Principle #5: Feedback—I personally emailed nearly all of my first ten thousand subscribers to say hello and to ask for feedback on my writing. It didn’t scale, but it taught me a lot in the beginning. … and so on.

Principle #4: Drill—I systematically broke down each aspect of writing articles—the headline, the introductory sentence, the transitions, the storytelling, and more—and put together spreadsheets filled with examples of each segment. Then I set about testing and refining my ability to perform each small aspect of the larger task.

Principle #3: Directness—I learned writing by writing. I set a schedule for myself to write a new article every Monday and Thursday. Over the first two years, I produced more than 150 essays.

Principle #2: Focus—I went full-time as a writer nearly from the start. Aside from a few freelance projects I took on to pay the bills, the vast majority of my time was spent reading and writing.

Principle #1: Metalearning—I started by examining other popular bloggers and authors. Their methods helped me to create a map for what I needed to do to become a successful writer.

Directness is the practice of learning by directly doing the thing you want to learn. Basically, it’s improvement through active practice rather than through passive learning. The phrases learning something new and practicing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce profoundly different results. Passive learning creates

surprise. Scott had already been on my radar by the time we

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THE POWER OF INFORMATION