Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

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I’ve been hosting Twitter spaces for the past month now.

These past spaces allowed me to connect with big creators, create a stronger bond with my listeners, practice my speaking skills, show my expertise live, and build my authority by doing so.

It’s crazy how often spaces get slept on by most Twitter creators. Let me show you why they matter.

Should you host spaces?

When it comes to building an audience. There’s one key rule that everyone must know. It’s not about the quantity of your audience but about the quality.

The worth of your audience comes from the quality of each individual person. Not from the sheer size of it.

An audience of 1,000 loyal fans is worth 100x as much as an audience of 10,000 random followers who don’t care all that much about you.

There are numerous methods to increase the quality of your audience. Hosting spaces is one of them.

We’ve talked about how hopping on calls with people increases the bond. There’s something about that face-to-face connection that makes the connection stronger and more valuable.

But you can’t hop on a call with every single follower you’ll ever gain.

So that’s where spaces come in. Instead of merely reading your content. They’re now directly listening to your ‘content’ and your voice.

That’s great because your voice has so much personality embedded in it.

You’re able to express yourself in ways that written content doesn’t allow you to. This makes people feel much closer to you. They’re slowly becoming true fans.

Spaces are THE most efficient way to build authenticity on a large scale.

Not to mention how great a way it is to spread your name as well. (and to build up your public speaking skills)

So with that said. I’d recommend everyone to start hosting spaces once they hit 1,000 followers. 

Build that authenticity and authority even more. It’s time to go all in and spread your name as much as you can.

3 steps to hosting your first space

Hosting spaces is all about providing a good listener experience. People will leave if you have poor audio quality. Test this out before starting a space.

Step 1) Explore other spaces

The fastest way to learn is to copy from the best.

Hop into different rooms from different creators. Listen to how they structure their spaces.

– What do they talk about?
– How long do their spaces last?
– How many speakers are there?
– How does the audience interact?
– What format are they using?
– What’s the overall vibe?

Every creator’s space will have a unique experience. Find your favorites and replicate them.

Step 2) Know how to score your spaces

You’ll be exploring different spaces. Learning how to host pleasant spaces yourself.

But that means you’ll also have to recognize which ones are good and which aren’t. The amount of listeners only tells you so much after all. And you can’t copy everything you see from every single space.

Some common criteria to look for (and score each space on) are:

– How good is the audio quality?
– How well produced is the space?
– Do they have a structure they stick to?
– How deep do they dive into a topic?
– How much interactivity is there?
– Does the space serve a purpose?
– What makes the room cooler than others?
– Do they pitch an offer? How?
– How much business success does the host have?
– What’s the social status of the speakers?
– How much entertainment/humor is there?

Ask these questions. And score them on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. Add up the scores and that’s the total quality of the space.

Adapt the criteria as you develop your own style of spaces.

Step 3) Choose a format

As you’ve noticed by now. You can host spaces in numerous ways. Some examples are:

– Having a discussion with your friends
– Bringing guest speakers to interview
– Bringing up randoms to speak
– Giving a lecture on your own
– Hosting a panel of experts
– Holding a debate
– AMA/Q&As

Experiment with these and see which ones you like.

The interview format is probably the easiest to start with. Giving a lecture on your own can be daunting, but you’ll develop your skills fast.

Having a discussion with your friends is fun, but it’s difficult to stay on topic and keep it interesting for the listeners. It’s advised to have at least 1 person (the host) to help everyone stay on topic.

These are the foundations you need to work out before hosting your first space.

Figure these out. Decide on a topic and a format. Pick a time & date and start advertising your space on Twitter.

Do this consistently at least once a week. I promise you it’s worth it.

Cheers

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P.S.

Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.

2. Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B. And get you there in the next 30–60 days.

3. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.

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And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!

I did the unthinkable. I cleaned up my email list. All inactive readers have been ‘purged’. I even had some readers who were consistently bouncing my emails. (the emails were being blocked)

From 700 readers to a whopping 430. That’s an enormous difference.

Almost half my list.

The good news is that my open rate will be sky-high from now on. As will the deliverability of my emails in the future.

In all honesty. My email deliverability wasn’t great.

This cleanup was necessary. A friend of mine reached out to share that some of my emails (more than half) were ending up in his spam folder.

I did recently change to my custom domain. Which I might have had to be more strategic about.

I’m far from an email deliverability expert.

