“There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.” — Mark Rothko
Every great story begins with “Once upon a time…”
Today can be that time if you want it to be.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. You Have Everything You Need To Create Anything You Want
“Creators who consistently put things into the world do so by ignoring the reasons why they ‘can’t’ — they believe they have everything they need to create anything they want.”
Chance the Rapper, J.K. Rowling, and Henri Rousseau all have one thing in common — they ignored the reasons why they couldn’t create things.
In this post I explain why you have everything you need to create anything you want and use a bunch of examples to break down why you don’t need permission, money, or experience to be a creator.
Related: 10 quick tips for creators.
2. How To Avoid Getting Fooled
“Because the process of being fooled takes place inside our minds, it’s up to us to realize when we’re being taken.”
It’s easy to get fooled since so many sales, scams, and distractions are designed to trick you into doing something that may not be in your best interest.
Alexis Conran explores how to avoid getting fooled and breaks down the five tactics most commonly used to trick you including misdirection, time pressure, and social compliance.
Related: How user interfaces are designed to trick you.
3. What Happens When You Quit Using Email For A Month
“I got a total of 1,307 emails after the month-long experiment. After going through, deleting, and archiving (which took me a total of three hours), I only had 37 messages that I saved to act on or reply to later.”
As soon as you read this headline I bet you started to think about how impossible it would be for you to abandon email for a month, but bear with me because that’s not actually the point.
Ivan Cash’s findings from an experiment where he quit using email for a month include that an overwhelming majority of emails aren’t important, people will applaud you for taking an occasional break, and email doesn’t have to be addictive.
Related: The best auto-reply email I’ve ever seen.
4. Not Sure How To Price Your Work? Try This Formula.
“No matter what you sell, you must be confident the price you charge for it accurately reflects the value, utility, and benefits provided to your customers.”
Pricing is a complicated challenge that involves economic, marketing, and emotional elements.
But Linda Lopeke has come up with a pricing formula to help you set the right price for your product or service based on 15 factors including your effectiveness, reputation, experience, and the expectations of the market.
Related: How to reposition your product and charge 8x its price.
5. My Interview On The Ideas Lab Podcast
“Your number one goal of anything is to provide value and in order to provide value to someone you need to know who you’re trying to reach and what they value.”
I was recently interviewed by John Williams on the Ideas Lab podcast and in a 40-minute conversation I share my thoughts about how (and why) to grow a newsletter, the key to providing value to people, and some stories from my work on The Oscars.
Related: How to get more newsletter subscribers.
Do the following five ideas interest you?
• How to avoid making the most common first date mistakes
• How to monetize your individuality
• Lessons about blogging from one of the most successful bloggers of all time
• What do to do when your work no longer excites you
• How to turn envy into a positive force
Become an FTI All Access member and I’ll send them to you next week.
Recommendations
Course
My Newsletter Accelerator course will help you grow your newsletter
TV Series
Modern Love on Amazon Prime
Song
Misbehavin’ by Aimee-Leigh and Baby Billy on the For The Interested playlist
Book
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
People
Some of this week’s ideas came from Mark Frauenfelder, Noah Kagan, Kyle Westaway, and Scott Galloway. Image via Ryan Stefan.
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