2025-01-29 13:16:06
Like many of you, I’ve been experimenting with AI. I’ve been using ChatGPT to summarize my favorite books, been toying around with Claude for some editing tips, and have been curious about building apps with it as well.
One thing that’s becoming abundantly clear is that information is no longer precious. Information was once a valuable commodity that was made expensive through gatekeepers, but technology has systematically broken through each gate to make knowledge accessible to the masses.
On one hand, this is liberating because everything we want to know is just a prompt away. But on the other, this is concerning because we wonder if our minds will be made obsolete. After all, if AI holds the key to all recorded human thought, then what can we possibly produce that will contribute more value than that?
Well, this was a concern I had until I started to look deeper into our relationship with technology.
Marshall McLuhan had a theory that technology is an extension of our physical bodies. For example, the car is an extension of our legs, as it has enabled us to travel great distances that our legs would’ve found appalling. The same goes for the phone being an extension of our voices. Technology takes any natural function we have and greatly expands the surface area of what it can touch.
This is why Steve Jobs famously referred to a computer as “the bicycle of the mind.” The natural function of the mind is to think, to solve problems, and to commune with others. The computer extends our capacity to carry out those functions on a global scale, and this has reshaped the world into what it is today.
If the computer was the bicycle of the mind, then perhaps AI is its rocketship. But what I find interesting is that both are still technologies. In other words, they are both instruments that the mind uses, and are not substitutes for the mind itself.
When we worry about AI making us obsolete, we assume a fundamental error. That error is in mistaking creativity for the ability to recall factual information. Because if that were the case, then sure, AI has surpassed anything we could ever do in that domain.
But that is not the natural function of the mind.
The function of the mind is to process information and to interpret it according to its unique perceptions. It’s not a fact-gathering machine, but an opinion-generating one. It attempts to find the personal narrative that weaves through everything it knows, and will then communicate that opinion in the hopes that it will resonate with others.
In other words, AI can give you all the information you want, but that’s not what creativity is. Creativity is about finding the unique connections within those facts and communicating the result to others, and that can only be done through the skill of storytelling.
You might think storytelling is reserved for fictional beasts and magical wizards. Far from it. Storytelling is embedded in everything we do, ranging from a client meeting, a job interview, a breaking news story, to even this very post you’re reading right now. Each of these scenarios contains a narrative that is being communicated, and the way it’s framed will determine whether or not it achieves its desired outcome.
For example, I’m writing this post to tell you about the importance of storytelling, and will go into some practical techniques to go about it. Now, I could’ve started it off by simply saying, “I think storytelling is an extremely important skill for you to learn. Here’s how to cultivate it.” But that would merely be information, which would read like something ChatGPT might say. Instead, I started it off with an anecdote about how I’ve been using AI, some of the concerns I’ve had about it, along with a brief discussion about Marshall McLuhan’s work and a Steve Jobs quote as well.
I want to craft a compelling argument about why you should care about storytelling in the first place, and to do that, I have to construct a narrative. That is where creativity comes into play, which is all about digging into one’s own interests and experiences to convey a unique perspective. I guarantee you that if you asked ChatGPT to write a piece about storytelling in my style, it wouldn’t look anything like the opening paragraphs of this piece. That’s because ChatGPT isn’t me, and it never will be.
Storytelling is a skill that’s only to become increasingly valuable over time. As the value of information nears zero, what will become precious are the human minds that can piece together information in a creative way. As Morgan Housel said, “everything is sales.” Those that will survive in the 21st century will know how to persuade, and those that will thrive will be the ones that do it ethically.
Storytelling is the most ethical form of persuasion there is, as you’re not relying on psychological hacks or gimmicks to get what you want. Rather, you’re relying on ingenuity, creativity, and connection to find the people you want to sit around a cozy intellectual campfire with. Storytelling forges deep personal connections with those that have resonated with your work, and these bonds will only strengthen over time.
Knowing this, where does one begin?
Well, the key to storytelling is to first begin with you: the storyteller. This sounds painfully obvious, but so much of storytelling advice doesn’t take this into account. People will tell you to build out a 3-act structure or map out a Hero’s Journey before encouraging you to first reflect on what matters to you. Everything begins with an exploration of the issues you care about most, and then extending that out into a theme that you can build a story around.
This process requires a deeper dive, which I’m happy to do together. Let’s jump right in.
Take a moment to think of the books that have impacted you most. Better yet, take a look through some of the quotes you’ve highlighted in recent memory or recall some of your favorites.
For example, here are three that come to mind for me:
(1) “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” — William Blake
(2) “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” — Anne Lamott
(3) “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” — Viktor Frankl
Now, these three quotes all address different things, but they have one thing in common:
They all address problems that I care about.
Anytime you highlight something, there’s an implicit statement that this tidbit of information offers an insight into a problem that matters. This is the case for every single highlight you make.
Let’s look at the 3 quotes I referenced above and unearth the problems they address:
When I look at the above three problems, it makes sense that I remember these quotes so much. The problem of “enough”, of burnout, of suffering… these are all things I’m deeply interested in. I find myself grappling with these issues in my own life, and these quotes give me a much-needed boost of clarity that help me stay centered.
Interestingly, the omission of certain quotes will also say something about me as well. For example, you will see zero highlights in my Reader app about how to drive faster or how to dress better because I don’t give a damn about horsepower or fashion. (It’ll take just two seconds of hanging out with me to see that fashion isn’t an issue I care about.)
But will you see a ton of quotes in there about the meaning of life? About what it means to be knowledgeable? About cultivating creativity? Yes, yes, and yes. That’s because I care deeply about those problems, and love reading about them as a result.
The first step to being a great storyteller is to gain clarity on the problems you care about most. This is the launchpad from where everything begins, and it requires you to ask yourself what problems are most salient to you. Chances are, this isn’t an exercise you do often, but it’s important to get in the habit of doing it if you want to craft stories regularly.
So I’d advise you to pause and write down your response to this question:
If responses don’t come to you naturally, then take a look at your bookshelf or some notes you’ve taken recently. What are the problems embedded in them? What are some of the obstacles they address?
