The Column
A couple of completely unrelated topics for you today.
Breakfast is Broken
Picking up on a topic I briefly covered in Column #394 - breakfast is broken.
What breakfast has going for it:
- Breakfast foods are delicious
- Breakfast is nice to have as a social time
What breakfast also brings:
- Typical breakfast foods are not good for you
- Breakfast slows you down in the morning
- Breakfast necessitates another tooth brushing session, or else puts your oral health at risk
- Breakfast costs money and creates dishes
- Breakfast might be associated with other negative health outcomes - depending on how much you buy into the intermittent fasting literature
Have you ever tried skipping breakfast? If you found that painful, have you ever tried skipping breakfast consistently for a period of time?
When I did, I stopped missing breakfast.
I do still have it from time-to-time, but it’s something I’m phasing out of my life.
How to Write a Bestselling Self-Help, Business, or Productivity Book
A sarcastic guide from a guy who has no experience.
1. Come up with a new term, or pick an obscure one
You want a term like
Stillness
Essentialist
Antifragility
Atomic
Grit
Outliers
Hyperfocus
Ultralearning
Effortless
..and so on.
2. Find ways to relate your term to universally good things
If you can rope in things like gratitude, and habits, and focus, and health, and simplicity in as well… you got a best-seller on your hands. See also: Mindfulness, Flow, Contentment, Zest, Resilience, Energy, Frugality…
🔥 Tip: Your term really means all those things!
3. Find some evocative stories of great success, claim the term was the key to that success
Google “world’s best ____”, or “hero saves the day”, or “overcomes adversity to…” and look around for some story of success. Look at the circumstances leading up to that success. Figure out how to interject your key word.
Top 5: Best New Notes I’ve Written
Honestly my Notes are continuing to flourish. The Column is probably going to continue being slow-to-grow - and that’s okay.
5. Mastery is knowing what you actually need
4. Tradespace
3. Good strategy
2. 12 Week Year
1. Graphical project tracking
Quote:
We “should” all over ourselves all the time. Toby