David Perell is a writer who hosts a podcast and runs the online writing school Write of Passage. This collection gathers his own words from his essays. — About - David Perell.

Visual summary of operating lessons from David Perell.

Part 1: The Philosophy of Writing

  1. On writing and intellectual loneliness: David Perell: "Writing on the Internet is the best way to solve intellectual loneliness because sharing ideas in public turns you into a magnet for like-minded people." — Intellectual Loneliness.
  2. On writing as a magnet for opportunities: David Perell: "As I published, I realized that everything I wrote was a magnet to attract opportunities that felt like magic in the moment, such as a $20,000 grant from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures program and a podcast interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, arguably the world’s most famous scientist." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  3. On maximizing surface area for luck: David Perell: "If you can maximize your surface area for luck, you’ll accelerate your progress and create opportunities for yourself." — The Online Writing Roadmap.
  4. On sharing your work to speed feedback: David Perell: "Sharing your work is the best way to speed up your feedback loops, which will help you learn faster and improve your plan based on the feedback you receive." — Learn Like an Athlete.
  5. On being careful who you imitate: David Perell: "The fields of design and writing point towards the same truth: if we want to be innovative, we should be less imitative in who we choose to imitate." — Imitate, then Innovate.

Part 2: Building a "Personal Monopoly"

  1. On what a Personal Monopoly is: David Perell: "A Personal Monopoly is a unique combination of skills, interests, and personality traits." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  2. On the Internet rewarding differentiation: David Perell: "The Internet uniquely rewards people with Personal Monopolies because it rewards differentiation." — Build a Personal Monopoly.
  3. On being niche famous: David Perell: "In a world where the average person can spread ideas globally, practically everybody can be niche famous." — How Learning Happens.
  4. On the lens of one big idea: David Perell: "When you look at the world through the lens of your One Big Idea, you see opportunities others are blind to." — One Big Idea.
  5. On curing intellectual loneliness: David Perell: "Writing online is the best way to cure Intellectual Loneliness because the Internet is such an effective matching tool." — Annual Review 2021.
  6. On corporations versus the Internet: David Perell: "Corporations reward conformity, but the Internet rewards people who are unique." — 50 Ideas That Changed My Life.
  7. On avoiding competition: David Perell: "Avoiding competition is the best way to build an Audience-First Product." — Audience-First Products.
  8. On building an email list: David Perell: "Writing online without building an email list is like playing Monopoly, passing GO, and not collecting $200." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.

Part 3: The Information Diet & Learning

  1. On information diet and writing: David Perell: "Just as you’ll improve your food diet if you start cooking, you’ll improve your information diet if you start writing." — News in the Age of Abundance.
  2. On not prioritizing the past 24 hours: David Perell: "Don’t choose what to read based on what was published recently." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  3. On doing the thing too: David Perell: "If you want to explore a new skill, don’t just consume information." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  4. On noise and signal: David Perell: "The relentless chatter of talking heads force us to over-react to recent information and mistake noise for signal." — News in the Age of Abundance.
  5. On teaching as learning: David Perell: "They say that teaching is the best way to learn, and my experience validates that claim." — Annual Review 2020.
  6. On casual conversation and ideas: David Perell: "If you can pay attention to how people respond in casual conversation, you can develop ideas before you put them on paper, which makes the writing process more efficient, effective, and enjoyable." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  7. On older friends: David Perell: "Spend at least 20% of your social time with people who are at least a decade older than you (family members don’t count)." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  8. On rebelling against news feeds: David Perell: "To find quality information, you have to rebel against the biases of news feeds and the incentives of mass media." — News in the Age of Abundance.

