Dear younger-me,
Pretty convincing stuff yesterday, right? So maybe you’ve started lurking on Twitter.
But let’s kick it up a notch. Why don’t you start writing + publishing too?
It seems scary, but here are three reasons to consider:
1. Help others
Because you’re a sucker for helping others/feeling helpful, here’s an illustration that does a great job of calling us out:
Yes, there are many loud spammy marketing voices on every platform because their literal job is to use any means necessary to grab your attention. But that’s not the only way to play the game!
You have lots of ideas bouncing around in your head, but what’s the point if you’re not sharing them with people?
We need you out there! 🫡
2. Create a friendship-making engine
Second: an appeal to your desperate yearning for connection.
Why do those friendships of ours seem to fizzle out? Well, we don’t put in that much effort. School gets in the way. Work gets in the way. It’s never a top priority until it’s Friday night and you realize you have no plans.
It’s understandable: you’re good at developing point-to-point relationships (i.e. friends who aren’t friends with each other) because you’re good in 1-on-1 settings. But it takes the same amount of effort each time you reach out to catch up. There are no economies of scale!
What does writing online allow you to do?
Well now, you have leverage: writing for one person takes the same amount of effort as writing for 1,000 people.
Consequently, things you write will attract people who are interested enough to reach out. Now you’re creating pull – people are coming to you rather than you going out and trying to find them.
And those people already know what you’re about because of what you’ve written. When you finally connect, you don’t have to do the song-and-dance of “What do you do? What are your hobbies?” The conversation can get straight to the good stuff because you’re already known!
So writing on your personal website is a start. But it’s a one-way street. People have to go out of their way to find your website. No one is going to muster up the activation energy it takes to email you. You’re essentially hanging out on the side of the road and hoping that someone in a car will stop to say hi.
But what if instead, you showed up at a coffee shop? Not just any coffee shop, but a popular one. What if you showed up over and over? You would start to recognize some regulars and get to chatting with them. They would introduce you to their friends and so on. Making friends gets easier over time because your old relationships will lead to new relationships. You’re no longer point-to-point.
Social media can be that coffee shop!
I recommend Twitter to start. The difference between apps like Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn vs Twitter is that Twitter is an interest graph, not a social one: you can use the algorithm to connect you to people who share the same interests that you do, regardless if you’ve met them before.
Maybe while on Twitter, you’ll hear about some sort of
and start connecting with people on Substack next!The majority of your relationship-building time should not be spent going out and attempting to forge new relationships. Instead, your time should be spent working on yourself (creating a “body of work”) and creating situation that allow your relationships to compound and for people to come you.1
It really works!
3. Serendipity generator
Third, an appeal to novelty.
Platforms like Twitter and Substack will expose you to thought-provoking ideas and ways of living and even more so when you are creating and contributing rather than just consuming.
What’s cool is that you can just reach out and talk to those people who are changing your worldviews! They can become your friends (refer to point #2)!
You can also just starting working on projects in public and if it’s interesting, people will throw money at you.
Every post you make is another lottery ticket!
4. Testimonials
As a bonus, here’s some more external validation:
So through writing online, you can:
Help others
Make friends
Expand your worldview + make money
Think it’s worth a shot?
Sincerely,
Older-you
052. Dear me: stop lurking and start writing (pt 2/?)
This newsletter resonates as I'm grappling with this issue. Thanks for the extra nudge!
It’s harder for men but you are a brave leader for doing this!