Josh's Blog

Category: The Craft of Writing

  • When to Take a Risk

    There’s wisdom and there’s not taking a worthwhile risk because it might not pay off. “If a decision is reversible, the biggest risk is moving too slow. If a decision is irreversible, the biggest risk is moving too fast.” – James Clear

  • It’s Better to Be Consistently Good Than Intermittently Excellent

    “It’s better to be consistently good than intermittently excellent.” – Adam Grant

  • Beware Adjectives

    I just wrote: “There’s a beginning phase where you basically have to take whatever work you can…”. Basically is entirely unnecessary. Adjectives can bolster your writing if used well but they tend to clutter your writing unnecessarily.

  • Positioning Statement

    People often wonder how to make their “positioning statement”. A short statement that defines them in a way that resonates with their ideal client. To start, I would ask yourself four questions: Who do I want to serve? What problems do they have? Of those problems, which ones can I solve? What solution can I…

  • In Defense of the Paragraph

    Edit 2/3/2022: 3-4 sentences is actually a better paragraph and writing like this can serve a useful purpose. I just didn’t know it at the time.   I want to take a break from my study skills series to defend the paragraph. In blogs like this, where I’m writing short thoughts, there is a tendency…

  • The Big 3

    In Michael Hyatt’s book Free To Focus, he talks about coming up with his “Big 3” for the week. He looks at all he needs to do for the week and eliminates some, automates some and delegates some. With what he has left, he assigns some to the “back burner” list, things he needs or…

  • Write Poorly. Fail often.

    Write poorly until you can write well. Fail until you can succeed. Start with what is easy and work to what is hard. I would like to take a look at what it like to write poorly, why it matters and how you can apply writing poorly to other areas of life. I love when…

  • Why? Finding Purpose in Communication

    Have you ever written a speech, a blog post or an essay and wondered: “Why does this matter?” “How can I show them that it does?”. We’ll be breaking this down in 5 steps using a blog post as an example. #1. Ask yourself, “What do you want to be true of your audience after…