.

Cole: "If you aren't achieving your goals as a writer, it is your fault."
[56:55]

He encourages continuous self-reflection and adaptation, urging writers to identify and rectify their shortcomings proactively.

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Conclusion: Embracing a Practical Mindset for Writing Success

Throughout the episode, Nicolas Cole dismantles romanticized notions of writing and replaces them with a pragmatic framework geared towards financial and creative success. By internalizing these eight brutal truths, writers can navigate the complexities of the digital age, leveraging both hard work and strategic diversification to achieve their goals.

Cole's candid discussion serves as a wake-up call for writers to align their passions with practical strategies, ensuring not only the creation of meaningful work but also the ability to sustain and monetize their craft effectively.

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Notable Quotes:

• On Cognitive Dissonance in Writing:
  "You're either writing what you want to write about... or you're writing to make money."
  [00:18]

• On Romanticizing the Writer's Life:
  "A real writer is a myth that rationalizes not working very hard."
  [02:20]

• On the Cost of Action in the Information Age:
  "The cost of inaction is going up because the cost of action is going down."
  [06:24]

• On Volume Over Perfection:
  "Writing is a lottery. So optimize for volume."
  [14:43]

• On Responsibility:
  "If you aren't achieving your goals as a writer, it is your fault."
  [56:55]

This episode is a treasure trove of insights for writers seeking to transform their passion into a profitable and sustainable career. Cole's no-nonsense approach provides a clear roadmap for navigating the challenges of the digital writing landscape.

Transcript

[A]

In order to become a successful writer in the digital age, you have to stop romanticizing the work. You have to break this cognitive dissonance. This is something I've been thinking about a lot of saying, I just want to write what I want to write about, and at the same time complaining about how it's so hard to make.

[B]

A living as a writer.

[A]

Okay? Because these are two completely different goals. You're either writing what you want to write about, writing something purely from a place of love and passion for the craft, or you're writing to make money. And if you want to make money and you want to make money quickly, or you want to make a lot of money from your writing, then you can't simultaneously say, I just want to.

[B]

Write what I want to write about.

[A]

Because that is inherently selfish. You are putting yourself and your wants and your needs ahead of the readers.

[B]

But you want the reader to pay you.

[A]

So which one is it? Are you writing for yourself or are you writing for the reader? And I find that if there's one thing that keeps so many talented writers from ever making any money from their craft, it's their inability to break this cognitive dissonance. And the root of that cognitive dissonance is how much they romanticize what it means to be a writer. So they think a real writer just.

[B]

Lounges around all day.

[A]

A real writer takes long walks in the countryside. A real writer doesn't do it for the money.

[B]

A real writer bleeds on the page.

[A]

Just like Hemingway said.

[B]

A real writer pours his or her.

[A]

Heart and soul into their writing. A real writer worries not about rent.

[B]

But of wrenching the soul, right?

[A]

You hear all of these things, oh.

[B]

This is what it means to be a real writer. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. So.

[A]

So if you're sitting there with this image in your mind of what you think being a writer is all about, everything you're imagining is wrong. And so you being romantic about the work isn't actually you being romantic and true to the craft. What you've done is you have found a clever way to rationalize. You've found a way to rationalize not working very hard. You've found a way to rationalize not being brutally honest with yourself about what.

[B]

It takes to be successful.

[A]

You've found a way to rationalize not taking extreme ownership over your craft and your career. You've found a way to rationalize not learning about the business side of your art. And you have found a way to rationalize not having the clarity of thought and the awareness within yourself to recognize when you should write for love and.

[B]

When you should write for money.

[A]

Because all of these things are so painful to address in in yourself and would fundamentally mean seeing behind the curtain and accepting the capitalistic structure of the.

[B]

Publishing landscape for what it is.

[A]

It is so much easier to instead say, well, I'm a romantic. I just love the craft of writing, real writing.

[B]

I don't want to do it for the money.

[A]

And then two seconds later, complaining about how nobody makes a living as a.

[B]

Writer or complaining about how you're not.

[A]

Making any money from your writing.

[B]

This is a topic I feel so strongly about because if I'm being completely.

[A]

Honest, these were all the things I struggled with at the beginning of my writing journey. I wanted so badly to believe that being a real writer meant not caring about the money or not acquiring the skills to write things that were in any way commercial. But then two seconds later, I would complain about how my apartment didn't have air conditioning and nobody makes a living as a writer. And it took me a very long time to stop. Stop romanticizing the work and just accept the way things are. Writers who understand the business side make the most money. Writers who build audiences have a huge advantage when it comes to marketing. Writers who build the skills to sell their writing have the easiest time selling copies of books or products or services. Writers who produce the most volume tend to be the ones who get better the fastest and make the most money. Quality over quantity is a myth.

[B]

This is what people who lack self.

[A]

Confidence and want to productively procrastinate publishing their work say, what you really want is a high quantity of quality work. Book deals are a scam. The size of the market is what dictates the size and rate of your hypothetical success. If you write romance genre fiction, you're probably going to be more financially successful than the person who writes literary fiction. It has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with the size of the total addressable market of readers.

[B]

Okay, all of these things that I.

[A]

Just listed out, and there are hundreds more, are the way things actually are, not the way you wish they were. And so the real bottleneck to you becoming a successful writer and achieving anything on your list of meaningful milestones is you have to stop romanticizing what you think it's like to write in the digital age.

[B]

You have to let go of this.

[A]

Dream of Hemingway living carefree in Paris, drinking wine and writing uninterrupted for eight straight hours, right? Never once worrying about rent.

[B]

Hemingway constantly worried about paying Rent.

[A]

And he was broke most of his life. So whatever narrative you're telling yourself isn't actually true. You've just found a very clever way to avoid doing the work and accepting the rules of the game by saying, real writers don't do that.

[B]

Okay, let me clarify that for you. Broke writers don't do that.

[A]

Broke writers don't learn the rules of the game. Broke writers believe being business illiterate is what makes them great and true to their craft. Broke writers think you can only do real writing when you hide away from.

