Ryan Holiday's Blog, page 29

A Book Marketing Trick I Discovered By Accident

With Trust Me I’m Lying, I accidentally stumbled upon a marketing technique that not only helped the book but in some ways charted a new course for my career. Early on in the book’s launch, I made the following offer: I would speak to or at any school that assigned my book to its students. My thinking was that I was only a few years older than most students, reaching them early would be good for the book’s lifespan and it would help with the prestige of the book.

Slowly but surely professors started taking me up on the offer. Sometimes professors would email me just to say they liked the book or a student would tell me they selected it for a report, and I’d actually ask if they’d let me speak. The answer was yes most of the time. In the nearly three years the book has been out, I’ve spoken everywhere from New School to UVA to NYU to the University of Toronto. Sometimes its in person, most of the time its over Skype. The book is now on the curriculum at tons of different schools from Reyerson to USC. Some of the courses I’ve done several times now. Which is really nice because each new semester the course’s students order the book, genuinely read and interact with the material and then we talk. This is what you write a book for: to reach people and to spread ideas.

I ended up doing the same thing with my other books. Part of the reason we gave away copies of Growth Hacker Marketing to students was so we could reach them early. It turns out, a bunch of professors took advantage of the offer on behalf of their students. Now the book is taught as an introduction to a new way of marketing for prospective media, PR and business students. These are the kinds of things that keep a book in print for a long time. Accordingly to the sales departments at my publisher the efforts have paid off with better conversion rates from marketing efforts to universities.

I’m point this out because it’s the type of book marketing that most authors (and companies) miss out on for a couple reasons. The first reason is that it’s slow. The process of being picked up by these professors was driven by word of mouth and natural adoption. It takes time and school is only in session part of the year. The second is that its a result that is difficult to track. There are undeniable benefits from being required reading for students, both monetarily and prestige. But it is difficult to quantify directly. This turns a lot of data driven marketers off–but just because something is somewhat opaque doesn’t mean it isn’t important. The third, is that this took real man hours and unscalable effort on my part. People want marketing to be easy. It isn’t. Finally, this all happens mostly off the radar. Selling 50-100 books from a blog post or a media article is actually relatively rare, but getting written about is an ego hit. Getting picked up by schools is something that–until I wrote this piece–was a success only I knew about. Sadly, that’s not enough for a lot of people so they chase attention instead of results. They want validation more than they want their book to be successful.

Anyway, the real benefits have been incalculable. It’s made me a better keynote speaker and better in front of an audience (which is where the real money is as an author). These talks I gave to students were some of the first I ever did and now I speak all over the world. It’s added cache to my resume to be able to say I’ve lectured at Yale and NYU and I think increases my fee. It’s introduced a generation of readers–aspiring journalists, marketers and entrepreneurs–to my work in a immersive way. And it’s sold a significant number of books. It doesn’t get much better than that.

I hope this strategy helps and thanks for letting me share. Also, if you’re a professor or a student, feel free to shoot me a note or look at my speaking stuff. We’ll set something up.

The Very Best Books I Read in 2014

Every year, I try to narrow down the hundred plus books I have recommended or read down to just the three or four best. I know that people are busy, and most of you don’t have time to read as much as you’d like. There’s absolutely no shame in that–what matters is that you make the time you can and that you pick the right books when you do. In 2014, I personally read a lot. Most of the books weren’t new releases and strangely compared to 2013, fewer books towered above the others. That made selecting this list a little harder but that didn’t mean there weren’t some potential life-changing standouts. There were plenty.

Before I get into those books, I wanted to share something I’m incredibly proud of this year: I was able to collaborate on a print with one of my artistic heroes, Joey Roth (I’ve written about him a lot). The very limited print is available here and is based on the stoic ideas in my book The Obstacle Is The Way. Here’s a post I wrote with some more background. Can’t wait for you to see it.

Now, to the books!

