How To Write About Your Unique Interests & Still Go Viral

Welcome Craig Perry. We're here to go over his writing process, his idea generation process. And I, I think this will be super helpful because when you watch tutorials on YouTube or even when you go through courses on content creation or social media in general, there you rarely see walkthroughs of someone's actual process. And to me, I think that's the best way to learn, right? You can learn all the theory all day, but if you don't see it actually applied and you don't see the little nuances in what's happening, then you may not be able to apply it correctly yourself.

So, uh, in general, Craig, what I think we can do is I'll pass it off to you. You'll tell us a bit about who you are, how you've grown recently, because you had some videos do really well, your Substack's growing really well. Uh, you just all around seem like you just came out of the gate knowing what you're doing. So, aside from your writing process, because you're going to show that in uh Eden as well, is uh you're going to show the writing process in Eden as well, but I, I, I also want to hear more of just how you think about it. I want to hear how you think about packaging up a video, packaging up a newsletter, where you choose an idea. Like, do you get it from a book? What's your thought process? Does it just like stick out as an idea to write down and write about? All of that stuff. So, uh, the first thing is just who are you? Introduce yourself to people and what do you write about? All that stuff.

>> Um, my name is Craig. I'm 22 and I have a profound interest in ideas. That's kind of the only, it's probably the best way I can put it because I kind of noticed when I was in school, I'd be sitting in class and I started getting into philosophy and psychology and self-development and just ideas. I didn't really have any other word for it other than just I really liked ideas. And I always just spent my time thinking about them, watching videos, being like, "Oh, this stuff is so cool. Why doesn't everyone else think about these things and these ideas?" But I don't know if there's just maybe with like online or maybe just in the real world people like, oh, that's not very practical in terms of actual ideas.

So I watched one of your videos, I believe it was about a year and a half ago and I was halfway through my thesis kind of panicking being like, right, what am I going to start doing with my life? And just in general and I watched one of your videos and it was like, learn to write online. I was like, "Yeah, right." And then I watched the video and the argument just blew me away and I just stuck to it. And every single week, it's just been one essay a week trying to figure this out. Um, I've only been doing this for about, I believe, a year now since May last year. And it's literally just been one essay a week, a 1% improvement every single week. And I don't, I actually don't know how things have just taken off. Like my Substack growth is just linear. Like if I open, like I think I have on my phone somewhere or you can just look yourself anywhere, like you can look at my profile for the social proof and all that, but the growth has literally just been like a graph, just straight line. I don't know where it's everyone's coming from, but people seem to be liking the ideas and the essays, which is great, which I, I, I honestly can't wrap my head around it. I really just can't.

>> Yeah. Well, so, question there. Are you only on Substack and YouTube? Like, you've just focused on those two platforms?

>> Yes.

>> That's, um,

>> Go ahead.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, Substack, yes. YouTube, I'm trying to put a bit more focus into in the last 6 months and over there, like I'm seem to be getting a couple hundred subscribers a day. It seems to be doing quite well. Uh, especially like this seems to be like a good little community growing as well, which I'm just shocked by as well, cuz it's just crazy. But Substack for a while was kind of my main priority and now I'm kind of shifting towards YouTube. I haven't really considered X yet. Maybe I will, but for now, it's just Substack and YouTube.

>> Yeah, X is a weird one. It, it used to be like a cool little community. That's where our, I started. And at least when I get on now, it's, I don't know, there, there, my timeline. It could just be my algorithm and what it shows me, but I'm not too interested in X right now. I post there and I get crazy engagement. Like I had the most viewed article, but as a whole, it's like I like Substack a lot more. Um, and so it's cool to hear that you actually can focus on Substack because I would, I would think like one to two years ago, it wasn't really in my eyes, a a serious platform. You know, it was the new kid on the block. Even though it, it had been around for a decent amount of time, the only people that I really followed on Substack were the ones with paid subscriptions and they were like treating it as an ancillary to something like X or Instagram or whatever and they're like, it's, it was essentially Patreon, right? You pay for like written content. But overall, the thing that I like about you and your content, when I, I just talk to you, you don't approach it from a very like brand or marketing perspective. You're literally just like, I just love ideas. I just want to focus on the idea.

>> I don't know how to put it other than just that.

>> And it's such like a broad like niche. Like,

>> I like to think of it as like, like your mind is your niche. It's like, if you like ideas, I think that's my Substack about page. Like I can't remember what it is. It's like, if an idea is profound to me, I will write about it. That's my only rule. And if you can just persuade, if you understand persuasion, attention mechanisms, how to write your titles broad, persuade people, levels of awareness, like, it's, it just works. It's like I can't wrap my head around it. It's great. But we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We will talk about it. Um, I'll hit on one thing, then I'll pass it completely over to you. So we can just start talking about the process. But in terms of like ideas in general, I think ideas are extreme. Like people take ideas lightly, as you said before. It's like, oh, I, I, what do you mean I can just talk about ideas? That's not a real job. That's not, it's just like airy fairy. It's abstract. Like, what, what can people do with ideas? But when you really break it down and think about it, ideas are the inception of every behavior change or every life change, right? In order to, I guess, change your life, you have to be first exposed to an idea that either shines a light on a problem in your life or shows you an opportunity. And then you're, you may not believe it at first unless you're ready for that idea. But if you are ready for the idea or it eventually like grows enough in your mind, that can just change everything, right? It, it kind of festers until it becomes a part of you and then it's like an operating principle in your life. So the idea or the education or the information comes before everything. You wouldn't have your job if it wasn't for the information and ideas you were exposed to throughout your life. You wouldn't be starting a business if it weren't for ideas. You wouldn't be doing this. You wouldn't be doing this. So maybe it's just me and how I justify my own line of work, but I think it's a very uh, like meaningful and purposeful route to take to just focus on ideas because you are causing that spark and that change in other people. You're providing people with uh, the information that starts to form their beliefs, which then allows them to take specific actions in their life to get a specific result. And to me, that's an incredible thing. So, I'll pass it to you and we can dig in.

>> Yeah. So, all right. Let me, I'm going to try and not end this live stream again. Let me see if I can share my screen. Right. Can people see this?

>> Yeah, the stream didn't end.

