David Perell's Quotes

"Five years later, I can say that writing on the Internet is among the best life decisions I’ve made. The 90 minutes I spend writing every morning is my most important habit and the activation code for just about everything good that happens to me."

— David Perell

"Writing in Public is the art of broadcasting your ideas to the Internet so you become a beacon for people, opportunities, and serendipity."

— David Perell

"The game of online writing rewards people who publish consistently. Though frequency is the price of entry, quality writing is a force multiplier on your success. If your ideas resonate, the number of opportunities available to you will explode."

— David Perell

"Writing from Abundance is the art of collecting ideas so you can think better and avoid writer’s block."

— David Perell

"Writing from Conversation is the art of using dialogue to identify your best ideas and double down on them."

— David Perell

"build a bank of inspiration while you’re away from the computer and before you sit down to write. Capture your epiphanies. Save the best quotes you read. Identify ideas that resonate with you and jot them down as notes."

— David Perell

"If you capture ideas when they’re in the forefront of your mind, you won’t have to pray for them to come back when it’s time to write."

— David Perell

"Every great writer I know obsessively curates their information diet. They rightfully know that high-quality writing begins with good taste for what you consume."

— David Perell

"It’s easier to have unique ideas when you read things other people don’t. Early in his career, Warren Buffett got some of his edge by going beyond the Annual Reports that everybody else was reading and picking up 10-K filings that were tough to get your hands on back then. David Epstein aims to read ten journal articles per day when he’s working on a book. Many of his best ideas come from reading papers that others won’t and synthesizing them for a public audience."

— David Perell

"We’re trapped in a Never-Ending Now — blind to history, engulfed in the present moment, overwhelmed by the slightest breeze of chaos. Here’s the bottom line: You should prioritize the accumulated wisdom of humanity over what’s trending on Twitter."

— David Perell

"Find people whose recommendations you consistently enjoy and subscribe to their newsletters."

— David Perell

"It’s not enough just to binge eBooks and list a stat on your website (one Write of Passage student refers to this as “Book Chugging.”) You should save the best parts of what you read, so you can easily reference them later."

— David Perell

"Being a writer doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice huge swaths of your life. You don’t need to bunker down in a library for days straight in order to find inspiration. You already consume media, have thoughts, and write ideas in group chats. When you practice the habit of capturing what’s already happening, you’ll find that you have all the material you need to start writing."

— David Perell

"Effective ambient research happens when you capture the best ideas you consume, the epiphanies you have, and the things you’ve already written to friends and colleagues."

— David Perell

"When I come across an interesting article, I save it to an app that automatically downloads it to my phone so I can read it later. Saving these articles gets me out of a reactivity loop, where I read things immediately after I find them (which is what most people do). I want my reading to be much more intentional than that."

— David Perell

"By saving articles to an app and refusing to instantly read things you come across on the Internet, you raise the bar for what grabs your attention. With a Read-it-Later app, whenever you sit down to read, you have hundreds of articles to choose from. You can allocate your attention to the best one."

— David Perell

"The clarity of memory decays quickly, so we shouldn’t just save other people’s ideas. We should save our own ideas too. Until we have a central place to capture our best thinking, the joy of epiphany will turn into the anxiety of forgetfulness."

— David Perell

"Chances are, you’re already generating ideas. You just don’t realize it yet."

— David Perell

"Note-taking works best when the ideas are saved in a central location that contains the best reading and thinking you’ve ever done. The easier it is to search those notes, the faster you’ll be able to find them."

— David Perell

"James Clear, who wrote the wildly popular Atomic Habits, keeps his notes in a massive, multi-hundred page Google Doc. Even Eminem, who sees note-taking as a way of “stacking ammunition” for his lyrics, packs words and phrases into a box with all kinds of folded and crumpled up paper."

— David Perell

"the point of taking notes is to write, not to have the perfect note-taking system."

— David Perell

"First you collect the dots by capturing ideas, then, you connect them by writing."

— David Perell

"Study the writing practices of history’s top writers and you may be surprised by how many kept a commonplace book. A commonplace book is a central place where you can save ideas, quotes, epiphanies, photos, drawings, and whatever else you want to remember."

— David Perell

"So long as (1) you can capture ideas quickly, and (2) all those ideas go into the same place, you’re setting yourself up to Write from Abundance. It doesn’t really matter what note-taking app you use."

— David Perell

"I start my essays in split-screen mode. On the left side of the screen, I have my notes. On the right, my blank document. To fill up the blank page and give myself momentum, I’ll run a few searches through my note-taking system, and copy & paste the best stuff onto my new essay document."

— David Perell

"the more we imitate others, the faster we can discover our unique style."

— David Perell

"Originality Disease — a pervasive plague that makes creators feel scared to imitate other people’s styles."

— David Perell

"imitation and innovation are not opposed, but operate in tandem."

— David Perell

"creators consume art differently than consumers. They’re far more intentional in what they consume. Consuming art is productive work for them. Directors watch movies not just to be entertained, but also to see how they’re made. Consciously or not, they’re developing their own mental Pinterest board of ideas to borrow and build upon in their own work."

— David Perell

"Some of the juiciest inspiration comes from admiring (and maybe even reverse-engineering) other people’s work. But many people think inspiration needs to strike out of thin air, like a bolt of lightning."

— David Perell

"I worry that academics are so focused on checking the “nobody’s ever written about this before” box that they sometimes forget to make useful contributions to human knowledge."

— David Perell

"Einstein’s paradigm-shifting invention of general relativity was enabled by decades of studying classical physicists, whose ideas he later built upon."

— David Perell

"Many of the most original musicians have spent hours practicing scales in order to pick up on the creative powers of those they admire."