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith

I was heartily recommend this book by Dr. Drew and since the last book he recommended changed my life as a young man, I did not hesitate to get it. Now this is a tough book, a really tough book, but it is amazing. People think of Adam Smith as being this ruthless economist who studied self-interest but this forgotten book reveals that he was in fact, a great moral and practical philosopher. It is clear to me that Smith was profoundly influenced by the Stoics and by the great classic thinkers of history. Intimidated? Well, good news! It turns out Penguin published a new book this year called How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life by Russ Roberts and it happens to be an eminently accessible access point into Theory of Moral Sentiments. (In fact, I liked both so much, I am buying copies to send as a package to a handful of close friends) I hope you pick up either book and I hope its deep thoughts on the pursuit of fame, of money, and of course, his concept of the “indifferent spectator” to guide your actions, make you think as much as they did for me.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

Wow, did you know that Moby Dick was based on a true story? There was a real whaling ship that was broken in half by an angry sperm whale. But it gets even more insane. The members of the crew escaped in three lifeboats, traveling thousands of miles at sea with little food and water until they slowly resorted to cannibalism(!) Besides being an utterly unbelievable story, this book also gives a great history into the whaling industry and the cowboys/entrepreneurs who led it. Definitely recommend and I promise my spoilers did not ruin anything. Another great narrative nonfiction out this year that I hope you’ll like is: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed and Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

It was wonderful to read these two provocative books of essays by two incredibly wise and compassionate women. Cheryl Strayed, also the author of Wild, was the anonymous columnist behind the online column, Dear Sugar and boy, are we better off for it. This is not a random smattering of advice. This book contains some of the most cogent insights on life, pain, loss, love, success, youth that I have ever seen. I won’t belabor the point: read this book. Thank me later. Anne Lamott’s book is ostensibly about the art of writing, but really it too is about life and how to tackle the problems, temptations and opportunities life throws at us. Both will make you think and both made me a better person this year.

Some Others:

Of course, I cannot stop at three (or four). I read both of Sam Sheridan’s books A Fighter’s Heart and A Fighter’s Mind this year and they are both spectacular. Don’t be put off by the subject matter. They are good. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was something I reread and cannot recommend highly enough. In terms of big biographies, Ron Chernow’s biography of Washington, Eric Romm’s biography of Seneca Dying Every Day (LOVED THIS) and Edmund Morris’ final biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Roosevelt were all worth every page. If you want a full list of what I learned reading in 2014, well, I put that together too.

So, thank you again for subscribing to this newsletters. It’s been an immense pleasure chatting with you, all 35,000 of you, this year. I hope you had a great 2014 and an even better year of reading in 2015.

My 2014 Writing Roundup

With the end of the year upon us, I thought I would do a round up of everything I’ve written and published (other than here) since my last round up in August. If you missed any of these, definitely follow me on Twitter, where I post each article when it goes live. Hope you enjoy these articles and feel free to share them.

More to come in 2015!

BETABEAT

The New Media Dilemma: Eschewing Crap for Quality, Despite the Incentives (August 11, 2014)

Thought Catalog: Why I Won’t Pull My Pieces, Despite the Outrage (August 22, 2014)

Spare Us The Sanctimony: The Gross Hypocrisy of Online Media in the Nude Photo Leak (September 2, 2014)

Apple’s Free Ride: Why Journalists Treat Product Launches Like News (September 9, 2014)

Facebook Is Getting Rid of Clickbait — But Not Because They Care About You (September 15, 2014)

Who Can You Trust? A Guide To Your Online Media Diet (September 23, 2014)

The Giant Online Ad Scam: Infinite Inventory and Prices That Should Be a Red Flag (October 7, 2014)

Rage Profiteers: How Bloggers Harness Our Anger For Their Own Gain (October 21, 2014)

From Zero to 35,000: How I Built A Big Email List Exclusively About Books I Liked (November 25, 2014)

I Was Summoned by #GamerGate; Here’s What I Saw (December 3, 2014)

You Are So Terrible: A Letter About the Cosby Coverage (December 9, 2014)

No Gray Area: It’s Definitely Not OK to Publish Emails From the Sony Hack (December 12, 2014).

