On doing your best writing while not actually writing
Gary Halbert, Frederick Nietzsche and the world's greatest app.
When getting into copywriting, it’s hard to not come across someone recommending you to read Gary Halbert’s The Boron Letters.
It’s good advice too.
Literally one of the best to ever do it, teaches his son Bond, how to become a Direct Marketer. And it’s done in a series of letters that Gary wrote to Bond when he was in Boron Prison. So it’s also kind of cool.
Interestingly, the first letter has nothing to do with marketing or writing.
Instead, the focus of the letter is Gary talking about the benefits of what he calls ‘road work’. Sixty minutes a day, first thing in the morning, of simply walking.
Why would Gary suggest this?
Well, in the letter, the reasons given are mostly for maintaining good health. No need to explain further on that. We all get it.
But I think, there’s another reason.
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
Frederick Nietzsche
My favourite philosopher, Nietzsche, was also a big fan of walking. But as you can see from the quote above, he is more explicit on its intellectual benefits.
Anyone that walks a lot, like me, will tell you there is just something about it that seems to generate ideas. It’s almost as if it gives your mind time to settle down and let your subconscious get to work.
And then boom.
You’re walking along and a solution to a problem just arrives whole in your head. Or a new idea for a piece of work.
It seems almost magical.
It’s been many, many years since I’ve had to work permanently in an office. My last two full time jobs were in fully remote companies.
But back in the days when I was in an office, I always found them suffocating. Especially when it comes to any kind of creative work or problem solving. I found the whole office environment very counterproductive for large chunks of my day.
For me, nothing beats walking around in the fresh air for coming up with ideas and solving problems when it comes to working.
And when that fresh air also has some greenery and the Mediterranean…
Ok, ok. This isn’t a Marseille appreciation post.
Back to walking and ideas.
The only thing you have to do though, when an idea comes while walking, is to take it down straight away.
Don’t think you’ll remember it. You won’t.
And that’s where the world’s best app comes in handy.
Apple Notes. I fucking love this app.
Each morning when going out for my ‘road work’ I’ll start a new note and title it with the day. "Sunday Road Work” for example. Then anything that pops up while I’m out walking around gets jotted down immediately.
Personally, I later transfer the notes by hand to a little notebook. But this might just be a personal thing.
The point is though, that it’s hard to be without ideas if you do your road work everyday.
P.S. I’ve also heard Ben Settle talk about walking and idea generation. He pumps out an email a day PLUS novels, books, paid newsletters, courses, software companies and god know what else. Walking works. As I’ve mentioned before, Ben’s teaching tends to be aimed at copywriters who are more advanced in their career. Or those that want to be clientless. But how do you get to that point? Subscribe to follow along as I try and figure that out.