[B]

Society in a cabin in the woods.

[A]

Broke writers defer any and all responsibility to the publisher and adopt a strategy.

[B]

Called Let me close my eyes and pray that it all works out.

[A]

And broke writers spend their entire lives in this cognitive dissonance between these two opposing statements.

[B]

I want to write what I want.

[A]

To write about, and I want to make money. And I'm here to tell you that until you come to terms with that cognitive dissonance, you are going to stay.

[B]

Stuck forever in the information age. The cost of inaction is going up because the cost of action is going down. It has never been easier to rationalize not doing anything, because so many of the things that we have in life today we could only dream of having 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. So it doesn't really matter if you make 40 grand a year or 400 grand a year. Either way, you want to watch Netflix. Either way, you can have sushi delivered to your door with Postmates, right? Either way, if you need help hanging a TV or something, you can find someone to come over and help you do the task for not very much money, right? Fifty bucks, A hundred bucks. So many of the things that we value in society now aren't that expensive. And also so many of the things that we all value. Not only can you have making a ton of money, but you can actually afford many of them by not making that much money. And so what that does, and as that trend continues, what that does is it makes it easier and easier to rationalize not doing anything, right? Because imagine if Netflix cost you $1,000 a month. Well, if that's how much it costs to have that level of entertainment, for example, you would find the energy or motivate yourself to go earn or increase your earning potential so that you could afford the thing that you really want, right? Simple example, replace Netflix with anything. The problem is that Netflix and Postmates and so many of the things that are incredible value, adds to our society and provide an obscene amount of Value in and of themselves are so cheap, right? So do you really need to inspire yourself to take action when you already have access to pretty much every show or movie that you could possibly watch for 10, 15, $20 a month? No. It's hard. It becomes harder and harder to not take action. So this is one of the big pro cons that I see in our technological information age right now, is that as things get easier and as the barrier to entry for so many things comes down, and as scale allows so many of these things to become cheaper and cheaper, it actually makes it easier to rationalize not working or not deploying effort, because, well, you already have Netflix and you already have Postmates, right? The second point is that, which is almost the opposite of the same thing, but it is the opportunity is that the cost of action is also going down. So think about the cost of effort, the cost of time, the cost of action that went into building software 30 years ago. Then think about the cost of effort and time and action for software 10 years ago. And then think about the cost of time and effort and attention and action building software today. And if AI is doing what we think it's going to do, which it probably will, that cost of action is only going to go down. It is going to become easier and easier. Or said more specifically, it will require less and less effort to actually instigate some sort of action. Thirty years ago, it took you five years to build a piece of software. Today it takes you five hours. So the cost, what it costs you to build and do something in society continues to go down. And what's amazing about this sort of situation is that it creates a ton of problems and a ton of opportunity at the same time, especially for writers. Writers who think AI is going to replace me, technology's gonna replace me, they're not gonna be any use for me in the world. Well, there's two big things you need to keep in mind here. One, as technology improves and as the cost of action goes down, more and more people are going to rationalize not doing anything. So in a sense, your competition goes down because more and more people go, eh, you know what? Whether I make 40 grand a year or 80 grand a year or 120 grand a year or 250 grand a year, it doesn't really matter because all I really want to do is play video games and watch Netflix and order Postmates twice a week, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that. If that's what you want, that's fine, but that's going to get easier and easier, Right? And at the same time, because the cost of action is going down, your competition also simultaneously goes up because there are more and more opportunities to build things and it requires less and less effort to build something. Right. A little bit of action goes a long way today. And I guarantee you 10, 10 years from now, that fraction, you know, that little bit of action is going to lead to an even bigger outcome. Right? So it is both the problem and the opportunity. If you're sitting there going, well, as a writer, I'm really afraid of X, Y, Z, you need to really internalize both the problem and the opportunity. And how do you solve this problem? Well, it's actually really simple. You solve the problem by not being the person who goes, I'm satisfied with Netflix and Postmates. That's, that's all you have to do. The whole solution is going, you know what? I can actually build and create things today that I was unable to build 10 years ago. And actually it cost me one tenth the amount of time, effort and action. Well, then you should probably go do that. So let me give you a couple examples. Writing and publishing a book, how difficult was it to write and publish a book through 50 years ago? Well, extremely difficult. And the amount of action that it required was very, very high. Right. Today you could theoretically write and publish an entire book in 30 days or less. Does not take that much action relative to what it took 50 years ago. Right. And now today, let's add in a little bit of AI into that and let's also add in the rapid fire feedback loops that come with writing on social platforms. You add in some of these technological advances and you realize, wow, not only today is it so much easier to do the thing that used to be very difficult, but every single day it gets easier from here. It requires less and less action means just a little bit of action goes a long way. And so whenever I hear writers really complaining about how AI is going to take everything away and we're all going to be automated away, that is only true if you go, I'm going to stay stagnant. But if you continue to deploy effort and find new ways to deploy effort and pay attention to how is the world changing and how can I use these new tools? Well, guess what? The return that you're going to get on your little bit of action is higher today than it has ever been in human history. And I guarantee you, a year from now, the return on your action, the little bit of action that you take will be double, triple, quadruple whatever it is today. You know, this is one of those topics that I find myself thinking about. It's a little bit more philosophical, but I just wanted to share some of the thinking here, which is, if you sit there and think, I will be automated away. You will be. But if you sit there and ask the question, well, what can't be automated? Or how can I use automation to my advantage? Well, then guess what? You won't be. And I think one of the coolest reframes is recognizing that one of the biggest benefits of all of this innovation that we're surrounded by is that your cost of action is only going to go down. It is not that hard to do a lot of the things that you see people doing today. And it's only going to get easier. So why don't you build the skill and capitalize on it?

