Eve Arnold Taught Me These 5 Lessons About Life and Writing

What I’ve learned from her incredible success

Eve Arnold is the woman of the moment in writing circles.

In the last 6 months, she has gone from:

• <1000 to 10.5k Twitter followers
• 826 to 8.9k newsletter subscribers
• 6.2k to 17k Medium followers

She has done all this whilst holding down a full-time job!

I’ve completed Eve’s courses, read her on Medium, studied her book and interacted with her on Twitter.

These are the big 5 life lessons she has taught me:

1. Consistency leads to a good place

Routine is the road to results.

Every morning Eve gets up and writes for 1–2 hours before work. She has done this for 3 years. Impressively she did it for 2.5 years before she saw real progress.

The secret of her success is not in the last 6 months.

It is her consistent actions over a long time.

Time is the great superpower.

A little action multiplied by a lot of time gives outstanding results:

• invest $50/month for 40 years and you’ll have $178,000 (assume 8% return)
• spend 20 minutes/day exercising and 2 years later you’ll have incredible health
• write every day for 3 years and you’ll have 17k Medium followers (or at least a lot!)

This is the formula for success:

little effort x 3 years > big effort x 3 weeks

There’s no dopamine hit here. Which is why so many fail to do it. But that means it’s your big chance.

Take it. Start today. And then keep going.

2. Fail successfully and often

Writing wasn’t Eve’s first attempt at success.

She tried managing people at work & hated it. Set up and failed many businesses:

• selling socks online
• a sweet company
• reselling second-hand trainers on eBay
• Amazon selling
• day trading

In her book, Occupation Happy, Eve reveals she’s been on a long self-awareness journey. She uses every experience to learn more.

It is emotionally taxing to be a successful failure. Many people become worse after failing:

• lose confidence
• become bitter
• decide to give up
• waste time reliving the experience over and over

I’ve written about this previously but a crucial key is to action every idea as an experiment. Use it to learn how to become better.

Having this mindset means failure won’t scar you. You’ll take more risks and get better each time.

The risk of not doing is greater than the risk of failure.

Failure can take us places success can’t.

If we let it.

3. When you discover gold, mine deeply

It took Eve 2+ years to find her niche.

Eve sets herself apart by showing the value of creating part-time. Writing about being a full-time creator is a crowded market. She has built her own niche that is different.

Since clarifying her niche and building a following. Eve has multiplied her efforts:

• set up a paid newsletter
• created a Medium course
• produced digital products
• launched the 66-day writing challenge
• made $11K in the last 4 months

All related to her specialism of writing part-time.

Once you have created an opportunity. Realise it won’t wait forever. You need to be hyper-focused and make the most of it.

Did you notice how lessons 2 & 3 combine beautifully?

Lesson 2 is about exploration. Failing. Learning. Moving on quickly.

Lesson 3 is about digging. Being focused. Added even more value.

It is critical for creators to know what they are doing. Too many stops after failure. Feel frustrated with the lack of progress. This is because they think they are digging deep. Expecting to discover gold. When they should be still exploring.

4. Reach down and help others up

Life is meant to be lived for others.

Eve is busy putting together everything listed in the previous section. But she still takes time to reach out and encourage others. She does this through personal messages:

And more recently through the launch of the write66 challenge. This inspires people to raise their writing game. This has become an inspiring community of people. Full of encouragement and support.

I am aware ‘serving others’ is a business growth strategy.

But it is also an excellent way to live a meaningful life.

5. Humility is influential

I’m not a fan of some of the writing gods.

A few come across as arrogant and rude. They swear a lot. Complain about Medium. Criticise their followers. It all seems a little egotistical.

Eve comes across as humble and surprised at her success. It might be because it is all still new to her. But she treats it all like a gift rather than an entitlement.

This is why so many have been drawn to her. Humility is an attractive feature.

True humility is not a form of self-deprecation, but the highest form of self-respect. Amanda Gorman

We’d do well to commit ourselves to humility regardless of whether we meet success and fame. It’d make us more likeable. And we’d find life more enjoyable.

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