Good things come to those who write

I saw a tweet that got me thinking a couple of weeks back.

It’s from Alex Lieberman, one of the founders of Morning Brew, and he was talking about the power of writing:

So today, we’re going to cover:

✍️ 1 reason why you should build a daily writing habit

📚 1 way you can strip away the nonsense to get more done

☕️ 1 brilliant article about Bobby Charlton

Let’s dive in…

You might not consider yourself a writer, but here’s a thought…

We’re all writers.

Whether you’re writing an email, trying to impress someone on Tinder, or creating a page for a website, you’re using language to fulfill a purpose.

• To entertain

• To sell

• To impress

Whatever the reason, you’re writing. And if you’re writing, you’re a writer.

We should all be interested in improving our writing – because by getting better, you unlock new opportunities (in life and business).

How do you get better at writing? The same way you get better at kicking a ball, painting on canvas, or learning French.

You do the thing. Again, and again, and again.

A decade ago, Nathan Barry blogged about a challenge he set for himself: write 1,000 words per day, and see what happens.

Well, he did that for 365 days.

What happened? He created 71 blog posts, multiple books, and laid the foundation for ConvertKit, one of the biggest email marketing platforms online today, which hit $29 million in annual revenue last year.

With platforms like X prioritizing long-form written content, you can build an audience based on any topic you like – and a daily writing habit is a great way of doing it.

Just look at The Cultural Tutor: 15 months ago, he was working in McDonalds. Now he’s got an audience of 1.5 million followers because he wrote an interesting thread every day for a year.

And if you’re writing books? The average novel is around 70,000 words long – and you can do that by writing 200 words per day. A comforting thought.

Sahil Bloom recently wrote about his notecard system for daily productivity, and I love the simplicity in a world where everyone is banging on about complex Notion databases covering everything from your monthly earnings to your weekly shopping.

Every evening, he writes down 3-5 things to do for the next day on a 3x5 index card.

There’s no space for rubbish: only the big things can fit.

15 minutes of prep in the evening is worth hours the next morning. By setting out your priority tasks the night before, you eliminate any friction from having to decide what to work on. You hit the ground sprinting.

There is a very moving piece in the Times today about Bobby Charlton – one of England’s greatest-ever footballers, who has sadly passed away.

You should be able to read it without the paywall. It’s a moving read, even if you’re not into football – and Martin Samuel’s writing sings.

It’s also incredible to think about the moments Bobby Charlton lived through.

Born in 1937, as a player and beyond Charlton connected the four most seismic events in English football history: the 1966 World Cup victory, the first European Cup won by a Football League club in 1968, the 1958 Munich air disaster and Manchester United’s 1999 treble, when he was a club director. It is an era spanning more than 40 years.

That’s all from me this week.

See you next Sunday!

– Mike