I view this as the start of a Problem Log that you can continue filling out over time. The nature of your problems will evolve, but you can rest assured knowing your life will never be devoid of them (nor would we want that either).
The key shift here is to move from merely experiencing your problems to actually documenting them. Take inventory of what they are, as they will reveal the unique storytelling identity you embody. While many people may share interest in your individual problems, only you will have the precise combination of problems that you care about.
Treat these problems as the origin point of all your stories. Once you do, you’ll naturally gain clarity into the endpoint, which is where we’ll dive into next.
Theme.
This is one of those words that we’ve all heard before, but if someone were to ask you to define it, you’ll likely have a hard time coming up with an answer.
Let’s see how our friends at Wikipedia define it:
Uh… I don’t know about you, but that left me more confused than anything.
This is the issue with so much storytelling advice. People make it far more complicated than it needs to be, and you’re also unsure of how to make it fit within the context of non-fiction.
So in an attempt to simplify it, here’s the definition of a theme:
It’s the problem your story addresses, and the takeaway it provides.
That’s it.
If you can nail down these two components in advance, then you’ll have an anchor that will ground your story as you tell it. It will keep your message focused, while also giving you room to play with tangents and such knowing where the story will ultimately end up.
Now, if you did the exercise from earlier, you’ll have a few problems you can choose from when it comes to the theme. That represents the first half of the equation. But what about the second half, which is the takeaway?
This is a good time to re-visit some of the quotes you used to extract problems from. Because the beautiful thing is that they also contain the takeaways that help to resolve the very problem they address.
And once again, here are the problems that each of them address:
You’ll notice that each quote also contains a resolution, or in our words, the takeaway. If it only contained the problem, we may not find it that insightful. But because it also offers a dose of clarity, we highlight it and keep it stored.
For the sake of simplicity, I’ll choose one quote and discuss the takeaway it provides. Let’s choose this one from Anne Lamott:
Now, we know that this quote addresses the problem of burnout, which is something I struggle with as well. But what does it offer in the form of a takeaway? Or in other words, what is the solution that she offers?
Well, what she proposes in that quote is a call to rest. That when your mind is in overdrive, you need to unplug it for a few moments so it can recharge and remain open to experience. That paradoxically, these periods of unplugging are what actually lead you to produce your best work.
So here is the theme that emerges from that one Lamott quote:
Do you see how you now have a starting and ending point for a story? Your story will address the problem of burnout, and will urge the reader/viewer to rest. This came from breaking down a highlight into these two components, and the cool part is that you can do this for any quote you come across.
In fact, let’s do it for the other quotes we had as examples:
From these 3 quotes, we now have 3 themes we could embed into a story. And it all came from seeing each of them through the lens of a Problem and a Takeaway.
A common pain point I hear from writers is that they have nothing to write about. But I never hear them say that they have a shortage of notes and highlights. The reality is that these highlights contain themes that act as a treasure trove of topics that are already tailored to your interests. You don’t need to look elsewhere for them, as the problems you care about already live within the information and art you consume.
The first step to becoming a storyteller is to see the world through the lens of themes, or what I aptly call the Thematic Lens:
When you come across an idea, break it down into a problem and a takeaway. Whether you make a mental note or capture it somewhere, get into the habit of seeing themes in the sentences that resonate with you. If you do this regularly, then you will always have a starting point for a story of your own.
In Thinking In Stories (enrollment is only open for 1 more day), you’ll have the space to practice doing this with your own saved ideas. Every step we go over is followed up with an opportunity to implement, which is what makes it a habit over time. This is how the art of storytelling is demystified, as I will break everything down into concrete steps that are actionable. No confusing diagrams of Hero’s Journeys or 3-act structures; just a highly practical method that you can apply to any idea of your choosing.
Using the Thematic Lens is just the first of these steps, but what you’ll realize is that everything stems from your interests and curiosities. As long as your stories originate from that root, you’ll be able to protect yourself from the onslaught of AI-generated content. No one will have the exact combination of themes that you care about, along with the way you’re going to present them. And as long as that’s true, then no large language model can accurately convey the nuances of what you’ve experienced and felt.
Storytelling is the skill that will never die because it pulls from the core of the human experience. And given that we connect with those that share that core, your ability to tell stories will be valued regardless of what the future has in store.
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2025-01-15 04:52:11
It’s surreal to leave your home without knowing if you’ll ever see it again.
For much of the world, the news of the Los Angeles fires was a series of video carousels, politicized X posts, and overhead images of blazing hilltops. The knowledge of the city’s burning was shared by the world, but the visceral threat it posed to one’s safety was only felt by its residents.
…Of which my family was one.
On Tuesday evening, my biggest concern was that my wife wouldn’t be able to drive back safely from work because of the intensity of the Santa Ana winds. I didn’t even know about the fires because I was with my daughter the whole evening, and the only thing that felt like a threat was the thrashing winds that struck the walls of our home.
But by early Wednesday morning, there was no question that multiple fires had enraptured the city, and one of them was burning just a few miles away. I looked outside to see a dark, ominous cloud hovering above our entire neighborhood, with the shade of sepia coating everything in its wake. We had no power, the stench of smoke infiltrated our nostrils, and trails of ash were floating through the sky.
When you think of an emergency situation in your home, you might imagine it to be some combination of screaming and chaos that accompanies an escape. But it’s quite the contrary. When you know that it’s time to flee, there is a quiet conviction that accompanies your actions. You make sure your children are next to you, you grab some things you think you’ll need, and you pack the car. There is an efficiency to the process because your priorities are abundantly clear, which makes every subsequent action an intentional one.
We decided to first go to Koreatown, which is where my brother lived. Even though Koreatown was in Los Angeles, it was insulated from the two major fires that erupted on the western and northeastern parts of the city. But as we drove there, we began to hear from nearby friends that already had their lives flipped as a result of the blazes.