If You Think the Sony Hacks Were a PR Stunt, You’re an Idiot (December 26, 2014)

THOUGHT CATALOG

3 Stages To Actually Knowing What You’re Talking About: Where Are You On The Path? (August 7, 2014)

5 Criminally Underrated Things About LA (August 15, 2014)

No Matter What You Want To Change, It Won’t Be As Terrifying As The First Step You Take Toward Making It (August 21, 2014)

You’ve Been Voluntold. (August 27, 2014)

So You’ve Just Dropped Out Of College (Or Made A Life-Changing Decision) (September 2, 2014).

What Is “Work Aversion,” And Do You Have It? (September 16, 2014)

Alive Time Vs. Dead Time: Which Are You In? (September 22, 2014)

Why Do You Do What You Do? Because You Better Know. (October 2, 2014)

The 16 Best Books About Marketing, Period. (October 13, 2014)

Passion Is The Problem, Not The Solution (October 26, 2014)

13 Quotes On Being Magnanimous From Aristotle (November 3, 2014)

2 Simple Rules That Great Readers Live By (But Never Tell) (November 12, 2014)

Two Questions Every Writer Needs To Ask Themselves (November 20, 2014)

Things I Learned Reading In 2014 (November 30, 2014)

How To See Opportunity Where Others See A Roadblock (December 7, 2014)

The Difference Between Just Saying Something And Having Something Worth Saying (December 11, 2014)

3 Books You Absolutely Must Read Next Year (December 17, 2014)

Every Phone Call Can Be A Walk in The Park (December 23, 2014)

NEW YORK OBSERVER

Disrupting How Bestsellers Are Made: Apply Startup-style Growth Hacking To Publishing (October 14, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln as Media Manipulator-in-Chief: The 150 Year History of Corrupt Press (November 5, 2014)

5 Reasons Nobody Likes Tech PR (November 19, 2014)

Ryan Holiday Picks the Best Books of 2014 (December 18, 2014)

ENTREPRENEUR.COM

Capturing Repeat Customers Is the Magic of Growth Hacking (November 12, 2014)

THE NEXT WEB

Productivity Advice I Learned From People Much Smarter Than Me (November 21, 2014)

99U

This Is Why You Don’t Have a Mentor

SVPSCRIPTION

Three Ways To Refocus Your World (December 12, 2014)

STOICISM TODAY

Stoicism Is For Life, Not a Week (November 22, 2014)

GENIUS.COM

Growth Hacker Marketing (Annotated Excerpt)

LINKEDIN

The Single Worst Marketing Mistake You Can Make (October 29, 2014)

BUSINESS INSIDER

How To Build A Self-Perpetuating Marketing Machine That Reaches Millions By Itself (December 13, 2014)

Some Stoic End of the Year Thoughts

Here we are at the end of the year once again. It’s ironic to me that sandwiched at the completion of one year and the beginning of another, we have two vastly different rituals.

On the one hand, we have Christmas, which has for too many of us, become so materialistic and gluttonous. We expect gifts and good food and overindulge in both. On the other hand, we have the “New Year, New You” mentality which promotes ambitious new resolutions in which we commit to utterly change ourselves in the upcoming twelve months (or until we abandon these inconvenient goals).

It all seems to be all so misguided. In a way, one creates the problems that the other attempts to solve.

The Stoics provide good advice here, as always. These two thousand year old, pre-Christian philosophers offer us a clearer way to live–without the ups and downs and extra helpings of self-loathing.

Let’s look at three quick insights for the holiday season:

First, practice your “contemptuous expressions.” I know contempt seems like a weird emotion to bring to Christmas but stay with me. As you look out over the bountiful offering of Christmas–the presents, the food, the lights–remind yourself what this stuff really is: a bunch of stuff. As Marcus Aurelius once wrote, sounding like he was almost describing a Christmas dinner:

“Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time.”

What’s important are the people and the thoughts. Don’t let yourself get distracted from them.

Second, live in the present moment. That is, don’t obsess over what has happened in the past or lose yourself in visions of the future. Focus on what is right here, right in front of you. Make the most of it, and enjoy yourself. This moment could be all you have after all–it’s so much better to think that 2015 is not a guarantee and then to be grateful for all of it, then to have expectations and entitlements that go unfulfilled.

