10 KiB
VI – Content is novel perspectives
The internet is a fire hose of information. AI is only adding more noise. That means trust and signal are more important than ever.
In my opinion, the guiding light for your content should be to curate the best possible ideas in one place.
Your brand is a collection of all the ideas you care about, in your own words, under one account on the internet.
If you have any plans to do podcasts or public speaking, notice how the best speakers always have 5-10 of their best arguments or ideas top of mind. They repeat these over and over and that's how they build influence. If you don't have a set of those 5-10 ideas, then you won't be as impactful as you could be. Writing a truckload of content is how you discover those ideas.
Once the "idea density" of your content increases with time and effort, that's what creates a brand worth following and paying for.
"The goal of curating ideas to include under your brand should fall at the intersection of:"
- Performance – the ideas have the potential to "do well." This is the measure of how much other people will care.
- Excitement – the ideas give you a sense of excitement to write about them. This is the measure of how much you care.
Art and business. Metrics and performance shouldn't determine everything, but they do mean something.
Step 1) Build an idea museum
The secret of most creatives you love is that they keep a ruthless curation of notes, ideas, and sources of inspiration.
In other words, they have a "swipe file," as marketers call it.
You can use Eden (if you have access), Apple Notes, Notion, or whatever else you want, but I want to make this very clear:
You need somewhere to jot down ideas as soon as they come to mind.
This is a critical habit.
Whenever you find an idea that is useful, either now or in the near future, write it down. You don't need content pillars or 2-3 topics to talk about. The ideas you curate should simply be important to you. That alone means they are relevant to a specific niche of a person: you. However, you can create a content map if you'd like.
I don't care how you structure this. It can be a neat and organized set of documents, or it can be a messy running note without structure. The habit matters more than the format.
You gauge performance by glancing at the likes, views, or general engagement of a post to see if it has the potential to resonate. If the idea falls flat or does worse than their other content, it probably won't do well for you.
You gauge excitement by noticing when you feel as if you are wasting something valuable if you don't write it down.
Step 2) Curate based on idea density
How do you start filling your idea museum?
You need 3-5 sources of information that have high idea density.
When I say "idea density," I mean an idea that is high signal.
It's difficult to explain how to find something that is high signal, because that is subjective. It's dependent on your level of development (what's useful for you), your audience's level of development (what's useful for them), and your translation from one to another.
The most basic piece of advice could be the most valuable thing in the world for someone else, but it may seem like common knowledge to you.
With time, you will tune your own signal-to-noise ratio by seeing what ideas resonate with your audience and which don't.
"The most idea-dense sources of information:"
- Old or little-known books – I have 5 books that I reread over and over again because the ideas are so good. These are where the timeless principles live, untouched by trends.
- Curated blogs, accounts, or books – Blogs like Farnam Street curate the best ideas from modern intellectuals. Accounts like Navalism curate Naval's best ideas. Books like The Maxwell Daily Reader have one of Maxwell's best ideas one day at a time for a year. These do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to pick and choose the best of the best.
- Heavy-hitting social accounts – I have a list of maybe 5 social accounts that always post great ideas. If I don't have something to write about, I'll scroll through their page and find something I have an opinion on and write about that.
Finding these sources takes a few months of discovery. But the result of maintaining an idea museum of dense ideas leads to you creating idea-dense content.
Your idea museum becomes a representation of the mind you are attempting to create.
That's the ultimate goal.
To have a library of content so good that people can't help but open your emails, turn on post notifications, share your ideas with friends, and think about your ideas often.
You become a curator of ideas that people wouldn't even think to ask AI for, and that people would never come across organically.
That's how you become less dependent on the algorithm for your success.
Step 3) Write 1 idea 1000 different ways
Becoming a good writer or speaker isn't only about the idea, but how the idea is articulated.
The idea does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the structure is what makes it engaging, unique, and impactful.
Let me show you what I mean.
"Take this post structure:"
"One pattern I've noticed in happy people: They're obsessive about maintaining their mental clarity."
The idea here is that happy people maintain their mental clarity.
"The structure is formatted in 2 parts: a hook in the form of an observation, and the delivery of what the observation is."
It seems simple, but the difference in the structure of an idea can make all the difference.
"Now, if I take the same idea but use a "list" structure:"
"Happy people are clear-minded people: – They take time for rest – They focus on one singular goal – They ruthlessly eliminate distractions In other words, happy people are obsessive about maintaining their mental clarity."
Same idea. Different structure. Different impact.
If you wanted to, you could practice writing the same idea with every single post structure you come across.
"Here's how to practice this:"
First, break down 3 ideas into their structure.
Choose 3 posts from your idea museum that resonated with you. Then, try to break down each part of the idea and write why it works.
If you don't have experience with content psychology, that's okay. You learn it as you practice.
"This is the perfect time to employ AI for help. Try this prompt for each post:"
Do a comprehensive analysis on this social post. The overall idea, how the sentences are structured, and choice of words. Analyze why people engage with it, why it works so well, what psychological tactics are being used, and how I can replicate this style step-by-step with my own ideas.
Then paste the post below the prompt.
I'd recommend Claude as the model to use for this over ChatGPT or Gemini.
Continue doing this for any idea you find along your journey that you want to incorporate as part of your writing style. You can use this for videos as well, not just posts.
Second, rewrite 3 ideas with different structures.
Go back to your idea museum and choose one idea you didn't use in step one.
Then, try rewriting that idea with the 3 post structures you just broke down.
This is how you develop range.
This is how you stop staring at blank screens.
This is how you turn one idea into a week's worth of content.
Why are we doing this?
Well, you now have all of the secrets to creating content that stands out and coming up with good ideas.
Seriously, those are the secrets. Any results that come from them are a matter of practice.
VII – Systems are the new product
Okay, this is getting long so I'm going to speed things up.
And I have an entire guide on creating your first product here... so don't want to be redundant.
At this point in time, we are in a systems economy.
People don't want a solution to their problems. They want your solution to their problems.
There are tons of writing products out there, so what's different about my 2 Hour Writer product, as an example? Or even Eden, the software that I'm building that could "easily be replaced by Google Drive or Dropbox," according to super smart people who have definitely built successful products in the YouTube comments?
They're systems that I created by getting results for myself.
2HW doesn't teach a bunch of academic writing nonsense that doesn't help you achieve our shared vision of living a creative and meaningful life.
"I had a few problems:"
- I had trouble having an endless source of content ideas.
- I didn't want to waste a ton of time creating content for all different platforms.
So, I started experimenting with my own system.
"My goal for the system was clear: write all of the content I need to in under 2 hours a day. That way my audience growth is handled and I can focus on building better products and enjoying life."
I started testing solutions to have more content ideas.
I created swipe files, steps to generate ideas, and templates if I still couldn't think of anything.
"I mapped out exactly what I was going to attempt to write each week: 3 posts a day, 1 thread a week, and 1 newsletter a week."
During that process, I realized I could cross-post my writing to all social platforms (this is public, you can see it). I also realized that threads could be turned into carousels, and newsletters could be turned into YouTube videos.
If the system didn't flow, I would try new things the next week.
From there, I realized I could copy paste my newsletter to my blog, embed the YT video in that blog, promote my products in that blog, and turn that blog into more content ideas.
Then, I could link that blog under my content each day.
This led to more newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, and product sales.
I realized that if everything I did was newsletter centric, that's all I had to worry about for both growing my audience and promoting my products.
That's how you stand out in a world of copy paste products.
Yes, it takes time and experience.
But the end result is so worth it.
That's it for this letter.
Thank you for reading.
– Dan