Why I started writing

Welcome to the letter this week.

This week’s letter is a little different. I am adding a welcome email to the newsletter that new subscribers will receive when they sign up. Since this will go into effect after you all subscribed, I’m publishing it for you as this week’s letter. Going forward, new subscribers will receive a version of this automatically upon subscribing.

My writing backstory

I’ve known for years that I wanted to write. The first time I realized this was in high school. In two separate classes, I experienced specific moments where something clicked while writing, and I knew I was learning. Two teachers helped me make connections in writing composition that allowed me to understand writing better. And I liked it. It was a moment in life when I felt a spark in something.

The next step came about seven years ago after reading Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers. I felt that spark start to reemerge. Gladwell’s writing style is one-of-a-kind. The way he breaks down research and logic to form his unique view on the world was something I had not seen before. So, I took his writing Masterclass online. It was great teaching and included many writing exercises, but I didn’t know how to build a rhythm with it yet. Most of his exercises were research-based articles (I wrote one on US patents), and I did not turn that into any regular practice.

A few years after that, I experienced a breakthrough in writing, this time in a different format. I took Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Self Authoring course. In this course, I wrote about a subject I never had before: me. Self Authoring is a writing exercise created by Peterson to help people understand themselves.

The course is completed in two sessions of about an hour. It asked me increasingly specific questions about my aim in life, and I had to answer in writing.

This process helped me clarify what I actually wanted. I needed this clarity. I was facing a critical decision point in my career. The exercise helped me clarify my thinking and in turn, my decision making. In this process, I discovered things about my career aim that I hadn’t yet verbalized. That led me to make a career decision that has shaped the last four years of my work and longer-term career trajectory.

This exercise was summarized perfectly by Joan Didion when she said: “I don't know what I think until I write it down.” 

And from that experience, I realized a new facet of writing: it can help you discover more of yourself.

That brings me to today. With this newsletter, I’ve finally jumped off the cliff I’ve been inching towards over the years.

This is where my current reasons for writing start:

Writing is the basis for everything

Dan Koe is a writer who has been a major influence on me lately. It’s because of Dan that I chose to start writing in newsletter format, which are also being distilled into posts on Twitter/X.

One of the realizations Dan’s writing led me to is: writing is the basis for everything. The things we see daily - movies, TV, music, social media posts (including videos and reels), marketing, and branding all begin with writing. If you turn the clock back, newspapers were a main vessel for communication for hundreds of years. And it goes without saying that books have shaped history for thousands of years.

Writing is the time-tested basis for forming and communicating ideas.

Then, I realized that as I am 10 years into my career, writing is a skill I depend on every day.

Writing effectively has helped me:

• Build pitches for clients

• Do cold outreach to new prospects

• State my value proposition to customers

• Appeal to co-workers on the merits of my project

• Tactfully disagree about details of a plan

• Automate & delegate processes by specifying instructions

• Recognize people for their achievements

• And much more

I have realized how much of life depends on writing and this is how I am spending more time investing in it.

Community

I’ve realized through the internet that there is a world of people that share similar interests to me. With some people, we share a broader interest in that they want to become the best they can be. For others, we share specific interests of health, business, mindset, masculinity, faith or finances.

Rather than only consume this content, I am starting to contribute. My aim is to build connections with people who have interests and pursuits similar to mine. I also hope this will spur conversations with people close to me that follow the newsletter.

As an example, just a few days ago, I got to speak over the phone with a content creator whose podcast I began following a couple years ago. This connection happened through interaction on Twitter. We had a great conversation about growth and masculinity and it’s a connection I hope to maintain into the future.

Help people with problems I’ve solved

This is another opportunity in writing that Dan Koe helped me realize. Most people have figured out how to solve at least one major problem in their life.

I am not an expert in anything. However, there are some problems in a few areas of life that I have figured out how to solve – I’ve learned lessons in business, faith, finances, mindset and fitness.

Here are a few problems I’ve solved for myself:

• There was a time I couldn’t figure out consistency in working out. Now I haven’t missed a week of workouts in years.

• There was a time I didn’t know how to do cold outreach to clients (or understand the importance of it, or know anything about business, at all). Now I do it for a living.

• There was a time when I was stuck in a fixed mindset about effort and growth. Now, I understand the difference and work to apply a growth mindset daily.

• There was a time when I didn’t understand anything about money, including how to spend, save and invest. Now, I’ve acquired financial skills that have provided for my family and can do the same for others.

These are core areas of life. I believe the lessons I’ve learned so far can benefit at least someone, somewhere. I would not have believed this if I had not learned so much from others sharing their lessons. I follow and have connected with many people contributing content on the same subjects. Many are also around my age – normal people who decided to start sharing their approach to life.

I’m going to start contributing what I’ve learned. And as I continue to learn and evolve, so will my writing.

Contribute and create outside of my job

Over the last 10 years of working professionally, I have had great career opportunities in business.

However, working as an employee has limits. One of those limits is that as an employee, you are working to build someone else’s creation. That’s not a negative thing. But even when I give my best as an employee, someone else’s business will never be my creation.

With my writing, I am carving out an hour each day where I work on something that’s purely my creation. No one is giving me direction or asking for anything in my writing. This is coming straight from me.

Each of us have an inner voice, telling us what we are meant to do. This is me listening to mine.

Thank you to you all who have been following along so far. I’ll continue to put my best into this every week.

P.S. For those interested in following along on X, I can be found here @TylerAdelsen