Writing for readers:

14 years of daily writing.

I post practically everything on social media. I authored hundreds of articles, thousands of tweets, and numerous volumes to almost no one.

Tens of thousands of readers regularly praise me.

I despised writing. I'm stuck now.

I've learned what readers like and what doesn't.

Here are some essential guidelines for writing with impact:

Readers won't understand your work if you can't.

Though obvious, this slipped me up. Share your truths.

Stories engage human brains.

Showing the journey of a person from worm to butterfly inspires the human spirit.

Overthinking hinders powerful writing.

The best ideas come from inner understanding in between thoughts.

Avoid writing to find it. Write.

Writing a masterpiece isn't motivating.

Write for five minutes to simplify. Step-by-step, entertaining, easy steps.

Good writing requires a willingness to make mistakes.

So write loads of garbage that you can edit into a good piece.

Courageous writing.

A courageous story will move readers. Personal experience is best.

Go where few dare.

Templates, outlines, and boundaries help.

Limitations enhance writing.

Excellent writing is straightforward and readable, removing all the unnecessary fat.

Use five words instead of nine.

Use ordinary words instead of uncommon ones.

Readers desire relatability.

Too much perfection will turn it off.

Write to solve an issue if you can't think of anything to write.

Instead, read to inspire. Best authors read.

Every tweet, thread, and novel must have a central idea.

What's its point?

This can make writing confusing.

️ Don't direct your reader.

Readers quit reading. Demonstrate, describe, and relate.

Even if no one responds, have fun. If you hate writing it, the reader will too.

People don’t believe in influencers anymore; they need people like you.

Social media influencers have dominated for years. We've seen videos, images, and articles of *famous* individuals unwrapping, reviewing, and endorsing things.

This industry generates billions. This year, marketers spent $2.23 billion on Instagram, $1 million on Youtube, and $775 million on Tiktok. This marketing has helped start certain companies.

Influencers are dying, so ordinary people like us may take over this billion-dollar sector. Why?

Why influencers are perishing

Most influencers lie to their fans, especially on Instagram. Influencers' first purpose was to make their lives so flawless that others would want to buy their stuff.

In 2015, an Australian influencer with 600,000 followers went viral for revealing all her photos and everything she did to seem great before deleting her account.

“I dramatically edited the pictures, I manipulated the environements, and made my life look perfect in social media… I remember I obsessively checked the like count for a full week since uploading it, a selfie that now has close to 2,500 likes. It got 5 likes. This was when I was so hungry for social media validation … This was the reason why I quit social media: for me, personally, it consumed me. I wasn’t living in a 3D world.”

Influencers then lost credibility.

Influencers seem to live in a bubble, separate from us. Thanks to self-popularity love's and constant awareness campaigns, people find these people ridiculous.

Influencers are praised more for showing themselves as natural and common than for showing luxuries and lies.

Little by little, they are dying, making room for a new group to take advantage of this multi-million dollar business, which gives us (ordinary people) a big opportunity to grow on any content creation platform we want.

Why this is your chance to develop on any platform for creating content

In 2021, I wrote “Not everyone who talks about money is a Financial Advisor, be careful of who you take advice from,”. In it, I warned that not everyone with a large following is a reputable source of financial advice.

Other writers hated this post and said I was wrong.

People don't want Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk's counsel, they said. They prefer to hear about their neighbor's restroom problems or his closest friend's terrible business.

Real advice from regular folks.

And I found this was true when I returned to my independent YouTube channel and had more than 1000 followers after having abandoned it with fewer than 30 videos in 2021 since there were already many personal finance and travel channels and I thought mine wasn't special.

People appreciated my videos because I was a 20-something girl trying to make money online, and they believed my advice more than that of influencers with thousands of followers.

I think today is the greatest time to grow on any platform as an ordinary person. Normal individuals give honest recommendations about what works for them and look easier to make because they have the same options as us.