>> Okay. Um, actually on your point about the power of ideas, my kind of way of looking at it is that I know, I don't know if this kind of started with, I started writing about like here, actually, here's like, these are all of my best posts, both my long form posts and my short form posts and I first got a ton of traction from how to remember everything you read. So I kind of got, I was very big into like learning, uh, self-education, just writing about, I wanted to learn about learning, how to learn. So, and thankfully, it was a validated topic, which I will get to in a second. But because of that, I learned a lot about learning science and I actually think whenever I see creators online talking about the idea of, oh, coming up with ideas, I don't have ideas. How do I come up with ideas? I think if you don't have ideas, you don't have knowledge. I think at the end of the day, this is all just knowledge because knowledge just, it influences your actions, your behavior, how you perceive information. Um, learning science, I think if I think everyone should just learn it because you will just understand your brain and how to actually learn skills faster. How to think, learning is learning how to learn is just learning how to think and then if you, I think that's been like paramount in terms of how I actually come up with ideas, which I will also get to at some point. Um, but in terms of how I actually have Eden set up, I have a very minimal setup. Um, I was away for like two or three weeks, so I do apologize for like keeping it very simple. But I do think it really is just this simple. Like in terms of my actual workflow, I have three AI prompts that I've been using and I've just been testing them, writing feedback. So I have an actual feedback document here that I'll write in. This is what I wrote today in terms of, I wrote this morning. I used my prompts. I was going back and forth at AI and these are the things that worked well for me, that didn't work well for me. And I do recommend having some sort of a system in place for like, I'll show this in a second, my writing checklist. This is very cool. But in terms of coming up with ideas, I think the first step in my process is I call it the pre-outlining phase. I have it, I have my entire writing process actually outlined in a single document as best as I can with every single action that that I take from blank page to finish newsletter. So this is basically just a document that I've been more or less for the last month or two, just been going back and forth trying to write down every single step of my writing process from blank page to finish essay. And my first actual phase, I'd call it the pre-outlining phase. So, in total, I'd kind of summarize my writing process into, there's pre-outlining, there's outlining, and then writing by hand, which is what I prefer to do. And pre-outlining is kind of tricky to explain because I was thinking about this like leading up to this live stream for the last week or so, and you can kind of come in from any angle when it terms of actually coming up with a long form post to write. So sometimes it will be, I'll be looking at my best posts, like how to become dangerously self-educated. I could turn that into how to become dangerously self-disciplined or how to become dangerously productive or I could just choose one of these titles and reward them slightly. Um, I also have like, I can look through other ideas. Sometimes I have an actual swipe file. So I like to save titles and topics that I see online. I used to screenshot them on my phone and it was very awkward. But now with Eden, I can just copy and paste a link and it is an absolute godsend. It is very, very easy to use. So I've been collecting all these posts over the last, I don't know, couple of months. So I, if I'm looking for inspiration in terms of, do I want to start with a title? Do I want to start with a post that I have written? Like, what's the, what way do I want to come into this in terms of what I want to write about each week? Um, other times it could just be something that I'm learning about as well. Like for the last couple weeks, I've been learning about writing and I've been using AI a ton. So maybe something that's sparking my interest. It's like, well, I want to talk about this. I'm interested in talking about this. Then I will kind of figure out a way, okay, how can I create a title that's broad enough that is attention grabbing and then really just broad. Make it broad because I see it a lot and it, it really burns my soul like just seeing super niche, like esoteric abstract titles when I think you should be making your titles so broad and then once you actually get people in to the actual the argument, that's when I'd start getting into like the super niche ideas in terms of understanding that, right? People who scroll on social media, like, what do I do when I scroll on social media? Yeah, I am scrolling, not looking for, like, I'm in queue for a coffee and I'm scrolling there and I'm just, yeah, yeah, grand, whatever. Like, even your first video that I came across, I was sat here at this very desk and I was figuring, I was like, what am I going to do? I was like, well, I love reading. I love learning. I love ideas. And I literally just typed, how to become a writer. And your video was the first one I clicked on and I heard a little hook. I was like, this is how I made $800,000 a year as a writer. And I was like, yeah, yeah, give over. And then I watched that and I was like, what? And then I just, I got, I got in. What's the, I have like an analogy for it. It's like, get people through the door first and then you can explore the house.

>> And that one video I watched of yours was, oh yeah, that was pretty good. And then I watched all the other videos. I was like, oh, this guy's onto something. And then it, that was it from there and now I'm, I'm doing this. So,

>> Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll recap that a bit because there's, I, I think there's a few important things that you touched on. Um, and maybe I'll, I'll treat it as a summary. Like, let me summarize your process. So, you kind of just expose yourself to a ton of good ideas and you have curated places you can go to, um, where you save this information in a notes app, in something like Eden for people asking, "Yeah, it's Eden. It's my software sales pitch. Go sign up. httpseden.so. Uh, but yeah, you paste links in there. You look at the discover tab. You, you just soak your mind in a lot of validated good ideas. And to me, I think this is for two reasons. One, because you just need an idea to write about, but two, you need a good way to frame the idea, too. Right? On social media, a lot of people scroll on it because it's social media. They're, they're consuming it. But when you're a, a creator, you kind of approach it from a different lens. You're, you're less of a consumer. You still are sometimes, um, but you're more so a researcher. You're looking at what works. You're seeing a post do really well and go viral. And then you're like, hm, okay, why did that happen? What's with this hook? Why, how is the body structured this way? And after enough times of just exposing yourself to really good ideas or really validated ideas, not necessarily like viral Instagram dances, but like written ideas, uh, in the that that can have a beneficial impact on your life. You expose yourself to enough of those and eventually it kind of reconditions your brain to think in those types of ideas. I don't know if this has happened to you.

>> Yeah. When I first started,

>> Yeah. Well, when I first started on Twitter, there came a point like 6 months later where I was like typing. I was texting people in tweets. Like I was making sure my sentences were formatted well. And like I was adding line breaks and it just wasn't a jumbled mess of characters. And so that's step one is just immersing your mind in ideas. That's like the most important part that most people skip. They show up to a blank screen. They show up on Twitter. They're like, "Okay, what do I write about today?" And of course, nothing comes to mind because you don't have the ideas with you. Like, you can't look and generate. And it's not like you're looking through all the ideas that you've written down and then just copying one. You're looking through all of them and then letting the ideas bounce around in your head and eventually something comes to you, right? It's inspiration. And so that's step one. The second thing you mentioned and I'll give it back to you so I don't talk too much is just the broad packaging, right? When you start on social media, everyone talks about, uh, everyone talks about, oh, you need to niche down. You need to be very specific. You need to target a specific, uh, customer avatar and speak exactly to them. But I don't think that is always correct. We can go into that. It's a long discussion. But for something like YouTube or Substack, you broaden the idea up. So you wrote, how to become dangerously self-educated, but in reality, you're teaching someone how to learn or you're teaching like, it could be a very niche concept. You're teaching like this very niche learning system or something like that, but you're packaging it up so that you can introduce more people to it, right? And teach them about that thing. So again, that's a long discussion. I'm talking a lot. I'll pass it back to you, but you have the ideas. You, what's, what's the next step?

>> Um, yeah, I apologize if I'm, if I'm waffling and rambling a little bit. Um, I would actually, I'd add that probably in a single sentence. I've said this to a few people who, who've DM'd me about like, right, how do you figure this out? And I've just said it in a sentence like, find a way to connect validated ideas with your favorite ideas. Just validation,

>> interest.

>> Yeah.

>> The intersection.

>> And you can do anything you want. I can't wrap my head around it. Like,

>> Just do it.