As Marcus Aurelius reminded himself:

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand.”

What matters right now is right now. Enjoy it.

Third, if you are going to try to improve in the next year or you do have some regrets about the previous year, don’t just hope that this will happen. That’s not how it works. As Seneca wrote to a friend who’d asked for advice, you need to pick a person or a model to hold yourself against.

“Choose someone whose way of life as well as words, and whose very face as mirroring the character that lies behind it, have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself either as your guardian or as your model. There is a need, in my view, for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler to do it against you won’t make crooked straight. ”

So, who will it be for you this year?

**

Stoicism is not something you “believe”, it’s something you do. It’s a practical philosophy. The more you work it, the more it will do for you. So why not start now? There isn’t a better time.

As a final parting thought, remember that we choose whether this was a good year or a bad year. We choose whether everything is good or bad. As Seneca said, “a good person dyes events with his own color…and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.”

This is the attitude for success and optimism in all situations. By controlling our perceptions, we create a reality in which every situation, no matter what it is, provides us with a positive, exposed benefit we can act on, if only we look for it.

With this in mind, I hope you enjoy the holidays and consider the Stoics when you can.

How To Think About Obstacles

The obstacles we face in life make us emotional. Yet, being emotional is pretty much the easiest way to make a problem worse. In fact, in order to overcome obstacles is to keep a steady and clear head about us at all times.

The ancient Stoics had a word for this state: apatheia.

What follows are the 7 critical ways to think about every obstacle, every problem and every and any kind of adversity you face.

Step 1: Steady Your Nerves

 “What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can only get by practice.” — Theodore Roosevelt

 During the Civil war troops were unloading a steamer when it exploded. Everyone hit the dirt except Ulysses S. Grant, who instead ran towards the scene.

That is nerve.

Like Grant, we must prepare ourselves for the realities of our situation, steadying our nerves so we can throw our best at it.

Step 2: Control Your Emotions

“Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.” — Publius Syrus

 When America first sent astronauts into space, they trained them in one skill more than any other: the art of not panicking.

Here on Earth, when something goes wrong we trade in our plan for a good ol’ emotional freak-out.

As Nassim Taleb put it, real strength lies in the domestication of one’s emotions, not in pretending they don’t exist.

Step 3: Practice Objectivity

“Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.” — Epictetus

 In our lives, how many problems seem to come from applying judgments to things we don’t control?

Perceptions give us information at the exact moment when it would be better to focus on what is immediately in front of us.

We must question our animalistic impulse to immediately perceive what happens. But this takes strength and is a muscle that must be developed.

Step 4: Practice Contemptuous Expressions

The Stoics used contempt to lay things bare and “strip away the legend that encrusts them.”

Roasted meat is a dead animal. Vintage wine is old, fermented grapes.

We can do this for anything that stands in our way, seeing things as they truly, actually are, not as we’ve made them in our minds.

Step 5: Alter Your Perspective

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” — Viktor Frankl

 Remember: We choose how we’ll look at things.

What we must do is limit and expand our perspective to whatever will keep us calmest and most ready for the task at hand.

Think of it as selective editing—not to deceive others, but to properly orient ourselves.

Step 6: Live in the Present Moment

“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” — Chuck Palahniuk

It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, whether you’re in a good job market or a bad one.

What matters right now is right now.

Focus on the moment, on what you can control right now. Not what may or may not be ahead.

Step 7: Look for the Opportunity

“A good person dyes events with his own color…and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.” — Seneca

 The reality is every situation, no matter how negative, provides us with a positive, exposed benefit we can act on, if only we look for it.

Maybe you were injured recently and are laid up in bed recovering. Now you have the time to start the book or the screenplay you’ve been meaning to write. That business decision that turned out to be a mistake? See it as a hypothesis that was wrong. Like scientist you can learn from it and use it in your next experiment.

Remember: This a complete flip. Seeing through the negative, past its underside, and into its corollary: the positive.

The new way to think…

Does getting emotional about this provide you with more or less options? The Stoics knew the answer to that question and it’s why they worked so hard to see their obstacles with clarity, with optimism and from new angles.