— David Perell

"Hunter S. Thompson once hand-wrote every word of The Great Gatsby so he could feel what it’s like to write a great novel."

— David Perell

"The fear of plagiarism is injected into us in school, where we’re taught to fear anything that smells like imitation."

— David Perell

"Throughout human history, most imitative learning happened through apprenticeships."

— David Perell

"In true “Imitate, then Innovate” fashion, there were obvious similarities between what da Vinci observed as an apprentice and what he’d later produce on his own."

— David Perell

"What humanity gained in its ability to scale the transmission of facts it lost in its disproportionate focus on ideas that could travel in textbooks. The transmission of technique and tacit knowledge was lost in translation."

— David Perell

"The harder it is to put the core knowledge into words, the more a skill should be developed through imitative learning."

— David Perell

"reading a lot of good writing is among the best ways to become a good writer. Even if the principles of effective writing are hard to communicate, reading a lot hones your intuition for what quality writing feels like."

— David Perell

"the more you’re drawn to learning the skill on YouTube, the more it’ll benefit from imitative learning. “YouTube skills” tend to be more bodily than intellectual. They’re hard to describe in words. Nobody learns to dance by reading a textbook."

— David Perell

"Improving creative education begins with retrieving the benefits of apprenticeships. When you imitate somebody’s work, you’re forced to think about why they made the decisions they made. Through consumption and creation, you weave the threads of other people’s work into a tapestry of your own."

— David Perell

"social situations will reveal who you are because personality is relative and you don’t have anybody to compare yourself to when you’re alone. I like how the poet John O’Donohue put it when he wrote: “In the presence of the other, you begin to see who you are in how they reflect you back to yourself.”"

— David Perell

"Imitation helps us discover our creative personalities because it reveals our taste and which parts of the creative process come most naturally to us."

— David Perell

"Learning to see as a painter is among the best things you can do to become a more articulate writer. Both skills require a keen sense of observation. Where painters aim to illuminate the world with color and shadow, writers aim to illuminate it with words and metaphors. Both activities are acts of composition and sometimes, the selective withholding of information."

— David Perell

"David McCullough, a trained painter and arguably America’s greatest biographer once said: “Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than discovering something new… That’s Dickens’ great admonition to all writers, ‘Make me see.’”"

— David Perell

"Kobe once said: “I seriously have stolen all my moves from the greatest players.”"

— David Perell

"Much of the future originates in art before it becomes our reality. This is why the world of technology holds a close ear to the world of science fiction. Steve Jobs famously pulled from Star Trek to design the iPad, and early concepts for FaceTime appeared in 2001: A Space Odyssey."

— David Perell

"while many experts doubted the possibility of manned heavier-than-air flight, the Wright brothers studied a book called Animal Locomotion and Etienne-Jules Marey’s Bird in Flight image. Unlike their contemporaries, they weren’t so exclusively focused on what’d been published by people who were working on similar projects."

— David Perell

"if we want to be innovative, we should be less imitative in who we choose to imitate."

— David Perell

"An easy way to improve who you imitate is to escape the Never-Ending Now by diversifying your inputs, escaping your industry, and reading more about history and less about the present."

— David Perell

"Patrick Collison comes to mind. I once asked him why, if Stripe is so innovative, they haven’t experimented with a radically different kind of corporate structure. He told me that companies shouldn’t be innovative for the sake of being innovative. Sometimes, it’s best to take the standard route so you can learn from a lineage of resources whenever you run into a problem."

— David Perell

"Patrick said: “Stripe’s orientation is probably a combination of Chesterton’s fence instincts, a disinclination from being original absent strong arguments, and a curiosity about past solutions.”"

— David Perell

"Observing Stripe has reminded me that originality is only useful insofar as it serves a higher end. In business, a lack of originality hints that you don’t understand the problem you’re trying to solve well enough. Once you understand a problem deeply enough, the solution becomes fairly obvious."

— David Perell

"Through teaching, I’ve discovered that the surest sign of an amateur writer is somebody who values originality as their ultimate goal — when they should value quality, beauty, or clear communication instead."

— David Perell

"Those who hold originality as their highest virtue are bound to either get stuck or create nothing of substance."

— David Perell

"Identify obvious failure points, and steer clear of them."

— David Perell

"Theory of Constraints: A system is only as strong as its weakest point. Focus on the bottleneck."

— David Perell

"Preference Falsification: People lie about their true opinions and conform to socially acceptable preferences instead."

— David Perell

"Mimetic Theory of Desire: Humans are like sheep. We don’t know what we want, so we imitate each other. Instead of creating our own desires, we desire the same things as other people. The entire advertising industry is built on this idea."

— David Perell

"Competition is for Losers: Avoid competition. Stop copying what everybody else is doing. If you work at a for-profit company, work on problems that would not otherwise be solved."

— David Perell

"Secrets are Hidden in Plain Sight"

— David Perell

"things that don’t make sense are a learning opportunity. Big opportunities won’t make sense until it’s too late to profit from them."

— David Perell

"The Wisdom of Paradox: Logic is the key to scientific truths, but paradoxes are the key to psychological ones. When it comes to the human condition, the deepest truths are often counter-intuitive."

— David Perell

"Planck’s Principle: Science doesn’t progress because people change their views. Rather, each new generation of scientists has different views. As old generations pass away, new ideas are accepted and the scientific consensus changes."

— David Perell

"A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system."

— David Perell

"Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available. People don’t want to look like they’re lazy, so they find extra tasks to tackle, even if they’re trivial."