A family friend who lived just a few miles away in Altadena received news that their son’s school burned down. They, in turn, received news of their closest friends having lost their homes. It was as if a cascade of misfortune was unfolding by the minute, with someone knowing someone that lost a home, and if not a home, an entire community. Because even if their own home was spared, what remained around them was a toxic wasteland that made their neighborhood uninhabitable. After all, a home isn’t just the four walls that enclose you, but the neighboring community that gives those walls its warmth. So if those neighbors are no longer there, do you still have a home?
All this was going through my mind as we drove away from our own. While I was hopeful that we’d be returning back in a few days, I later learned that my wife packed up thinking that this would be the final time she would see it. That came through in the items she’d packed, one of which included a photo album of our wedding day. Seeing that was yet another reminder of why I loved her, and how I knew that no matter what happened, we would get through it. Sentimentality isn’t a soft trait designed to bring tears to your eyes; it’s a symbol of strength that emboldens the heart toward what matters. And I knew that we had that inner momentum on our side.
What followed was a sequence of events that eventually led us to my cousin’s home in Yorba Linda, which was about 40 miles southeast of where we lived. We found refuge in his family’s generosity and hospitality, which provided us with the headspace to stabilize and recalibrate. I had no idea what was going to happen to our home, but I could rest assured knowing that my heart – my family – was with me. The knowledge of that was enough.
As the days passed and the fires raged, I felt conflicting emotions. There was a relief in knowing that the fires were moving away from my neighborhood, but that meant that they were heading toward someone else’s. The Eaton fire was making its way up to Mount Wilson, where undeniably, people were evacuating in the same manner that we did on Wednesday. In situations like these, there is no such thing as a sigh of relief. Empathy reaches another degree of salience when you know that the bullet you dodged is en route to striking someone else.
By Friday, the power in our neighborhood was restored, and nearby evacuation orders were being lifted. As we continued communicating with our neighbors and following the news, we gathered enough information to make the decision to return to Los Angeles on Sunday. The fires weren’t contained (and still aren’t), but it looked like our area would be spared from the flames.
I am writing this from the very home that we were prepared to leave behind. There are moments in life where you feel like everything’s a bonus, and this certainly feels like one of them. The fact that we’ve been able to retain this place where my daughter took her first steps, where I’ve shared countless laughs with my wife, and where we’ve hosted so many of our loved ones feels like an incredible blessing from an unknowable force.
But what about those who weren’t as fortunate? What about those who lost everything? What about the people that died from this catastrophe?
These questions don’t have any immediate answers, and I’m in no place to provide them. What’s important, however, is that we collectively ask them so we can understand the plight of others and to help rebuild a community that has been reduced to ashes. And in asking these questions, we’ll learn more about own hopes and fears as well.
When we decided to leave our home, it felt less like a decision and more like an imperative. We knew exactly what we needed to do even if it meant losing everything. Because deep inside, we operated on the belief that as long as we had one another, we knew we could weather whatever lay ahead.
One thing I’ve been reflecting on is how we fail to do this in our day-to-day lives because of our attachments. Life tends to create the illusion of permanence; that what you have today will persist tomorrow. This extends far beyond the domain of possessions and into that of one’s identity. We are so attached to the personas we’ve built, the achievements we’ve reached, the projects we’re working on, the idea of who we are. But what you’ll realize is that one day – whether it’s through a nearby fire or the finish line of existence – these attachments will be meaningless.
We often refuse to flee those attachments because that makes us feel like we’re giving up. But it’d be crazy to say that we fled our home because we gave up on it. Our home is one of the most important things in our lives, but we left without question because having an intact family was far more important. When emergencies bring clarity into your priorities, there is no need for a pros and cons list to determine your actions. You move swiftly and decisively.
Hopefully there is no fire around you to make this visceral, but it’s worth considering what attachments are worth leaving behind. In recent days, I’ve been taking inventory of what attachments I have because I fear what might happen if I let them go. I’ve noticed that I’m engaged in certain pursuits not because they’re empowering, but because I fear what would happen if I no longer had them. Perhaps it’s because of a fear of what others might think, of not making money, or of not satisfying an expectation. If that’s what’s keeping me attached to it, then it’s because there’s no urgency that’s there to show me how futile it all is.
Well, the past few days introduced a level of urgency into my life, and I’ve been fortunate to have the headspace to reflect on it as the sirens have subsided. One of life’s great ironies is that troughs birth epiphanies that then propel you toward peaks. So in the end, maybe the purpose of this piece is to share that epiphany without the burden of the emergency that originated it.
It’s a cliché to say that life is short, but profound to experience an event that brings that cliché to life. And if there’s one pattern that governs people in this category, it’s that their new life starts when they realize which of their old attachments must end.
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For more stories and reflections of this nature:
2025-01-08 13:46:53
A great tragedy of the education system is its inability to make writing an appealing skill. In fact, it feels like the system has been intentionally set up to make writing an absolute slog, which stunts intellectual growth and directs students to the path of conformity.
Consider the 5-paragraph essay for example.
For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, this was (and still is) widely taught in high school, where you are told to structure an argument in 5 distinct paragraphs that look something like this:
You state your argument in the opening paragraph, provide supporting points in the subsequent 3 paragraphs, and conclude by re-iterating your argument. If you follow this structure well, then you’ll get an A and are told that you’re a wonderful writer.
First off, I don’t know a single person who felt called to writing as a result of learning this concept. If anything, I saw the opposite. People who enjoyed writing in their spare time because disillusioned with the practice after being taught that there was a standard way to do it.
Second, who actually enjoys reading this kind of essay? Your English teacher may feign interest because her salary depends on it, but no one in their right mind would place a 5-paragraph essay amongst their Mount Rushmore of literary works. No matter how great of a writer you are, the fact that you’re structuring your thoughts into a preset mold nullifies any potential toward greatness.
And yet, this is what we are taught.
After years of this, it’s no surprise that people exit the educational system with a deep distaste for writing. Its purpose seems to be an obstacle you have to overcome to graduate, and once you do, you can finally be done with it. You can move onto the things you enjoy, which have nothing to do with jotting your thoughts down on a page…
What you’ll quickly realize, however, is that this isn’t how it works. That’s because a functional adult life orbits around writing.
