I don’t like talking about myself, which works against me because we are in the self-aggrandizement business, as Gary Halbert said.
But when I noticed that I’d been posting on social media for over 300 days in a row, I figured I could discuss that, and the lessons learned, without lapsing into self-indulgence.
Here are a few things I learned:
ONE: A single post is like a mosquito bite: a small, momentary sting that most people forget by tomorrow. The power is in building a body of diverse work over time.
TWO: One day I was frustrated at the end of a long day of teaching. I told a veteran teacher that I was putting in the effort every day, but wasn’t seeing the results I wanted. They said, “you’re planting seeds. At some point in the future it will pay off.” They were right. It’s a good way to look at article writing. Some stay seeds, other grow into full trees.
THREE: Post often enough and you grow a sixth sense for finding content. I never wanted to be in a position where I felt stuck and pressured for what to write, so I gathered ideas nonstop for days, weeks, like a squirrel preparing for winter. After a while, you build a muscle for transferring more and more ideas into usable content frames.
FOUR: I think Woody Allen said that 90% of success is showing up. That’s my first measurement: did I show up? Check. Doesn’t sound that impressive until you’re doing it every day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health.
FIVE: Strategic + Opportunistic. Aside from timely AI subjects, the rest of the posts are evergreen. I’m not a news hound, but if something comes across my plate and I have something to say, I’ll take the opportunity. Even then, I try to find the evergreen idea, lesson, strategy, or principle behind it. Which dovetails into the next lesson…
SIX: What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves. Continuing what I said, if I try to find the principle behind it, I usually do, not because I’m super smart but because I THINK it’s there and THEN I find it. Without fail. This might, low key, be the most important lesson I’ve given all year to those who are really paying attention.
SEVEN: I assume my audience is very smart. Never talk down, or worse, dumb down your content to some imaginary average IQ reader for mass appeal. This also has a second order effect of filtering out people who are not my tribe. And because I start from this assumption, my brain goes to work proving it over and over.
EIGHT: Work on hard problems and goals. Take content marketing. The easy answer is “just post every day, bro.” It’s shallow, trite advice that is easy to say and parrot.
The harder problem asks “how can I publish prolifically in such a way that the content is novel and useful without eating up 16 hours each day to produce?”
I won’t declare that I “solved” this content problem, but I have built a range of systems and workflows to increase the probability of consistent production while keeping insights mostly unique and hopefully useful. That was the first phase. The second phase was using those systems to triple daily publishing.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking around. I still don’t like talking about myself, which is exactly why these lessons are worth sharing: they aren’t about me. They’re about what happens when you show up every day, plant seeds without knowing which will grow, and trust that the work compounds. The 300-day streak wasn’t the point. It was just the scoreboard for the days I stopped waiting for permission and started building a body of work that outlasts any single post.
If you’re posting too, keep going. The Thinker thinks, the Prover proves, and the only question that matters is whether you showed up today.
RW
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