— David Perell

"In the age of the Internet, when everybody has Google search and personalized social media feeds, differentiation is free marketing. The more specific your goal, the more opportunities you’ll create for yourself. Narrowing your aperture can expand your horizons."

— David Perell

"Hormesis: A low dose of something can have the opposite effect of a high dose. A little bit of stress wakes you up, but a lot of stress is bad for you. Lifting weights for 30 minutes per day is good for you, but lifting weights for 6 hours per day will destroy your muscles. Stress yourself, but not too much."

— David Perell

"Hold yourself to a higher standard than you hold others to."

— David Perell

"Legibility: We are blind to what we cannot measure. Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts."

— David Perell

"Horseshoe Theory: Extreme opposites tend to look the same."

— David Perell

"Personal Monopoly: Corporations reward conformity, but the Internet rewards people who are unique. If you work in a creative field, strive to be the only person who does what you do. Find your own style, then run with it. Create intellectual real estate for yourself."

— David Perell

"Penny Problem Gap: Economists assume demand is linear, but people’s behavior totally changes once an action costs money."

— David Perell

"The Paradox of Abundance: The average quality of information is getting worse and worse. But the best stuff is getting better and better. Markets of abundance are simultaneously bad for the median consumer but good for conscious consumers."

— David Perell

"most of the time a philosopher spends writing doesn’t involve typing. Rather, it’s a form of intellectual exploration—following intellectual embryos and running into various roadblocks on their way to discovering an idea’s mature form."

— David Perell

"Philosophers are the most rigorous thinkers I know."

— David Perell

"you understand an idea not when you’ve memorized it, but when you know why its specific form was chosen over all the alternatives."

— David Perell

"Like intellectual boxers; they come to understand ideas by making them fight with each other."

— David Perell

"ideas are like clothing. They change with the times and reveal how much the actions of others influence our decision making."

— David Perell

"The faster you jump to conclusions, the more likely you are to default to fashionable thinking."

— David Perell

"Humanity has succeeded not because of the intelligence of atomic individuals, but because we’ve learned to outsource knowledge to the tribe."

— David Perell

"social learning is humanity’s primary advantage over primates and, in Henrich’s words, “the secret of our success.”"

— David Perell

"as Duke University professor Timur Kuran has shown, people who try to maintain a secret religion for a long time usually abandon their faith. Psychologically, the burden of falsifying your beliefs in public is too heavy to shoulder. That’s when the magnet of culture pulls us in and kidnaps our beliefs."

— David Perell

"The more people are exposed to an idea, the more likely they are to believe it. The more fashionable it is, the more exposure it’ll receive. But the popularity of an idea doesn’t make it correct. Like the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger, the best options aren’t always advertised."

— David Perell

"Jumping to conclusions limits your ability to discover the truth, because you can’t jump to conclusions outside the spotlight. Philosophers know that every idea comes packaged in an implicit frame."

— David Perell

"Knowing that axioms will mold the ultimate shape of an idea, good philosophers tend to critique the premise of an idea—the frame—instead of the conclusion."

— David Perell

"when you restrict yourself to one side of the intellectual spectrum, you limit your capacity to find truth."

— David Perell

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

— David Perell

"Philosophy, like regular life, is best experienced with an attitude of intellectual grace. “What can this person teach me?” is a much more productive question than “How is this person wrong?”"

— David Perell

"the world progresses when people with conviction take action, often against the tide of consensus."

— David Perell

"We distort information to make ourselves appear better than we actually are."

— David Perell

"Our brains are simultaneously designed to seek out information and destroy that information after we acquire it."

— David Perell

"Trivers once said: “We deceive ourselves the better to deceive others.”"

— David Perell

"if history is an unceasing sprint toward the future, human nature doesn’t change. Only the laws of physics are more predictable. What’s happened in the past will happen in the future — again, again, and again."

— David Perell

"Social media has turned so many into public relations professionals who pursue likeability instead of truth."

— David Perell

"Through the twin principles of reason and rationality, philosophers risk their social credit scores in the short term to improve civilization in the long run."

— David Perell

"Inspiration is the keystone of learning. It’s the engine behind a student’s motivation and the glue that makes ideas stick."

— David Perell

"Even if some of the best feats of learning happen in Survival Mode, it can create resentment if sustained for a long time."

— David Perell

"When the pain of the status quo hurts more than the pain of discipline, people are capable of extraordinary feats of learning."

— David Perell

"School, for example, is built on Survival Mode. Fear is created with exams, essays, and the carrot of a college diploma at the end of it all."

— David Perell

"If we want an educated citizenry that enjoys learning, we need an alternative: we need to inspire people."

— David Perell

"Enjoyable learning begins with inspiration—both to get you started and to help you push through the struggles of knowledge acquisition."

— David Perell

"Inspiration is a uniquely human experience because it isn’t motivated by mere survival. It transcends the world of needs and lives in the world of wants. By doing so, inspiration stirs the mind. It’s no coincidence that the etymology of inspire is linked to “the breath of life.”"

— David Perell

"Blinded by age, we can turn to cold rationality, valuing only what we can define and prioritize only what we can measure."

— David Perell

"This kind of inspiration is born out of a kind of enthusiasm where the more you learn, the more you want to learn. As you acquire skills, you realize that perfection isn’t a summit you reach, but an asymptote you continually strive for."

— David Perell

"Reading science fiction doesn’t guarantee innovation, but it can inspire it. Likewise, inspiration doesn’t guarantee knowledge, but it moves the people who pursue it relentlessly."

— David Perell

"Inspiration is also hard to define. Even the most inspired people can’t always define the edges of their own interests—let alone explain them to others."

