Online writing is an illusion.
It looks easy. Loads of wannabes try. They emulate headlines, they try to work out what the algorithm will promote, they follow top writers.
And then after years, they never succeed.
I see it all the time. See, my online academy has trained 1000s of writers.
Recently it hit me what I accidentally learned to do that 99% of writers don’t do because they either don’t understand, or have never witnessed the power of what I’m about to share.
This story has a huge promise in the headline, I know. But if you pay attention for a couple of minutes, this will change everything.
Let me explain.
The moment I got kicked in the balls
In 2018 I quit my job in a bank to work at an iconic social media agency. I got to manage 16 account managers. I felt badass.
I bragged about the new job on LinkedIn. Everyone high-fived me on my way out of the bank I worked at.
Then only a few months later I got fired from the job. It nearly destroyed me. I was beside myself. I risked everything and lost. I failed in spectacularly stupid fashion. I was the laughingstock of LinkedIn.
One critic said “how does a guy with hundreds of thousands of followers become such a dumbass and get fired?”
It hurt like hell. I said nothing. I hid the emotion. I told no one. I lied to people in my career and told them I still had the job, even though I didn’t.
I even convinced the Head of HR at my ex-employer to let me keep my employment status active on my LinkedIn profile so potential new employers wouldn’t know I was unemployed.
I felt desperate.
The redemption moment from nowhere
One afternoon I decided to sit down and write about the experience. I only intended it to be read by me. This gave me license to kill my ego.
So I wrote the damn story.
I cried as I wrote it.
It was like watching my grandma in her final moments before she died. It felt like the day I helped place her coffin in the grave and threw gingerbread men on top of the casket because she used to make them for me as a child.
Little did I know, the emotion of it all bled into the writing.
Then I sat with it for a few days.
One night I said to myself f*ck it, I have to share this story. It can help so many people who’ve felt like I do right now.
So I posted it on LinkedIn.
To date, it’s one of the most successful pieces of writing I’ve EVER published.
What writers don’t do that kills their potential
Okay, so it’s time to deliver on my promise.
Most online writers don’t add emotion.
Everything they publish is dry and lifeless. They hide behind a mask. Their personality doesn’t shine through. They’re petrified of how they’ll look. The comments section keeps them awake at night.
But if you don’t show vulnerability then readers quietly switch off.
Emotion is a magnet.
When we feel what you’re saying through the emotion in your words, it enters our brains differently. So few writers do it. But the ones that do get miles ahead of the ones who don’t.
It’s not easy though — to bleed all over the page and face ridicule.
After doing this for 8 years, I’m convinced it makes the difference
Doesn’t mean you need to cry and be an emotional wreck in every story. It does mean you need to add more emotion though.
I’ve analyzed the best articles on this platform and others. This is the secret you’ve been searching for.
What you must know, though, is it can’t be manufactured. Emotion has to be real. People have to believe it. It has to come from your heart. It must flow out of you like a river.
And when the emotion does pour out, the best writing of your career gets written. It’ll change your life. You’ll get a taste of the bittersweet victory that is inspiring people you’ll never meet to overcome their own struggles.
How to trigger this secret weapon at will
When you sit down to write it’s easy to feel indifferent, maybe even a little tired. You can’t always be in a highly charged emotional state.
What I do is put myself in an emotional state. How?
I go to Youtube and re-watch videos that bring out emotion. If I want to feel sad then I’ll watch a cancer battle. If I want to feel happy then I’ll watch a motivational video.
If I want to feel anger then I’ll watch a video on big tech silencing creators. If I want to cry then I’ll visit my go-to videos — like the one with the woman who went to court because of her fines, and then told the judge her son had got murdered, so the judge showed empathy and let her off everything.
When you feel another person’s emotions it triggers your own.
Takeaway
Get into the emotional state you want to write with before you sit down to write. Adding emotion makes your writing become widely shared. We do it and we don’t even know why.
That’s the quiet power emotions have over humanity.
