How I Grew More Than 12,000 Medium Followers In Less Than 4 Months (Steal What I Did).

Become a legal drug dealer.

I’ve been writing on Medium for 4.5 years.

But everything’s changed in the last 4 months.

Since September 2023:

• I’ve grown by 12,000 Followers
• I’ve grown my email list by 600 subscribers

Here’s proof:

I now grow more per month than I did for 3.5 years combined. Yep. COMBINED. Soz. Didn’t mean to yell. But I’m damn excited about what I’ve learned during this time so you can grow faster than me.

Here’s what you need to do.

Start swiping (swiper)

There’s nothing new under the sun.

Writing is more about copying proven structures and formulas and twisting them with your flavor. Don’t try and recreate the wheel. Use wheels that already roll. It’s way less friction.

Here’s what you do:

• Create a Swipe File - could be Notion (recommended), Trello Board, Google Docs, or Excel Spreadsheet. Anywhere where you can store good ideas and reference them later.
• Daily input - every book you read, podcast you listen to YouTube video you watch, take the best ideas, and put them in the swipe file. Categorize them into headings you understand.
• Log your own experiences - these are your stories. This is what makes you different from others. Every significant event in your life, extract life lessons from them. Use them as stories.

Over time, you’ll have your database of validated ideas.

You can take them off the shelf and use them for your ads, landing pages, or anything else.

It’ll take effort to create at the start, but…

• If you coach or consult, you’ve got resources you can create for clients.
• If you create enough resources, you can slap your brand and twist on it.
• Resources with your branding can become digital products.
• Digital products become relative sources of passive income.

All this is made easier if you’ve got an existing swipe file.

Start one today.

And when you do…

Get completely, utterly obsessed.

I build my life around writing.

My money, energy, and time are invested in writing. It’s my #1 obsession. I’ll cancel social events and time with friends just to write. Why? Because I become a better person when I write consistently.

It feels like life or death to me sometimes. No exaggeration.

• I buy a ridiculous amount of books to read.
• I’ll buy writing courses to learn 1-2 new things.
• I could spend my entire morning writing and feel fantastic.

Writing to the mind is what exercise is to the body.

Obsession is the only way I made it through more than 4.5 years of writing.

And I have no plans to ever stop. I’ll keep writing regardless of the money, audience size, or business revenue. I view writing as a core pillar of my mental health, identity, and self-improvement.

Choose what you love, and then let it kill you.

Creativity is systematic.

It’s a myth that creativity is spontaneous. It strikes randomly. Some people either have it or don’t. That it requires magical inspiration.

That’s all bullsh*t.

You can control your daily creativity.

• Write every day at the same time of the day. I recommend the morning. Build it into your calendar. Prioritize it. Protect that time. If you don’t set your priorities, someone else will.
• Build an idea capture system. I have a Notion dashboard where I log every quote, idea, and headline I come up with. It’s all stored in one place. Accessible by all my devices.
• Write even when you don’t feel like it. Do I feel like writing every day? Nope. But I feel the lack of motivation and do it anyway. Now I have enough proof that I write no matter what. Get your 250 shitty words on a page. Edit later.
• Template your article structure - All my sentences, paragraphs, and articles follow the same general structure. Won’t people notice? Never heard a complaint before. I templatized this structure in my Notion idea capture system.

From Taylor Swift to Jerry Seinfield, they all have a commonplace book where they capture all the joke premises or sounds they encounter. It’s why they have such a large output capacity.

Teach others 2-3 steps behind you.

This is something I did too late.

I should have started earlier. I’ve got one coaching client I teach all my writing stuff for free. Why free? To help validate my content, ideas, and ability to teach first.

• I record every session.
• I take notes on what resonates.
• I gained a deep understanding of the common challenges beginners face.

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu they embed this into every class. You are expected to:

• Teach those lower in belt color.
• Build with peers on your level.
• Learn from those above you.

Ever since I started teaching, I’ve had to question my knowledge, and abilities and find a way to teach it in a way that resonated. I’ve felt my writing improve.

Apply this same concept to writing and watch your growth skyrocket.

Become a legal drug dealer.

You don’t write words, you deal in dopamine.

Your words should either increase or decrease your reader's dopamine.

If you haven’t done so, you’ve failed.

The worst thing you can do as a writer is be boring.

Emotion creates motion.

To move people to action, make them feel something.

It was only when I started learning short persuasive storytelling that I finally got any traction on Medium.

Get out of your head and into the world.

Experience the world. Accumulate stories you can use.

Travel, reading, and documenting my business journey are the fuel for my writing. I used to talk about business without ever having started one. I could only repeat the useless platitudes I read in books.

The audience isn’t stupid. They could tell I had never run a business.

It was only when I founded my first consultancy and documented the entire process that my words had any meaning. I was able to give context and real-world application to principles I read in books.

• What the feelings of imposter syndrome felt like.
• What does having cash flow issues mean for your business?
• What it’s like having your business acquired?

This is why ChatGPT can’t be a crutch to write your words for you. There’s no emotion. There’s no context.

Use all your lived experiences.

80% of writing is structure.

Notice anything about my introduction or paragraphs?

They all follow the same basic structure. I call it the 1-3-1 structure. It’s one catchy short sentence. Three sentences that give more context. Followed by another short one-line sentence that builds into the next paragraph.

See what I mean?

Your eyes can’t help but move down the screen with me. There are other variations such as 1-1-3-1 or 1-3-1-1-3. I use all variations in my writing. Structure is just as important as content.

It’s all about structure baby.

Write at a fifth-grade level.

Your motto should be: Keep it simple, stupid.

Not because the audience has a fifth-grade level of reading. But most people are reading your work with 50% attention.

• They are tired from work.
• They are occupied with kids.

Your blog is not the most important thing to them.

Most people are skimming.

Write in a way that is easy to understand.

• Big words create friction
• Complex sentence structure creates friction.

Simplify, simplify, and simplify some more.

Grab your FREE copy of my NEW one-person workbook (and mini-course) — How To Start Your Next Six-Figure One-Person Business In Six Easy Questions 🔥