>> Validate title. Like it's attention grabbing. It's the clickbait titles. It's like, yeah, but that's the attention. It's like, I can't talk, I can't talk to someone who has noise-canceling headphones on. Like, I need their attention. But first, I need their attention if I want them interested in what I have to say. So, validation, interest, find the intersection between those ideas, and you can just talk about anything you want. Yeah, I have a practical example of this. So, uh, I bring this up a lot, but I, I love to study like Maslow's hierarchy, all, all of those variations of like developmental psychology. So, Maslow's hierarchy, nine stages of ego development, spiral dynamics, etc., etc. The nine stages of ego development is like a, a pretty, I wouldn't say complicated, but it's like, it's not how to get rich, right? It's not something that attracts people immediately, but I wanted to write about that. That was a, a, a profound idea, so to say, that just resonated with me and I love digging into. And so when I was like, okay, well, how do I write about this in a way that actually gets people's attention on social media and makes it impactful, I started thinking, okay, exactly what you said, my favorite idea, how do I frame it or package it under a validated title or topic? And so I had previously had a video do really well titled, how to get ahead of 99% of people. And so I kind of like thought for a bit. It does take some creativity and usually I write the actual newsletter first and then think, okay, I have a lot to work with here. How can I turn it into a title? And I came up with like, how to become more intelligent than 99% of people, cuz it was like, I could bridge the nine stages of ego development as like, kind of becoming more intelligent, even though it's not really what it is. But the, the video got like 500,000 views, which is incredible. But then when people go into it, they're not getting the same content as everyone else is creating about, right? They're getting to the nine stages of ego development. And then I'm hoping that I expose them to the same experience that I had when I was first exposed to it. I'm like, whoa, this is a really cool topic. This is a profound idea. And that sticks in their head. They watch that video and they're like, oh yeah, Dan is the one with this really unique, uh, style of content. Or they watch yours on how to become dangerously self-educated, they hit that idea that you found is profound and they're like, "Oh, okay." That registers, uh, you as higher in their head. I did that saying, I actually think with how to become dangerously self-educated, I think the first line of it, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, but I'm going to curse anyway. And the first, the opening line of it is, most of your learning is [ __ ] pointless. And then I kind of get into the whole argument. Now, it pissed some people off. Not many people more on YouTube. Substack, lovely place. I don't think I've ever got like a bad comment here. YouTube, I got torn apart. Well, couple of bad comments.

>> It happened.

>> But then I got into like,

>> I think the first key point I made, I could be, I could be wrong here. It could have been a different video, but I got into like David Deutsch and his theory of explanations and physics is harsh. I was like, that's crazy. Like, like, just that idea of like, right, how could I look at learning from a physics point of view? And then I got into the learning science and I explained it like bit by bit and I had like my mind map drawn, I drew it out. I was like, this is like what information looks like and then it goes into your brain and then you think about it and I went through it step by step by step and I just started connecting all these profound ideas into an argument that made sense, even though it's how to become dangerously self-educated, which I assume, like if I was to think about that without, there's an idea that I read a while back saying that originality comes from progressing an idea. So you have to consume other people's ideas in order to make an original idea that furthers those ideas. So I consumed all these different sources. I was reading about physics, learning science. I was talking about, I actually think I spoke about my writing process as the example in that. So I talked about content. Writing content is like, you need like a project. Content. Why? Physics is harsh. Stop trying to learn for the sake of nothing. Like, you need action and you need actual proof that you're getting something back from your learning connected to here. Then back to this other idea. Here's how the brain actually works. Here's why taking linear notes is [ __ ] and a waste of time and it pissed so many people off. And I'm not sorry because it's, it's not true. It's like, here's the learning science. That's baller. I wish more people knew about it. Is I'm gonna persuade people of all these different ideas, outline into an argument, broad title, repeat the process, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And it's just been, and I, I still can't wrap my head around it, but I'm going to keep doing it. So now you all you guys,

>> Like it's working. I'm going to keep doing it. You are free to do it.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, one, okay, two things that stuck out to me. First, that I think a lot of people get stuck on. It's like, well, I don't, I don't want to write the same thing as everyone else. Like, I, I don't want to copy other people. And it's like, dude, like you, you're literally a carbon copy of like almost every other human being. You walk on two feet. You speak the same language.

>> Like, if you want to be so authentic and original, go walk on four legs. Go like eat like a dog. Like, you operate within a society that has a certain set of rules that if you disregard, you're probably not going to survive for very long and you're not going to really enjoy your life because nobody's going to want to be around you. And the people have access to resources and they support your work and other things of that nature. So the, the other thing that's more in line with original ideas is like, think of ideas in general. This isn't going to make much sense at first, but like the, the, a later idea can't exist without the first idea. And I think that's kind of in line with some of David Deutsch's stuff, but like without the car coming first, like a rocket wouldn't even be fathomable, right? Without paper first, then a book wouldn't be fathomable. Uh, without, I don't know, like a, a farm first, then industrialization wouldn't be possible, right? All of these things are ideas. The idea has to come first and then you can build it, but it, like, stacks on top of each other. So yeah, reaching these new and novel ideas isn't something to necessarily strive for, but you kind of stumble upon it by just working with ideas and digging into them deeper and letting your understanding of one idea birth more ideas that eventually come together into something new. So that brings us back to like, you just need to,

>> drown your brain in as many ideas as you possibly can sometimes, right? You need to take a break from that and just like, not think at all at times. But there, there's a healthy balance of like, you need a mind filled with ideas. So it's connecting the dots and like thinking and bouncing between them so that you can write. But at the same time, you need to rest and chill out and sometimes that aids the process even more.

>> Yeah. I would actually, I'm a very big advocate of that. I think in, in terms of the filling your brain with ideas, I probably need to do less of this. I probably need to kind of stop doing it a bit now. I would recommend if, if a Substack post has less than 300 to 1,000 likes, don't read it. And if a YouTube video has less than 100,000 views, don't watch it. Like, really just to wrap your head around the idea of validation because for so long, I remember like, I think it's probably, it's just learning as well, cuz like now I look back at like what I was doing 6 months ago or even last week and I was like, what was I doing, man? Like, this is so obvious. Like, why didn't I catch this? And I think it really is, you really just have to understand validation and validated ideas and just, just immerse yourself with them and then you will, like you said, it will start to become intuitive to you. You'll be able to look at a title and go, yeah, that's going to do well or it's not, and you'll kind of have a feel for it.

>> Yeah. Uh, two, two again, two things. The first is that,

>> Yeah. Yeah. So like, it just stresses the importance of of swipe files. Like in my previous courses, I would always give out like a Notion template of swipe files. And that's kind of what birthed or helped along the idea of Eden. Like from Cortex to Eden, the evolution. It's like the, the base of the app. The boards is just like a place for ideas. It's a swipe file. If you guys sign up, you, it's like, you can start free. You don't have to pay if you just want the boards. Um, but when you join, like I put a YouTube swipe file and a post swipe file in your workspace. Like, it's pre-populated, so you can just see those ideas and it starts, uh, spreading to more. But the second thing you mentioned, I was going to push back on, um, what was it when you said you need to like, only listen to or only watch videos that are over 100K and only read Substack articles over 2 to 3K. Uh, at first, I'm like, hm, I don't know about that, cuz then you're exposing yourself to potentially like ideas that are just viral for the sake of going viral. But then you pref, or you,

>> ended it with like, it, it's for understanding validation.