— David Perell

"schools should embrace entertainment because it lets you scale inspiration"

— David Perell

"Historically, educators have run away from entertainment because they assume it will lead to amusement."

— David Perell

"Their storytelling philosophy is among the most effective tools we’ve invented for inspiring people at scale, which is why a popular documentary will spark more interest in a subject than the best textbooks ever will."

— David Perell

"The biographer David McCollough once said: “Attitudes aren’t taught. They’re caught.”"

— David Perell

"Just as a good writer takes responsibility for making their ideas clear, a good teacher takes responsibility for inspiring their students."

— David Perell

"From Feynman, I’ve learned that context is the intellectual glue that makes ideas stick. Even physics, which impacts every waking second of our lives, needs to be made relevant with stories, metaphors, and examples."

— David Perell

"People don’t care about adverbs; they care about being respected by their readers. People don’t care about commas; they care about publishing a piece of writing that warms them with pride."

— David Perell

"As with a Feynman lecture or my friend’s little brother, you have to start with something catchy. Otherwise, you risk the toils of Survival Mode."

— David Perell

"reading books is the easiest way to find good ideas to write about."

— David Perell

"90% of their ideas are regurgitated from books. Their original thought is the other ten percent."

— David Perell

"One advantage of reading books sequentially is seeing just how rare it is for anyone to actually make a huge leap."

— David Perell

"If you can, read old books."

— David Perell

"Today, the simple act of reading books gives you a huge advantage. If you’re looking for ideas to write about, read more."

— David Perell

"Imitate, then Innovate is my motto for improving at any skill."

— David Perell

"It’s counterintuitive, but the more we imitate others, the faster we can discover our unique style."

— David Perell

"Reflecting on his own influences, Conan O’Brien said: “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.”"

— David Perell

"In order to align the story with the classical motifs that’d reverberated through so many human cultures, Lucas re-wrote his draft of Star Wars in order to align it with Cambell’s work."

— David Perell

"Lucas’ artistic originality was enhanced by an imitative respect of Campbell’s work and the recurring themes he discovered."

— David Perell

"The first is pretty clear: misunderstanding inspiration. Some of the juiciest inspiration comes from admiring (and maybe even reverse-engineering) other people’s work"

— David Perell

"In blind pursuit of originality, they avoid studying anything that’s come before them out of a fear of tainting their minds with the stain of influence. Rather than standing on the shoulders of people who’ve come before them, they look within themselves for a breakthrough idea."

— David Perell

"The second is more subtle: fetishizing originality. I think this part of the disease comes from academia, where people do study those who’ve come before them—but only so they can do something different."

— David Perell

"The third is pure conjecture: self-obsession. Perhaps our Originality Disease has its roots in Freud’s work, which still underpins our model of human psychology."

— David Perell

"It is said that art reflects the spirit of the times."

— David Perell

"It’s the man who’s only thinking about doing a good job or telling the truth who becomes really original—and doesn’t notice it.”"

— David Perell

"“No one wanted anything different, no one asked him to be ‘original’."

— David Perell

"Doing the opposite of the Egyptians doesn’t work either. Innovation without imitation is a fool’s strategy. Just look at the historical examples. Einstein’s paradigm-shifting invention of general relativity was enabled by decades of studying classical physicists, whose ideas he later built upon."

— David Perell

"Perhaps their aversion comes from how gung-ho schools are about the dreaded P-Word: plagiarism."

— David Perell

"The problem is that our tormented fear of plagiarism has clenched its claws around the things that are actually good for you."

— David Perell

"Out of excessive trepidation, we’ve lost touch with the subtle, but important distinction between stealing other people’s work without giving them credit (which is obviously a bad thing) and mirroring the style or values of a writer you admire (which should be praised and promoted)."

— David Perell

"The etymology of the word “imitate” is one of my favorites. During the time of Shakespeare, the word “ape” meant both “primate” and “imitate.” Perhaps the etymology indicates that knowledge of imitation is core to who we are."

— David Perell

"In fact, one of his master’s most famous sculptures was of the young warrior David standing in triumph over Goliath."

— David Perell

"The twin rise of the printing press and, later, mass schooling, led us to disproportionately value knowledge that could be codified in textbooks."

— David Perell

"This is why reading a lot of good writing is among the best ways to become a good writer. Even if the principles of effective writing are hard to communicate, reading a lot hones your intuition for what quality writing feels like."

— David Perell

"I like how the poet John O’Donohue put it when he wrote: “In the presence of the other, you begin to see who you are in how they reflect you back to yourself.”"

— David Perell

"Imitation helps us discover our creative personalities because it reveals our taste and which parts of the creative process come most naturally to us. This is what writers mean when they say they’re trying to find their “voice.”"

— David Perell

"But far imitations—transfering ideas from one domain to another—can be just as useful.4"

— David Perell

"Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams is known as one of the most original works of psychology ever created, but most people aren’t aware of how much he pulled from Nietzche."

— David Perell

"Both skills require a keen sense of observation."

— David Perell

"The most surprising part of sketching is seeing all the little details in a scene that only occur to you after you’ve been observing it for a few hours."

— David Perell

"“Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than discovering something new… That’s Dickens’ great admonition to all writers, ‘Make me see.’”"

— David Perell

"There are two kinds of imitation: near imitation and far imitation."

— David Perell

"Much of the future originates in art before it becomes our reality."

— David Perell

"Here, I’d like to emphasize an important point. Imitation doesn’t mean you should become just like everybody (or even somebody) else. When people conflate copying for imitation, we end up with a homogeneity of style that robs society of dynamic individualism."

— David Perell

"The problem gets worse in tightly networked environments, when people make art to impress their peers. When every up-and-comer in an industry goes through the same insular professional studies program, they tend to adopt the same general style."