All I know is that ISPs are a thing and that there are methods to improve how often your emails end up in the primary inbox as opposed to the promotion or the spam tab.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

As it turns out. A lot of the responses to my emails would also end up in MY spam folder. I’ve been working through these responses. I promised I would reply to every single one. And nothing’s going to change that.

I’ve been slowly getting back to them today. But I might have missed a few in my spam. My inbox might have already deleted some of them.

So if you’ve ever reached out to me.

Whether on the welcome email or on any other. And I haven’t gotten back to you. Let me know.

I’ll gladly answer any questions you have.

Just reply to this mail and I’ll get back to you ASAP. (yes I’ll check my spam this time and fix this so it doesn’t happen again)

That being said. Even if you don’t have a question. You could do me a HUGE favor by simply replying to this email. It can be whatever you want.

Reply with “hey” or “banana”.

It’s going to prove that people actually like my email to the internet services that determine whether my emails are spam. It’ll help me reach more people and avoid situations like this in the future.

You have my thanks.

2 days ago I sent a mail about my upcoming course. It included a poll asking your thoughts about the current curriculum.

There wasn’t a single negative response. Which my ego absolutely loved.

But the best part was that there were some great suggestions. One of the suggestions went as follows:

First things first. I do go over how to use Twitter lists effectively in my module about finding and building your dream audience. So no worries there.

It’s an important skill to get the hang of and I’ll definitely go over it.

As for growing beyond Twitter. That’s something I didn’t touch on. Or at least not directly. The skills and methods I teach are meant to be universal. And they could easily be adapted to work on different platforms as well.

But there isn’t a single example/explanation/module that shows how that would look like. And that’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while since I’ve gotten that response.

Should I include a module like that in the course?

After a bit of back-and-forth discussion with myself I settled on not adding such a module for 2 reasons:

1) I don’t have any experience on other platforms. Many people in such a situation would educate themselves by taking a course on other platforms or interviewing experts on the matter. And then sharing that information in their own course. I don’t want to do so. This type of “knowledge sharing” is a plague on Money Twitter. Too many “experts” claim they know what to do without having any experience in the matter themselves.

2) I’m a huge believer in picking 1 platform and sticking to it for more than a year. It’s a waste of effort to grow on different platforms simultaneously. Every platform is a whole new game to learn. A whole new workflow to adapt to and tie in with your other existing workflows. And it’s just a mess. Especially when you don’t have many validated ideas yet. That’s why I advise everyone to stick to Twitter until they reach a big enough size. Have fully streamlined their workflow. And know with 100% certainty which of their tweets will perform and which won't.

That’s not to say I’ll never add such a module in the future.

But I’ll never add one before 1) I have (successful) experience with it myself and 2) my target audience is at a stage where it makes sense for them to expand to other platforms.

Until then. It’s all Twitter for me. If you do want to expand to other platforms yourself. I won’t hold you back.

Everything we do is based on human psychology. And that’s the same on any platform. So with a bit of adaptation you’ll be able to use the same principles I teach on other platforms as well.

But that’ll be something for you to figure out on your own for now.

Something that you don’t have to figure out on your own is how to monetize your Twitter by pursuing your passion and creating content about it. If that’s something you’d like help with I promise you’ll be interested in my clarity calls.

calendly.com/alexvandromme/clarity-call

I’m going to be controversial from the get-go.

I don’t like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I just don’t.

In case you don’t know. Which I doubt. It’s one of those classics in the world of self-improvement and how-to-get-rich books. Some might even say THE classic.

So because of its reputation I had it on my wishlist for quite a while.

A few weeks back I finally got my hand on the book. I don’t enjoy reading ebooks or PDFs or audiobooks even. Whenever I read something. It has to be a physical book. Hardcover or paperback. Doesn’t matter.

Just let me have something physical.

I’m old-school in that way. It’s satisfying to flip the pages and highlight important sentences. I also like to see my progress by filling up my bookshelf. It helps to stay motivated.

You can’t help but look at the books on your shelf. You easily forget about digital copies. You can’t put them somewhere where you’ll notice. And out of sight is out of mind. That’s a lesson about environmental design.

But anyway back to the book.

Most people seemed to praise the book so I had to get it and check it out for myself right? I’m not one to go looking through reviews or anything.

I don’t care about the opinions of others. You can spend ages reading through reviews to find the best book, the best place to eat, and the best new phone, only to never make a decision. People simply never agree on anything.