You want that job? You better know how to write a great resume and a cover letter.
You want that date? You better know how to write messages that don’t make you seem like a fool.
You want to get promoted? You better know how to communicate with your team through compelling emails.
You want to build an audience? You better know how to convey your thoughts through a blog, newsletter, social media, book, or a YouTube script.
You want to sell your services or products? You better know how to communicate the value you’re providing by writing out what it is.
The list of things requiring the skill of writing is endless. The problem, however, is that we’ve been conditioned to believe that writing is this boring, academically rigid thing that only applies in a classroom setting.
The liberating truth is that it pervades everything we do, so it’s worth reframing it so you can harness it. The daunting truth, however, is to know where to begin.
Consider this post a primer in re-thinking the craft of writing. As it turns out, there are 3 ways to use writing as a guiding practice for the direction of your whole life. That may sound grandiose, but once we get into it, you’ll see why I have confidence in saying this.
Let’s start with the claim that a well-lived life oscillates between two ends of a spectrum:
Introspection is about thinking through the course of your life and reflecting on how it’s going. It’s to find ways to calibrate your inner compass and to gain clarity into how you’re feeling. Simply put, it’s an exploration of your inner world.
Expression is about communicating and conveying your ideas to others. There’s a communal aspect to it, whether you’re trying to find your tribe or you’re looking to help others that you believe you can help. Simply put, it’s a connection with the outer world.
It’s a spectrum because life isn’t about one or the other. Periods of contemplation are followed by periods of activity, and there is a cyclical nature of sorts. But both are required to feel that your life has purpose and meaning.
Writing is what will deepen your involvement in both worlds, and will help to bridge the two as well. That’s because the three types of writing can be mapped out across the spectrum quite nicely, like so:
So what are the types of writing hiding between each of those numbers? Well, they are as follows:
We’re going to touch upon each of them, and I’ll also provide some practical ways you could incorporate them into your own practice.
Let’s start from the top.
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron popularized the idea of Morning Pages, where you write 3 full-length pages of whatever comes to mind. The key is to do it without judgment knowing that no one will be reading these pages but you. The only rule is that there is no rule to what your words will be about.
Feeling a bit anxious? Make a note of it. Got something you need to do later in the day? Write about that. Do the clouds outside look a bit funny? That’s fair game too. Nothing worthwhile to comment on? Write that down as well.
At first glance, you might wonder what the point of this exercise is. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious utility to it, given that the output can seem like the thoughts of a rambling madman.
The utility becomes more apparent, however, when you view this as an exercise in introspection. In other words, the output of the exercise isn’t what matters. It’s the fact that you did it that does.
This is a form of writing-to-release, where you dump out the contents of your unconsciousness onto the page. You use writing as an outlet to process the emotional and experiential artifacts that live within you, as simply thinking about them don’t give you the access you need. There has to some form of action that draws those artifacts out, and a reliable way to do this is through the avenue of writing.
It’s important to note that style, grammar, and syntax hold no regard here. You can jump off on a tangent mid-sentence, make liberal use of ellipses when periods will do just fine, or mix together words that don’t feel like they belong. All the rules you’ve learned about writing can be thrown out the window because the only thing that matters is your ability to capture your thoughts and emotions, which by nature, avoid rigidity.
When you write-to-release, you will end up learning about yourself in the process (which will help to inform the other types of writing I’ll go over). Oftentimes, you don’t know what you’re holding onto until you let it all out, and the great thing about the practice is that all fear of judgment is nullified. There is only honesty, and that purity of intention is what allows your unconscious to shine through.
Now, there are many ways of going about this practice. Julia Cameron suggests 3 full pages of freehand writing. I know another person who writes-to-release on a tablet where the words are deleted after they are written.
I’ve incorporated this exercise in the form of a daily journaling practice, which I’ve kept going since late 2017. In fact, I could attribute much of my contemplative life to the art of writing-to-release, which eventually led to the launch of More To That in 2018. In other words, there was a direct connection between writing in a daily journal and creating a blog that would go on to change the course of my life.
As a result, I have some practical tips I can share on how to effectively integrate this type of writing into your life (some of this is from The Examined Writer, which is a great starting point for those who make writing an integral part of their life):
And that’s precisely what the next type of writing is all about.
If there’s a unifying theme across some of the world’s greatest thinkers, artists, investors, and founders, it’s that they spend a lot of time doing two things: reading and writing.
Reading makes sense because you can draw upon the knowledge and wisdom of those who came before you, which increases your odds of success if you can integrate these lessons into your life.
But why writing? What about organizing your thoughts into the written word makes for such a reliable contributor to one’s success?
Well, this is where the second form of writing comes in.
If you ask writers why they write, you will likely hear some version of the fact that it clarifies their thinking. But you may wonder why this is so specific to writing; after all, doesn’t speaking and having conversations also help with this?
Here’s the thing. Articulating your thoughts out loud does help, but it’s nowhere near as effective for one simple reason:
You can’t run away from what you write.
I was chatting with a popular YouTuber a while back, and he was telling me why writing is so much harder than recording a video. He said that when you’re recording a video, you have more liberty with your argument. If you’ve hit a logical dead-end, you can simply go off on a tangent and discuss something else because you’re not transcribing your thoughts in real-time. You are much more forgiving of holes in your thinking because there’s no trail of holes that are left behind for you to continuously face.
With writing, it’s different. Since you are converting your thoughts into the written word, you can literally see if your ideas make sense as you connect one sentence to the next. If things aren’t connecting, you’ll know that they aren’t, and the sentences you’ve already written will be there to remind you of that.
This is why so many prominent thinkers write. It forces them to make an airtight argument that considers any gaps in thinking, many of which they’ve worked out during the writing process. This is also why many of them advocate for quickly writing a (bad) first draft, as that’s where all the holes in their thinking will be introduced. The purpose of the subsequent drafts is to then fill them in.