— David Perell

"The innovators I’ve learned the most from combine near imitations with far ones. Patrick Collison comes to mind."

— David Perell

"He told me that companies shouldn’t be innovative for the sake of being innovative. Sometimes, it’s best to take the standard route so you can learn from a lineage of resources whenever you run into a problem."

— David Perell

"But imitating the best practices for the majority of what you do doesn’t mean you can’t innovate when you need to."

— David Perell

"“Stripe’s orientation is probably a combination of Chesterton’s fence instincts, a disinclination from being original absent strong arguments, and a curiosity about past solutions.”"

— David Perell

"Deconstructing the dynamics of these world-changing cultures initiates the “Imitate, then Innovate” method. Weirdly enough, Stripe is an original company because its founder doesn’t insist so much on being original."

— David Perell

"Writing is the same way. Through teaching, I’ve discovered that the surest sign of an amateur writer is somebody who values originality as their ultimate goal — when they should value quality, beauty, or clear communication instead."

— David Perell

"Those who hold originality as their highest virtue are bound to either get stuck or create nothing of substance."

— David Perell

"Better to imitate, then innovate instead."

— David Perell

"People change their behavior when they know they’re being watched. And on social media, somebody can always look at you."

— David Perell

"In practice, we now have to justify risky career moves to our friends, so it’s often easier to follow the well-worn path, do what everybody else is doing, and guarantee the approval of our peers."

— David Perell

"“Where we had once been free to be ourselves online, we were now chained to ourselves online, and this made us self-conscious.”"

— David Perell

"24/7 access to social media has over-socialized us."

— David Perell

"By creating an audience of critics, all those eyes have changed how we act. Psychologists call this the Hawthorne Effect, and it states that people change their behavior when they know they’re being watched."

— David Perell

"Under the critical eye of the social media panopticon, people are more likely to follow the rules but also take fewer risks — which creates a stagnant society."

— David Perell

"On Instagram, we judge every post by its impact on our public image, and on Twitter, we have to examine how our ideas will be interpreted by a wide range of audiences — today and in the future — with permanent records of everything we publish."

— David Perell

"Now that our failures are on public display, we’ve stopped taking risks."

— David Perell

"“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”"

— David Perell

"Social media has turned us into objects of criticism. Instead of looking at the world, we watch ourselves being looked at."

— David Perell

"In a time when the world is starving for action-oriented risk-takers, we’ve stopped taking risks for fear of social rejection."

— David Perell

"Then bet on your answers. Escape the Social Media Trap, and you’ll find the audacity to silence the critics and march with conviction."

— David Perell

"how can we summon the courage to take a leap of faith?"

— David Perell

"Spend more time alone. Our values are formed when we are by ourselves, so it’s hard to have original ideas the judgment of other people is always ringing in your mind."

— David Perell

"Curate your feeds, so you can inhabit a world of people who inspire you."

— David Perell

"If you insist on using social media, use it to motivate yourself, raise your ambitions, and hold yourself accountable."

— David Perell

"It needs people who can shatter the chains of short-term judgment of the Social Media Trap."

— David Perell

"Writing online is the fastest way to accelerate your career."

— David Perell

"Day and night, your content searches the world for people and opportunities."

— David Perell

"We live in the Age of Leverage."

— David Perell

"When you create content, people can access your knowledge without taking your time. You no longer need to sell knowledge by the hour. Your ideas are the most valuable currency in a knowledge-driven economy."

— David Perell

"Invest in your future. Whether you want to become an author or an entrepreneur, you should start writing online."

— David Perell

"When you publish ideas, you create your own “Serendipity Vehicle” – a magnet for ideas and people and opportunities from potentially every corner of the globe. If your ideas resonate with people, people will discover you and bring you unexpected opportunities."

— David Perell

"The first step to creating a Serendipity Vehicle is to create your own online home."

— David Perell

"Make it easy for people to find you. Buy a domain name and use it to create your own website, even if it’s very simple at first. Your website is your resume, your business card, your store, your directory, and your personal magazine."

— David Perell

"When you first begin writing, before you publish anything, your website should have two things:"

— David Perell

"A Start Here page A curated list of your favorite articles"

— David Perell

"Your Start Here page should answer routine visitor questions. Most readers want guidance, so give it to them. They’ll trust and appreciate your recommendations."

— David Perell

"Once they’ve committed to staying, lead them around the place, and introduce them to things that will interest them. If you can do that, you’ve done your job."

— David Perell

"2. Curated list of articles or resources"

— David Perell

"Building an audience is a chicken-and-egg problem: how do you create a substantial body of work that will attract visitors, before you have an audience to talk to?"

— David Perell

"When you’re just beginning, before you are recognized for your own ideas, curation works exceptionally well. It’s the fastest way to ignite a following and build a body of work."

— David Perell

"The Thought Leader Strategy: curate a summary of your favorite thought leader’s best work."

— David Perell

"The Idea Strategy: pick an idea you’re interested in and curate a list of the best resources on the topic."

— David Perell

"If you curate your favorite thought leader’s work, send it to them. If it’s good and you include their work in the list, they’ll probably share it."

— David Perell

"Don’t write on Medium."

— David Perell

"Medium is terrible for SEO. You don’t own your content and the platform makes it difficult to turn one-time readers into loyal ones."

— David Perell

"Focus only on publishing a lot of words, and you won’t build a distribution advantage; focus only on distribution and the quality of your work will suffer."

— David Perell

"Distribution is the secret of the most successful blogs."

— David Perell

"Concentrate your efforts."

