Day 22
Writing is a skill. In here I send notes of my writing from the 50 days of writing course by David Perell, to reflect, develop and build my writing style.
In the 22nd email from the 50 days of writing course, David Perell talks about how we must be writing about "Earned Secrets."
What does it mean?
In the mail, David writes about Earned secrets as such -
Earned secrets are ideas that only you can write about. They’re valuable because they can only be acquired via circumstance or hard work. The world is filled with secrets waiting to be found, but by definition, I don’t know what they are.
There are two secret tunnels to best benefit from the Earned secret. That is
- Access
- Revelation
Access does not mean to have added value to you (misunderstanding it to mean privilege) than others but to help you find ideas that other's haven't discovered yet.
Revelation means to dissect information by observing around.
The above secrets of access and revelation are abundant but most people don't look for them. It is a writer's job, David says.
My thoughts:
The Earned Secret might be the one distinction between consumers and creators.
Creators see one opportunity and they get to create, where as consumers just have the thought that this is amazing and move past it.
Earned Secrets are hidden in plain sight but is hard to find. It is figuring out something that doesn't add up. It is observing things that don't make sense along with how well you can dissect the information after distilling the ideas.
In general terms, Earned Secrets can not be found but only be gained through deliberate practice, uncovering ideas and a lot of observation of the nature.
Earned Secrets are not some hidden treasure to find with a map but the journey of constant observation and adding small amounts of treasures that you find along the way.
The secrets can be achieved through access and revelations which is bringing our own unique perspective and dissecting the perspective for people to understand in new ways.
If I have to provide an example of earned secrets, The only person or author who comes to mind is James Clear.
His best selling book, The Atomic Habits is his earned secrets I believe. Let me explain, He provides access to information with his unique perspective and also dissects information from others in a very simple constructed words.
James Clear says so himself in the London Real Interviews, the habit loops mentioned in this book is inspired from the 'Power of Habit' book where it is cue, routine, reward. but James added craving just because humans have different interests.
That added 'craving' into the habit loop as the cue have different routines to different people.
You can watch the first part of the interview here:
The revelation can be seen in how he talks, how he explains and how he informs concepts and addresses them.
I personally feel he is the person who found his earned secrets and that is through years of writing, learning and processing information that is easy to understand.
Key takeaways:
- Observe a lot around you and find things that don't make sense
- Write down interesting ideas to process and dig deep later.
- Provide articles in such a way that is easy to understand.
- Gain the eye for uniqueness, it is through practice and consistent observation that you can achieve it.
- Publish the entire thing as a thread, or an article and don't keep it in the draft just for yourself.
Thank you for reading.
For more of Perell's work, you can signup for the 50 Days of Writing Course by clicking and signing up to receive one mail every day with amazing take on writing.