>> So I, I think there's two things there going back to your original framework of like, pair your favorite idea with a validated idea. So what I've noticed is really helpful is like, I have a specific sources that I get favorite ideas from. That comes from books, from certain authors. It comes from the non-viral ideas. It comes from the opposite. It comes from like the weird article that I somehow found or someone sent me. Like, I don't even know how I find them. It, it just shows up in my life and then I read it and I'm like, that was crazy. And I write the ideas down and then it's like, okay, well, I want to write about this because I love it so much. So let me start the newsletter, start writing about it. But I need to think of it from the frame of validated idea. So then I go and study those and I'm like, okay, let's go to Ali Abdall's channel and look at his most popular videos and see how he frames the title and the thumbnail. And then I can think, okay, how can I frame this weird favorite idea I have under the light of something validated?

>> So it's like, sorry, it's like the balance you have to,

>> I feel like I've only kind of spotted in the last couple months. Is like, I need to kind of stop like, I need to be like, I think maybe, maybe it's just a confidence thing. I'm like, "Oh, I have to make sure my title is validated." And I'm always like, "I need to have a validated title." And I do, being dead honest, I do have that fear every week. And I know everyone says, "Don't forget, like, forget about views." But like, if I get an, like an essay that I send out and I guess, let's, if it gets less than 300 likes, my heart is like, "No, it's not the average." So I probably have to just be like, "Right, no validating ideas for a while." And then just go to the other end of the spectrum and then find a good middle ground, which is probably something I have to work on.

>> Yeah. I, I mean, it's just feedback, right? Like, I, I don't see that as a bad thing. A lot of people will say like, "Oh, don't focus on the numbers. Just focus on the writing." But one, if you want to do this for work, I mean, you have to survive somehow. Like, you can't live off of zero likes. Sorry. Even though,

>> JK Molina says likes ain't cash. There's nuance.

>> Yeah. But the thing there is the, the feeling, like sometimes I take a break from looking at my analytics because like, if they're not doing well, then yeah, that kind of throws my mood off, but at the same time, like, that signal is how you improve. It's like, if you're completely content all the time with how you're writing and how you're doing, then there's no like drive or desire to improve further, right? You, in my eyes, I see that as a positive thing if you frame it as a positive thing. So when I see, okay, that last video sucked. I don't dwell on it, but I think, what can I improve in the next one? Or can I just go and change the title and thumbnail of this one and see if it starts doing better? Like, it gives me, like, you, you can choose to drown in it, I guess you could say, or use it as feedback. You improve, you study, you learn. That's how you grow.

>> Yeah, I'm definitely, I'm taking that now. I'm going to think about that after this.

>> That's a great idea.

>> Write about it.

>> It's a profound idea.

>> Yeah. So,

>> Yeah.

>> In, in terms, I, I, I have two other things. We're 34 minutes in. I have two other things I want to cover that I think would be helpful and we can go however you want with this. The, the first is just how do you think about structuring posts, short form posts, and then how do you think about structuring long form posts or sub, like newsletters, YouTube videos? Like, is there a framework you use? Um, how do you think? For me, I have a very specific way I think about writing the introduction and then the start of each section and like what to include. I can kind of flip through my own notebook of tactics, so to say, for getting down the page because when I started, I'm sure a lot of people struggle with this too, as Substack is becoming more of a thing, is when I wrote my first article, it was a blog article, wasn't even on social media, old school. And I, I wrote like, if you, if you've seen the Spongebob episode where he's going to write something and he sits down and the word, the,

>> Yeah, it's the word 'the' and he spent like a whole night writing it. That's how I felt,

>> then because I wrote like three sentences and had nothing else. So, yeah, let's do the newsletter one first. How do you go about structuring it, thinking about it, overcoming writer's block, quote unquote? This is probably outlining has always been the bane of my existence. Coming up with ideas. I've realized two things. The first thing is that I'm really bad at, I'm a very bad in terms of coming up with ideas. So, I kind of got, right. It's the ideas for like, I've really, I've tried to think about this and I'm still thinking about it all the time. It's like, well, what is this that I'm doing? It's an outline, which is an argument. It's a persuasive argument that I'm arguing for a perspective. It's an essay. Ideas organized in an outline. Outline. I flesh it out. I just write. I add like, I add words pretty much. It's an outline could be 500 words and I'm basically just fleshing out the outline. Like the outline is the bulk of the work. 80, 80 to 90, 80 to 90% is the outline in terms of coming up with ideas and getting over writer's block. I'm very bad at asking questions, but I'm, I seem to have, I don't know if I'd call it a gift or like a skill. I just have the skill of being able to connect ideas. Like I listen to a, I always listen to YouTube videos while on walks between like work blocks or throughout the day. I always find that that's kind of the cure if I am struggling with ideas. Like if you don't have ideas, you need knowledge. You need to learn something. And I spent like an hour watching a 15-minute YouTube video cuz I kept pausing it. And I just had like, oh, that connects to this and this guy said that. And I remember that book and this experience I had when I was 15 and Young said this and one of the lads said this and then it's just like, and I just vomit onto like, I just have a word document. So, inside Eden, all I use is just a word document in my board titled ideas and just bullet points and I just vomit ideas out and I'm just like,

>> Just spamming my phone while on a walk.

>> It's, it's, I, I actually, that's mental as well. Like, I, like, if you understand it, you understand it. Like when you just have a YouTube video and you're just listening to it and you're just walking around and then it's all of a sudden just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, all these different ideas coming in. It's like, that connects to this and all this and you just, I usually just vomit everything down just to kind of be like, right, I think I have enough like firepower here to kind of structure this into something. I think I have ideas because like you said, like if I was to just sit there at a blank page, good luck. Like, I'm not going to have anything. And then that's in terms of writer's block. If I need ideas, I need to learn something. I need knowledge. In terms of outlining, AI has been an app like an incredible tool. I'd say if I didn't have it, I'd be in a serious, serious, serious spot because I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I, in terms of ideas, it kind of relates back to ideas. I'm very good at synthesizing and connecting ideas. I can kind of spot patterns, but I tend to hyperfixate on like sentences. Like if I, any, I, I usually struggle with this with editing as well. Like I'll obsess over a section for like an hour and a half and just be going back and forth, back and forth, and it's like I haven't even touched anything else here. So AI is very, very good for outlining. I'm very big on, have your ideas. You absolutely abuse AI for the outline. Make it perfect. I'm talking every sentence, flesh it out as much as you want, then write it by hand. Like that's kind of my, what seems to work very, very well for me. And I love spending time outlining because it's like I can stress test ideas. I can be like, right, here's kind of a vague structure. I'm running over like problem solution. That's,

>> Yeah, all that's what all the frameworks are. Exactly.

>> I really like AIDA. AIDA's I've always found to be very, very good.

>> I recommend that one as well. But it's all just problem solution.