— David Perell

"There are different strategies for succeeding on any given platform, but if you can build just one strong distribution channel, that’s all it takes to become a successful online writer."

— David Perell

"And if you can’t find a community, write for a specific person with a big audience."

— David Perell

"Ultimately, the easier it is for others to find your blog, the more readers you’ll attract. It’s as simple as that."

— David Perell

"There are two kinds of distribution: discovery and stickiness."

— David Perell

"First, people need to discover your blog. The majority of people find my blog through Twitter. It’s a great place for people to discover your blog, but doesn’t encourage repeat visits. That’s where email comes in."

— David Perell

"When it comes to reader stickiness, nothing beats email."

— David Perell

"Trying to build an online audience without an email list is a rookie mistake."

— David Perell

"When somebody Googles your name, you should own the top search results. The more you write, and the better your work, the more likely it is that you will appear when someone enters your name."

— David Perell

"If you want to nail the basics of SEO, you only need to stick to three simple rules: (1) publish excellent articles, (2) coin new terms such as Naked Brands and The Never-Ending Now, and (3) avoid competition by using an uncommon name."

— David Perell

"Building an audience takes time. It’s a slow process, but don’t let that fact turn you off. That’s what makes having an audience so powerful. An audience is valuable because it takes time to build."

— David Perell

"Trust, credibility and authority can’t be purchased. They must be earned, and that’s why they’re so precious."

— David Perell

"Writing is the most fundamental method of communication."

— David Perell

"The easiest way to write more is to write about ideas that stimulate you."

— David Perell

"Focus on quantity over quality at first. If you publish something every week for a year, you’ll gain tremendous insights into what you should be creating."

— David Perell

"Consistency develops ability, so pick a schedule and stick with it."

— David Perell

"Expect a small number of articles to outperform the rest."

— David Perell

"The best online writers are driven by five pillars: (1) evergreen content, (2) quality, (3) specificity, (4) listening to feedback, and (5) building a body of work."

— David Perell

"Evergreen articles are the foundation of most successful blogs because they stay relevant and can generate traffic for years and years."

— David Perell

"I like Devon Zuegel’s idea that writing falls into three buckets."

— David Perell

"“As Devon Zuegel said in my interview with her, writing falls into three buckets: (1) trivial things that everybody knows, (2) things that everybody knows, [but nobody around you knows], and you have a unique perspective on, and (3) stuff that nobody knows so you have to do tons of research. Direct your energy towards the second bucket.”"

— David Perell

"Many of the best writers I know began by summarizing other people’s evergreen ideas, and since they were popular, they already know the ideas will be interesting or useful."

— David Perell

"Skip the usual writing books and learn copywriting."

— David Perell

"Great writing is like a dance, and words are the music that create the atmosphere."

— David Perell

"The easiest way to add rhythm to your writing is to vary sentence length. Short sentences speed things up, and long sentences slooooooowwwwww things down."

— David Perell

"One friend who is a very successful online writer measures the success of a post by how many interesting emails he receives from it."

— David Perell

"Build a targeted audience. The more narrow and niche the topic, the better. Attracting the right people matters much more than the number of people who read your work. Intelligent readers want depth, nuance, and specificity."

— David Perell

"The fastest way to improve the quality of your work is to accelerate your feedback loops. More feedback is generally better."

— David Perell

"Many writers wait until they publish a blog post to share an idea with somebody. I do the opposite."

— David Perell

"I share my ideas as much as I can and run them through numerous filters. I move from conversations, to tweets, to emails, to blog posts. Each medium provides a different layer of feedback. By the time I’ve published a blog post, I’ve run the ideas through 3-5 filters, and each time I receive feedback, I keep more of what resonates and less of what doesn’t."

— David Perell

"Instead, they emerge from conversations, tweets, observations, feedback, and other forms of low cost, high-speed trial and error. I call this method of receiving and integrating feedback “The Content Triangle.”"

— David Perell

"You’re already processing a large volume of ideas through your everyday experience: with the social media updates you post, the books and articles you read, the emails you send, the conversations you have, and the meetings you attend. By consuming, digesting, and sharing these ideas with peers and colleagues, you’re already building expertise."

— David Perell

"If you don’t write, you are effectively stopping at the easier ask. It’s important you emphasize to yourself that you don’t need to relive the experiences it took for you to become a subject expert in order to share them.”"

— David Perell

"If you want to build an audience, you need to refine your ideas and change how you distribute the ideas you’re already thinking about. Instead of creating new ideas, you should save and redirect the flow of your existing ones."

— David Perell

"Your success won’t come from any one piece of work. It will come from your overall body of work."

— David Perell

"Unlike the time you spend at networking events, the benefits of writing online compound over time. Like any smart investment, it builds on itself. Write something once and you can share it for the rest of your life."

— David Perell

"By writing online, you’ll lose the “outbound” perspective and adopt an “inbound” one. The paradigm flips once you have a following around your ideas. Once you attract a critical mass of like-minded individuals, you can attract opportunities instead of searching for them. It’s about the quality of readers you attract, and about the relationships you build with people around the world, based on the quality of your ideas."

— David Perell

"Pick a high value, emerging industry. Learn as much as you can. Share what you learn on your personal website."

— David Perell

"The ultimate goal of building a personal brand is to have a “Personal Monopoly.”"

— David Perell

"Once you’ve found your niche, write about every aspect of it. The history. The people. The key concepts. Explore every nook and cranny, and write about the best things you discover."

— David Perell

"Pick a small, but ever-growing market and learn everything you can about it. Build expertise before the other settlers arrive. Then, share everything you learn. If you can create a body of work before the wave of popularity arrives, you’ll be well positioned to capitalize on it when other people are looking for an authority."