It was with this approach that they turned negatives into positives and thrived amidst unthinkable chaos and turmoil. You can do the same.

 

 

The Obstacle Is The Way PRINT (from Joey Roth!)

I have something I’m so incredibly excited about that I barely have the words.

Joey Roth has been one of my artistic heroes since I first discovered his work. His prints hang in my office and I look at them every single day. We first met a few years ago when he randomly emailed me about books and we were going to try to get drinks but the scheduling didn’t work out. My blog was very small then and I just thought he was some nice guy that I would occasionally chat with. I remember very vividly sitting at the porch of Dov Charney’s house reading the New York Times and seeing the name Joey Roth in the design section. How cool is this, I thought? I bought his first poster about hustling when it came out.

So it feels very fated that we would one day collaborate on something. It’s even cooler to me that the collaboration involves one of his famous prints and our mutual fascination with stoicism and strategy.

This very limited edition print (only 1,000 are being made) is loosely inspired by the stories in The Obstacle Is The Way about Grant’s siege at Vicksburg and Eisenhower’s turnaround at Normandy. It’s the timeless idea of how military obstacles can be turned into advantages–and how advantages can so quickly be turned against someone. It took a lot of iterations to get it right and I think we did.

Here is Joey’s explanation of the images:

The poster shows that when the competition is established, dug in and secure, it looks like an insurmountable obstacle, but in fact gives you freedom maneuver. This mirrors the agility of a startup vs. an entrenched player, or the beginner’s unencumbered approach beating the expert’s finely tuned but rigid technique. It’s also a reminder to stay flexible as you advance in your work and develop processes and expectations.

In other words, the obstacle becomes the way. And conversely, the fortress becomes a prison. It’s something I try to think about constantly and now this print is a daily reminder in bright color.

It’s very easy to say something in words in a book (or in a blog post), but communicating it visually is another story. I think that’s what makes Joey so unique.

I hope you like this poster and I hope it helps with your obstacles.

Ryan

Growth Hacker Marketing: The Course!

The Growth Hacker Marketing experiment continues! After a bunch of requests from readers for an additional medium, I partnered with Fedora to create a multimedia course version of Growth Hacker. Fedora is a super cool company (its investors include Naval Ravikant, the Winklevoss twins, Aaron Batalion, and myself actually, through a fund) and basically they were able to take the book, combine it with videos, links, some exercises from me as well as all my original notecards from the research to create a new way to experience the book.

As far as I know, I’m the first traditionally published author to do a book this way. It’s only $20 and at my insistence, comes with an extra copy of the book in physical or digital form and other cool bonuses. It’s already doing super well (was the #2 product on Product Hunt last week) and has gotten a great response. If you already have the book, this is a great way to get something extra for yourself, a way to re-read it and share your extra copy with a friend or colleague (see…Step #3 Create Viral Sharing). There also some bulk options if you want to use it for your department or start up.

Follow along with the lessons and interact with me on this new version of Growth Hacker Marketing. Enjoy!

 

 

It’s Not About Stoic WEEK, But Life

Here we are, with Stoic Week upon us once again.

This is exciting to me because thousands of new people will be exposed to philosophy for the very first time. I say that half-jokingly, knowing that many people including some who majored in it, think they studied philosophy in school. They didn’t–what they read about and did was an interesting intellectual stimulation but it was not philosophy.

Philosophy, as the Stoics saw it, was not abstraction. It was not theoretical. It was designed to help with the problems of life. And in Ancient Greece and Rome, the problems of life were quite real: murderous tyrants, war, plague, civil strife and banishments existed as very real and daily threats–alongside all the other things we deal with today like jealousy, injuries, greed, sickness, envy, and fear.

The Stoics developed a practical philosophy to make sense of this world, one designed to help its adherents thrive, succeed and live good lives. In my eyes, stoicism posits a very simple premise: We do not control the world around us; we control only how we respond. And so we may as well respond well–respond virtuously.

