I’ve written over a million words in the past 15 years.
I’m often asked where I get my inspiration from. How do I decide what to write about? How do I write so much?
The featured image for this article is a screenshot of the Notes app on my phone. You can see that I have almost 1,000 ideas waiting for me to write about.
You see, whenever I come across an interesting idea, distinction or story, I capture my thoughts in this app. I’ve been capturing ideas like this for years.
Monique and I recently traveled to San Francisco, where we met Tonya Pitts, an award-winning sommelier. For over 20 years, she’s been an advocate for featuring women and people of color on wine lists. We had a fascinating conversation about wine. I wrote notes about what she taught me before I left the table.
I’ve just come back from London, where I attended a conference for professional magicians. I was the only non-magician in a room of 500 magicians. They literally called me a muggle! I wrote about my experience in my app.
When I have an interesting coaching session, I write a few words about it. When my kids do something that inspires me, I write a few words about it. When I learn something from one of my clients, I write a few words about it.
When AI appeared everywhere in the news, when I came across a quote by Bruce Lee, when I traveled to Tanzania, when I had insights about intuition, and when I thought of a distinction about types of listening, I wrote notes on all of these things in the app.
And when I took a Bollywood dance class in a park in San Francisco, a few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience in the app.
Just like a great head chef needs an excellent sous chef to plan and prep the food before it’s cooked, you need to prep and inspire your thinking before you write. It’s called front-loading.
Writer’s block doesn’t exist when you’ve done your prep.
For years, I’ve written two newsletters every single week. If you told me tomorrow that I needed to write an article every single day, I already have all the material I’ll ever need.
From now on, every single day, write down one sentence about a coaching session, or an idea you’ve read, or an experience you’ve had, or a quote you like, or a story you hear, or simply something you notice when you go for a walk. It’s all food for your future creativity.
Love. Rich