Nobody cares how a millionaire acquired a Lamborghini unless it's entertaining. Education works now. Real counsel from average people is replicable.

Many individuals don't appreciate how false influencers seem (unreal bodies and excessive surgery and retouching) since it makes them feel uneasy.

That's why body-positive advertisements have been so effective, but they've lost ground in places like Tiktok, where the audience wants more content from everyday people than influencers living amazing lives. More people will relate to your content if you appear genuine.

Last thoughts

Influencers are dwindling. People want more real people to give real advice and demonstrate an ordinary life.

People will enjoy anything you tell about your daily life as long as you provide value, and you can build a following rapidly if you're honest.

This is a millionaire industry that is getting more expensive and will go with what works, so stand out immediately.

Are MVPs outdated and have no place in modern product culture?

Frank Robinson coined "MVP" in 2001. In the same year as the Agile Manifesto, the first Scrum experiment began. MVPs are old.

The concept was created to solve the waterfall problem at the time.

The market was still sour from the .com bubble. The tech industry needed a new approach. Product and Agile gained popularity because they weren't waterfall.

More than 20 years later, waterfall is dead as dead can be, but we are still talking about MVPs. Does that make sense?

What is an MVP?

Minimum viable product. You probably know that, so I'll be brief:

[…] The MVP fits your company and customer. It's big enough to cause adoption, satisfaction, and sales, but not bloated and risky. It's the product with the highest ROI/risk. […] — Frank Robinson, SyncDev

MVP is a complete product. It's not a prototype. It's your product's first iteration, which you'll improve. It must drive sales and be user-friendly.

At the MVP stage, you should know your product's core value, audience, and price. We are way deep into early adoption territory.

What about all the things that come before?

Modern product discovery

Eric Ries popularized the term with The Lean Startup in 2011. (Ries would work with the concept since 2008, but wide adoption came after the book was released).

Ries' definition of MVP was similar to Robinson's: "Test the market" before releasing anything. Ries never mentioned money, unlike Jobs. His MVP's goal was learning.

“Remove any feature, process, or effort that doesn't directly contribute to learning” — Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

Product has since become more about "what" to build than building it. What started as a learning tool is now a discovery discipline: fake doors, prototyping, lean inception, value proposition canvas, continuous interview, opportunity tree... These are cheap, effective learning tools.

Over time, companies realized that "maximum ROI divided by risk" started with discovery, not the MVP. MVPs are still considered discovery tools. What is the problem with that?

Time to Market vs Product Market Fit

Waterfall's Time to Market is its biggest flaw. Since projects are sliced horizontally rather than vertically, when there is nothing else to be done, it’s not because the product is ready, it’s because no one cares to buy it anymore.

MVPs were originally conceived as a way to cut corners and speed Time to Market by delivering more customer requests after they paid.

Original product development was waterfall-like.

Time to Market defines an optimal, specific window in which value should be delivered. It's impossible to predict how long or how often this window will be open.

Product Market Fit makes this window a "state." You don’t achieve Product Market Fit, you have it… and you may lose it.

Take, for example, Snapchat. They had a great time to market, but lost product-market fit later. They regained product-market fit in 2018 and have grown since.

An MVP couldn't handle this. What should Snapchat do? Launch Snapchat 2 and see what the market was expecting differently from the last time? MVPs are a snapshot in time that may be wrong in two weeks.

MVPs are mini-projects. Instead of spending a lot of time and money on waterfall, you spend less but are still unsure of the results.

MVPs aren't always wrong. When releasing your first product version, consider an MVP.

Minimum viable product became less of a thing on its own and more interchangeable with Alpha Release or V.1 release over time.

Modern discovery technics are more assertive and predictable than the MVP, but clarity comes only when you reach the market.

MVPs aren't the starting point, but they're the best way to validate your product concept.

These quotes will change your perspective.

I try to reflect on these quotes daily. Reading it in the morning can affect your day, decisions, and priorities. Let's start.

1. Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

What's your life goal?

80% of people don't know why they live or what they want to accomplish in life if you ask them randomly.

Even those with answers may not pursue their why. Without a purpose, life can be dull.

Your why can guide you through difficult times.

Create a life goal. Growing may change your goal. Having a purpose in life prevents feeling lost.

2. Seneca said, "He who fears death will never do anything fit for a man in life."

FAILURE STINKS Yes.

This quote is great if you're afraid to try because of failure. What if I'm not made for it? What will they think if I fail?

This wastes most of our lives. Many people prefer not failing over trying something with a better chance of success, according to studies.

Failure stinks in the short term, but it can transform our lives over time.

3. Two men peered through the bars of their cell windows; one saw mud, the other saw stars. — Dale Carnegie

It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.

The glass-full-or-empty meme is everywhere. It's hard to be positive when facing adversity.

This is a skill. Positive thinking can change our future.

We should stop complaining about our life and how easy success is for others.

Seductive pessimism. Realize this and start from first principles.

4. “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, and stupid people already have all the answers.” — Socrates.

Knowing we're ignorant can be helpful.

Every person and situation teaches you something. You can learn from others' experiences so you don't have to. Analyzing your and others' actions and applying what you learn can be beneficial.

Reading (especially non-fiction or biographies) is a good use of time. Walter Issacson wrote Benjamin Franklin's biography. Ben Franklin's early mistakes and successes helped me in some ways.

Knowing everything leads to disaster. Every incident offers lessons.

5. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.“ — James Rohn

My favorite Jim Rohn quote.

Exercise hurts. Healthy eating can be painful. But they're needed to get in shape. Avoiding pain can ruin our lives.

Always choose progress over hopelessness. Myth: overnight success Everyone who has mastered a craft knows that mastery comes from overcoming laziness.

Turn off your inner critic and start working. Try Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.

6. “A champion is defined not by their wins, but by how they can recover when they fail.“ — Serena Williams

Have you heard of Traf-o-Data?

Gates and Allen founded Traf-O-Data. After some success, it failed. Traf-o-Data's failure led to Microsoft.

Allen said Traf-O-Data's setback was important for Microsoft's first product a few years later. Traf-O-Data was a business failure, but it helped them understand microprocessors, he wrote in 2017.

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.” — Ryan Holiday.

Bonus Quotes

More helpful quotes:

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” — George Bernard Shaw.

“Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.” — Mark Twain.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” — Earl Nightingale.

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw.

Conclusion

Words are powerful. Utilize it. Reading these inspirational quotes will help you.

Technical books aren't like novels. We need a new approach to technical texts. I've spent years looking for a decent reading method. I tried numerous ways before finding one that worked. This post explains how I read technical books efficiently.

What Do I Mean When I Say Effective?

Effectiveness depends on the book. Effective implies I know where to find answers after reading a reference book. Effective implies I learned the book's knowledge after reading it.

I use reference books as tools in my toolkit. I won't carry all my tools; I'll merely need them. Non-reference books teach me techniques. I never have to make an effort to use them since I always have them.

Reference books I like:

• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code 
  You can also check My Top Takeaways from Refactoring here.

• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer

Non-reference books I like:

• The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery

• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmans

The Approach

Technical books might be overwhelming to read in one sitting. Especially when you have no idea what is coming next as you read. When you don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes, you feel lost as you read. This is my years-long method for overcoming this difficulty.

Whether you follow the step-by-step guide or not, remember these:

• Understand the terminology. Make sure you get the meaning of any terms you come across more than once. The likelihood that a term will be significant increases as you encounter it more frequently.

• Know when to stop. I've always believed that in order to truly comprehend something, I must delve as deeply as possible into it. That, however, is not usually very effective. There are moments when you have to draw the line and start putting theory into practice (if applicable).

