Where We're Going From Here
I’ve done a lot of bouncing around with this publication. Lots of attempts at turning it in a specific direction have all failed. And it seems to come in phases — bouncing between inward/outward and micro/macro. Staying in one zone for too long gets me bored and makes the writing less enjoyable.
But this leads to a problem… I want to grow my following, yet I don’t feel confident in advertising this newsletter because it lacks direction. It feels inadequate in the great sea of content.
But while the internet is vast and difficult to stand out from, there are opportunities for those able to navigate the waves. We are all the only version of ourselves, which gives us the ability to create a personal monopoly.
In that same vein, Sahil Bloom recently shared a thread on Twitter about finding and operating within your zone of genius. In it, he shared the idea of the skill map (matrix) where one lists all of their competencies.
The goal is to find those competencies that fall in the upper right corner, where high passion meets highly competent.
I’ve sort of been doing this over the last 18 months. (Been doing it for longer, but the process has accelerated.) But it hasn’t been in a directed way. It’s been just the natural way I operate — look for weaknesses within, improve, look for weaknesses within, improve.
It wasn’t until recently that I focused on a more important process — eliminating things I don’t like. (Eliminating my zone of excellence.)
It's a lot easier to remove things that make you unhappy than it is to add things that make you happy.
This is the lesson that needs to be internalized, which is hard because sometimes happiness overlaps with something that makes me unhappy.
For instance, I’ve got my daily writing quota (200 words) that I use to keep myself from going days without writing. I track the words I write and see how it goes over time.
Part of me loves this process. “Oooh, new data to track and show me just how productive I’ve been.” But when I have a stretch that doesn’t go as well as I’d like, I get down on myself and don’t want to keep the tracking going. I don’t want to face my failure.
Plus, I ran into another problem recently — if I’m going to improve I need to spend time-consuming. I can’t write about cool new stuff if I’m not also constantly reading/watching/listening to other content. I don’t want to write just to hit a quota, I want it to mean something.
So that’s what I’ve been doing the past week or so. Today is the first day I’ve sat down to write since 10/25, a full week. And, you know what? I feel totally fine about it because in that time I’ve been reading and taking notes.
Giving myself the initial quota was great to kick start my writing, but it doesn’t serve me anymore.
So now I’m tracking just to track. I’m not doing it to hit a quota, but rather to do something that I find interesting. And if I get to the point that I feel like my writing is neglected, then I can always turn the quota back on.
But I’m hoping the result of dropping the quota will be an increase to my monthly writing totals. My average daily writing since starting the quota is 371 words/day. But I’m already over 500 words on this post. (833 by the end.) Is it possible that writing less frequently will lead to writing more words? Maybe… It’s all an experiment.
Get To The Point
Anyway, where am I going with all this?
I’ll be using Attack on Jack to continue the original purpose — attack my worldview. It will be focused on the individual side of my zone of genius. My zone is still under construction, so it’s a little bit TBD at the moment.
But what I can say is that anything that pertains to the individual will be included here. This will be anything from personal development (7 Habits style content) to reading and reflecting on the experiences of others (Ex: James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, etc) to discussing personal power and how I’m navigating the current world.
I am also starting a new publication (name TBD) that focuses on human behavior and the incentives that shape our world. So the topics may range from the evolution of life to present-day geopolitics. There will be a strong focus on tying the lessons of history to the present day, but the overall theme will be power and incentive structures.
Basically, I’m splitting my interests into two different newsletters, one for the inward-looking micro side and one for the outward-looking macro side.
Reading/researching, taking notes, and conveying what I’ve learned are all within my zone of genius. Now I’m focused on keeping anything I dislike out of the process. Namely, tight deadlines and a narrow focus.