[A]

If you think your niche is saturated, your business is dying, competition is too strong. Whatever trend you were riding is over. Then I want to introduce you to what I like to call the genius idiot rollercoaster. And it goes like this. You start doing something, so you start writing online. You start providing a service, you start selling a product, you start building a business. And in the beginning, it takes some time to see traction, right? I mean, we've all gone through that. But for example, let's say you decide to start writing online. You write two things. You don't go viral and magically become the most read writer on the entire Internet overnight. And very quickly, you rationalize stopping. And the easiest way to rationalize stopping is by blaming some external factor. So whatever platform you picked to start writing on is broken, or the algorithm is against you. Or readers today don't recognize real artistic talent, which you clearly have. The niche you picked is too competitive.

[B]

Or it's too saturated. The topic that you chose to write.

[A]

About isn't trendy anymore. Whatever. In the beginning, we all do this. This is what we tell ourselves. And a small number of people, despite all of these rationalizations, keep going. They decide, you know what? I'm going to give it a little bit more time. I'm going to give it 30 more days, I'm going to give it 60 more days, whatever. Until all of a sudden, one day, they write something that strikes a chord, and they get 10 times or 100 times or even a thousand times more viewership on what they wrote overnight. And every single person who experiences this, especially the first time, comes to the same conclusion. I'm a genius, right? Instantly, you decide you were right all along. You always had it in you. You're smart, you're capable, you're talented. And the world is finally taking notice. Now, sometimes this euphoria lasts a day. Sometimes it lasts a week. Sometimes it lasts a month. But what goes up must come down. And inevitably, at some point in the not so distant future, that euphoria is going to wear off, and you're going to feel yourself riding this roller coaster in the other direction. An easy example here is imagine you followed my advice. You watched tons of my YouTube videos. Maybe you even joined one of our programs, like Ship 30 for 30 or premium ghostwriting Academy. And you decide to start writing in a line. You decide to start ghostwriting. So you embark on this journey. You start building some of these new skills, and then you start reaching out to potential clients. And in the beginning, before you've landed your first client, you can hear all of those early rationalizations just screaming inside your brain. This doesn't work. Cole was wrong. Cole doesn't know what he's talking about. This probably doesn't even work for my industry. The niche I picked is too saturated. Nobody can afford my services, right? Just over and over again, this is everyone. We've had over a thousand people go through our premium Ghostwriting Academy. And I can tell you without fail, every single person says some variation of this to me and our team during their first few weeks. Until one day, a prospect responds to their outreach. They want to talk, so they hop on the phone. And then later that afternoon, the ghostwriter makes their first $5,000. And literally, in an instant, the complete opposite happens. And the writer starts saying to themselves, oh, my God, this works. I picked an amazing niche. I'm great at this. I'm a genius. And you completely forget that 24 hours before this happened, your entire worldview was, this won't work. This won't work. This won't work. And so you would think after an experience like this and experiencing this switch, you would learn, right? We would learn that whatever point of view we held before might not be 100% correct. But that's not what happens. Sticking with our example, let's say you land another client, and then you land another client. And what happens is you continue thinking you're a genius. You have the best business ever. Entrepreneurship isn't even that hard. Until one day, two clients churn, and overnight your income goes down by 60%. And then what happens? You begin riding the genius idiot rollercoaster all the way back down, Two clients turn, and you go right back to where you were before, thinking, I Knew this didn't work. I knew my industry was saturated. I knew I picked the wrong niche. I knew nobody could afford my services. And unfortunately, you stay there, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a month, sometimes for a year, until you land two new clients and you repeat the cycle all over again. I'm a genius. I'm an idiot. I'm a genius. I'm an idiot. And so what's the moral of what I'm telling you? It's that neither of the extremes are true. And I want to tell you a quick story to show you why. I have a close friend who's a therapist and life coach. When he graduated from grad school, I helped him get his business up and running. And in the beginning, he said his only goal was to make 100k per year. If he could do that, he would be happy, he'd be satisfied. That would be enough for him. That's eight grand per month. And I told him that was completely doable. So I helped him work on his positioning. I helped him figure out who his ideal client could be. I helped him refine his sales pitch. All of it. And for the first couple months, same as everybody else, he didn't believe that it was going to happen. He hoped. He trusted me. But he was skeptical. And his wife was even more skeptical. She was encouraging him in the background to just get a regular job and work for someone else's practice because that was more reliable. But we stuck with it. He stuck with it. And eventually he started landing clients. So nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. And then all of a sudden, everything happened and it finally clicked and he hit his goal. He went from being a broke grad school student to running his own practice, making eight grand per month fairly quickly. Guess what happened then? He thought he was a genius. Business was good, clients were coming in, and we'd talk on the phone and he'd tell me about how amazing everything was going and how this had completely reframed his own potential. Now he wanted to make 200k per year. Then he wanted to make 300k per year, right? Because it was so easy to find clients. He was in the genius part of the roller coaster, right? He was at the top end. Then a couple months later, some of those clients churned. Very normal in any service business. And it's not that his business was dead by any means, but he did start to fall below that 8k per month threshold which defined his, quote, unquote, success. So guess what happened then? He called me in an absolute panic. I knew this Was too good to be true. I don't think my coaching offer works anymore. I think I need to change niches. I think I need to go after a different type of client. Literally every rationalization you could possibly think of, he said to me. And I remember it because it was like a two hour long conversation. I had to talk him off the ledge and tell him, dude, it happens. This is just part of the game. This is what running a service business looks like. Relax. But he couldn't relax. He was now at the bottom of the roller coaster. And the only thing he felt in that moment was that he was an idiot. He was an idiot for thinking that he could do this, and he was an even bigger idiot for trusting me. Okay, so guess what happened? Literally three days later, three new clients all came through the door and signed in the same week. And then he calls me again. And by this point in the story, you should know what the message was. He goes, cole, I'm a genius. I knew everything was fine. I have an amazing business. I have an amazing niche.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I have an amazing offer. This is a close friend. We talk on a weekly basis. And I can tell you that we have had some variation of this conversation every couple months for the past five years, ever since he started his coaching business. And I don't fault him for it, because I used to go through the same thing, Especially when I was building my ghostwriting agency. When we would land five new clients in a month, I would literally have trouble sleeping at night because I was so jacked up on adrenaline, daydreaming about how I was building this massively successful company and I was going to make millions of dollars and become a business titan. And then when we would lose five clients in a month, I would also have trouble sleeping because I thought my business was about to die and it was a trend and we just got lucky and the party's over. And it was good while it lasted. And I was an idiot forever thinking otherwise, right? Genius. Idiot, genius, idiot. And it's taken me a really long time to learn. Anytime you are trying to create something, this rollercoaster is inevitable. It's part of the process. And again, neither extreme is true. When things are going well, you aren't a genius. Things are just going well, probably because you executed the fundamentals consistently over a reasonable period of time. And when things aren't going so well, you aren't an idiot. Things just stopped working, probably because you stopped executing the fundamentals in some way or another. But that doesn't mean your business is about to die. Every single business has good months and bad months, has uptimes and downtimes, and every worker and team member inside of every business has good months and bad months, uptimes and downtimes. Salespeople are a great example of this. Every solopreneur, every creator, every single person trying to create anything in the world has good months and bad months, uptimes and downtimes. Which means there's a skill to build here. And that skill is learning how to be level headed despite being chained to the genius idiot rollercoaster. Because it's going to happen either way. You're going to feel manic when things are going great, and you're going to feel depressed when things aren't going so great. The skill though, is being able to manage the highs and coach yourself out of the lows and remind yourself at both the peak and the valley that neither extreme lasts forever. When you're up, instead of projecting that state out and thinking this feeling of euphoria is never going to end, you should talk yourself down a little bit, right? You should humble yourself. And when you're down, instead of projecting that state out forever and thinking that this feeling of depression will never end, you have to learn how to coach yourself out of that low, right? You have to stay optimistic. If there's one soft skill I notice the vast majority of people lack, it is this one. They wrap their emotional state and identity up in the performance of whatever thing they're trying to build. When their business is doing well, they're doing well. And when their business isn't doing well, they aren't doing well. And that is a horrible, horrible way to approach any level of entrepreneurship. Instead, like I said, the skill to build is being able to manage the highs and coach yourself out of the lows. And in order to do that, your emotional state has to be separate from the performance of your business. Anyways, I just wanted to share that with you today because A it's something I've been thinking about a lot, but B because it's something I noticed that causes a lot of talented people to give up or quit something the moment they start sliding down that genius idiot rollercoaster when really they would be just fine if they just coached themselves out of the low and kept going. That friend of mine who told me 50 times his business is going to die, guess what? It's still going and he's just fine. So the next time you feel yourself riding the roller coaster, relax, go for a walk, remind yourself that this is a skill and it's a skill that you need to build. You have to learn how to manage the highs and coach yourself out of the lows. Otherwise you aren't running your business. Your business is running you.

