Write for an Audience of One

Longtime readers of this newsletter will know that I’m a huge fan of Tim Urban, the creator of the blog Wait But Why. Urban’s pieces are great and I’ll be linking to them for as long as I can. Here are some of my favorites:

In an interview with Tim Ferriss, Urban explained how he decides what to write:

“I assume that my audience is a stadium full of me. I’m writing the exact post that I would be thrilled to get. That’s my focus group right there, right in my head.

Urban’s approach is refreshing, and he’s not alone. Recently, the same thinking appeared in another Tim Ferriss interview with bestselling author Morgan Housel:

“I’m writing for an audience of one, and that is me. The only thing that I write, the only thing that I tweet, the articles that I write, the books that I write, I just write through the lens of: ‘Do I personally think this is interesting?’ And if the answer is yes, I make a leap of faith that other people might think it’s interesting as well.

Their strategy sounds obvious. Of course I should write about the things I find interesting. In practice, though, it’s tempting to do the exact opposite. Have you seen all the crap out there? Listicles seem so easy. Young Adult literature is so poorly written. Why not just churn out the stuff people want to read?

As consumers, we all know this doesn’t work. We don’t like stuff that’s been produced via algorithm or knock-off. We want articles, books and products that have been made with love by their creators. We want to read Harry Potter, not some free crap on Kindle Unlimited.

The more I write, the more I understand what Urban and Housel are talking about. Writing is really hard. Ideas don’t come easily. Neither do words. And the idea that I’d be willing to stick with it, week after week, while writing about things I don’t care about, is absurd. My listicles fall completely flat. My fantasy novel, which I was 100% convinced I could write in a few short months in 2016, does not exist.

And if I did “succeed” in those areas, where would that leave me? With an audience who cares about something I don’t, with a product I’m not proud of, and with a raging case of imposter syndrome. None of those things are sustainable long-term.

Instead, my writing reflects the questions I’m asking myself each week. What is the role of positive feedback? What does it mean to be essential? And for the most part, what I write about is what you all like to read about. If not, then you’ll have stopped reading this newsletter – and that’s okay. As Urban says in that same interview: “There’s like 100,000 copies of each of you out there somewhere. And the truth is, if I just write for me, there are a lot of people that have my exact weird taste.”

The lesson I’m taking from this is simple and extends far beyond writing: Be genuine. Do what feels right, not what feels popular. Don’t fake an interest in something you’re not passionate about.

When I’ve had the courage to follow this advice, life has been much easier. Instead of a bachelor party – which I was stressed about – I opted for individual plans with my close friends that fit better with our relationships. When I was looking for finance jobs in New York, I gave up on investment banking after a handful of phone calls that felt uncomfortably forced. As my priorities have shifted, I’ve paid less attention to sports, at the expense of many casual conversations. In each case, it took far more energy to fake it than be genuine. And I enjoyed the latter far more.

When preparing for job interviews, for example, we ask ourselves what the interviewer wants to hear instead of asking ourselves what we want to say. The former gets you something stale and impersonal, the latter brings out the full you. My most memorable recruiting moment was a conversation with an undergrad about Major League Gaming and the exploding business of e-sports. I’d asked a simple, throw away question at the end of the interview – what do you like to do? – and had discovered everything I needed to know about the candidate. She was passionate, smart and could articulate complicated ideas in a simple way, in stark contrast to the people who gave boilerplate finance answers. The e-sports fan went on to be an excellent hire, while the others didn’t make the cut.

There are many applications for this audience of one mindset. So often we make decisions through the lens of what other people want or expect, before turning inwards. What we choose to study and do for work, where we choose to live, how we choose to spend our time – all of these can be heavily influenced by what’s happening around us.

It’s easy to dismiss this as a hyper-individualistic approach to life. And in some ways – just like run my own race and dismiss my shoulds – it is. The primary focus is inward, on my goals and my interests and what works for me.

But these mental frameworks are not intended to help us squeeze the most out of life for ourselves. Instead, they’re meant to help us live better, however we choose to do so. Being myself makes it easier to do good work over a long period of time – whether that’s writing this newsletter, pursuing a career or giving a friend some advice.

– Emmett

What I’m Reading:

F*ck You Money – Jack Raines
“Ironically, the best indicator of having “f*ck you” money is the absence of having to think about money at all. The billionaire hedge fund manager trying to outperform last year’s returns doesn’t have ‘f*ck you’ money. Neither does the minimum wage worker struggling to survive.”

What We Can Learn From Our Political Adversaries – Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
“The human is a frail emotional being, guided only occasionally by reason. We are only a spec or two along the evolutionary path. We fight like animals because we are.”

This Is Why Autocracies Fail – David Brooks, NYT
“To me, the lesson is that even when we’re confronting so-far successful autocracies like China, we should learn to be patient and trust our liberal democratic system. When we are confronting imperial aggressors like Putin, we should trust the ways we are responding now.”

What I’m Listening To:

Dan Buettner: Lessons From the World’s Happiest People – Rich Roll Podcast

Ryan Hall: Running, Overcoming Challenges, and Finding Success – Peter Attia Podcast

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