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Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

I've been working on a production studio for the past nine months and it's finally done. Now that it's built, I'm going to host authors in the studio for in-depth conversations about their writing process. It's like How I Built This, but for writing.

Speaking of writing, I was pumped to see two articles about Write of Passage alumni in the news this week. One on Packy McCormick, another about Jon Hillis (the founder of Creator Cabins, who met his co-founder in the course). Both of them shouted Write of Passage out for giving them momentum as online writers.

Here's what I want to share this week:

1. My New Writing Guide: If you want to jump in and improve your writing, I just published a free guide about how to build a Personal Monopoly. The internet unfairly rewards people who have a unique set of skills, experiences, and ideas. What's unique gets amplified. I've now taught more than 1,000 students to build their own Personal Monopoly, and this guide covers the best of what I've learned. If you want to receive the guide by email, click here.​
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2. ​The Price of Discipline: This piece is inspired by my childhood hatred of school and the story of former world #1 tennis player Andre Agassi, who was forced to play tennis against his will. That, though, presents a conundrum. When should we discipline people? And what are the costs of such discipline?​
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3. ​Head of Studio: We're looking for a Head of Studio to be an air traffic controller for creative operations at our sparkling new production studio in Austin, TX. You'll be responsible for helping us make YouTube videos, send this newsletter every week, launch our new podcast, and make the Write of Passage student experience as enjoyable and educational as possible.
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   ​As always, you can find all our open job positions at Write of Passage here. There's nine of them right now, which will bring our full-time team up to 25 people. ​
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4. Build a Personal Monopoly Video: With more than 50,000 views, this workshop with Jack Butcher is the most popular video I've ever published on YouTube. In it, we talk about how creatives should think about differentiating themselves.

Today's Finds

​Lee Kuan Yew Speech: Lee Kuan Yew served as the Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 – 1990. This is my favorite of his speeches. It conveys a seriousness the American government should learn from. This is my favorite quote: “I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind, an inability to chart a course. Whichever way the wind blows. Whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. You’re not a leader.”

​The Age of Entitlement: A take on American history so different from what I learned in high school. People say it’s a critique of the Civil Rights movement, but I don’t think that’s it. The author is actually quite supportive of it. Rather, it’s an illustration of the unintended consequences of it: rising federal power, bureaucratic bloat, and increasing government debt. Here’s an example. Federal loans and grants to college students, adjusted for inflation were $800 million in 1963-64, $15 billion in 1973-74, and $157 billion in 2010-11. Moreover, students at the University of Phoenix, the largest collector of Pell Grant tuition, now owe $35 billion in taxpayer-backed federal loans. To make matters worse, their default rate is higher than their graduation rate. Bonkers! If you prefer an interview with the author, here’s a good one.

​Mimetic Traps: This article belongs in the “everybody should read this category.” The author reflects on his experience in academia, where he was so focused on imitating his peers and pursuing competition that he ended up wasting his time on meaningless work.

​Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos: Here’s an interesting question: Should athletes own the tattoos on their bodies? Some legal experts say that tattoos are technically owned by the tattoo artist, not the person with the actual tattoos. Some artists are suing video games that display their tattoos, such as the ones on LeBron James’ body. To avoid the commotion, some professional athletes now sign contracts with artists before the needle goes into their body.

​Slowed Progress in Science: Here’s a theory I’ve never considered: What if scientific progress is slowing because there are too many papers being published? What if, out of a desire to increase the rate of scientific progress, we’ve actually made it hard for scientists to grapple with transformative ideas? That’s the thesis of this paper. Basically, the authors argue that past a certain point, the more papers that are published in a given field, the more citations flow to already well-cited papers — which ossifies the canon.