[B]

If you actually want to make money as a writer and not just spend your entire life daydreaming about it, then you need to hear these eight brutal truths. And I know you need this tough love, because this is the same kind of tough love I needed at the beginning of my writing career. And just to give you a little context, 10 years ago, I graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in fiction writing. And I was completely broke. I was living in a rundown studio apartment on the north side of Chicago. I was working a minimum wage job as an entry level copywriter. And today, 10 years later, I now run a portfolio of writing related businesses that does over $6 million in annual revenue. I've published 10 different books. I've made millions of dollars from my writing. I've grown all different sorts of writing related businesses. And I went from that studio apartment to where I am now by really internalizing these eight brutal truths that I'm gonna share with you. This is not the surface level stuff I'm not gonna tell you. You just have to work really hard or you just gotta pour your heart and soul into your writing. That's not what we're gonna talk about here today. These are really hard lessons I had to learn along the way. And each one forced me to change the way that I was thinking about becoming a successful writer in the digital age. So brutal truth number one, if you want to earn a full time living as a writer, you have to work twice as hard as everyone else. And what I mean by that is you are competing against people like me today. So just think about that. I now spend eight to ten hours per day writing, minimum, usually seven days a week. I usually do just as much on the weekends. And most people, most really successful writers in whatever industry or whatever niche, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, they all are writing 30, 40, 50 hours a week. And so as a baseline, you sort of have to understand if you're starting from zero, that's who you're competing with. Right? The first step of really building momentum for yourself as a writer is you have to solve this problem called I only have an hour or two a day to work on my writing, which was me in the beginning when I was first starting out. You know, I was working 8, 10 hours a day at this ad agency, not really doing the sort of Writing that I wanted to do. In a lot of cases, I wasn't even writing. I was getting paid as a copywriter, but I was just like editing or doing grammatical edits on proposals and random other things like that. And so the only time I had to write was after work. I would commute an hour to and from work each day, and then I'd go to the gym. And then the only time I would have to write is around 8, 9pm to about midnight. And if I didn't get in my writing in those hours, I didn't get to write that day. And if I didn't do that each day of the week, and I only did that on the weekends, well, then I was only writing, you know, two, five, maybe ten hours a week. And again, you're competing against people who are writing 30, 40, 50 hours a week. And so in the beginning, the first thing you need to solve for is, well, how do I get as many hours as possible practicing my writing? And sometimes that means late at night, sometimes that means early in the morning, sometimes that means saying no to some of the other social obligations and getting it done on the weekends. But you gotta make it happen because if you aren't able to do that, then you're never gonna get over the hump and start building momentum to where you have more and more time to invest in your writing. And I'll tell you, the step that I always recommend everyone takes here is I really, really encourage you, if you really want to become successful as a writer, the first thing I would encourage you to do is to start ghostwriting. Because ghostwriting is essentially this bridge between you working a full time job and you maybe writing on the side and ghostwriting. If you can transition a ghostwriting side hustle into your ghostwriting full time. Well, now, during the day, all of that time spent ghostwriting, you're basically getting paid to practice. So you can double or triple the amount of hours that you're writing and that you're practicing, but you're getting paid to do it. You're providing a service. And then also with ghostwriting is you can increase how much you're earning. And as you increase how much you're earning, maybe you don't need to work as much. And then you have more time to reinvest in your own writing. So step one is really, how do you get yourself out of a scenario where you're working a job that you really don't enjoy for eight, ten hours a day? How can you reclaim more time so that you're Practicing writing, and you're getting paid to practice. And then as you have more time and you're getting paid to practice and you increase your earnings, how do you have more time to reinvest in your own writing? And that is when you start to really feel momentum as a writer. It's very, very difficult to feel that momentum or to get to a place like where I am now when you're only able to write an hour a day, you know, so that's really the thing you need to solve for. And this might seem like a funny example, but I was just watching this really great documentary on Netflix with my wife about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. It's called America's Sweethearts. I did not think that I was going to enjoy it as much as I did, but it's a really great example of the kind of work ethic you need when you want to make your dream come true. I didn't actually know that, you know, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, for example, I didn't know that they weren't paid a full time salary and they weren't dancing for the team all day, every day. All of them actually have other careers and they are working six, eight hours a day doing something else. And then in their off hours or at night they go dance with the Dallas Cowboys and. Or they're training or they're practicing with their team. And so, you know, that's a great example of being world class at your craft. That this documentary made me respect them so much because the amount of work ethic you need to do that is insane. But that's essentially the mentality you need to have, and you need to apply that to whatever your pursuit is in life. And writing is a great example of this is if you're currently working a job that you don't enjoy and you really want to make it as a writer, or maybe you're working a job you enjoy, but you want to make it as a writer. You're just not doing that yet. You have to work way harder than everyone else in the beginning and you have to make use of all your extra time, otherwise you're never gonna get over that first hump. Then once you get over that first hump and you're able to start getting paid to practice writing, or you have more hours per day to reinvest in your writing, then it becomes a game of, well, how high can you turn up the volume on that? You know, like every single day I'm like, wow, I got here. But if I slow down, I'M not going to accomplish my goals. So that's why, you know, the more successful even I become, I do not taper down how much I'm practicing. I'm still writing six, eight, ten hours a day on the weekends. I'm still putting in shifts because that's how hard you need to