SOAK #4
This week on SOAK, a shout out to everyone who's creating and sharing their work publicly.
Hey beautiful people!
Don’t you just love when you witness great things happening? Cohort 7 of Write of Passage is on its final days, and I’m watching all these great people putting themselves out to the world, publishing their work, creating their websites, launching their newsletters, and instead of making the web crowded, their adding value and contributing to this wonderful thing that is the Internet Citizenship. As with the offline society, we have the moral obligation to offer our best to the online community around us, leaving it a little better than it was.
So this issue is dedicated to all of you who are creating and sharing your work, thank you for making the internet a better place.
🧽 What I’m Soaking In
This Friday, the artist Logic was the guest of a Write of Passage live session. The plan was to do a Q&A for an hour, but it turned out to be an epic 2+ hours conversation between an established artist and 100+ creators about creative processes, imposter syndrome, personal struggles, and much more. Serendipity was in the air and truly magic moments happened.
I confess I didn’t know Logic, but the man stayed for more than 2 hours talking to a bunch of strangers, enjoying the conversations as much as we were, giving us such intimate revelations about his life and career that I had no other option but to admire him.
This great article from Write of Passage alumna Roxine Kee goes deep into the conversation held last night.
When we meet a successful person in any field, we usually get more interested in knowing more about her, so I did spend a couple of hours on Youtube listening to Logic and I did enjoy many of his songs.
This is one of his most well known:
Apparently, it got some critiques from some peers claiming it was too commercial. While I agree it fits mainstream music, the message is really important (1-800-273-8255 is the hotline for suicidal prevention) and it seems to have helped a lot of people around the world. Besides that, the song is beautiful and the video clip is very touching.
After participating in that 2-hour conversation with him, I can say he’s a great guy with a passion for expressing himself artistically, and being so off the “rapper stereotype“ only makes him more interesting.
If you don’t know him well, check out his stuff, it’s worth it.
🔎 People to Follow
I’ve started this newsletter mainly due to Write of Passage, and this course has been transformative, in case you didn’t notice that by the constant reference to it in every issue of SOAK!
The people on this course are amazing, as I’ve said before, and a great example is Anthony Polanco. He’s a great communicator and he made a video talking about Write of Passage, and it’s a great way to understand better why I’m always praising this course and its community.
Check it out:
✍️ Writing
Last week I published an article about a cognitive behavior that I was having and didn’t know exactly what to call it so I named it myself:
Respity: Sticking with Something for What It Was, Not for What It Is
I’ll give you a quick snippet here and you can read the full article on the blog if you resonate with it.
At some point, I wondered: Why am I still watching this show?
After some thought, I realized I’m doing it not for what the show is offering me right now, but for what it gave me in the past, during the first few seasons.
It was a severe case of “Respity”, sticking to something for a mixed feeling of respect and pity.
If you ever felt Respity for something or someone, please tell me, I would love to know about it and would be happy to know that I’m not the only crazy one out there!
💣Recommendations
Minimal Twitter - Twitter is the social platform where I spend the most time, but all the ads and visual noise were annoying me, but then I found out about Minimal Twitter and everything changed!
I don’t know if I’m the last person to know about this wonderful Chrome Extention, but I’m amazed! Look at the difference:
Regular Twitter
Minimal Twitter
No ads, no recommendations, no trending topics, just the content from the people you already follow. I love it.
The only downside is that I have one less thing to distract me, so fewer excuses to justify my lack of productivity. (I mean, it’s Sunday evening and I’m finishing the newsletter that I send on Saturdays!)
A few words on that last comment…
Consistency is key in everything we do. I know that most of you want to write consistently and that some may struggle with it (as I do), but don’t get discouraged. If you planned to publish an article or send a newsletter on a specific day and for whatever reason you missed the deadline, don’t stress about it. Send it the next day, or the day after that. What’s important is that you do it.
If you’re starting out, chances are that nobody will notice. I mean, we’re not Tim Ferriss. We’re not Charlie Bleecker (ha!). People that follow your work surely love to read it, but nobody’s gonna care if you get late every once in a while.
Having a following is awesome for motivation, and that extra pressure to deliver is good to get us performing at our best, but you want to be consistent for yourself, not for anybody else.
📚Books
I'm reading How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers, by Sönke Ahrens.
It’s being incredibly helpful to understand how can I organize my Information Capture System in an effective way.
The book offers more than this, but a big part is related to the notes themselves:
Literature Notes - Take them when you’re reading. Highlight and write down what resonates with you, but in your own words whenever possible.
Permanent Notes - When you finish the book or article, create Permanent Notes from your Literature Notes. Write as if you were doing it for someone else, make sure it is one note for each idea, and that it can be fully understood even out of context.
Slip-Box - Store your Permanent Notes in your “Slip-box“ (physical or digital), and link them with related notes, while making sure you can find them later.
These are the pillar principles of effective note-taking.
Note:
I’m reading this book on SCRIBD, a service that gives you access to ebooks and audiobooks. If you subscribe through this link, you’ll get 2 months for free, and I’ll get 1 (thank you 🙏). You can cancel at any time, even before the end of the 2 months. The amount of books and audiobooks available is amazing. 80% of the books I read or listen are on SCRIBD.
🏁Finish Line
Well folks, this is it.
Another week, another SOAK.
I’m loving writing this. I’m still looking for the best way to do it, thinking about how can I better compensate you for the time you spend reading this stuff, but I’m having a lot of fun writing this newsletter, it’s like spending a couple of hours talking to a friend, and since I know all of you, it kinda is!
Thank you for doing this with me, I hope I’ll see you next week!
-Danny