SOAK #5
This week on SOAK, some thoughts about communities.
(Read this on the web browser if you prefer)
Hey beautiful people!
This week was the final session of Write of Passage, the Cohort-Based Course on writing online. It was an emotive session, with lots of great moments, praises, acknowledgments, and the occasional tears. Who knew that a big group of intelligent people (and me) could meet online for a few weeks and demonstrate such genuine friendship and caring for each other?
This course is like an MBA on writing, and just like a regular MBA, the teachings are great, but it’s the connections that make it all worth it. Many of the students will continue to support each other, and some will for sure achieve brilliant things.
I’m glad I can be part of this community, and that I’ll witness all these successes in the front row.
🧽 What I’m Soaking In
Communities.
I knew communities were important, but I thought we had to spend years building the connections to form those tight groups. My recent experience with Write of Passage showed me that I was wrong.
I was a lonely creator, I thought it was cool to be a “lone wolf“, but I was being an idiot. There are amazing people ready to help me achieve my goals, as I’m ready to help them. We just need to find the right tribe for us.
Communities help individuals to go further, faster, and with much more fun.
Together we’re stronger.
Communities will be my focus for what’s left of this year and for 2022, and I’m expecting great things to happen around this theme.
🔎 People to Follow
Alexandra Allen is one of the best writers I’ve met on Write of Passage, and she published this great piece explaining why this course is such a reference. If you read it, you’ll understand why I don’t STFU about it.
She also quoted me in the article, which is an express ticket to be included in this newsletter, so go read it, it’s great.
But wait, there’s more!
She has created this incredible course about, well, creating courses, and I’m pretty sure she forgot to put it behind a paywall, so if you’re thinking about launching a cohort-based course or just want to learn more about it, go watch it now. There are people charging a lot for less valuable courses, and she’s giving that for free (at least until I’ll convince her to hire me as a consultant, then it will be $299 minimum).
✍️ Writing
One of the main reasons why I write is to fight the difficulty I feel in expressing verbally my ideas clearly. It happened all the time. I was super excited about some subject that I had read or learned about, but when I tried to explain it to someone, I looked like a chimp pointing directions to a tourist.
Writing down my thoughts and ideas it’s like practicing my speech. It gives me the structure that I need to present them fluently.
💣Recommendations
Last week I suggested Minimal Twitter, and this week I’ll stay in the same field.
Typefully is a great writing tool for Twitter. It allows you to immediately see how your tweet will look like, and it’s a game-changer for threads.
They have a premium version ($99/year) that offers analytics, unlimited images, and more, but I use the free version and it’s more than enough for my needs.
We write on the editing board, and it instantly shows how it will be published on Twitter.
No more counting characters or copy/paste lines for threads, we can just write everything and arrange it according to what we like better.
✔️ Fun Trivia
The average age of Nobel Prize winners is 58 years old, and it can take between 20 to 30 years since your work is published to receive the award.
This shows us that it’s not too late to get a Nobel prize, but we better do the work now!
🏁Finish Line
And that’s all for #5! (I can’t believe I sent the #1 a month ago).
We have about 6 weeks to finish this year with a bang, what are you doing to make that possible? Don’t delay your projects to a new year’s resolution, start now!
Thank you for doing this with me, I hope I’ll see you next week!
-Danny
Keep up the great work!