— David Perell

"“Merit, wherever it arises, will be rewarded as never before. In an environment where the greatest source of wealth will be the ideas you have in your head rather than physical capital alone, anyone who thinks clearly will be potentially rich."

— David Perell

"Advertising your unique skill set is the best way to attract high-value opportunities. You don’t get paid for what you think you’re worth; you get paid for what other people think you’re worth. It’s how markets work."

— David Perell

"It’s easier than ever to find obscure ideas that match your interests. Since discovery has improved so much, one outstanding article can help you meet people you’d never be able to meet otherwise. When you engage smart and curious people, they will reach out to you."

— David Perell

"Each article is a sales pitch for your knowledge on that topic. It’s an always-on broadcast of who you are, and an open invitation for other people to create personal and career opportunities for you. It’s a Serendipity Vehicle that can grow automatically, independently of your efforts."

— David Perell

"The Age of Leverage"

— David Perell

"Start Here"

— David Perell

"If you choose the second option and curate a list of the best resources on a topic, send your list to practitioners in your field who are popular on social media."

— David Perell

"Set Up Your Personal Microphone"

— David Perell

"Here’s the three-step process I used to capitalize on the transition to the online economy:"

— David Perell

"(1) Build an audience (2) Build a product (3) Scale the solution"

— David Perell

"Step 1: Build an Audience:"

— David Perell

"Now, they build audiences before products."

— David Perell

"Sharing ideas attracts like-minded people who double as a feedback loop to make you smarter and more interesting."

— David Perell

"Focus on resonance instead of scale."

— David Perell

"Define your interests. Then write about them. When you find a group that resonates with your writing and you want to connect with them, write for their interests."

— David Perell

"Define your own intersection of ideas by writing about topics nobody else is writing about and putting a name to your perspective."

— David Perell

"As you build your Audience-First Product, focus on resonance instead of scale."

— David Perell

"Step 2: Build a Product:"

— David Perell

"Once you’ve built an audience, you can focus on the second step of delivering a product to them."

— David Perell

"To build a product, you should solve a problem for your audience or yourself — ideally both."

— David Perell

"If an obvious customer pain point hasn’t been solved, there’s probably a reason why."

— David Perell

"Peter Thiel famously asks: “What very important truth do very few people agree with you on?”"

— David Perell

"But beware of chasing automation too fast. Don’t lose the human touch where it matters."

— David Perell

"First, it’s easier than ever to build an online audience."

— David Perell

"Second, the number of no-code, plug-and-play software tools has exploded in the past five years."

— David Perell

"Avoiding competition is the best way to build an Audience-First Product. You must solve problems other people aren’t trying to solve. Do something unique."

— David Perell

"By writing online, you’ll build a network around yourself and have a window into the ideas that ignite your soul. You become a magnet for like-minded people. Those people will share their best ideas, become your first customers, and help you grow your company."

— David Perell

"And yet, America has become a Microwave Economy. We’ve overwhelmingly used our wealth to make the world cheaper instead of more beautiful, more functional instead of more meaningful."

— David Perell

"The result is an economy that prizes function over form and calls human nature “irrational”—one that over-applies rationality and undervalues the needs of the soul."

— David Perell

"This urge to microwavify the world isn’t limited to the food industry. In Technics and Civilization, the historian Lewis Mumford writes that our industrial mode of thinking has caused us to devalue the kind of intuitive knowledge that leads to beauty."

— David Perell

"As Mumford observed almost a century ago, the world loses its soul when we place too much weight on the ideal of total quantification."

— David Perell

"By doing so, we stop valuing what we know to be true, but can’t articulate."

— David Perell

"ituals lose their significance, possessions lose their meaning, and things are valued only for their apparent utility."

— David Perell

"Taoist philosophy understands “the thing that cannot be grasped” as a concept that can be internalized only through the actual experience of living."

— David Perell

"Solitude requires isolation."

— David Perell

"Solitude is a state of mind, too."

— David Perell

"One of the weirdest things about modern urbanism, and the Microwave Economy in general, is that we build the opposite of what we like."

— David Perell

"A peculiar part of the Microwave Economy is that wealthy people aren’t immune to it. Escaping the Microwave Economy has little to do with money."

— David Perell

"It’s not the garish materials that surprise me. It’s that not even the rich and famous can transcend the Microwave Economy. Developing taste has nothing to do with the fatness of your bank account or your proximity to a Restoration Hardware gallery."

— David Perell

"To Solve the Problem, You Must See the Problem First"

— David Perell

"Opting Out of the Microwave Economy"

— David Perell

"1. Generic and Cheap: A “generic” object is something that’s commonly found in people’s houses."

— David Perell

"2. Generic and Expensive: For anything in this category, I want to find a bargain."

— David Perell

"3. Stylish and Cheap: A stylish object makes your environment your own, reflecting your personality and creativity."

— David Perell

"4. Stylish and Expensive: These are the rare purchases that stick with you for years."

— David Perell

"We don’t value what we can’t quantify, so our intuitions are given short shrift. In the name of progress, we belittle the things we know but can’t articulate."

— David Perell

"Like intellectual boxers; they come to understand ideas by making them fight with each other. Their style of analysis is effective because it’s so bloody."

— David Perell

"But instead of playing with computers, they play with ideas. Writing takes them a long time not because they’re finger-happy keyboard warriors, but because they rip ideas apart until they’re left with only the atomic elements."

— David Perell

"Once the idea has been sufficiently deconstructed, they put it back together. Usually, in new ways."

— David Perell

"Charlie Munger calls this the difference between “real knowledge” and “chauffeur knowledge.”"

