“She doesn’t get eaten by the eels at this time?”
“What?”
“The eel doesn’t get her. I’m explaining it to you cause you look nervous.”
“I wasn’t nervous…..maybe a little bit concerned. But that’s not the same thing.”
This is a relatively unquotable sequence from perhaps the most quotable movie of all time, The Princess Bride.
If you haven’t seen The Princess Bride…..honestly I don’t know what to say. Go watch it? Unsubscribe to this newsletter? I don’t even know where we’d go from here.
But chances are you have seen it and you have a favorite quote.
“Inconceivable!”
“Have fun storming the castle”
“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The list is nearly endless.
But I started with this mostly unremarkable dialogue between the grandfather (played brilliantly by Peter Falk) and his grandson (played by Fred Savage) because I feel the need to warn you that this blog has nothing to do with fitness.
And as I imagine you reading those words after I write them, that might make you a bit nervous.
But it’s going to be okay. You still might find this interesting and for sure no one gets eaten by eels.
Because, surprisingly to me, on two separate occasions recently people have approached me not to ask about training principles or deadlift technique or the efficacy of spin class or even Travis and Taylor’s fashion choices (for the record, I am very pro!) but how to build an audience through writing.
And if two people asked, there must be at least 20 of you that are curious about the topic and I’m nothing if not niche.
The problem is, I’m not sure what to tell you.
When it comes to the training stuff I think quite deeply about it. I research. I rely on years of experience. I’m making very educated recommendations that I can easily justify if I were pushed on them.
The writing is quite the opposite. I almost can’t think too much about it. It’s like the legendary saxophone player Clarence Clemons once said, “I don’t write the music. It’s just floating out in the air and I grab it at the right time.”
It usually starts in the shower or on the subway. I’ll come up with a topic I want to discuss. Or I’ll think of a story and try to figure out a way I can relate it to training. Throw in a Dad joke and a Justin Bieber reference and, boom, you’ve got this little slice of heaven that appears in your inbox every Monday morning at exactly 9:05.
Now I realize that isn’t particularly helpful so let me try to break things down a bit more and give you at best a framework or at the very least a philosophy on how I approach this.
The first thing is the easiest to understand and the hardest for people to do. And that is to establish consistency. This is roughly the 215th such email that I’ve written without missing a Monday. Consistency isn’t everything. You can put out junk every week and people won’t respond. But without consistency it’s very hard to have a conversation.
I have this habit of walking away when someone is mid sentence. It’s a terrible thing and it rightfully drives my wife crazy (and it’s really not intentional, I just get lost in my mind quite often). Consistency in your writing is similar. Without it it’s as if we were mid conversation and I just disappeared.
So you must have the discipline to be consistent. And before you protest, I promise you have something to say at least once per week that people want to hear.
The second is that I try to treat my audience (you) as equals. Sure, I probably know more about strength training or amino acids than you, but there are very few Andrew Huberman’s out there who can get away with being know-it-all authorities. As I often say, these writings are as much for me as they are for you. So treat your audience like your equals and you will end up with people who are loyal because you are treating them with respect.
This may sound odd but you actually have to do things so you have things to write about. I personally struggle with this as my life is pretty predictable and routine. Luckily for me I’m old so I have plenty of personal history to draw upon. Plus I also rely on, what we used to call in the advertising world, borrowed interests. You don’t have to look beyond the first page of this very post to see that I grab from movies, pop culture and other things that are in the public consciousness (along with stories about my Dad or the gym or my childhood) cause we all experience those things and there is some common ground.
Everyone has a Dad story.
But if you don’t, or don’t want to share those things (more on this later) go do something and write about it. People are curious about what it’s like to get a DEXA scan or how you lost five grand in crypto or whatever.
Whenever possible back up your claim with data or evidence. It’s what differentiates being an authority from just being an asshole with an opinion. Also known as an influencer. Sure, you can just op-ed your way through a blog post but when you have experience or evidence to back it up you’ve given people a compelling reason to believe you.
Lastly, whenever possible, be vulnerable. It’s certainly hard to write about your struggles (and perhaps you don’t want to write about them when you are in the middle of them) but the more you can reveal your challenges in an honest way the more people will connect with you. And in a shocking plot twist you’ll feel better about those things as well for having shared them. I told you I write these as much for me as I do for you.
When I first started working in the city there was a wonderful, glorious place called the Virgin Megastore. It was a block long and filled with CDs (this is how we consumed music in the 90s, kids) and books.
New music came out every Tuesday back then. So I always made it a point, on my lunch break from the ad agency, to go to the Virgin Megastore for an hour and check out the new releases.
Did I wake up every Tuesday morning like a 6 year old who is about to take their first trip to Disney World? No.
But every Tuesday on my walk to work I’d get a tinge of joy remembering that in a few hours I’d be perusing the new music rack and hoping to find a fresh release from Pearl Jam or Ryan Adams or, even better, discover some new band that I enjoyed.
And that is what I hope these Monday blogs do for you.
I don’t expect you to circle the dates on your calendar or refresh your email so you can open it the minute it arrives. But if I can start your week off with some insight or understanding or, my ultimate goal, a bit of empathy and connection, then, at the very least, I’ll know I did my job.