So I don’t waste my time reading opinions. I’ll find out for myself.

The book arrives at my home and I’m happy to dig in. Only to find out real soon that it was an instant disappointment. It’s nothing more than a “feel good” book if you asked me.

Yes yes you need to believe in yourself. You need to want it real bad. You need to really WANT it. And on and on and on.

“Don’t quit. Keep going. Believe in yourself.”

Honestly I never seemed to fully understand the title until I started reading it. THINK and grow rich.

Now while I do appreciate a good book about having a proper mindset and the power of thought. This wasn’t it.

I’ve read As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. And man. Let me tell you.

That was one hell of a good book. It’s a short read. But don’t let that fool you. It’s a powerful read as well.

Remember last week’s email where I talked about the power of social proof? About how I read The Cather in the Rye because of it? (and almost every single book I ever read)

I talked about how powerful social proof is. How it makes business (and life) easy.

But there’s another side to it as well.

Sometimes it fails to deliver. That’s the thing about social proof. You have to back it up. It becomes more and more difficult to deliver.

People with all sorts of different expectations and requirements will start becoming interested in finding out more about your offer. You’ll keep growing to the point where the quality of your offer equals the social proof you have.

You’ll plateau. Which in business means you’ll start dying.

This email wasn’t to say Think and Grow Rich is a terrible book. Who am I to make such a claim? It simply wasn’t for me and I surely won’t ever recommend it to someone.

If you want to know which books (and course, articles, threads, and more) I WILL recommend. Check out my Ultimate Content Creator’s Toolkit (it’s free) here: alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/UCCT

Yesterday I shared that I’m working on building a course.

The course focuses on building your own creator business. I share my own methods and frameworks.

From branding to positioning and monetization. It’s all included.

I don’t want it to be another growth guide. Neither do I want it to be a “How to make money doing coaching on Twitter” guide.

I want it to work for anyone. Regardless of what ‘niche’ you’re in.

This past year I’ve spoken with countless people across different fields:

• B2B sales

• copywriters

• ghostwriters

• Forex Traders

• fitness coaches

• Notion creators

• digital marketers

• meditation gurus

• brand consultants

• graphic designers

• affiliate marketers

• community builders

• productivity coaches

• SaaS business owners

They all differ in what they do, who they target, and how they operate. But the underlying fundamentals remain the same.

That’s what this course will teach you — the foundations for building your business in a digital age. Leveraging the power of social media. And becoming a creator in the process.

And of course. Using all the systems that allow you to work less than 3 hours a day.

Here’s a quick overview of modules I’ve already (partially) written:

• Design your winning profile

• Find and build your dream audience

• Write content that gets you growth, leads, and sales

• Crafting an offer people can’t refuse

• Closing prospects on a sales call

• Making friends through DMs

• Selling through DMs

• Tools to automate 90% of your business

• Hosting the best spaces on Twitter

• Thread writing masterclass

• How to get your emails opened

• Social media positioning guide

• Create attention-grabbing tweets every time

• Your 6-month blueprint

• The first steps of creating a newsletter

• Different monetization routes explained

As you can see. I’m working on making this course worth your while. Not just another “Engage often, keep posting, DM people, hop on calls, and get paid” guide.

But this is where I need your help. What were your first thoughts when you read these chapters?

Do they interest you? Are they different from what you were hoping for? Are there important topics that I didn’t mention yet? I’m open to any and all suggestions.

This course isn’t just a solo project of mine.

It’s a collaboration with my audience. With people who have a need for such a course. It’s a collaboration with you. Let’s make a wonderful product together.

Let me know by voting on the poll below.

I went overboard yesterday. My Sunday email ended up being 2,200 words long.

They’re usually closer to 1,000 – 1,500 words. I try to keep them actionable, straight to the point, and easily digestible. No fluff.

But for some reason I just couldn’t shorten yesterday’s email. There was so much value to share. I’m not here to give you “just enough” to become interested in some paid course of mine.

I’m giving you the full chapter. Yesterday’s mail is the exact module that I’ve written for a course I’m working on. It included ALL of the value. Nothing held back.

I had my doubts originally. Thinking it was too long for my regular weekly email. Too overwhelming. But then I received this message from Bryan:

So there you have it. If this teaches you anything. Let it be to never hold anything back.