Stoicism, as passed down to us by Zeno, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and a host of other ancients, is a tool for that response. Epictetus’s “handbook” was picked up by everyone fromJames Stockdale to George Washington. Seneca was widely admired by the Christians, Thomas Jefferson and the thinkers of the Enlightenment. Marcus Aurelius proved to be equally inspirational to writers like Ambrose Bierce and Robert Louis Stevenson as he has been for statesmen like Theodore Roosevelt, Wen Jiabao and Bill Clinton.

What does this all mean? It means that whatever problem you’re dealing with this week–or in this life–stoicism can be of help.

A few favorites:

On Ambition:

“Ambition means tying your well being to what other people say or do.

Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.

Sanity means tying it to your own actions.” – Marcus Aurelius

On Temptations:

“No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like the gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.” – Marcus Aurelius

On Self-Criticism

“What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.’ That is progress indeed. Such a people will never be alone and you may be sure he is a friend to all.” – Seneca

On Other People:

“It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.” – Marcus Aurelius

On Distractions:

“Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance.” – Marcus Aurelius

On Objectivity

“Don’t let the force of an impressions when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.” – Epictetus

On Success or Failure:

“To accept it without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.” – Marcus Aurelius

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictetus

On Fortune

“The wise man looks to the purpose of all actions, not their consequences; beginnings are in our power, but Fortune judges the outcome, and I do not grant her a verdict upon me.” – Seneca

On Endurance

“Life’s no soft affair. It’s a long road you’ve started on: you can’t but expect to have slips and knocks and falls, and get tired and openly wish–a lie–for death.” – Seneca

**

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to stoicism when I was 18 or 19 years old. Not during a week of practice and contemplation, but a week where I nonetheless needed it very badly. I was going through a terrible break up. I was stuck in this apartment with some roommates who I absolutely detested. I was in my second year of college, not sure in which direction to take my life.

A chance encounter led to me picking up Marcus Aurelius and his wonderful Meditations. The wisdom in this book not only helped me with my immediate problems–helped me see some perspective about my romantic woes and helped me realize there was no reason to resent these people I was living with. But more importantly, it set me on an intellectual journey (going “directly to the seat of knowledge” as Marcus put it) that changed my life and set me on a course I never would have expected.

In the years since, stoicism has something that strengthened me in failure, comforted me in pain, gave meaning to events and cautioned humility and conservatism in moments of success. It helped me publish three books–one of which, I can proudly say, is about stoicism. How this all would have played out otherwise, I really have no idea. But what stoicism teaches is that it doesn’t matter. What matters is what happened and that we must be grateful for it–the goodand bad alike.

I am. I am so grateful for the windows and doors that stoicism opened. And I hope for everyone participating in 2014’s Stoic Week that you feel the same. And don’t let it stop after 7 days either.

My Morning Routine

My routine via MyMorningRoutine.com.

What is your morning routine?

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten comes from Shane Parrish at Farnam Street. It’s simple: If you want to be more productive, get up early.

So I get up around 8:00am and I have one other simple rule: Do one thing in the morning before checking email. It could be showering, it could be going for a long run, it could be jotting some thoughts down in my journal, it’s usually writing. Most mornings I try to write for one to two hours before I start the rest of the day (and the to do list I made the day before).

I shower, get ready and head downstairs to my office/library and sit and write. I recently got a Philips Hue light that helps with my vitamin D and regulates my rhythms. Then I eat and get on with everything else. The way I see it, after a productive morning where I accomplish my big things, the rest of the day can be played by ear. It’s all extra from there.

How long have you stuck with this routine so far?

Routines are an iterative process. You add and adapt it over time. I have been doing some version of this specific routine for nearly five years. It’s gotten me through three books in three years as well as dozens of projects for clients big and small.

How has your morning routine changed over recent years?

The no email in the mornings rule is probably the newest change. It has also had the biggest impact. Why? Because it means you’re not starting the morning behind the ball. Instead, you start with wins.

Specifically with writing, it allows me to approach it fresh and clear headed. The last thing you want when you’re writing is the specter of 46 UNREAD EMAILS looming over you. That doesn’t lend itself to existing in the moment well.

What time do you go to sleep?

Midnight at the latest.

