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Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

As you may have heard, we’re hard at work building Write of Passage Liftoff. Our goal? Help high schoolers share their ideas, find friends on the same wavelength, and 2x their potential through writing online.
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We’ve built an initial version of the program, and are now looking for focus group testers to share feedback on two 90-minute live workshops. If you’re between 14-18 (or know someone who is) and interested in writing online, click here to express your interest, and we’ll send you further details. Participants will receive a small stipend for their time.

Here's what I want to share this week:

1. Nuggets of Writng Advice: 50 pieces of writing advice that I've discovered by writing every day for five years. Read it here or on Twitter.​
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2. How Learning Happens: The school system doesn't take inspiration seriously, and it's time to change that. For answers, we should look to teachers like Richard Feynman, who attracted students with joy and kept them with rigor. Read my essay or watch my YouTube video about it here.
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3. Learn Like an Athlete: Knowledge workers should train like athletes. They should set strict learning plans, surround themselves with personal coaches, and perform in public whenever possible. Here's my article, and here's Tyler Cowen's write-up, which builds upon it.

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Working in Alignment

At work, most people have to do what their boss tells them. Often, that boss treats them terribly and they don’t feel ownership over their work. We've been railing against employment for decades — and we're right to do so when the demands on employees and the companies that employ them are so out of alignment.

Whenever somebody talks to me about their work, I ask myself a question: “Are they in alignment?” If the answer is yes, they love their work. If the answer is no, they don’t. Simple as that.

The problem is that we've started to doubt the value of hard work in the first place, and today, we think poorly about what it means to love your work.

To love your work, you need to “find alignment.”

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"Do You Love Your Job?"

I work ~60 hour weeks and I'm basically always on. I start thinking about Write of Passage the second I wake up. I usually skip breakfast to write, and these days I can barely find time for lunch. I fall asleep reading every night, and I’m guilty of checking my email in bed too. Work-life balance isn't something I focus on because I'm happiest when I'm working (so long as it's the right kind of work). My life is my work and my work is my life.

Last week, somebody asked me if I loved it.

I love my job the way Kobe Bryant loved basketball. His dedication showed in sweat instead of smiles. Ball was life. In the same way, I'm usually engaged, but certainly not giddy all the time. I anguish over my shortcomings as a writer, and routinely skip social events to read and write. Just as athletes set aside time to work out every day, I religiously set aside time to write each morning.

So yes, I love my job — but that doesn't mean I walk around with a perpetual smile. My love for work is rooted deeper, in the meaning and satisfaction I get from doing it.

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Out of Alignment: Why Kids Slack Off

Kobe loved his work because he was in alignment. His natural gifts of height, grit, and agility helped him on the basketball court. Psychologically, he enjoyed daily workouts and training sessions, which laddered up to his dream of winning NBA championships. All of us should seek that kind of alignment.

Kids graduate from school thinking hard work sucks. But the right kind of hard work brings tremendous satisfaction. The problem is schools make kids pursue goals they don't choose, to master topics they don't care about.

We want to do the opposite with Write of Passage Liftoff (our program for high schoolers). In the fitness world, tons of research shows that people respond negatively to lifting weights when it's forced and positively when it's a choice. The same is true for intellectual life.

In Liftoff, each student will take ownership of their goals. We won't accept kids who only enroll because of their parents. As coaches, we'll help kids discover what they're obsessed with. We'll surround them with people who hold them to high standards and help clarify their interests.

Sometimes, clarity is simple as repeating people’s interests back to them. On Saturday at brunch, a high schooler who'll be in the program went off about the similarities between calculus and creative writing — how fluency with numbers can make you a better poet. Now, she's writing an essay about it, psyched because the topic is so aligned with her innate interests. I texted her: "This is going to be the best thing you've ever written. Even though you're in high school, we’re going to hold you to the standards of a top-tier Substack."

Compared to traditional schools, the trade is simple: We'll give students more choice, but hold them to higher standards.

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Finding Alignment

Motivation for hard work depends on alignment. Dedication comes naturally when our present desires and future goals are aligned.

In Liftoff we'll encourage kids to write about their obsessions. We won’t make them do book reports on novels they don’t care about. Instead, students will write about their true interests, not ones society (and especially their parents) want them to have. If a student proposes a topic, we basically won’t say no. Want to write about basketball strategy? Go for it. Or how about why Taylor Swift is the best songwriter alive today? Absolutely. Just know that whatever you choose, we’ll expect you to train as hard as an Olympian trains for their sport.

When you find the right thing to work on, you move like a river — quickly but effortlessly. Apple's CEO Tim Cook was once asked if doing what you love feels like hard work. He replied: “You’ll have to work harder than you ever have before in your life, but the tools will feel light in your hands.”

If you seriously want to excel at your craft, you should aspire to Tim Cook's ideal.

Hard work feels light when we're in alignment.

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Note: If Liftoff sounds exciting and you want to help us build it, come join our founding team. We're still looking for a Director of Product.​

(Also, you can find all our open roles here).

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Photo of the Week

I developed my capacity for obsession in high school, during my quest to play college golf. I was fortunate to work with one of the world's top golf coaches (Terry Rowles), who pushed me as hard as he pushed the PGA Tour players he coached. Terry wasn't just an expert in the golf swing. He understood biomechanics, physics, and sports psychology.

As a teenager, I dreamed of becoming a professional golfer or swing coach. I respected Terry because he treated me like an adult. He expected me to know as much as the top players in the world. Eventually, we worked together to write a 60-page manual on the physics of ball flight and the kinematic sequence (a fancy word for how the body generates power during the golf swing).

Write of Passage Liftoff will give that same experience to writers. Life becomes much more fun when you find people who share your obsessions, and writing on the Internet is the best way to find those people.

Tens of thousands of kids are as obsessed with something as I was about golf. Maybe it's rockets. Maybe it's urban planning. Maybe interior design. Most of them are embarrassed by these obsessions. They pursue them alone in their room but never mention them in public.

That's a problem because it means they're out of alignment.