Now, you may have noticed that this type of writing is different from the first type, which was writing-to-release (i.e. journaling). Journaling’s main purpose is to release, which means that sound argumentation and syntax is of little relevance. But this is not the case for writing-to-think. With this second type of writing, you need to put effort into reaching a coherent view of a given topic. You’re not satisfied with sounding like a madman because that means you haven’t adequately thought about the idea at hand.
So the difference between the first and second type of writing can be found in this simple reframe:
When you are writing-to-think, do it as if one other person will read it.
That’s it. Not tens. Not hundreds. Just one.
There are 2 reasons why you want to imagine that just one person will read it:
(1) It will lower any pressure for this piece to perform well, but
(2) It will still incentivize you to be coherent because you want to make sense for that one reader.
There is a sense of empathy that comes with writing-to-think. Even though you’re writing to explore and experiment with an idea (which lowers the stakes), you also want the result to be worth that one person’s attention. Your writing stems from a place of introspection, but it will also need to be sound and lucid.
Whenever I don’t know what I think about something, I use this form of writing. In the hopes that my experience may clarify yours, here are some practical ways to go about it:
For example, a while back I found myself struggling with envy, and knew that I wanted to understand the problem better. Without knowing what I was going to write yet, I jotted this down:
“Today I want to discuss the problem of envy, and how to dissolve it by knowing yourself.”
That’s how my piece, The Antidote to Envy, was born. I ended up keeping a revised version of that sentence in the published version because it flowed well, but you can take the whole thing out if it doesn’t quite fit.
Writing-to-think is all about iteration and doing it often on a wide variety of problems. The point of publishing is to have a running log of pieces that you can point people to, which acts as a tangible indicator of your intellectual progress.
But at some point (likely sooner than later), you’ll have a desire to share an idea in a way that will resonate with many people. Writing-to-think gave you the building blocks for your thoughts, but you now want to assemble them in a way where an audience can begin to form. Maybe you want to build a business with your ideas, maybe you want to attract like-minded people, or maybe you just want more people to care about issues you find moving and compelling.
Well, this is where you want to use writing as an avenue to creating impact, and that is what the third type of writing is all about.
If I were to do a survey of my readers and ask how they’ve discovered my work, I don’t think it would be through the pieces on my Reflections tab (which is where my writing-to-think resides). And I am 100% sure that no one found my work through my personal journal (writing-to-release), given that it’s not publicly available and even if it were, wouldn’t compel anyone to think my words deserve attention.
Chances are, readers discover More To That through the pieces on the Best Posts section, or the ones that are listed in the Archive. This isn’t coincidental. That’s because these posts were written in a way where I was thinking about how I was delivering the ideas and connecting them in interesting ways.
In other words, I wanted these pieces to act as a beacon for people to find me.
And I knew that the only way to do that was through the skill of storytelling.
This is what constitutes the final type of writing, which is write-to-present. This is where you’re learning the mechanics of resonance, and understanding how to present your ideas so they can stick in your reader’s mind. This is an art that carries different names: marketers will call it persuasion, managers may call it influence, the list goes on. But regardless of what you call it, it all comes down to your ability to tell great stories.
The problem, however, is that storytelling is often taught as an abstract skill that’s reserved for the brilliant few. It may seem like you just have to be a “natural” at it, and if you aren’t, then get ready to study diagrams of Hero’s Journeys and 3-act structures that show you how to map out plotlines and character arcs. Then once you know how to do that, you’ll have to learn how to keep track of “beats” and introduce twists to keep your audience engaged…
To be blunt, this is nonsense, and this kind of storytelling advice applies to the select few. It’s the same kind of intellectual gatekeeping that the 5-paragraph essay was doing by decreasing your curiosity so that you avoid it altogether. If you’re just trying to present an idea in a resonant way (like most of us are), then you need a much simpler and practical approach.
This approach is what I detail in Thinking In Stories (enrollment is now open), which reveals the simplicity and efficacy of storytelling in the domain of nonfiction. I’ve spent years putting this method into practice, and its principles are found in the very stories that brought you here in the first place.
But as a primer of sorts, here are 6 principles to keep in mind when you’re writing-to-present:
(1) Understand your Storytelling DNA. In the internet era, your greatest asset is your perspective. The issue with most storytelling advice, however, is that it ignores this and goes straight into the tactics and techniques. You need to first review your interests, your curiosities, and your style to determine the foundation of where your stories will come from. Understand who you are before learning what resonates with others.
(2) Take inventory of your problems. People often invent imaginary problems to address in their stories for the sake of building an audience. But people are smart. They can tell when you’re trying to pander to their interests or if you’re riding some trendy wave.
Rather than finding problems for you to address, take a closer look at your own. What problems have you experienced that you’ve gained clarity into? What are some pressing problems you care deeply about now? Better yet, which problems have you always cared for that give them a timeless quality?
Once you’ve identified these problems, then your job is to make your audience care about them as if they were their own (this is a technique I call Problem Framing). The biggest difference between a great storyteller and a mediocre one is the ability to do this well.
(3) Simplify complexity. Complexity is the enemy of resonance. Any presentation that leaves its audience confused is one that eliminates its capacity to spread.
That’s why great storytellers can take any idea – regardless of its complexity – and distill it down to its essence. There are many reliable ways to do this, whether in the form of simple diagrams (like graphs or spectrums) or metaphors that make the idea to easy to understand. The key is to identify the parts of your story that might confuse people, and simplify it down to a shareable nugget that makes it memorable.
(4) Build worlds. This is perhaps the greatest opportunity in all of nonfiction storytelling. People think that worldbuilding is reserved for fictional kingdoms and magical plot lines, but the truth is that constructing a world around your idea will dramatically increase its resonance. I’ve used this so many times in my work, and still feel like I’m getting away with a secret because of how little I see this technique being used by others.
(5) Structure your ideas along an arc. One piece of traditional storytelling advice that’s actually useful is the idea of using narrative arcs. Where its utility fades, however, is when they attempt to show you how to implement it.