Give everything you’ve got.

If it doesn’t sting when giving your stuff away. You’re not giving enough. It should hurt. You should be thinking “damn, I could monetize this”. That’s the sweet spot.

With that said. Here’s some more free juice from me.

I shared my 8-step process for selling through DMs with you last week. But there’s one thing I didn’t mention. You don’t have to go through all 8 steps every single time. Especially when it’s a low/medium-ticket offer instead of a high-ticket one.

Here’s an interaction I had earlier this month to give you an example.

I noticed someone was engaging with my content quite a lot. So I hopped into his DMs and send him this:

Just saying hello. Nothing more nothing less. The aim here is to get an answer, that’s all. And an answer I got:

Did you notice? That’s the dream response. You couldn’t ask for anything better. “All I need is that first client”. Because of that we’re able to skip steps 3 & 4. It’s time to start digging deeper.

In what follows I asked him what he thought was holding him back from getting that first client and some general questions about his current offer (product/service).

It turned out that his biggest struggles were a lack of information which made him doubt whether he was good enough to start offering his services.

Not that I know all of this I’m ready to pitch my offer. So I send him this message:

And then he said, “Ew no, that’s awful.”

Alright no. That’s not what happened. It would be one hell of a plot twist though.

He said it sounded perfect.

Then I just send him my Calendly link so he could book a call at a time of his choosing.

A trick I learned from JK Molina was to mention that you’ll start getting everything set up and ready to go once the call is booked (and paid) to encourage people to book right then and there.

So he paid. We had a call. He was happy, ready to take over the world. And I got an extra testimonial.

Those were 5 steps.

Let this be a reminder that every framework is nothing more than a bunch of guidelines.

You can and should alter them if the situation requires it.

Ps. Did the above pitch sound like something you could benefit from as well? Do you want to learn how to improve your offer, attract clients through your content, and start monetizing your personal brand? Schedule a call with me here and we’ll build you a similar roadmap to start getting you paid while working less than 3 hours a day.

Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

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Sometimes you’ll be able to close people straight through your DMs. Other times you’ll have to jump on a sales call first.

But don’t panic. There’s nothing difficult about it at all.

If anything. It’s easier to close them on a sales call because of the connection you’ll be making. Their emotions will be even stronger and it’s much easier to make them understand the value of your offer.

Remember. Sales is nothing more than making people aware of their problems.

Show them how badly their problems are affecting them. Make them believe in your solutions and how they’ll be able to change their lives.

Everything is about emotions & psychology.

Step 1) Start the conversation

Don’t overcomplicate it.

Just say hello. Talk about something. Whatever it is. Act like you’re hopping on a call with a friend you haven’t seen in a while.

Prepare at least 1 or 2 simple questions. Questions that have nothing to do with why you’re on the call.

These can be:

•  “How are you doing?”

•  “Where are you from?”

• “How has your day been?”

• “How’s the weather where you are?”

It can be as generic as you want it to be. The goal is to start talking immediately.

Don’t make it awkward.

Step 2) Frame the call

After you’ve started talking. You want to guide the conversation.

YOU are the one who’s in charge here. This is important to establish early on. Set those expectations and make it clear what will happen.

Here’s an example of what that might sound like:

Step 3) Discover their motivations

Great. They know what to expect. Now is the time to start asking questions and digging deeper into their motivations.

You know they are at least slightly interested in your service. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on the call with you.

Figure out why they’re interested. What is it they’re trying to achieve?

And why?

You might know this already from previous conversations you had in the DMs. Repeat this once again regardless. It’s vital that you understand their motivations.

But it’s even more crucial THEY understand their own motivations.

Make them realize just how much they want to achieve their goal. They need to feel that motivation before they’ll decide to move forward with you.

Example:

Step 4) Understand where they are

You can’t help people reach their goal if you don’t know how far removed they are from it. This is why you’ll dig deep into their current situation to figure out exactly where they are.

• What are they working on?

• What progress have they made?

• What do they still have to work on?

• What information are they missing?

Put yourself in the middle of their journey and help them reach their goals.

It’s also good practice for the prospect to talk about this in as much detail as possible. It helps them clarify their own position. Which will make them realize they might need some help from you to reach their goal.

Once they answer you. Dig deeper.

Their first answer won’t be the main problem. Every problem has layers. And it’s your job to discover the core problem.

