The 500 Things That Matter
The secret trick to hack your way to being a billionaire with six pack abs.
When I started writing, I realized that my posts would get more views if I had a good headline. Of course, that meant that I started investigating what kinds of headlines got more clicks. Of course, that led to me writing lots of click-baity headlines for a really long time. I still do it, honestly.
If you look at other writers’ posts, they’re similar. They promise to uncover the ONE thing that matters. “Do THIS one thing and you’ll never procrastinate again.” “Understand THIS ONE THING and you’ll unlock your full potential and stop being fat and lazy.”
Classic.
I was just chatting with one of my mentors about this.
When I look back at my own writing, I wish I could say that I didn’t write with that tone, but I did. If you add up all of my posts and the post archives of every other productivity, “rah-rah” motivation writer, you’d get hundreds of “one things.”
Let’s just call it 500.
There must be 500 things that matter?
I wanted to be a little vulnerable here since I’ve been part of the problem, and make sure that this is unveiled and give you permission to call me out if I do it.
The moral of the story:
Stay skeptical when people (especially people without any real expertise) have a really simple solution to a complicated or nuanced problem. Since no one is perfect, we need to look out for each other and provide support when we each inevitably get stuck in one of these reductionist traps.
Diets. Procrastination. Cryptocurrency. Democracy. Whatever.
You already know the classics.
Stay skeptical, and pull each other out of the muck.
The “one thing” is just a red flag you can look out for.