Across knowledge work fields, I see what I call writing-first practitioners: professionals who use consistent public writing—on blogs, in newsletters, through op-eds, on social media—to sharpen their thinking, build networks, and attract opportunity. (View Highlight)
These individuals write first and foremost for themselves. Through the personal and often intimate act of putting words down, taking an intellectual stance and sharing that with the world, they end up making better decisions about where to invest their money or time. (View Highlight)
While podcasting can be a way to process and shape ideas in real time—particularly if the podcast involves conversations with other smart practitioners—writing imposes a discipline on thought that podcasts do not. Writing publicly requires one to commit to an angle and a view, distilled into something clear and concise. You are forced to take a decisive step in one direction or another, a process that, done over and over again, becomes progress (View Highlight)
Just as writing hones your thinking, over time it hones your style of thinking, expressed outwardly as your writing voice. (View Highlight)
When the whole world is working with AI tools that tend to normalize writing to an unobjectionable range, the cultivation of a uniquely personal voice becomes even more valuable. (View Highlight)
There’s a less obvious way AI sharpens this edge: networks. As AI tools make data analysis and information synthesis easier, proprietary human relationships become more valuable. Writing has always been a way to attract those relationships—people reaching out because they’ve read your work and want to connect. In a world where everyone can synthesize information, the network you’ve built by thinking in public becomes your true moat. (View Highlight)
people who are writing-first practitioners start not because they are eager to build their network or get ahead in their career. They write because they can’t stop themselves. They have a natural aptitude for processing ideas on page or screen. They would be writing whether they had 10 followers or 100,000—and very often they build the 100,000 from those first 10. This can’t be forced. And it can’t be outsourced. (View Highlight)
Writing-first practitioners dare to put things out there that they know might be wrong in a few years. They aren’t afraid for their writing to get feedback and criticism, or push on even when they are afraid. They understand that the writing is a means to an end, not a performance. (View Highlight)
many people who are prolific writers have told me their writing has given them the opportunity to speak at industry conferences with more frequency than non-writers (View Highlight)