+ The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fail-Proof Articles — So you want to be a Brilliant Writer. You’ve come to the right place. I’ve created and curated and collected some incredible resources for aspiring writers like you, including: Articles on Writing, Learning, and other life lessons 2. Detailed notes on top-recommended books, monthly reading lists & annual book summaries…

An early Thanksgiving list — In honor of Thanksgiving Month, here is my annual list of 20+ things I’m thankful for. Basic rules: Items in no particular order, trying not to repeat things from previous years, so although I’m always grateful for family and friends, I will either not mention them in this list officially…

In-Depth Analysis for Writers & Storytellers (Warning: SPOILERS! SPOILERS GALORE!…will let you know where they start) — What would you do if you’re a kid, your parents are lost at sea, and you are left to the tender mercies of your young, single, never-raised-a-child-before real-estate-hawking Uncle Jack? Would you: A) Lose a toe? B) Lose all your sweaters? Or C) (Accidentally) Set a guinea pig on fire?

Turns out, “love” is NOT love — How does a successful married doctor with an awesome job become a divorced drug addict? It’s a tragic story more common than you might think. Behind closed doors, so many outwardly nice, accomplished, successful people actually suffer from a common ailment: Lack of true love (receiving and giving). A major…

This Tennis Coach Cracked the Code for Going Pro in Sports & Life — How can a book about tennis change your life? When it’s not actually (entirely) about tennis. In W Timothy Gallwey’s classic Inner Game of Tennis, this athlete-turned-coach teaches readers another way of learning and training— in sports and in life that is surprisingly applicable to more than just tennis players…

From A to Zettelkasten! — In the early 1950s, a German scholar named Niklas Luhmann created a note-taking system with its own internal hyperlink system. He called it “zettelkasten,” the slip-box method, and used it to write 50+ books and hundreds of articles in a 33-year career. In How to Take Smart Notes, author Sonke…

A story about the trick to thinking around “insurmountable” obstacles — Hugh Herr was a mountain climbing prodigy, scaling thousand-foot peaks by the age of eight. And then one day in a freak accident, he and a friend got caught in a nasty blizzard. By the time they were finally rescued, one rescuer lost his life, and Hugh and his climbing…

Why the OPPOSITE of the Pareto Principle matters for Brilliant Writers — So you’ve heard of the Pareto Principle? It’s the famous idea that 20% of effort creates 80% of results. Or 20% of people in an organization produce 80% of product. And so on and so forth. The point is, if you can identify that 20% of effort, input, or activity…

Writers: Here’s How to Survive in the Age of AI — AI seems about ready to punch the living daylights out of us humans. It can write coherent paragraphs in multiple languages, answer direct queries, even tell jokes. But if you want to, you can STILL knockout the AI. Every time. Because there are still some things you can do that the AI can’t do, and can never do. (…unless, in sci-fi/horror fashion, some…