Imagine if they struggle with landing consistent clients.

Dig deeper to figure out the true problem. Is it an offer problem? A traffic problem? A story problem?

Also use this moment to make them realize how much this is really affecting their business (and their personal life.)

Ask questions such as:

• “What exactly do you mean by that? Walk me through your process and where you have the most problems.”

• “Have you tried fixing this problem before?”

• “When did you close your last client and how did it happen?”

• “How much time do you spend trying to land new customers each day?”

• “How deep do you dig to uncover their current obstacles?”

• “How do you discover what their true motivations are?”

The best case scenario is when they’ll stumble upon the true problem by themselves while answering your questions.

Step 5) Understand where they want to be

Okay great. By now you should understand their pains. It’s time to ask them where they want to be in the future.

You might think this has already been covered by uncovering their motivations. But that was only a sliver of the full picture.

Dig deeper into their motivations. Ask them to paint a clear picture of where they want to be in 1 year.

• What does their life look like?

• How will they spend their time?

• What will they look like?

• Who are they spending their time with?

• Where are they living?

• How are they living?

Example:

Let them talk as long as they can. The more, the merrier.

The clearer the image, the stronger the emotion.

Help them out by asking questions if they don’t know what to talk about. Ask them if they want to travel. What they want their house to look like. How much time they want to spend working. How many kids they want to have. What they want the color of their kitchen walls to be.

Seriously. Dig deep.

But. Fair warning. Keep it limited to what you can help with.

Don’t ask them whether they want a six-pack or an eight-pack if you’re not a personal trainer.

Stay within your scope of possibilities.

Step 6) Show them the promised land

Now it’s time to explain your offer.

Don’t go too in-depth. Don’t start becoming technical. They don’t care how your service works. People only care about what your service will help them achieve.

There are 2 ways to go about this:

a) Offer free advice

In this method you’ll immediately offer them at least 3 urgent and actionable pieces of advice. These should be steps they can implement within 5 minutes and will get them results immediately.

You can end the call by asking if they feel confident in doing this by themselves. If they aren’t then you can pitch your service.

You’d want to take this route if you’re an absolute beginner.

It’s good sales practice and it will give you experience fast. (and testimonials)

b) Position your offer as help

Use this method if you already have some experience and feel confident in your offer.

You’ll want to recap everything you’ve been talking about and package it up neatly in your offer.

Show them how your offer focuses on overcoming their obstacles and reaching their goals.

Example:

Step 7) Close

If you’ve done everything mentioned above. This should be a breeze.

In most cases they’ll ask you what the price is. That means they’re interested. You want this.

And even if they don’t. This is the time to reveal the price.

Always mention your highest-tier package first.

This is in case you have multiple offers. Which is recommended as it allows you to be flexible. It sets a price anchor. Everything else will sound less expensive afterwards.

Downselling is easy. Upselling isn’t.

Share your price as straightforward as you can:

You’ve shared your price. Time to shut up now.

Let them think.

Don’t start justifying your price. Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t feel nervous. Let them think. And wait until they react.

The ball is in their field now. Use this silence to your advantage.

In most cases people will say yes. This is an important lesson to learn. People WANT to buy stuff. They’re on this call with you. They’ve gone through this whole explanation for a reason.

Be confident and know this.

If they say yes. 

Just send them a payment link and make sure they pay ON THE CALL. You only closed them once they’ve paid. Not once they said yes.

Let them pay while their emotions are still strong.

Once they’ve paid thank them for your trust and ask when they want to start. In the best-case scenario you’ll already have an onboarding process ready. If not no worries. (we’ll cover that in the future)

Let them know what the next steps are and what they can expect now.

The easiest method is to simply send them an email with a quick overview and a Calendly link to schedule the next call.

If they say no. 

Start the objection handling procedure.

This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. 50% of objections are about the price. Another 40% of objections is “I’ll have to think about it.”

If they give you this objection simply ask them to elaborate.

Example:

If it’s about the offer. That’s easy. Ask them what their questions are and answer them.

If it’s about the price. Then you can either add more bonuses to make it worth the price or you can proceed to downsell.

Downselling can be offering a less expensive offer, taking away certain parts of your offer, or shortening the length/attention of what they’re getting.

Often people will realize they don’t want to reduce to a lower-tier package and end up buying the offer anyway.

Whatever you do. Never discount your price if they think it’s too expensive. You aren’t. Don’t make them think your price is negotiable. It isn’t.

