“We all see the world differently. And thank God for that. Otherwise, what a boring world this would be"
— Philip Johnson —
Hello and my very best to you and yours.
Thank you for all the love last week for my new project — Writing to (L)Earn — alongside my friends Darius Foroux and John Pucay.
If you're interested in improving your storytelling skills, I'm hosting our first workshop tomorrow (Friday) at 10 AM EST on how to craft engaging hooks for your personal stories.
It's free to join and you can learn more in the link below. It would be amazing to see a few of you there.
Storytelling Workshop
On that note, here are three things I’ve been thinking about lately that I’m excited to share with you.
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on embracing being wrong
My dear friend Nova Richards, a talented ghostwriter and brand advisor (and published one of my favorite introduction posts to a newsletter ever), sent me the late Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity” last week.
I watched the video back in the day, but Nova’s nudge reminded me of the power of a story Ken shared in his talk —
“A little girl was in a drawing lesson. She was six and the teacher said this girl hardly paid attention, but in this drawing lesson, she did. The teacher was fascinated, and she went over to her and said, ‘What are you drawing?’
And the girl said, ‘I’m drawing a picture of God.’
And the teacher said, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like.’
And the girl said, ‘They will in a minute.’”
I love this. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories about my kid Liam and a giraffe.
Robinson went on to add, “If kids don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong. Now, I’m not saying being wrong is the same thing as being creative. But what we do know is that if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
As a new year approaches, commit to being more wrong.
Let your ideas fly.
Never hold something in because you think it may be deemed dumb.
And above all, act like a kid from time to time.
After all, childlike wonder is the wonder.
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on not adapting
A seriously talented writer friend shared a LinkedIn post a while back about why he was using clever formatting and writing in sound bites instead of leaning into his normal style. His reasoning? He was adapting to what worked on the platform. Shortly thereafter, he told me he was burned out — which makes sense as he was writing with a mask on.
The word “adaptability” gets tossed around a lot. Ask most leaders for the leading leadership quality and it will show up near the top of their list, if not claim the top spot.
And don't get me wrong, they're not wrong.
But my friend's experience got me thinking about the dark side of adaptability — this is especially true when it comes to your art.
My friend is one of the best writers I know. I’m all for trying new formats and styles as you have to keep it fun. But changing what you do to please the masses? Moreover, an algorithm that could change tomorrow?
By all means, adapt to survive. Keep up with new developments in your work. But be careful how much you adapt who you are and what lights you up to fit in.
After all, the simplest definition I know for thriving is having the courage to be yourself.
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and my favorite Thanksgiving reflection
During my time writing regularly on Medium I got to know Aaron Dinin, professor of entrepreneurship at Duke University, and was invited to give a talk to his class about the power of writing online.
Aaron is a very cool and thoughtful guy. Of late, he's made a bit of a name for himself on TikTok and LinkedIn, sharing videos from his classes where he runs odd experiments to get his students out of their comfort zones to think differently.
The series he’s run this past week where he took his students to train under Kara Lawson, the Women’s Head Basketball Coach at Duke, was crazy good.
Here’s Coach Lawson —
“When we think we’re going to fail or think we’re not going to be good at something, the first thing that a lot of people do is they start to pre-excuse the result in their head before it happens.
You think you’re going to suck at something so you'll say, 'Oh, well, I’m not good at this anyway.' You’ll say that out loud before to let everybody know that you're about to look terrible. And if you don’t do that, when you fail at something, you start to make excuses after you didn’t do well.
So the challenge is really mental.
And do you know what I found about that game of pre-excusing before failure or excusing after failure? When I have success doing something that’s going to be really hard, I'll brag about all the things I overcame. I’ll say, 'Man, I didn’t know that the professor was going to come in here and do basketball today, but I still made all my lay-ups.'
You’re proud about that aren’t you — when you overcome something that you didn’t think you could do?
So the mental shift for me when approaching what I am uncomfortable doing is instead of saying, ‘Oh, I’m not gonna be able to do this! or 'I don’t know why I’m in here!’ I'll say — ‘I’m about to overcome all this!’
Because they are the same things — the same things that you use as excuses are the same things you’ll brag about when you overcome them.
So start to think about that when you’re approaching an unknown or you’re approaching a skill that you're maybe not good at.
Take it as something that you’re about to overcome as opposed to something that’s going to cause you to fail.
Because that mental switch is everything.
It’s everything.”
Normally I try to add my two cents after coming across something that inspires me and makes me see the world through a new lens. I’m not going to do that here as I think Coach Lawson's thoughts are ace exactly how they are.
You can follow Aaron here on LinkedIn and Coach Lawson here.
Two people doing a lot of good in the world.
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That's it for today.
I hope to hang out with a few of you at the storytelling workshop tomorrow.
Onwards.
—Michael
PS: The best way to help me keep the lights on and to keep newsletters like this one free is to grab a copy of my book and leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads.
Shy by Design: 12 Timeless Principles to Quietly Stand Out
“In a world that lionizes loudness, it’s actually the quiet and shy among us who are best set up to thrive. Thompson provides an important new way of understanding what it really takes to stand out!”
— Cal Newport, NYTimes bestselling author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity
It makes for a great gift for any of your shy or reserved friends, colleagues, and family members who have something to say but struggle to bet on themselves.