>> And then it's just like, right, what key points do I want to make? The hook, I kind of keep separate in my mind is like, right, I need to like start with a pattern interrupt, then a curiosity loop, then a visual cue, then I need a promise, a plan, um, other little things if I want to experiment each week. And then it's kind of just like, right, what is, what's kind of the logical sequence of, I want to talk about this, I have to set this up. Like, I always think about the five levels of awareness, Eugene, Eugene Schwartz. And usually I'm always like, maybe I shouldn't do this, maybe I should, I don't know. But I always assume that the person who's clicked onto my essays knows nothing about this and they're like 12 years old. So I need to be able to like explain this to them so simply as like, like in terms of, I need to be able to make sure people understand it. Just explain it simply. Problem, insight, solution. Make people feel the problem. Just assume that people don't understand it. Overexplain, simplify, simplify, just simplification. And then just back and forth with AI, back and forth with AI. Once the outline is done, that's everything done. Then it's just, you're just writing. Then I, I barely even edit nowadays. Same. No, you get, you get it, dude. Like, you're reminding me of things that, like, I've been so deep in Eden, the product lately, that it's like, the, the ideas connecting and listening to things on a walk, has been put on the back burner. So, I miss it a lot. But the, the thing you mentioned about like connecting ideas in general, I, I kind of pinned it down to where it happens for me. So, I have the, it comes with the outline first, and maybe not even the outline, just the concept of what I want to write about. So, I have to sit down. I know I'm writing one newsletter a week. Okay, what's this week going to be about? I have this, I have like all the ideas that I've been taking notes on and just jotting down and then I pick one that's my profound idea and then I start to, even just that is enough. But then the validated idea is like something I start thinking about as well. How do I frame this? And then I may start the outline and just including ideas that I want to include in the actual newsletter or script. And when I go on a walk, it's like that's all I need. The, that my focus for the week is that newsletter and that's what my brain is munching on, even subconsciously, when I don't know it. So when I listen, I see a video on YouTube and I watch it, it, it's starting to like, I'm starting to connect ideas to the actual topic that I'm writing about. So that's what makes it super unique is that I usually don't sit down and write the newsletter all in one go. I write the topic, I have a general outline of just how I want it to look. Then I'll go on walks. I'll read even like five pages of a book is sometimes enough to just spark like an entire draft of ideas. Um, and then when I go on the walk, like I'm just jotting down the ideas from the videos, from the books, etc., into the newsletter outline. And so when I go to write, I have the newsletter draft open, which is empty at this point, and then I have the outline on the side with like way too many ideas. And I just start looking it over and I'm like, okay, how do these start to plug in? And the framework you mentioned, problem, insight, solution, is just the best beginner framework to go with. Like, if you don't know what to write, you start with the problem, right? If my topic is how to become more intelligent than 99% of people, then to me, I start thinking, okay, what's the problem? What have I experienced in my life? Well, when I was younger, I always wanted to like sound intelligent, right? I always saw Alan Watts and Jordan Peterson and I'm like, like, how do I become like them, right? And then the other thing is obviously the problem with, I don't know if you can necessarily increase your actual IQ, but from the concept of intelligence and actually like thinking, and there are some aspects of that that you can improve. And so the problem is like, just your ability to think and make better decisions is very beneficial to your life. And if you don't know how to do that, then obviously there's a problem. Then the insight for me is the favorite idea. It's the nine stages of ego development. And so I teach that as a concept. And then the solution is like, okay, what are the practical steps that people can take to start to implement this? And that's the entire newsletter. So you have outline, which is filled with ideas that you pick up on a walk or just think about. Then you have the framework, problem, insight, solution, that you start to try and plug those ideas into. And then you format them into a newsletter and it works most of the time.

>> I'd also, I'd add another framework to problem insight solution. Like, I think that's like, you, I think everything you just said there, spot on. I follow that very similarly as well. Another thing I learned, I started reading, I think it was Gary Halbert a couple of weeks ago. I started reading his letters and a nice little framework I have if you want to persuade people of an idea. There's facts and there's benefits of facts. And if you just sit around thinking about that, you can realize that there's like benefits to everything and there's also not benefits to everything. And everything that we're doing is just persuasion. We're persuading. We're arguing with every single thing that we do. And an essay or a newsletter, it's an argument for a perspective. I think this is beneficial to you. This is what will happen if you listen to it. Here's the action steps. So, I kind of, that's kind of what I think of in terms of outlining as well.

>> I'll, I'll show you. So, a few funny

Things is like I'm talking about this, uh, right now. I'll see if I can, hopefully, I can screen share window Chrome. Okay, so this is like when whenever I write a newsletter, I just create a new board and pin it because then it's easy to access for that week. But then I just jot down ideas and put everything in here, right? It's like I have the general idea of what I want to write about. Okay, what are the YouTube videos that I've watched or have made before that apply to that? What are the statistics? What are the ideas? I just like, my my project for the week is just a mess of the ideas. And then when I'm actually writing the newsletter, it's it's the same exact thing.

So to give like a practical example of what you just said in terms of benefits, the the problem is that nobody knows what skill to learn right now. I literally just like start with that. Like I don't need to make it fancy. I literally just say what it is. Nobody knows what skill to learn. Then I expand on it. I just think like, okay, AI, coding, marketing. I kind of go through my own internal monologue and then there's more opportunity than ever. However, there's one skill that will never go out of style. So, I'm like quickly shifting. The introduction to me is introduce the problem, but also hint at the solution and give the benefit of the solution. So, nobody knows what skill to learn. However, there's one skill that will never go out of style. Human nature, which is also like persuasion, human psychology. Because if you understand that, then you can make any business successful. You can work your way into new opportunities. You can make friends and influence people. You can navigate through life with elegance and grace because you are no longer a slave to your mind but a master of it. And I just dig into that a bit more. But like that could literally be the intro. I don't need any of this other stuff. And then I say, in this letter, here's what you're going to look forward to, the steps and principles that you can apply. And then I need to re-upload that.

But then the second section is, I wouldn't really say profound idea. Um, but it's like I have the problem and then I need to structure the solution in a way that just makes sense. And usually the second section of the newsletter or YouTube video for me is like a breakdown of a concept. So I can either create the concept, so the anatomy of human nature, which I'm kind of making up and going back and forth with AI on like creating that framework from previous things that I've written and just like creating a new version. And the it gets more advanced here, I guess you could say, but certain ideas like this are things that have just stuck with me that I read from previous newsletters or tweets. They're like the ideas that kind of sit in my mind that I pull out when I need to and then I break it down and eventually I'll get into the actual solution down here. But this is just a mess and like jotted down ideas. But that's the gist of it.

"I have learned so much from that, man. Thank you for this, even showing me that alone. That's"

"That's so insightful."

"Just like, wait, which part?"

"Just all of it. Every part. Oh,"

"Cuz like I've like I've torn apart my entire writing process like in the last two months at least like seven or eight times. Like now my process at the minute seems to be I for a while I was writing a section a day and being like, 'Right, I don't know what next section I'm going to write tomorrow.' Now it's like I'm going to spend three or four day three or four days on the outline and I won't write a single word until every single part of that outline is like ticked off. Am I do I have a pattern interrupt that I've written myself that has come from my own brain and every single thing that I like to include and then I'll start writing. But even like that's a whole different other way of thinking about that I'm going to think about now and test out."

"Nice. Yeah, that like it's been just really helpful for me to like my my writing process now just with Eden because I kind of have to conform to Eden at this point. You know what I mean? Like, but I I have to fit my or create a new writing structure with that. So, it's the simplest way to put it is just a board a week and then when I have a potential new topic, I just create a new board and I start putting things in that board. So, my boards aren't really organized by like, well, I have the swipe files, I have the other things, but it's usually based on like a validated topic, right? I I pick a validated topic I want to talk about, create a board about it, and then just start putting any ideas that connect with that in that board. Then when it's time to go and write, I create the document inside of there and just start piecing all of those ideas together."