Part 4: High Agency & Modern Success

  1. On freedom and consequences: David Perell: "If we want to raise healthy, high-agency children, we should give them the freedom to make decisions without removing them from the consequences of those decisions." — The Price of Discipline.
  2. On not getting offended: David Perell: "Don’t get offended by what others say." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  3. On forcing yourself: David Perell: "Success shouldn’t be synonymous with how good you are at forcing yourself to do what you don’t want to do." — The Price of Discipline.
  4. On making decisions easy for busy people: David Perell: "Make decisions easy for busy people." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  5. On the industry you choose: David Perell: "The industry you work in will often dictate your success more than how good you are in that industry." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  6. On having interesting ideas: David Perell: "Most wealthy people are starving for ideas and don’t have interesting friends, so you can claim a spot at the deca-millionaires table by simply having interesting ideas." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  7. On risk-taking and social rejection: David Perell: "In a time when the world is starving for action-oriented risk-takers, we’ve stopped taking risks for fear of social rejection." — The Social Media Trap.

Part 5: Creativity & Productivity

  1. On frictionless idea capture: David Perell: "Since most of your ideas will arise when you’re away from the computer, capturing ideas should be frictionless." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  2. On the sources of great ideas: David Perell: "Books, conversations, and surprising experiences are the genesis of most great ideas." — How to Cure Writer's Block.
  3. On ideas away from the computer: David Perell: "Many of your unique and provocative ideas will come when you’re away from the computer — doing chores, driving around, or walking through your neighborhood." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  4. On being stuck: David Perell: "If I’m stuck, I simply don’t have enough ideas on the right side of my screen." — How to Cure Writer's Block.
  5. On the first 90 minutes: David Perell: "Block off 90 minutes in your calendar every morning to work on the most important thing." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  6. On exclamation points: David Perell: "If you’re writing and feel the need to use an exclamation point, you subconsciously know your words aren’t vivid enough." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  7. On deleting most of what you write: David Perell: "To write well, delete most of what you put on the page." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.

Part 6: Modern Frameworks & Systems (2024–2025)

  1. On what editors mark: David Perell: "Editors mark if a section is confusing, repetitive, interesting, surprising or boring." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  2. On sharing ideas as a feedback loop: David Perell: "Sharing ideas attracts like-minded people who double as a feedback loop to make you smarter and more interesting." — Audience-First Products.
  3. On the 90-minute habit: David Perell: "The 90 minutes I spend writing every morning is my most important habit and the activation code for just about everything good that happens to me." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  4. On pseudonyms as a key: David Perell: "Don’t think of a pseudonym as a mask to hide behind, but as a key to uncover what’s locked within you." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  5. On frequency and quality: David Perell: "Though frequency is the price of entry, quality writing is a force multiplier on your success." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  6. On high care: David Perell: "High care: Difficult conversations go better when you genuinely care about the other person." — Annual Review 2022.
  7. On high empathy: David Perell: "High empathy: This is about looking at the whole person in front of you." — Annual Review 2022.

Part 7: Deep Philosophy & Success

  1. On religion as a blind spot: David Perell: "Religion is core to the human experience, but the way contemporary elites and academics dismiss it is a major blindspot." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  2. On the penny problem gap: David Perell: "Economists assume demand is linear, but people’s behavior totally changes once an action costs money." — 50 Ideas That Changed My Life.
  3. On distinctive voices: David Perell: "Great writers have singular and instantly identifiable voices, which is why you can read a paragraph-long excerpt of David Foster Wallace and instantly know it’s him." — The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online.
  4. On the Never-Ending Now: David Perell: "The structure of our social media feeds place us in a Never-Ending Now." — The Never-Ending Now.
  5. On practicing analytically: David Perell: "You don’t reach a state of mastery when you know everything." — Practice Analytically, Perform Intuitively.

Part 8: The Power of Presence

  1. On knowing your hometown: David Perell: "You should know enough about your hometown to keep somebody engaged for a two-hour tour." — 28 Pieces of Life Advice.
  2. On the Hawthorne Effect and social media: David Perell: "Psychologists call this the Hawthorne Effect, and it states that people change their behavior when they know they’re being watched." — The Social Media Trap.

To explore David Perell's work further, these are the primary hubs where these ideas originated: