The Creative Advantages of Ignorance
The peak of my writing career, in terms of productivity, likely occurred in the summer of 2012. I don’t remember the reasoning, but I wrote four different 20-25 page PDF guides in a single week. For you college kids out there, that’s like four different 5000-word term papers all in the same week. About a month later, I wrote my (now-retired) long-term travel course (about 200 pages) in three weeks flat. I was a machine.
The topics were: Happiness, Courage, Wealth, and Dating. Much of the material has been adapted into the four PDFs I send out to subscribers today.
Looking back, I’m kind of in awe, not just of the sheer hours or output, but rather my ability to just unabashedly lay out my thoughts without any second guessing of the validity or utility of those thoughts.
In hindsight, I’m less impressed by my own work ethic and more impressed by my audacity to assume that I could somehow be an expert on all of these topics at once, in such a short period of time.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell has a quote that I like that goes something like, “The problem in the world is that the …
Hey, sorry to interrupt…
I know you were reading that and getting all into it, but I’ve got to stop you here for a second. Because you seem to have somehow stumbled onto a subscriber-only article, and I hate to say it, but this shit ain't free.
(Already a member? Log in here.)
See, I write a bunch of big, long, sexy articles for everybody, those are probably some of the articles that you know and love. They are big and beautiful and long and full of funny cat GIFs. But sometimes when I want to diverge into a niche topic or dive deep on a specific problem my readers are having, I write something exclusively for my subscribers. Like this one.
You can read this extra content yourself too. You just have to subscribe. It's easy and takes 60 seconds.
Support the site and get access to the following:
- All the no-bullshit insights and new perspectives I have to offer. You get instant access to all articles on the site, including the 40+ exclusive subscriber-only articles.
- 6 core courses to improve your life:
- Healthy Relationships - Find out why your relationships all fail or succeed in the way they do—and what you can do about it.
- Emotional Mastery - Get a better handle on your emotions and learn how to channel them more productively in your life.
- Resilience - Take on life’s most important challenges and live with tenacity and purpose.
- Finding Purpose - Find a purpose that gives your life meaning and take action on the things most important to you.
- Bonus: Social Connection - Learn how to connect more deeply with the people in your life, one conversation at a time.
- Challenging Beliefs - Dig deep into your beliefs and figure out if they’re helping or hurting you in life.
- Bonus: Overcoming Anxiety - Get down to the root of your anxieties and learn to overcome them, one painful step at a time.
- Build a Better Life - Create an actionable plan to finally live the life you’ve always wanted.
- Bonus: Healthy Dating - Get a solid grasp on the principles that make for a successful dating life and fulfilling relationships.
- 5 Awesome Ebooks, which go in-depth on topics like Self-Knowledge, Relationships, Habits and Happiness are instantly emailed to you after signing up.
- Audio commentaries to my books, in which I talk in depth about my bestselling books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything is F*cked.
- Exclusive events and meet-ups like exclusive post-show meet-ups for members during my book tours.
Subscribing costs less than a cup of coffee in some places. And it’s what allows me to feed myself in between writing amazing shit for you. So please, feed me.