"And it's like my brain is just like thinking like of all these different things to try out now. Like I'm just thinking of all"

"Yeah, that's interesting."

"I'm kind of the same as well. Like I like my boards will just be a mess. Like I'll just fill it with like I'll go through my swipe file. I call it like a curation folder. I'll go through and I'll just stick loads of ideas in. Like if it's slightly related, I'll be like, 'Yeah, right. Go on. Just stick it in. Stick it in. Stick it in.' I'll have an idea of just at least a couple of videos that right, I have to watch these to see what people are talking about and also what people aren't talking about so I know what not to talk about and what I can talk about. And then just like you said, I do need to do it a bit more. But sometimes I will be like, I'm going to watch this random idea about this random concept, which I do need to start doing a lot more. And then you'll get this little little idea and you're like, man, that is something else. And it's like, how can I fit this into this and then back here? And then"

"That's that's it really."

"I know. It's crazy how much like you you just read this one sentence and then you're like, this could be a book."

"Right? And then if Yeah. For those ideas, since it could be a book, it's kind of easy to write a newsletter, right? If one practical tip for anyone who just is getting started or even has started, whenever you come across one of those ideas and you have to listen to videos, books, etc. to expose yourself to the potential of receiving those ideas. But once you hit one and you're like, whoa, like yeah, that could be a book, stop. Like just stop. Open notes on your phone, open anything, and just start writing. Start voice dumping. start like don't let the stream of consciousness fade from that idea. Like there are times at night where I'm trying not to wake my girlfriend up because like I get an idea right before I'm about to fall asleep and I'm like I want to go to sleep so bad but I I need to write this down. So I turn over, open my phone and I'll be sitting there for like 5 minutes just"

"Getting everything out and then"

"Go to bed. But then when I wake up, I know like, okay, I can use this in this week's newsletter, week, next week's newsletter, really any newsletter. But"

"I've been the same actually. Like I've been a couple weeks ago, like I was saying, I'll be out on a walk with my girlfriend and we'll just be talking about the most random things and then all of a sudden like, oh, and I grabbed my phone. Why you taking your phone out? I was talking to you. I was like, it's diffused thinking, bro. Like these things just come to you like ideas, like shower thoughts. Yeah."

"And like I think it's just come up out of nowhere and then like all the time I'm just like, sorry, one sec. Like grab the phone."

"Yeah. Right. Grant, I'm back."

"I know it it is kind of like man, we need to learn to be present. But Jack Moses, I I don't know if he's in here. Um, but some of you know him on social media, but he came to Arizona one time and we were walking to dinner and we were having a conversation and something he said just like sparked an idea and I'm like, 'Sorry, dude. I need to write this down.' And I just stopped and like started writing. And but he understood it. Like it's a bit more disrespectful to do that around people who don't get what you're doing, but he he knew like why I had to stop and write it down. Yeah."

"So, next thing we covered the newsletter. What about like short form posts? How do you think about those? They're more like atomic ideas."

"To be dead honest, I I really don't like writing short form. I really I I don't know what it is. I just can't bring myself to bring it to like"

"It's a lot It's a lot harder than long form. It's like, oh, like I'll write a section. I usually try to do like a section a day of the newsletter, like a section or two if I can do more. And then once I've kind of done that, then it's like, uh, short form, nah, like I'll do it tomorrow. But it's the same process of like, right, I have my best short form posts. I look at other people's short form posts. Same. I don't really again, I kind of just I should probably be a bit more open with like using short form as a testing ground but then I'm also like I kind of like for some reason my engagement is always better when I don't post short form. Like I haven't posted a short form post in like 5 days, I think. But if I usually leave like a couple of days gaps between short form posts, I don't know if it's like a quality thing but anytime I seem to post and they seem to do very very well instead of just like just piping them out just constant constant constant."

"I've noticed that too like uh at least when I first started on Twitter the the meta was to write like three to five posts a day and so I would just pump them out and I'd get okay engagement. But now maybe it's cuz I'm so large but I think you're validating it a bit more that it isn't just my audience. But like if if I take five 6 days off, my posts do so much better just because there's space, right? And people it it's novel to people at that point because they just aren't seeing it all the time. But that of course could conflict with like goals. If you have to promote something, if you if your business or service business is like dependent on you have to write every day and promote every day to get leads, I get that. Um, but one thing that helps me a lot for tweets or I I I just write on Twitter first and then paste it everywhere. But the the mental model that helps me is a lot is like any idea is fair game and when I go to write, I just pick any idea and then my entire job then is to just think of a hook and an ending and then usually it comes together quite well. So if the idea is like nine stages of ego development then I think okay how am I like that's a lot how am I going to package that into a tweet. So I think of the hook which is usually a problem or like how to do this or some some hook but I could start and be like okay how can I turn nine stages of ego development into a how-to how to become more intelligent than 99% of people and then I think about the nine stages and I just break down okay how can I condense this into like two sentences and then wrap it up. So, I I think of tweets as like a condensation of like a newsletter section or an entire newsletter when I used to teach my writing process a lot more. People like I would say I turn my newsletter into tweets and they're like, 'Well, what do you mean? Do you usually do you just like copy paste certain sentences from it?' And usually, no. It's like I need a really big idea for a tweet. So, I'll take the entire newsletter and try to pack that into one to three sentences and that's what leads to the like, 'Oh [ __ ] that's a big idea tweet' or just like a section of a newsletter or something like that. So, I I I guess last question there is do you use I know you don't use AI to actually like write. I don't think that's a very good use case"

"For AI yet at all. It just kind of sucks."

"But for like ideation and expanding and like"

"Giving it the role of like Socrates to play thought partner with you so you can expand on your ideas is pretty great. So for short form or long form, what's are the use cases of AI for you?"

"For long form, I actually only realized this yesterday. I realized that anytime anytime I use a thinking partner prompt, I get very lazy. So I was like, right, okay, I'm going to just remove that completely from the process. So now I'm kind of like, right, I need to have all of my ideas from my own brain to start with. Like I need them handwritten by me in a document. And then I have it's I call it my idea synthesis prompt. And I can hand that off to AI. It basically organizes all my ideas for me. So I was like, right, I'll write down like I'll write down ideas. Sometimes I'll write down, oh, here's a post, study this hook, why is this hook working? And I'll add that into the outline or just anything that comes to my mind. And then I will use AI to be like, right, okay, organize my ideas for me. And then sometimes I'll hand it sources like I'll hand it YouTube videos that I've read and I'll be like, right, give me the argument of this one and this one. And then I'll consume those videos. I'll give my ideas in relation to those sources. Then I'll ask AI be like, right, give me like un like I I now I think about it in terms of the structure of the content and the ideas. So am I trying to understand the ideas like the arguments? Do I believe that to be true? How does that differ from what I think is true and my ideas versus structurally is like, right, why is that content doing so well? What are the mechanisms happening at like the mechanism level? So, they're kind of two different ways that I would think about using AI. And then I would use like I've only I only like I only figured this out like three days ago. I was like, I should start stress testing my ideas."