work. So that's the first brutal truth. The second one. If you want to become a successful nonfiction writer, you need to become a world class marketer. And if you want to become a successful fiction writer, you need to become relentlessly prolific. So let me explain the differences here. If you notice, all of the most successful, highest paid nonfiction writers are not just writers. Almost all of them are entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial. Okay? So James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, has other businesses and is an amazing marketer. Mark Manson, author of the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, has other businesses, makes money in other ways besides just writing books, and is an amazing marketer. Ryan Holiday, author of the Obstacle is the Way, has other businesses, monetizes his writing in other ways and is an amazing marketer. And I even heard him say in an interview that he makes more money each year selling his little stoicism coins than he does his own books. And he's one of the most successful nonfiction authors of the past decade. So something that you really need to internalize is that becoming successful in the world of nonfiction really doesn't have as much to do with the volume of books that you're putting out. And it also doesn't have very much to do with even the quality of writing. There are some very, very, very popular nonfiction books, business books, self help books, finance books that are very mediocrely written. And that's because the value in nonfiction is not the beauty of the sentences. The value in nonfiction is. Are you answering my question or are you telling me a story I find interesting? Okay, so if you want to succeed in nonfiction, you have to realize that the game is really about marketing and in many ways, entrepreneurship. You know, there's a reason why so many of the books that dominate the New York Times bestseller list from nonfiction authors are also from people who have very lucrative businesses because then they can throw money at their books. Tony Robbins is an amazing example of this. Every time Tony Robbins comes out with a book, number one New York Times bestselling author. But that's because he's not really a writer. He's not really an author. He's an entrepreneur with an insanely lucrative business that allows him to fund and market his books. Okay, so that's the nonfiction game. The fiction game is actually very different with fiction. If you notice, all of the most successful and highest paid fiction writers are actually not great marketers. Many of them don't have huge social audiences, they don't have big email lists, they don't follow any of the best practices that, you know, if you're in the marketing world. A lot of them are actually invisible on social media, but they do one thing exceedingly well, and that is they publish a relentless amount of fiction and they just don't stop and they keep going over a very long time horizon. And I find that oftentimes when people ask about fiction, they think that fiction is about hitting a grand slam. And it's like you spend 10 years writing this perfect book or this perfect series, and then you put it out into the world and then this series just explodes. And like, that's it. And that's actually not really the game. The game with fiction has a lot more to do with volume over a long time horizon. Colleen Hoover, if you know who she is, is a really great example of this. Her books are not, you know, Pulitzer Prize winning material, but she is relentless about publishing romance stories. And the fact that she is so consistent and just keeps going over and over and over again, that is really what has made her so successful. Obviously her stories resonate and there's something that's connecting with readers there, but a lot of it has to do with volume. Matt Deniman is actually another good one. He's the author of this LITRPG series called Dungeon Crawler Carl. And if you look at litrpg writers are a great example of this. Or writers that start with web novels or web serials and then they transition into writing books later. Each book. So in this Dungeon Crawler Carl series, each book is 500 plus words. It's a huge book. 600, 700, 800 words. And there's six books in this series. And he's been chipping away at this for years. And another thing that he does is he also publishes these on a site called Royal Road. And so he's constantly getting feedback. And so when you look at the output of someone like that, that is so far above what the average fiction writer thinks is necessary. And I did a quick search. There's a great tool called Publisher Rocket where you can pull sales data from Amazon. And it's not always 100%, but it's directionally accurate. And this series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, between print books, ebooks and audiobooks, just for this six book series altogether is averaging over $200,000 per month in revenue. Okay, so that means his book series is doing, you know, over a million a month basically in top line revenue, because each book is doing 200 grand. So 200 grand times six, 1.2 million a month. Ish. Top line. And he's probably taking home 10, maybe 20% of that. So he's making a hundred grand a month writing. But I would also bet that he has been writing for 30, 40, 50 hours a week for years. And so again, you don't always have control over. You very rarely have control over the outcome. I don't think he even knew that this series was going to be as successful as it became. But the thing that he knows he has control over is how many hours he's racking up and how consistent he is. And the more that I study genre fiction, the more that I see this to be a universal truth is that it really doesn't have to do with some clever marketing strategy. It doesn't have to do with having some giant social media audience. What it really comes down to is your ability to, yes, write great stories, but write a lot of them and continue to do it over and over and over again over a long time horizon. So those are the two big things you need to understand about becoming a successful nonfiction writer or becoming a successful fiction writer, which leads to brutal truth number three. Making money exclusively as an author or a legacy writer is unnecessarily hard. And I'm using the word unnecessarily on purpose. I find that a lot of writers really romanticize what it means to be successful, and they think that you're only a real writer if you are earning money exclusively from selling books. It's like the same definition of being a successful writer that we had back in the 1920s, but today, and that just doesn't make any sense. And I know how challenging this is because I have struggled with this for years. This was my definition of success for a long time. And in many ways, just to be fully transparent, I still feel that feeling of I see some other writer win the Pulitzer Prize, or some other writer gets all this press coverage saying, oh, this new novel they came out with is just absolutely incredible. And they have a publisher behind them and they have all these legacy badges and all of these things that say that's what it means to be a successful writer. And I have moments where I go, oh, I must not be a real writer. I don't have any of those things. But then I remember how much freedom I have