“I started out basically imagining I was writing for a stadium full of replicas of myself—which made things easy because I already knew exactly what topics interested them, what writing style they liked, what their sense of humor was, etc.” - Tim Urban, Wait But Why.
I came across this quote in Tim Ferriss’s book, “Tribe of Mentors.” Tim has an awesome podcast that I highly recommend (The Tim Ferriss Show) where he interviews brilliant minds from all domains about their daily routines and experiences. The book includes a compilation of “tools” that these “titans of industry” use to succeed. I love the book’s format because it is super easy to consume. Each chapter is focused on one individual and asks them a few questions like “what book have you gifted most?” “What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?” “What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the ‘real world’?” All the answers are fairly short yet contain valuable wisdom from people that have succeeded in every avenue from writing to athletics to investing to everything in between.
The quote above comes from one of my favorite bloggers on the internet Tim Urban. His blog is called WaitButWhy, and it contains some of the longest, funniest, and most educational posts on the internet. It is awesome when someone does the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. Right now the internet is largely made up of short form content because of our withering attention spans, but Urban decided to make each one of his posts nearly the length of a book. He is able to do this because he mixes his own interests and humor into every post, and that allows readers to stay engaged. Tim writes about whatever is fascinating him at the moment, examples of this include: artificial intelligence, marriage, Elon Musk, relationships, the future of society, and some of his most successful posts have been about procrastination.
The reason I love that quote is because it is honest and accurate. When you see one of Urban’s blog posts you can instantly tell that it is his. His art is a reflection of him, and I think that is what we can all strive for. Urban is unafraid to be super silly and authentic because at the end of the day he enjoys the process and is making the content for himself. When you imagine creating something for a stadium full of your replicas it removes some of the creative blocks. It is a fancier way to say, create things that you’re interested in and you find enjoyable. Urban loves long form content, so he creates long form content. He likes goofy art, so he includes goofy art. He likes to be silly, so he sprinkles his humor throughout every post. When you’re being your true self, people will come as long as you’re creating high quality content that you put hard work into. Share what you love, and be your most authentic self. When you’re online, be the same person that you are when you are being silly around your friends or by yourself. Nothing beats authenticity.