Of the many story arcs that are available, there’s one that stands the test of time in the domain of nonfiction. Learn how to plot your ideas alongside that arc so you have a solid understanding of how your piece will unfold.
(6) Write and distribute. It doesn’t matter what kind of storyteller you are: whether you’re an author, blogger, YouTuber, or marketer, you will have to learn the skill of writing. It’s the most reliable way of connecting with others and sustaining those relationships over long durations of time.
As you use writing to craft your stories, you will also have to learn how to distribute them. Understand how to go wide by leveraging what I call Surface Platforms (i.e. social media and video channels), and how to go deep by building what I call a Depth Builder (i.e. a newsletter). Use both to find people and nourish your connection with them.
Each of these 6 principles are necessary when it comes to writing-to-present. If you want to express your ideas and communicate them effectively, you have to tap into human nature and understand what provokes our sense of curiosity. That spirit of novelty and intrigue is what your writing must convey if you want to use it as a vehicle for impact.
That’s why these principles form the basis of the Thinking In Stories curriculum, which is split into 6 modules that do a deep dive on each:
Now, I plan on discussing storytelling in greater depth because it’s such an important skill, but this post is getting quite long. So in the next one, I’ll dive more into identifying the problems you can address in your work, along with a practical framework you can use to reliably generate a starting point for your story.
But in the meantime, remember the 3 types of writing and how you can use them to oscillate between introspection and expression:
There’s no single type that’s more important than the others, as all 3 of them yield huge benefits in the course of one’s life. But if you want to use writing as a way to find your people and connect with others, then writing-to-present (aka storytelling) is the one you want to hone and refine.
And if that’s something you want to commit yourself to, then you know where to go.
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Related Posts:
Write for Yourself, and Wisdom Will Follow
The Economics of Writing (And Why Now Is the Best Time to Do It)
2024-12-26 06:06:36
The first post I published on More To That was called Travel Is No Cure for the Mind. It took me over 100 hours to do, and was the result of me reflecting on the nature of my experiences abroad. I particularly thought about how I felt when I was in Asia for 6 months, and the ebbs and flows of various emotions that I experienced during my time there.
When I hit publish, I recall thinking that it was a solid piece, and maybe a couple hundred people would read it. I had no audience then, so even that seemed like a stretch.
Well, what actually happened was beyond my wildest expectations.
Over 1 million people have gone on to read that piece, and I believe it’s still one of the most popular stories to ever be published on Medium. Around once a year, it’ll go viral again when someone shares it on social media, which will reliably generate all kinds of commentary from people that either hate it or love it.
It’s important to note that the vast majority of my work doesn’t reach this kind of popularity. But when it does, I gain interesting insight as to what people liked about the piece, and what they found concerning. When it came to the people that liked the piece, they resonated with the core argument that travel would not resolve any of the inner discontentment they had with their lives. That traveling could represent a temporary respite in the form of novelty, but once that novelty wore off, all of their prior tumult would have no choice but to resurface again.
The people that disliked the piece found my take on travel to be dismissive. The general sentiment was that I missed the point of why people travel in the first place. That people don’t travel to run away from their problems, but rather to open up a new lens they could use to view the world. That when you purchase a plane ticket to a faraway land, you’re giving yourself permission to allow curiosity to re-take the helm in a way that sitting in a cubicle on day-to-day basis simply cannot.
These are fair points. In fact, I agree with most of them. But of course, truth lives in nuance, and you have to explore these nuances to get a clearer picture of what I was communicating.
Let’s first start with the point that people don’t travel to run away from their problems. This is true, but only partially. Because if you think about it, there really are only 3 reasons why you travel (that are not work-related):
(1) You have loved ones in other countries you want to visit,
(2) You are curious about cultures and surroundings that are not your own,
(3) You are looking for novel experiences to break the monotony of daily life.
Reason #1 is less about cultural immersion, and more about spending time with your family and friends. Of course, part of your time together may be spent learning about unfamiliar customs and traditions, but the main purpose is to maximize the time you spend with your loved ones.
For example, whenever I go to Korea to visit my parents, I don’t spend too much time sightseeing or trying out various restaurants. I eat most meals at home with my folks, given that they’re the reason for my trip. The novelty of cultural immersion is far less important than the consistency of time I get with them.
Reason #2 is the one that detractors of my piece will point to with a huge red arrow sign. Many critics of my piece often point to how I neglected travel’s ability to open up new perspectives of seeing the world. That if we didn’t travel, we’d all be ignorant of the diversity that exists outside of our little patriotic bubbles. After all, the person that has never left his country will say that his country is the best one in the world.
Here’s the thing: I completely agree with Reason #2. Travel is one of the greatest expressions of curiosity across our species, and has led to a level of flourishing that would be unreachable if we all stayed within our borders. If you are curious about immersing yourself in a foreign culture because you want to be more aware of your own blind spots, then absolutely do it. If you want to feel the discomfort that comes with expanding your mind, then book that plane ticket and be open to all the surprises that come with it.
But here’s where a caveat must be issued: Be honest with yourself that this is why you’re traveling. Expanding your perspectives of the world is not supposed to be a super pleasant, comfortable process. In fact, I’d say that the level of your comfort is inversely correlated with how much your mind is being expanded.
This is why taking a 7-day cruise ship around the coastline of some popular tourist destination is not a form of curiosity-driven travel. The goal of a cruise is to keep you as comfortable as possible while introducing small hits of novelty to create the illusion that you’re “traveling.” Your introduction to any new cultures is confined within a bubble of familiarity that’s been carefully engineered to shield you from fear.
When you really immerse yourself in a foreign culture, it should be a bit scary. That’s because real immersion happens when you realize how fragile your accustomed norms are. And it’s only through your commitment to breaking them where you really use travel as a gateway to expand your intellectual horizons.
The reality is that most people don’t travel like this, and fall under Reason #3. Travel is a vacation destination, a tool you use to fill up idle time. Sure, you get to see more of the world, but what you’re really seeing is a new environment filled with your old projections. You want food to taste close to what you’re familiar with. You want to visit the places that will look best on Instagram. Aside from knowing how to say “hello” or “thank you,” you have no desire to speak in the native tongue.