"Cuz I used to just come up with my ideas, bang, straight into the outline. I'd be like, 'Yeah, class. This is great.' And I only started messing around with a stress test. I added a load like I think it was like 14 different principles that like AI can pick and choose from. And it's like I'm expecting my idea quality to just go through the roof now over the next four weeks. I'm very excited to test it."

"Yeah."

"But then it is just like"

"Stress test the ideas, stress test the ideas, go into the outline, and then outline is complete. Write the thing yourself."

"Yeah, my my process is very similar. Since you mentioned that, I'll show I've love this prompt. Uh, and just like this process in general like I'm showing Eden. You can do this in any app if you want to. It's obviously just easy to do in Eden, but like I have like pre-built prompts in here. These are all the built-in ones for really anyone. Um, but the idea sharpener essentially, this is like Socrates in a prompt and like the Socratic method in a prompt. So, what I'll do is I'll have like my newsletter open and then I'll open a chat and then you can access like the prompts and I'll go to the idea sharpener and then like with my newsletter open here, I'll just be like, okay, I'm at this section in the newsletter. Here's the the idea that I'm working with. I don't feel like it's strong enough yet. and then it just starts like picking it apart and then asking me questions about it and it helps me come to a much more like truthful and nuanced point of view than what I previously had. Uh, so that's super helpful. The other thing that I like to do is the reason I put these in here like this YouTube video or even like long uh lectures um as I'm writing I'll just like chat with the video and say like, what is the specific idea of this? What's the argument? What's this? Because I've listened to the videos. Well, I recorded that one. But the other ones that I put in there, it's like I've listened to the videos. I understand what's inside them, but I like can't completely re I don't have the exact idea in my head of what they said. So, I'll usually recall ideas this way so that I don't always have to store them word for word and then go and find them later because I have the source of the idea right here, right? I don't need like super extensive notetaking when I have the source of the idea and can just ask for the idea when I need it and then it pulls it out and then I can just write next to it and see the entire chat here. Like what I was doing when I was building out the framework for the anatomy of human nature is I had previous ideas from previous newsletters and videos that I just pasted in. I didn't I pasted certain parts of them in, but it's like I want help create a framework. Here's what I'm working with. And then it said, 'Okay, here's what I have so far.' And then I went to like a really old newsletter that's only on my blog and pasted it in and just asked like, 'Let's condense this. Let's make this simpler. Um, what's happening here?' And then one thing, I don't know if Max Bernstein's in here, but a good mental model for AI, I think his entire newsletter, I think, is called Question the Default. And so every time that AI spits something out for me, I just question like, is this good enough? Is this what I wanted? And when I read through it, usually the answer is no. And so then I tell it what's wrong, get the next variation, then that's so much better and a lot more aligned with what I want it to say. And then with this open, I just like write it how I would write it or how I understand it. So that's a few AI tips at least for what I use. There's so many different ways you could go on forever."

"I actually have two two little ideas in relation to that. The first one I think is that I think my writing diff my writing process differs to yours in that like the idea of going through and stress testing the ideas individually just frightens me because I know I would just get obsessed like narrow focus like these three lines need to be perfect."

"So I would be doing what you're doing but like a level abstracted upwards. I'd be doing that at like the outline level."

"Cuz I just can't. For some reason my brain just hyperfixates. Like I used to read books and try to memorize them sentence by sentence."

"So like I'm just like no. Like I need the outline done. I'm happy."

"And then the other thing is I have a document that I made about three weeks ago and it's an anti- AI patterns document because I had a think about AI. I was like, why is like why is everyone why does everyone sound the same? Why does everyone keep using AI? And then I made a document. And I was like, and I used to use AI for like editing and I'd be like, I'd write something, I'd be like, 'Oh, yeah.' And AI was like, 'Oh, it's weak here.' Like, 'What do you mean it's weak here?' It's like, 'You're"

"Yeah."

"You're not even a person.' Like, AI doesn't have a perspective. Like, AI can't judge that. And then I was brainstorming. I was like, I went back and forth with Claude. I was like,"

"'You don't have a perspective.' I was like, 'No.' I was like, 'Then why are you telling me these things?' And now I'm just like, I've realized that AI can do like three things really. It can observe, it can ask questions, and it can generate. It does have a generated function. I've started experimenting with it again. But it's like I don't like I every time I use AI, I have to document, copy and paste it in. Don't give me any of this. Oh, you're not doing this, you're doing this. Like the sickopantic engagement [ __ ] It's like, I know you're trying to hype me up. And I hate it. I absolutely hate it. It really annoys me now. But I really like using like stripping away the AIS, if that's what I call it. And then your outputs just get it's almost like a reflective like you're going back and forth with yourself. Then you're not actually talking with an AI chat that is designed to put engagement above the truth and just to keep you going back and forth and feeling good so you keep paying for the subscription. And I love AI. I'm pro AI. But that stuff just annoys me. like read because like like what you said like you have to read what AI says."

"And you read it and go, no, that's actually not first of all, I don't believe it or it's not true or I don't think that's good."

"Yeah. It's taste as much as that word is thrown thrown around nowadays."

"To the point where it's just exhausting. It's like knowing what's good and what's not. It's like"

"Knowing what not to include. So if the AI for me like since I've been writing for so long, experience is a big like determinant of taste is like I've been writing so long that when I see the AI output, I'm like there's something here, but like it just it's not there. So I need to take the good parts, get rid of the bad parts, and word them how I would word them because I would say that anyways, right? I wouldn't say what the AI is saying. I would say what I'm trying to say with the idea that it like brought back to my mind, right? It didn't give me a new idea obviously because it probably can't do that, but it gave me something that I already knew that now I can go and word how I want to word. So, I I agree there. I I think I I've tried to have AI write like me like a lot. I fed it my books. I created multiple voice analysis. I had like an entire Claude project filled with my newsletters and I realized that like yeah, it can write pretty close to me but once I read it, I'm like, I wouldn't structure it like this even though it's pulling one of my structures, I wouldn't put this sentence after this sentence that's just like not it doesn't sound like me and so it's weird that it can sound so much like me without sounding like me at all and yeah, that's why we have the identities feature in Eden if you've tried that a lot of People say it like helps like give since it understands what their core ideas and their mission and their point of view is, it can like reflect ideas back to them in that voice. So yeah,"

"Sorry, go ahead."

"I was going to say the one thing that I like about this conversation or people in general who have this kind of mindset is like it's not either or. It's not like you need to adopt AI in every part of your life or AI is the devil. You can't use it at all. It's like you just have to like see where it's not good and not really use it in the place that isn't good. And if you love writing, why would you try to replace that part of your life? So, it yeah, it's just thinking. I think it's funny that the people who like are so set on, oh, AI hurts your ability to think aren't thinking through the fact that like it doesn't have to. Like it's not a binary onoff switch in your brain of like it just destroying your bra. Yeah, I can talk about that all day."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot as well. Like even like I I think that's why I kind of focus on the outline so much because the outline and process like it can abstract your thinking up a level like I can feed in all the input and I can be like I don't need to read all this and like I can I can think about the argument that I want to make and then I can have AI organiz like right, give me a structure like what how would I how would you like maybe not how would you because AI is not a you but like how like it always burns me when I'm like oh what how would you outline this but like"

"Outline it and then evaluate it. It's like Bloom's taxonomy. It's like the second highest level of thinking. You evaluate it. You look at it and you go, 'Right, do I actually agree with this? Do I not agree with it?' Instead of just being like, 'Write this for me. Send.' And it's rubbish."