and then I remember that I make 10 times more money than that writer. And so it depends on how you want to define success. And I feel very strongly and whenever I have those moments, I always come back and I reground myself and I'm like, oh yeah, I wouldn't trade what I have any day of the week. You have to really remember that books are far from the most lucrative way to monetize your talents as a writer for two reasons. One is that books are price capped. Readers are not willing to pay more than 20, maybe $30 for a book, maybe $50 for a book if it's some super ding dong hardcover, leatherback, rare, signed edition. Right? But typically books as a product category are price and then second is that they're one off. When someone buys a book, they're done. And the only time that there's repeat purchases is if A, they lose their book, they need another one, B, they want it in a different format. So they're like, I have the print book, but I want the audiobook. Or C, they gift it to someone else. But even still, right, that you have no recurring revenue. Like yeah, maybe they might buy a second copy, but there's nothing about that. There's nothing recurring baked into the business model. And so as a business, selling books is very, very far from the most effective way to monetize your talents as a writer. And yet that is the business model everyone associates with being quote unquote successful. And that's why I use the word unnecessary. Because we don't need to only monetize our talents that way anymore. It is unnecessary to think that way. You unlock so much more upside for yourself as a writer when you consider the other ways you can monetize your talents. So sure, you can monetize through books, but you can also monetize through paid newsletters. You can also monetize through courses. You could also monetize through providing coaching, working with other writers one on one, or working with businesses one on one. You can monetize with providing a service, you can get paid ghostwriting, whatever you're really good at writing for yourself. You can earn a dividend on those talents by providing that as a service to someone else through ghostwriting. Right? So there are so many other ways to monetize. Ryan Holiday writing about stoicism and then sell stoic coins. He makes more money selling the stoic coins than he does the books. There are so many other ways to monetize your talents as a writer, and I think it is one of the biggest Mistakes that writers make today thinking that they aren't a real writer, if they aren't living that, you know, projected dream of. If I'm not the modern day Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, then I'm not a real writer. And that just couldn't be farther from the truth. All of these different ways that you can monetize, you are still writing. It's very hard to have a lucrative paid newsletter. If you can do that as a writer, you are a real writer. Okay? So it doesn't just have to be a novel. You can monetize in all these other ways. Brutal truth number four, you can't measure success over days. You have to measure it over decades. So it is very hard to unlock massive success as a writer. Year one, oftentimes year two and even year three, okay, you can start unlocking small wins. It's very easy and very doable. Year one to go from I have zero followers to I have a couple thousand followers, right? It's very easy to go from. I want to start monetizing my talents. I want to get into ghostwriting. Oh, now ghostwriting is paying me five, ten grand a month. I've seen it happen. I've coached hundreds of writers doing it. I know that it's possible. I've seen it over and over again. However, it's very rare that in the first year or even two years, you start unlocking outcomes like, oh, all of a sudden I'm making 30 grand a month for my writing, or I'm making 60 grand a month from my writing, or oh, I've turned myself into this super lucrative service and I'm killing it. I'm making 100 grand a month, or oh, I wrote this bestselling book or this amazing book series and I'm just raking in the cash. Very, very rarely does that happen in the first year, two or three, okay? And so you have to internalize that if you want to make it as a writer. You're not playing a year long game. You are playing a decade long game, or ideally a multi decade long game. That is one of the reasons why I love writing so much is because unlike athletics or even in many ways business, you don't see CEOs stay CEO until the day they die. But very often you will see prolific writers write until the day they die. And I love writing because it is such an infinite game. I know that until I die or my brain goes, I'm going to write and I can write and there's nothing that's really holding me back from that it's not like being an athlete where past the age of 30 or maybe 35, your body, you just can't do it anymore. That's what makes writing very different. And so you have to internalize that and go, this isn't a game that I'm focused on winning in 365 days. This is a game I'm focused on winning over the next 30 or 40 or 50 years. And when you elongate the time horizon like that, you remove so much of the pressure off of yourself. Okay, so the other thing that here that a lot of writers misunderstand is that a lot of the rewards that come from writing, it's actually impossible for them to happen in the first year or two. So a lot of the rewards are things like compounding word of mouth or compounding trust. Like, I see writers now that join Our program ship 30 for 30, or premium ghostwriting academy that will say, I've been following you since 2014. I've been reading your writing since your Quora days. And then they didn't. They just haven't purchased anything until now, ten years later. Right. Or someone going, you know, I've been on your email list since 2020, and now, finally, I'm ready to take the next step. Well, if you don't stick with it and you don't continue building year after year after year, you never start unlocking all that compounding, and it becomes a very powerful thing. You know, from a perception standpoint, when someone discovers your work and, you know, say you write something that goes massively viral, doesn't have to be. But for the sake of this example, say you write something that goes massively viral and someone discovers you for the first time, well, if they see that you've only been at it for 30 days or you've only been at it for three months or six months, yeah, they might follow you or they might pay attention to you, but there's this unconscious bias where they go, yeah, but you're still new to the game. We'll see how long this lasts. Right? We all do this. Whereas when someone discovers me, the first thing they realize is, you've been at this for 10 years. And once you see that, your likelihood of wanting to listen to that person or wanting to follow them or wanting to pay attention to them is so much higher than the person that looks like they've just started playing the game. And so these are the types of rewards that you don't really unlock in the first year or two, which is why I really Encourage you to not get so caught up measuring success in the first 365 days. It doesn't matter. This is a game that you should want to play for a very, very long time. Okay? And it's hard for everyone. Everyone starts at zero. The first year is