You are in charge here.

By not lowering your price, you’re artificially increasing the value of your offer in their minds as well.

And that’s the entire process.

By now you’ve closed your first client and you’re ready to start scaling your business.

P.S.

Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.

2. Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B. And get you there in the next 30–60 days.

P.P.S.

For those interested, this is the software stack I use:
(These are affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)

1. Beehiiv for my newsletter: One of the biggest, easiest, and best providers for people wanting to build their newsletter. A logical choice to make with its abundance of integrated solutions for easy growth. (e.g., an integrated referral program)

2. Tweethunter for everything Twitter: From scheduling tweets to gathering inspiration and engaging with others. TweetHunter has everything you need if you’re serious about building your business on Twitter.

3. Carrd to build my landing pages: You’re building a business. You need simple and effective landing pages for your funnels. Carrd is an easy-to-use website builder that does exactly that.

4. Testimonial to gather testimonials: Simply drop your clients a link where they can leave a testimonial. Gather everything in one place. And embed it on your landing pages as you wish.

5. Ilo for my Twitter analytics (+10% discount): The most advanced Twitter analytics tool and a MUST if you host spaces. Get in-depth knowledge about your audience, what they like, and who they are.

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And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!

5 years ago I first created my chess account on lichess.org. All I knew was how the pieces moved. Nothing more.

Forks, skewers, pins, en passant, Sicilian dragon, and fried liver all meant nothing to me. But for some reason I wanted to start playing chess.

I wasn’t even being influenced by anyone or anything.

No streamers, YouTubers, influencers I followed, or friends I had actively played chess. It was just a sudden urge. I have those sudden urges to learn something new quite frequently. But I started playing chess.

By now I’ve reached 1800 ELO. That’s an intermediate chess player if you were wondering. The problem is that I’ve been around that rating for quite a while now.

Sometimes I lose 50 points. Sometimes I gain 50. I plateaued.

This hasn’t been the first time though. Chess is a plateau-heavy game as I like to call it. When you start playing you’ll quickly rise (or drop) to your current skill level. Then you plateau.

You don’t move around much. Because that’s how good you are. You also don’t get better by “just playing”. You get better by deliberately practicing. That’s different.

Over the years I’ve often spent long periods of time where I was blitzing (playing 3-minute games) regularly.

But I didn’t make any progress.

I wasn’t analyzing them. I wasn’t trying out new strategies.

I stayed the same level. Until I decided to deliberately practice instead of merely playing. But there’s something unique about this process.

When it starts, you’ll actually first lose ELO.

Yes. You’ll get worse. That’s because you’re trying out new strategies. New openings. New playing styles. Styles you aren’t familiar with.

So you’ll perform badly.

That is. Until it finally clicks. Then suddenly your ELO soars. You’ll start winning game after game. You’ll rise far above the previous rating you’ve had. You’ve officially gotten better.

Then you’ll plateau once more. And the process starts all over again.

I don’t expect you to believe me without any proof to back up this claim. So here’s the graph depicting my rating changes over the last 2 years. Notice where I added the red rising lines. There’s almost always a green declining line in front of it. That’s this exact process in action.

Why am I sharing this? Well I’m not changing my niche to becoming a chess coach. Don’t worry. It’s not that I want you to start playing chess or anything. No.

It’s simply because this process is universal.

Most people plateau in life or improve extremely slow. So slow you can’t even notice they’re improving at all. That’s because there’s no deliberate practice. There’s no experimentation with new methods.

Take writing emails for example. Everyone says to just start writing. And yes that’s true.

But you need to be deliberate with it.

You need to reflect on your writing. You need to think actively about what you’re writing, who you’re writing to, what your writing has to accomplish, and whether that’s indeed the case.

Do you see why I started writing daily emails now as well? I experimented with weekly ones for 3 months. I learned a fair bit writing those. Now it’s time to experiment with daily ones.

Will my metrics suffer? Yes. Yes they will. I’ve been getting more unsubscribes. A lower open rate. And the overall quality of my emails has probably gone down. (I think I’m doing a good job with these so far, but what do I know?)

The point is. That doesn’t bother me.

I know I have to get worse. I know I’ll suck at it. But I also know that at some point. It’ll just click. All the pieces will fit together. And I’ll become better than I have ever been.

That’s the universal principle of improvement.