"Nobody wants to read it."

"Yeah. I mean, it's like a a a film director versus the videographer, like the dynamic between them. Or a ghost writer versus the actual writer like James Patterson. like he uses ghostwriters, but he has control over the plot, the characters, all of the ideas, all of that stuff. And when he reads over it, I'm sure that he invokes his taste on it and they refine it over and over again until it's something that actually he wants to put out into the world. Same with like an editor for a book. every publisher or every author has probably had an external editor edit their book and they don't have to agree with the edits. When I had someone edit my book, uh, they were trying to correct like certain parts where I used like certain words and grammar and how I punctuated and they wanted to like put dashes and semicolons. I'm like, I don't use semicolons. No, we're not putting those in here. it's a period or it's a comma. Like I I just removed like I didn't agree with like 50% of their edits except for the blatantly like type errors. They're the spelling errors. It's like Yeah. It's your choice to what gets put out into the world either way, AI or not."

"Yeah. It's I think it's the same with like it's the same with AI being like, 'Oh, this is good. This is bad.' It's like no. Like I purposefully try to write my sentences in the most wackiest of ways."

"Yeah."

"Like completely like and then I'll be like your grammar is so wrong and it doesn't flow and I'm like I don't care. And then you send it out and then you look at it and it's like oh like I try to write like how I speak and I curse a lot. So I curse a lot in all of my essays."

"Yeah."

"And I start with the word and and I start sentences with the word but and I make all these mistakes because that's what humans do. And it is taste. That is taste as well."

"Yeah. If it flows, it flows."

"Yeah."

"But all right. An hour and 13 minutes. That was pretty solid. See, Dan and Craig are absolute legends. Thank you, sir. We'll take it. That's That's what we can"

"See. My I always end my little essays with you're an absolute legend. So, I'm happy to see that. That's That's a thing that people now associate with profound ideas."

"Oh, yeah. Nice."

"All right. This was epic. AI has ruined a lot of words. Yeah. And the M dashes."

"Yeah."

"I know. Every time I see an M dash now, I'm like, AI, even though it's not. And like I wish I could use M dashes because I like the use case of them."

"Like kind of extending the sentence. I I unfortunate that technology could go and do that."

"I think I've asked them a couple times and then I'll apologize being like, sorry for the AIM dash."

"Yeah. Uh, okay, two questions. One's shameless self-promo. I'm looking to replace one of 10 for YouTube research on Eden. Can you validate ideas by date, topic, outlier, and outliers within a certain time? Yes, you can. And you can try it free. So try it yourself and see if you like it. If you don't, all good. Eden.So. Uh, okay. Question for Craig. This will be the last one because I know once we get in the questions, it's it's going to be like an hour. Ask them in the Eden Discord. Comment on Craig's stuff. Uh, follow Craig, of course."

"Send me messages. I'll do my best to answer them. I'm very bad for answering messages or being on my phone, but just send me messages."

"Is your Is your group chat free or paid?"

"Free, I believe. I think."

"Okay. Either way, whether it's free or paid, go join uh Craig's chat on"

"Yeah."

"Substack. But question for Craig. Craig, you had a board called emulation and learning. Besides the swipe file and best post boards, what is that about? Are you breaking down posts you like and why they work so you can replicate the tactics in your own writing? Thanks if you have the time to answer."

"That is correct. Um, between research, coming up with ideas, I like to have I like to think about extracting one, validation or not, I kind of put it aside, but I like to read something one post a week that I like to read and myself, I'll read something and I'll read a paragraph or a section from a post and go, why did that sound so persuasive? really just trying to understand the craft less about validation, not so much about validation or ideas, but more about like the mechanism level of how can I maybe I can actually show it like super quickly to show what I mean. Um, I don't know if people can see this, but hopefully they can. So, here I have I have some of your posts actually, and I have Icarus, who's doing insane. I've saved I've saved a lot of his. Eden Eden made me discover him. I saw him popping off in the discover tab. I'm like, damn, I need to"

"Oh, he's doing insane."

"Yeah."

"So, I'm these and even some of my own ones that I've kind of been like, right, these are all validated for a reason. Like 24,000 for how to remember everything you read, 11 rotten your mind, 1.3, and that was like 6,000 words as well. like these are all essays that I can that I've read, especially your last one of your last essays on I'm begging you to write more essays. I printed that out and I like at night time. I recommend doing this in the evenings if people do have the time. Print out an essay that you like and have your title or topic for the week and sit down and think about what every single sentence is doing on a mechanism level and going right, just take one thing, one thing a week. You only need one permanent 1% improvement every week and just take one thing. I'm going to emulate this. I'm going to learn from this. I'm going to apply it to my writing this week. Test it out. You do that across 52 weeks across like I've written about 80 80 essays now. I think long form posts. Every single one of those weeks I've gone, right, I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this. And then it all just compounds and adds up. So, I always try to pick something to learn from and to extract one new principle every week. Apply it to what I'm writing each week. Feedback engagement will tell you if it's working or not. That's"

"You know how to learn, dude. You've got it down. Cuz like that's exactly it. Like the first the first way you you write your first tweet is you look at someone else's tweet and you think, hm, okay, what's the structure here? Why did this work? And then you apply it to your own. And then the next week or the next day, you look at someone else's like, 'Oh, okay. This hook is a bit different. Let me try that. Oh, this one is a how-to post. This one's a contrarian reframe. This one's a a contrast, like this versus this.' Like, you start to notice these different structures. If you can name them, even better. It's like I won't go to Twitter right now and look over them, but yeah, even better. So, it's literally just technique stacking is that's what a skill is. It's like you go into Photoshop, one day you learn how to select and mask a square,."

"And then the next time you learn the brush tool, and then the next time you learn this, and this and this, and then eventually you can create anything in Photoshop. And it's the same with everything, writing included. But that is it. Uh, Craig, thank you for coming on. I do have one last shameless"

"Got you. Uh, we'll have to do it again because it was fun and I'm sure people would love to do it again."

"But yeah, shameless promo. The, uh, audience building boot camp. If you want to learn all of this, uh, we're running one starting July 8th. I saw people earlier mentioning the future proof challenges. If you purchase all of those, you should have gotten an email before that gives you access. You can just log into Eden and you'll see it. Um, but yeah, if you want to learn my writing process and the ins and outs of all of that, how to write all that stuff, eden.so/bootamp. Uh, yeah, I don't like promoting, but I have to because it's good stuff. It'll teach you a lot."

"But yeah, dude, thank you for coming on. Everyone, say thank you to Craig. Go subscribe to him. Read his profound ideas. blow up his chat, his Substack group chat. And yeah, we'll see you guys later. The recording will be posted somewhere. You'll find it. All right. Thanks, dude. Catch you later."

"Thanks, everyone."