grueling. My first three years of trying to, quote, unquote, make it as a writer were so hard. I was working that full time job. I was commuting an hour back and forth to work. I didn't have air conditioning, I didn't have any furniture. I just had a desk and a bed. And I would just try and get in my two hours of writing each night before, before I went to sleep, you know, it was really tough. And that whole first year, I just really didn't know if it was going to go anywhere. And even year two, I like started to see some success and started unlocking some little wins, but I was like, maybe this is short lived. I don't know where this is going to go. Okay, so it's hard for everyone. And it doesn't help you to look around at other people and go, oh, well, it was easy for them. They had the fast track. Like, it's easy. It's just too hard for me. No, it's hard for everyone. You just have to have the grit and the determination to get through those first couple years. And then when things start picking up momentum, you're going to think the complete opposite. You're going to be like, wow, this is amazing. Everyone needs to do this. Okay, so do you just internalize that? The beginning is tough and that's just part of the process. And all of the real rewards get unlocked as you get through that phase. Brutal truth number five. Writing is a lottery. So optimize for volume. And this is one that took me a really long time to learn. And I think it's true for pretty much every creative industry, which is you never know what's going to resonate. I promise you. The things that you sit there and obsess over and spend 100 hours refining and thinking, oh, this is my masterpiece and I'm going to put this out into the world. Those are the ones that flop. And then the things that you write really quickly and you're not even sure if you like it, and you barely bothered editing it and you're like, I don't even know if I really want to share this, but whatever, and you hit publish. Those are the things that catch fire. And I have lived this hundreds of times. The things that I spent so much time on and obsessed over weren't the things that ended up working, weren't the things that ended up really resonating? And then the things that I just almost threw off the cuff and just went through quickly or acted on an idea in a very short amount of time, they ended up catching fire. And I am always surprised, even to this day, I am surprised at how much I don't know what the market wants and I don't know what's going to work and what doesn't. And so you have to sort of internalize that and just trust that you are not the smartest person in the room. You don't know what's going to resonate. And so it doesn't help you to sit there and obsess over your writing. Instead, it's much better to optimize over shots on goal volume. How can you get as many ideas as possible out into the world and then just let the market take care of it? Let the chips fall where they fall. That's the only thing that you have control over. You don't have control over the outcome. A lot of writers think, well, if I obsess over this, I'm going to control the outcome. I'm going to make sure that this performs well. And a lot of times that's not how it goes. And so you have a lot more to gain by almost foregoing that and just saying, I'm going to get out as many of my ideas as possible into the world. Brutal truth number six. I always love this one. Reading does not make you a better writer. Writing makes you a better writer. And I will tell you, the moment that this really clicked for me. This was probably back in 2014, 2015, like right after I had graduated from college. And again, I was in that first year, it was a slog. I was trying to figure out how to make it as a writer. I really didn't know where the path was going to go. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just trying. And I remember I was watching the Lil Wayne documentary, if you've ever seen it, when he was making his most famous album of all time, which is the Carter 3. And this documentary is the year that the album comes out. They're on the tour bus with them, and there's this part in the documentary, documentary, where the interviewer goes, who do you listen to for inspiration? And Lil Wayne goes, myself. And the interviewer is confused and clarifies and goes, no, no, but who else do you listen to? What other artists do you listen to for inspiration. You know, who, who do you admire? And Lil Wayne, just with the most dead stare goes myself. I record, I listen to myself. I listen for what needs to be improved. I record again. And that's what I do. And I remember watching that and going, I am spending too much time reading and not enough time writing. And there was something about seeing it with someone else, you know, versus just reflecting on it in myself that made me realize how much the more that you consume and the more that you read, you aren't really getting better at creating, you're getting better at consuming. Reading makes you a better reader. You have to create in order to get better at creating. Writing is what makes you a better writer. And obviously, obviously, I understand the value of reading. I read, I enjoy reading, I enjoy studying other writers. I do it often, but there isn't a single day when the amount of hours or the amount of time I spend reading exceeds the amount of hours or time I spend writing. It never happens, ever. Because I know if I'm forced, if I only have a free hour, if I have a really busy day and I'm like, wow, I just had a ton going on, I only have an hour, I only have two hours. The hierarchy of decision is if I want to keep getting better and better at being a writer, I need to spend those two hours writing. Okay? And if I spend those two hours reading, and that day my time spent reading and studying exceeded my time spent creating and pushing output, then I am not advancing myself toward my goal. And whenever I explain this to beginner writers, it's so hard for them to wrap their heads around. And I find the vast majority of writers really over rotate here and they think that reading is how you become a better writer. And so what happens is they start to use reading as a way to productively procrastinate. Because writing is hard. And so instead of writing and doing the hard thing, they read and they read and they read. And the whole time they tell themselves, I'm getting better at writing, I'm studying my craft. But the reality is you're not. You're getting better at reading. And reading is only beneficial when your time spent creating is already locked in. Reading is a supplement, it is not a replacement. Okay, you could say the same metaphor about going to the gym. It's like everyone wants to know what the supplements are. And if you're not going to the gym regularly and you're not eating consistently, it doesn't matter what supplements you take. The supplements are not what get you There they help, but they are not the core. And reading is the exact same way. Brutal truth number seven. There is no such thing as good or bad writing, only effective or ineffective writing. So the terms good and bad are entirely subjective. I promise the writer you love probably isn't the writer that I love, and the writer that I love probably isn't the writer that you love.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