Do you use an alarm to wake you up in the morning, and if so do you ever hit the snooze button?

iPhone alarm. Not a big snooze button guy. I wake up at a time that works for me and if it didn’t I would change it. I also try not to pointlessly stay up late.

How soon after waking up do you have breakfast, and what do you typically have?

It depends on if I go out or cook with my girlfriend.

When I lived in New York, we would go out and work together most mornings at a restaurant. Sometimes I do that when I am in Austin. But here I have chickens so usually we check the coop for eggs and cook something up. My office is right next to the kitchen so I am in and out of it anyway. I try to generally eat paleo/slow carb so it’s eggs, bacon, avocado usually.

Do you have a morning workout routine?

I tend to work out in the afternoon—usually sometime between 2-4:00pm.

I’ll run on the lake in Austin, or swim in Barton Springs. If it’s a CrossFit day, I’ll go to the early evening class. When I travel though, my schedule is not as much in my control so I go for a long run in the morning, say from 7:00-8:00am or 8:00-9:00am, and then start the day knowing that however it turns out, at least I got a run in.

How soon do you check your phone in the morning?

Without email to check, there is very little reason to check my phone in the morning besides maybe my calendar—but I try to do that the night before.

I don’t keep Facebook on my phone and I don’t use any apps with alerts. The idea is that the phone answers to me rather than the other way around.

What are your most important tasks in the morning?

Writing, that’s the real work. I find that showering and getting ready first helps me prepare and face it professionally, so I suppose that is part of it too.

What and when is your first drink in the morning?

Water. Usually Topo Chico, which is a Mexican sparkling mineral water that I am addicted to. No coffee for me. No protein shakes.

Sometimes my girlfriend will juice or make a smoothie but that’s pretty sporadic.

On days you’re not settled in your own home, are you able to adapt any of your routine to fit in with a different environment?

Almost all of it, except the walking downstairs to my office.

I travel a lot so I’ve built my routine to be as resilient as possible and as location independent as possible. In some ways, I’m more productive on the road—excepting the writing.

What do you do if you fail to follow your morning routine, and how does this influence the rest of your day?

I feel like I am playing catch up—or worse, that I am not in control of my own life. I don’t like that. It defeats the purpose of achieving success.

Applying Growth Hacking to a Book (and to getting ahead)

I just put up a 5,000 word breakdown of the campaign for Growth Hacker Marketing for the New York Observer. If you haven’t read the book, but are interested in becoming a writer one day, I would encourage you to check it out. I think the book is in some ways a new model for how to develop an idea and an audience and then ultimately create a successful and lucrative product out of it. And that’s leaving out the fact that the book was satisfying and enjoyable to write.

I also wanted to give a quick update on the growth hacker apprenticeship that originated on this blog and is detailed in the post. After posting it here and some promotions from people in the community over 100 people applied (something I was quite humbled by). But here’s the unfortunate part: Most of the applicants never had a shot. This is something I have seen time and time again in my career, and something I’ve tried to write about in my posts about mentorship. Most of them never had a shot because they didn’t follow directions (for instance, I said put your idea in a single paragraph 300 words max, yet many people send me enormously long emails). Among the few dozen who at least took the instructions literally, the ideas weren’t remotely related to the content of the book. But most of the entries failed on both counts–ignored the directions, and the ideas were off. You can maybe skate by being sloppy, but no one is going to forgive the latter. I think what happened is that people saw an opportunity and go so excited that they, you know, neglected to come up with a real plan for taking it. Instead they just threw energy at it, or in some cases, threw some “crazy” at it.

I would have loved to give those people a shot anyway, but I could not. That’s not how life works. I ultimately ended up working with William Wickey and he did a great job. He was reliable. He was on top of it. He brought value to the table. He took my suggestions. He made things easy for me. He was trustworthy. He made it possible for me to do something new and special for the launch. And guess what? I’ve already referred him to two potential paying gigs. I am almost certain I will pass more work to him from myself and others in the future. He did it right, and I would encourage him to write about his thinking and process because I think it could provide some lessons.

Anyway, I encourage you to check out the article and of course the book. I really appreciate everyone’s support and hope writing like this is helpful.