• Look over your notes. When reading technical books or documents, taking notes is a crucial habit to develop. Additionally, you must regularly examine your notes if you want to get the most out of them. This will assist you in internalizing the lessons you acquired from the book. And you'll see that the urge to review reduces with time.

Let's talk about how I read a technical book step by step.

0. Read the Foreword/Preface

These sections are crucial in technical books. They answer Who should read it, What each chapter discusses, and sometimes How to Read? This is helpful before reading the book. Who could know the ideal way to read the book better than the author, right?

1. Scanning

I scan the chapter. Fast scanning is needed.

• I review the headings.

• I scan the pictures quickly.

• I assess the chapter's length to determine whether I might divide it into more manageable sections.

2. Skimming

Skimming is faster than reading but slower than scanning.

• I focus more on the captions and subtitles for the photographs.

• I read each paragraph's opening and closing sentences.

• I examined the code samples.

• I attempt to grasp each section's basic points without getting bogged down in the specifics.

• Throughout the entire reading period, I make an effort to make mental notes of what may require additional attention and what may not. Because I don't want to spend time taking physical notes, kindly notice that I am using the term "mental" here. It is much simpler to recall. You may think that this is more significant than typing or writing “Pay attention to X.”

• I move on quickly. This is something I considered crucial because, when trying to skim, it is simple to start reading the entire thing.

3. Complete reading

Previous steps pay off.

• I finished reading the chapter.

• I concentrate on the passages that I mentally underlined when skimming.

• I put the book away and make my own notes. It is typically more difficult than it seems for me. But it's important to speak in your own words. You must choose the right words to adequately summarize what you have read. How do those words make you feel? Additionally, you must be able to summarize your notes while you are taking them. Sometimes as I'm writing my notes, I realize I have no words to convey what I'm thinking or, even worse, I start to doubt what I'm writing down. This is a good indication that I haven't internalized that idea thoroughly enough.

• I jot my inquiries down. Normally, I read on while compiling my questions in the hopes that I will learn the answers as I read. I'll explore those issues more if I wasn't able to find the answers to my inquiries while reading the book.

Bonus!

Best part: If you take lovely notes like I do, you can publish them as a blog post with a few tweaks.

Conclusion

This is my learning journey. I wanted to show you. This post may help someone with a similar learning style. You can alter the principles above for any technical material.

And why we must keep arming Ukraine

Russian expatriates write about horrific news from home.

Read this from Nadin Brzezinski. She's not a native English speaker, so there are grammar errors, but her tale smells true.

Terrible truth.

There's much more that reveals Russia's grim reality.

Non-leadership. Millions of missing supplies are presumably sold for profit, leaving untrained troops without food or gear. Missile attacks pause because they run out. Fake schemes to hold talks as a way of stalling while they scramble for solutions.

Street men were mobilized. Millions will be ground up to please a crazed despot. Fear, wrath, and hunger pull apart civilization.

It's the most dystopian story, but Ukraine is worse. Destruction of a society, country, and civilization. Only the invaders' corruption and incompetence save the Ukrainians.

Rochester, NY. My suburb had many Soviet-era Ukrainian refugees. Their kids were my classmates. Fifty years later, many are still my friends. I loved their food and culture. My town has 20,000 Ukrainians.

Grieving but determined. They don't quit. They won't quit. Russians are eternal enemies.

It's the Russian people's willingness to tolerate corruption, abuse, and stupidity by their leaders. They are paying. 65000 dead. Ruined economy. No freedom to speak. Americans do not appreciate that freedom as we should.

It lets me write/publish.

Russian friends are shocked. Many are here because their parents escaped Russian anti-semitism and authoritarian oppression. A Russian cultural legacy says a strongman's methods are admirable.

A legacy of a slavery history disguised as serfdom. Peasants and Princes.

Read Tolstoy. Then Anna Karenina. The main characters are princes and counts, whose leaders are incompetent idiots with wealth and power.

Peasants who die in their wars due to incompetence are nameless ciphers.

Sound familiar?