So think to yourself. Have you been analyzing your positions and testing out new openings? Or have you merely been blitzing chess games every day?

Let me know what you’ve been practicing lately. And how you’re going about it. What is keeping you from obstructing your own growth? Simply reply to this email.

I’d love to know.

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law let me borrow his copy of The Catcher in the Rye. He knew I was interested in reading more classical English/American literature. He asked if I’d like to read it because he had it lying around somewhere.

Now I didn’t know what the book was about. I had heard the title a long time ago in English class in high school. But I never read it.

Still I said yes. I was excited to read it. I really was. At that time I was still reading To Kill a Mockingbird. But I finished it quickly to hop into this new book I’d gotten.

I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye today. The story is engaging. I just love how it’s written. And I’d recommend the book to others. It’s a great read.

But remember how I didn’t have a clue what it was about before I started? Yet that didn’t hold me back from picking it up. It’s not like my brother-in-law recommended it to me. He just told me he had it and asked whether I’d like to read it. I didn’t even ask him what he thought about it.

So then why was I so excited to read it?

Social proof & authority.

It was a widely popular book. I had heard it somewhere before. I knew it was supposed to be good. That’s all.

There weren’t any fancy marketing tricks. Salespeople didn’t make me feel the pain. Copywriting didn’t tell me about the benefits. Funnels weren’t used to nurture me.

This goes to show you just how powerful social proof & authority really are. That’s why people build a personal brand. Having a personal brand (and an audience) gives you social proof & authority.

A personal brand allows you to sell your products and services to people without having to use fancy sales & marketing tactics. They’ll trust you just because of your social status. They’ll trust you because they see other people trust you as well.

Don’t sleep on this opportunity. Build your personal brand and learn how to make people want to work with you as much as they’d like to read The Cather in the Rye.

I’ve started reading The Art of War recently. It’s a classic that almost everyone has heard of before. I hadn’t read it yet. So I thought I might as well give it a go.

It’s an old book. Still around (and being printed) to this day. That’s an easy way to know whether a book is worth reading.

If an old book is still around. There’s something in there that makes it worth reading. Consider books like The Art of War, Meditations, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Odyssey, Plato's writings, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, and so on.

Anyway, it’s been a great read so far. There’s one concept that stuck out to me above all else. Sun Tzu makes a distinction between what he calls Cheng and Ch’i.

Ch’i operations are always unexpected, weird, and unorthodox; A Cheng operation is straightforward. Sun Tzu said that great generals should attack with Cheng, but win with Ch’i. Implying that the final blow for victory should always rely on distractions and diversions. To attack them where the enemy won’t expect it and is least prepared for.

It gets trickier as you dive deeper into the topic. Some attacks can start as Cheng and end up as Ch’i, while others will start as Ch’i and end up as Cheng. 

Sun Tzu describes these two concepts as running into each other like two sides of a circle. Nobody knows where one begins and the other ends. They can blend into each other depending on what the situation requires.

Two other comments go:

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1) “We must cause the enemy to regard our straightforward attack as one that is secretly designed, and vice versa; thus CHENG may also be CH`I, and CH`I may also be CHENG.”

2) “A CH`I maneuver may be CHENG, if we make the enemy look upon it as CHENG; then our real attack will be CH`I, and vice versa. The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy so that he cannot fathom our real intent. To put it perhaps a little more clearly: any attack or other operation is CHENG, on which the enemy has had his attention fixed; whereas that is CH`I, which takes him by surprise or comes from an unexpected quarter. If the enemy perceives a movement which is meant to be CH`I, it immediately becomes CHENG.”

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I won’t act like I’m an expert and understand everything completely. I don’t. But this is how I interpret it: focus on using a combination of Ch’i and Cheng operations. Make straightforward strategies look unorthodox and make the unorthodox seem straightforward. Confusion is your biggest ally on the battlefield.

That being said. I probably won’t find myself leading an army on the battlefield any time soon. But that doesn’t mean I can’t regard business as my battlefield.

Every piece of content. Every email, every tweet, every sales page. They’re all individual battles that make up my war. And it’s my duty as a great general to attack with a Cheng and win with a Ch’i operation.

So now that I’ve got your attention fixed on this CTA (my Cheng operation). Reply to this mail to see if you can figure out what my underlying and unexpected Ch’i operation is. I’ll respond to you with the correct answer.