When travel is used as a vehicle to break the monotony of life, then don’t be surprised when that sense of monotony finds itself to whatever newfound place you’re visiting. A curious mindset doesn’t ignite just because your surroundings have changed. Rather, it’s something to be cultivated in your current state – in your day-to-day life – whether you’re working in a cubicle or having the 1,000th meal in your apartment or home. Instead of trying to break away from this, use that desire for escape as a signal for you to look deeper at your life as it is today. Nothing is as mundane as you believe it to be; all you need to do is look closer.
Travel is no cure for the mind because there is no cure for it to begin with. There is no external vehicle that will take you to prolonged contentment. What truly brings contentment is internal: gratitude for what’s in front of you, openness to all the stories around you, and unwavering curiosity toward the people you see everyday.
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For more stories and reflections of this nature:
2024-12-04 07:30:36
As a parent, you get a front row seat into the development of a human being’s mind.
When my daughter was a newborn baby, all that mattered was her physical survival. The primary function of her mind was to alert us of her many discomforts, most of which revolved around requiring food or needing to dispose of it.
As she exited infancy and entered toddlerhood, there was a transition of another kind. Her mind went from solely mediating her biological needs to also monitoring her psychological ones. What was previously a bloodcurling cry for milk evolved into a silent shyness when asking for more at school. Her emotions were becoming more nuanced, and the fascinating thing was that she was becoming aware of this too. In fact, this awareness is a defining period of childhood for all of us.
What triggers this awareness is the realization that you are in relationship with others, and crucially, with those you don’t know that well either. When you’re an infant, all that matters is that your biological frame is intact, and you’ll scream at the top of your lungs to ensure that it is. Fortunately, the people that receive this scream are your parents, who have the patience to ensure that you’re okay.
But as you get a bit older, you notice that the same dynamic you have with your parents doesn’t apply to other people you meet. Whether it’s your grandparents, your friends, or even the nearby ice cream shop owner, each relationship contains its own culture that distinguishes it from all the others.
In other words, you begin to notice that the self is a social construct. There isn’t this static “you” that stays the same across all interactions; rather, there are certain parts that come out with some people and some parts that don’t. Of course, as a child, you can’t conceptualize it as a “social construct,” so your emotions do the legwork for you. With some people, you’ll feel at ease. With others, you’ll feel a bit nervous. The way you feel becomes an indicator of the dynamic you share.
The benefit of this truth is that it acts as a great source of meaning. Because you gain access to so many parts of yourself, you realize that there’s so much that you’re capable of. Knowing that you’re malleable instills a sense of confidence that you can navigate the world, allowing you to successfully collaborate with the people within it.
But the burden of this truth is that you begin to define yourself by what others think. If you are indeed a social construct, then your sense of self-worth is derived from the judgments you receive from others. This is why an attack on one’s reputation is akin to an attack on one’s body. The pain one feels when their reputation is in jeopardy is just as salient as a gut punch to the stomach.
In fact, many people would prefer the punch.
Perhaps the greatest manifestation of this burden comes in the form of shame. We tend to view shame as a circumstantial emotion, where it arises as the result of something you said or did. But if that were the case, then it would be a very short-lived thing. You’d apologize to the other, forgive yourself, and let it go. If it were truly circumstantial, then that quick process is all you’d need.
I notice this in my daughter, where anytime she thinks she did something wrong, she’ll sincerely apologize, check to see if things are okay, and then moves on with life. She doesn’t feel a lingering sense of self-hatred that she can’t shake off beyond the moment.
Shame is not that. Shame stays with you, and makes it feel like there’s something inherently wrong with you. It’s deeply rooted in the body, as merely thinking about the objects of your shame will conjure a slew of sensations that you can’t ignore. Feeling shame isn’t isolated to an action or two; rather, you begin to feel that your entire being is something to be denied.
What makes shame so pernicious is that it doesn’t take much from the outside world to install it. Of course, a negative comment can agitate it, but what keeps it alive is the narrative you tell yourself about that comment. For example, if someone said that you chose the wrong career, that statement will convert to shame only if it coincides with the story you tell yourself about your career as well. You had to already have deep doubts about your work in order to feel the shame that arises from someone saying that you’ve failed at it.
The same thing applies to relationships. You will only feel shame if you believe that you haven’t been the best partner, family member, or friend. There has to be an initial platform of self-criticism in order for shame to take hold and grow.
Now, in some cases, this dynamic is useful. People that have deeply harmed others, for example, need to be critical of their own actions in order to apologize and redeem themselves. Feeling ashamed of what they did is a reliable indicator that they have an inner compass that is seeking to be recalibrated. In these cases, shame becomes a corrective mechanism that helps to direct them toward a brighter path.
The problem, however, is when shame becomes chronic and is embedded into one’s identity. The trigger for your shame may have occurred years ago, yet you still feel it to the core of your being. This is a sign that shame has spread well beyond the domain of any single action, and has become a part of the way you view your sense of self.
This is when shame needs to be extinguished, and the only way to do that is by radically resetting any self-critical narratives you have. You have to burn the whole edifice down, knowing that it’s not producing anything useful or insightful for you. Any resistance you have to doing this is shame’s way of clawing for survival.
The key is to ignore its plea, and to perform the reset you so desperately need.
Feeling shame about your career? Tell yourself that you’re exactly where you need to be right now.
Feeling shame about a relationship? Tell yourself that you’ve done what you can to get it to where it is.
Feeling shame about your body? Tell yourself that your body is a gift that enables you to navigate the world.
Some of you may read those statements and think that I’m advocating for complacency. While that may make sense at first glance, what you’re missing is that shame is a poor conduit to empowerment. People that are shamed into improving themselves will never feel secure in who they are, even if they do reach the heights of success. As long as shame is the propelling force behind any goal, what awaits beyond the finish line is an existential crisis that will unravel everything that was earned up to that point.