— David Perell

"From the chauffeur’s story, we learn that you understand an idea not when you’ve memorized it, but when you know why its specific form was chosen over all the alternatives."

— David Perell

"Only once you’ve traveled the roads that were earnestly explored but ultimately rejected can you grasp an idea firmly and see it clearly, with all the context that supports it."

— David Perell

"This is how culture acts as an operating system for how we perceive the world. It’s the standard we revert to when we don’t think for ourselves."

— David Perell

"The faster you jump to conclusions, the more likely you are to default to fashionable thinking. People who don’t have the tools to reason independently make up their minds by adopting the opinions of prestigious people."

— David Perell

"A Harvard anthropologist named Joseph Henrich laid the empirical groundwork for this idea in his book, The Secret of Our Success. In it, he showed that evolution doesn’t prioritize independent thinking. Humanity has succeeded not because of the intelligence of atomic individuals, but because we’ve learned to outsource knowledge to the tribe."

— David Perell

"One study found that the people who feel the most authentic are, in fact, the more likely to betray their true nature and conform to socially approved qualities."

— David Perell

"All this suggests that social learning is humanity’s primary advantage over primates and, in Henrich’s words, “the secret of our success.”"

— David Perell

"Along those lines, if there’s anything I’ve learned about marketing, it’s that repetition is indistinguishable from truth. The more people are exposed to an idea, the more likely they are to believe it."

— David Perell

"But when I studied the intellectual underpinnings of the human rights concept, I realized that I’d inherited that idea from the Bible."

— David Perell

"“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”"

— David Perell

"By oscillating between radical extremes, you put ideas at war with each other in the name of truth."

— David Perell

"By doing so, you stretch each idea to its logical conclusion."

— David Perell

"Only when others are charitable and give you the benefit of the doubt can you wholly reason towards truth and explore interesting ideas that may be flawed."

— David Perell

"After all, the world progresses when people with conviction take action, often against the tide of consensus."

— David Perell

"Taken together, strong opinions are something you have to earn."

— David Perell

"The less time you give yourself to think, the more you’ll settle on socially rewarded points of view."

— David Perell

"Though it’s an inspiring message, it warrants a caveat. There are consequences to pursuing the truth, especially in public. Since people don’t like it when their ideas are attacked, there are social consequences to thinking outside the cultural spotlight."

— David Perell

"Sorry, but history predicts that many of your foundational beliefs are wrong, and they’ll be proven wrong in the future."

— David Perell

"Even if history is an unceasing sprint toward the future, human nature doesn’t change. Only the laws of physics are more predictable. What’s happened in the past will happen in the future — again, again, and again."

— David Perell

"As appealing as it sounds in theory, people are scared to think like a philosopher in practice. Social media has turned so many into public relations professionals who pursue likeability instead of truth."

— David Perell

"When anything you say online can be instantly accessed with a Google search, the costs of independent thinking aren’t worth the benefits to most people."

— David Perell

"“Anything with form has meaning, and therefore could invite controversy. The world we are bringing into being will exalt the talentless, the spineless, the shapeless, the meaningless.”"

— David Perell

"If history is any indicator, the social consensus has settled on all kinds of wrongheaded ideas that people are too scared to critique, especially in public."

— David Perell

"The pressure to have an opinion on every important topic has incentivized lazy thinking, the consequences of which we feel every day."

— David Perell

"Experiences become shareable creations the way tree sap becomes maple syrup."

— David Perell

"Full-time authors, for example, don’t actually type for 40 hours per week because they’d have little to say if they did. Instead, they spend most of their time collecting experiences."

— David Perell

"By sitting down to make sense of their existing ideas instead of trying to invent new ones, writers at their computer mold the wet clay of experience into shape."

— David Perell

"When they succeed, their stories are well compressed."

— David Perell

"If a story can’t get to the point, it will lose the audience’s attention."

— David Perell

"As West Side Story librettist Stephen Sondheim once said: “You have to throw out good stuff to get the best stuff.”"

— David Perell

"The authors argue that people make sense of the world by making it simpler and more beautiful—by making compression progress."

— David Perell

"“The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”"

— David Perell

"“things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”"

— David Perell

"Compression can conjure the essence of an experience, but never the real thing."

— David Perell

"At best, their representations of reality can be useful because they distort reality. Sensing the inevitable shortcoming, artists are often tortured by their inability to describe what they experienced with the detail they felt in the moment."

— David Perell

"“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”"

— David Perell

"The Internet is inspiring a people-driven model of online learning."

— David Perell

"We’re desperate for an alternative to siloed learning. With its people-driven approach to information discovery, online learning will inspire a generation of polymathic thinkers."

— David Perell

"The best way to get started is to form a Personal Monopoly."

— David Perell

"The People-Driven Method is driven by influencers instead of professors and the serendipity of the Internet instead of the rigidity of a classroom curriculum."

— David Perell

"The Internet creates winner-take-all markets, which reward people who define and master their own areas of expertise. Unlike school, it rewards people who create instead of compete."

— David Perell

"The Trader Joe’s Strategy: This strategy revolves around finding an online curator to be your learning guide."

— David Perell

"A good curator will reduce the number of options you have to consider. In that way, they’re like Trader Joe’s."

— David Perell

"Become a Fan: Resist the conventional wisdom to start by reading all a creator’s books."

— David Perell

"Start with articles, summaries, and podcast interviews, and only buy their books when you’re ready to devote 15-20 hours to exploring their ideas."

— David Perell

"People-driven learning is more fun and efficient than the traditional learning model. As you curate your social media feeds, you can access an entire library of ideas instead of having to slog between university buildings to engage with new ideas."

— David Perell