We have subjective tastes. And so I think that it is very challenging when a writer says, my goal is to become a great writer, because that is an unclear aspiration. Great is completely subjective, okay? And you might aim yourself in one direction and then find someone else who has a different taste than you. And all of a sudden you go, oh, I guess I'm not that good of a writer. No, they just have a different subjective opinion of what they like, which is why I much prefer. And a much clearer aspiration is to think in terms of, is my writing effective or ineffective? And what I mean by that is, am I able to speak to my target reader? Do they see themselves in my writing? Am I effective at reaching them, helping them solve a problem or entertaining them? Because if my writing is effective at achieving those goals, then it's great writing. And if my writing is not effective in achieving those goals, it's not very great. It's not very good writing. Right. It is ineffective. And so I would really encourage you, do not fall into the trap of thinking, I need to be a great writer or I'm a good batter. I'm a good writer. I'm a bad writer. Do you think I'm good? Do you think I'm bad? I notice all the time people that go through our writing programs ship, 30 for 30 is a great example. People want to know, you know, is my writing good? And I always tell them it doesn't matter if I think it's good or not, because I might not be your ideal reader. Good and bad are subjective. Your goal is for your writing to be effective in helping or entertaining a specific type of person. And if you're able to do that, then you're accomplishing your goal. I think the romance category is an amazing example of this. A lot of times, admittedly, myself included, but a lot of times writers will look at the romance category and go, uh, that writing is so bad. But the reality is those romance writers are raking it in, and their readers love their work, and their readers will read the shit out of whatever they publish. So it really doesn't matter if I think the writing is good or bad. The writing is very, very Effective. And that's the only measure for success. Brutal truth number eight. If you aren't achieving your goals as a writer, it is your fault. And I say that as an empowering statement and not a demoralizing one. There is always a reason why something is working or not working. And your job, if something isn't working, is to figure out what that thing is. Okay? And I will tell you, a 100% guaranteed path to making sure that you do not succeed is for you to defer and not do this self reflection and blame external forces. And I see writers do this constantly. They go, that platform's broken. That platform's too saturated. My niche is too saturated. There's too much competition. I don't think readers care about this thing anymore. The reader's wrong. I am so smart and talented. The reader just doesn't have good taste. That is a 100% guaranteed path to failure because all you're doing is foregoing responsibility and you don't have control over those variables. Okay? You gain nothing by deferring and blaming other things or other people. The thing that you have control over is instead of pointing the finger, you pull the thumb and you ask yourself, there's something that I'm not getting. There's something I need to change. Okay? So some questions I would encourage you to ask yourself, what don't I know how to do? What do I think is true that isn't actually true? What am I not doing enough of? So volume of some sort, what am I doing enough of but need to do better? So you might be doing it, but you're just not doing it well enough. And, or what am I doing enough of to the best of my ability, but might not actually be the thing that moves the needle. So you might not need to keep doing the same thing that you've been doing or do it better. You might need to do something different. And these are the self reflective questions that you have to ask yourself. Because I promise you, wherever you are stuck, whatever bottleneck you are faced, with, whatever obstacles in front of you is your fault. And the only reason that you haven't gotten over it yet is because you haven't figured out what that thing is. Because if you knew what the thing was, then you wouldn't have that problem anymore, right? And I find, you know, creative people are so just notorious at this. Creative people do a miraculous job at blaming everyone else. And the ones that are truly successful are the ones who ask themselves these self reflective questions and just continuing hammering home what don't I Know how to do. What new skill do I need to develop? What am I not doing enough of? What am I doing? But I need to figure out how to do it better. Maybe all of the things that I'm focused on aren't actually the things that move the needle for me. What is the new and different thing I need to do? And if you aren't able to do that for yourself, you're going to stay stuck wherever you're stuck. And speaking from experience, I've been writing on the Internet for over a decade. At this point, I can tell you that every single time I was stuck at a certain level, I made the same mistake. I went through my little, you know, internal temper tantrum of it's everyone else's fault but mine. I made up every excuse in the book. And then eventually I figured out, or I realized, wait, I just have a skill deficit, or wait, I was focused on the wrong thing, or wait, I was measuring success incorrectly, I'm not doing what I need to do, or that's actually not going to lead in the direction that I originally thought that it would lead. And every time I went through these self reflective questions and every time I just forced myself to take responsibility and go, I have a skill deficit. I need to learn how to do something new. I need to learn how to do something different. I need to figure out how to do what I'm doing better. I need to figure out how to do what I'm doing more. More often that is when I saw the next leap and the next leap and the next leap. And so this is the, you know, the meta skill that you need to build as a writer is you need to stop blaming everyone else and stop blaming the platform and stop blaming the industry and stop blaming the niche and stop blaming the customer and really pull the thumb and go, what do I need to change? What do I need to do? Because there's too many successful writers in the world and there's no reason that you can't be one of them. And that has always been my mentality, even in moments of frustration. If J.K. rowling can make billions of dollars from Harry Potter, there's no reason I can't make 100 million. There's just no reason James Patterson can make $800 million writing thrillers. There's just no reason why I can't make 100 million. There's just no reason. And that's the same mentality that you should have. There is always a reason why you are stuck and it is your responsibility to figure out what it is and put in the hours and put in the time and put in the effort to acquire the new skill and move on to the next level. And that is the only path forward. These were lessons that have taken me a really long time to learn myself. And they are also the things that, once they clicked, I noticed a tremendous amount of growth through each one. You know, these aren't just simple, oh, I hear it once, and then I get it. You know, these are things that really take time to internalize, and you have to allow your. Your thinking to change in order to start moving in a different direction. So I hope these helped you and keep writing.