The antidote to shame is self-love, and it is only through this internal force where true empowerment is possible. You don’t change for the better because other people make you feel inadequate; no, you do it because you respect yourself. When you build off a foundation of self-love, then everything that results comes from a deeply authentic place.
The key is to remember that self-love doesn’t mean complacency. Nor does it mean lethargy. If anything, loving yourself requires a lot of work, primarily because when you have self-love, you become aware of the potential that lives within you. You understand that you’re not a mere summation of social expectations, but that you have the personal agency to be the best version of yourself.
Self-love isn’t the presence of narcissism, but the absence of criticism. The person that aggrandizes himself is secretly seeking the approval of others, which makes him vulnerable to what people think. But the person that has compassion for herself builds a quiet confidence that requires no other voice to be validated. And it is on this frontier of acceptance where one meets the end of shame.
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Self-doubt is a common manifestation of shame. Here’s how to end that too:
A big part of ending shame is to understand how the sense of self develops over time:
Shame dissolves once you question its underlying beliefs. Here’s a post that can help with that:
2024-10-02 07:02:09
I have a weird job.
In essence, what I do is type my thoughts out on a screen, and then broadcast them in the form of a story or reflection that you can read. What was once reserved for journalists and authors is now something I can do from the comforts my own home, and this is something that is unique to this window of time we coexist in today.
Of course, this is all made possible by technological progress, and the very fact that I can connect with you now is further evidence of this. But one thing I wonder about any advancement of this nature is the trade-offs that accompany it. There’s great wisdom in the adage that “things are too good to be true,” but it has less to do with skepticism and more with self-awareness. Anytime you benefit from something, it’s worth understanding what had to be given up for you to accrue that benefit. Because when you do this regularly, you’ll find interesting ways to use that benefit to make up for some of those trade-offs.
That may sound a bit abstract, so let’s make it concrete through my experience as a writer.
Whenever I publish or send out a new piece via my newsletter, I will almost always get responses to it. This wasn’t the case when I was first starting out, but now that I’ve been doing this for a few years, my inbox acts as a regular reminder that people want to engage with my work. This is something I’m grateful for, but I’ve now accepted the fact that there are limitations to this method of communication.
The thing about an inbox is that it reduces the nuances of a person into a singular dimension. While email is still my preferred method of contact with readers (due to its 1:1 nature), it’s odd how the only insight I have into a person is a profile picture and their accompanying words of text. Of course, those two things can tell me a lot about someone, but the nature of the medium ensures that our conversation will unfold in a somewhat linear fashion. It’s difficult to go on tangents or delve into the core of who that person is, given that messages are shared asynchronously in a step-by-step fashion.
What technology provides in the form of reach comes at the expense of depth. This is the great trade-off of technological progress, which Martin Heidegger predicted well before the advent of the internet. He argued that as technology is further harnessed to serve our individual goals, it will come at the expense of a deeper connection with others. Since most of our goals revolve around social success (making more money, gaining more recognition, etc.), we will ultimately view other humans as mere objects of utility that help us achieve what we want.
Technology is nothing more than an aid to these individual goals, which is why any usage of it to connect with others involves some form of compression. Whether you mildly enjoyed an essay or thought it was life-changing, the only way you could express this great variance of emotion is through clicking a tiny heart. If you want to ask someone to complete a task, you type up a quick message with bullet points and shuffle it off to a static profile picture on a Slack channel. Nuance is a bug of technology, not a feature.1That statement explains everything wrong with social media, and the one-dimensionalization of human beings that happens there.
So knowing this, what can be done? Well, this brings us back to what I said earlier, about using the benefits of technology to make up for some of its weaknesses. To make this concrete, let’s go back to my personal example as a writer.
When I was in Toronto, I decided to use the exploratory mood of being in a different city to my advantage. I wanted to take some time to actually meet my readers instead of interacting with them through a screen. To do this, I leveraged a cool feature in my email service provider, which would allow me to narrow down my readership to a specific area, like so:
Then I put together a short survey form to send to this small segment of readers, asking them if they’d like to meet up around the area I was staying in. I planned to host 2 meetups, all of which would be 3 or 4 people max. I figured that doing a large meetup would defeat the purpose of having one in the first place, which was to get to know the people I’m talking to. So once the form hit 10 people, I disabled it and proceeded to set up hangouts with everyone.
When I did my first hangout with readers, the immediate thing I noticed was just how nuanced and intricate their life perspectives were. There was simply no way I would be able to delve into this level of granularity by having an email exchange with them. When it was just us sitting around a table in a café, so many tangents opened up, so many ideas were exchanged, and so many personal stories were shared. I think the first meetup went on for 3 hours before we decided to call it a day.
Paradoxically, the energy of that meetup was the result of us being together without any technological intermediary, but the meetup itself wouldn’t have been possible without the aid of technology. If I couldn’t reach my readers via an email list or even publish my thoughts online to begin with, then I don’t know how I would’ve found the people that sat with me that day. But because my desire to connect deeper with people was there, I was able to use the available features to actualize that want.
At a meta level, this blog itself is evidence of this dynamic as well. The purpose of More To That isn’t to build a huge audience so I can feel better about myself. Rather, it’s to find the people in the world that live their lives in a way that inspires me. And to do that, I have to first share my worldview so people know what kind of questions guide my definition of a well-lived life.
The only reason audience-building is a part of what I do is because I have to cast my net wide to find the few that want to go deep. And fortunately, many tools exist for the purpose of that. Email service providers, course software, community forums – all these are in service of that goal, and I’m using them to power the platform I’ve built here.
But in the end, I’m aware that even these tools can only do so much. I’m still using a screen displaying profile pictures and text to hear from people, and that’s how I connect with a majority of my readers. But the silver lining is that every message is a potential entry point to a closer relationship that can develop over time.
Ultimately, to be aware of technology’s trade-offs is to also understand that those trade-offs can be diminished. That if you’re solely using it to serve your goals, then perhaps it’s time to shift the way you use it. Instead of using it to maximize utility for your pursuit, you can use it to delve deeper with the few people that care about that pursuit the most.
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For more stories and reflections of this nature:
