FROM A REAL BLOGGER

by one of my first followers. Thank you Christian Mihai.

https://www.irevuo.net/author/cristian/

While I prefer to write in-depth essays, with a bit of storytelling to set the mood and at least one visual framework, I do have to agree that sometimes a few dozen (or more) quick tips are more than enough to give one the push they need to punch the damn keys.

Or, better yet, offer them the final push they need to understand at an emotional level some important aspect.

That’s why today I’m sharing with you a list of 99 quick tips that will surely help you become at least more productive creative entrepreneurs.

On Writing

1. The stories you write will never be “done.” Publishing them means abandoning them. Let go and publish your stories.

2. Eliminate 20% of the words you wrote to make your draft 100% better.

3. The most valuable thing you can learn from successful writers isn’t how they write, it’s how often they write.

4. Great writing is 99% rewriting.

5. Writing that resonates with an audience isn’t about what’s in the writer’s head — it’s translating into words what’s in the reader’s heart.

6. There’s no such thing as an “aspiring” writer — if you write, you’re a writer and if you don’t, you’re not.

7. You don’t need ideas to write, you need to write to find ideas.

8. First drafts feel bad, but rewriting a bad first draft into something you’re proud is one of the best feelings ever.

9. Reading doesn’t make you a better writer, but not reading at all means you can’t call yourself a writer.

10. It’s not about having something to say — it’s about having the guts to say it.

11. “Wow, that’s great grammar,” said nobody ever.

12. Writer’s block is just creative bankruptcy. You pour out what you put in. Feed your brain.

13. The only guarantee in writing is the first 100 things you write will suck. After that, they won’t be so bad.

14. “I can’t write” is a lie.

15. 75% of writing isn’t writing — it’s thinking, editing, and publishing.

16. Your writing is only as good as your ideas.

17. To impress people with your writing, stop trying to impress people with your writing.

18. The opening scene often determines the fate of a piece of writing. No one talks about the brilliant fourth paragraph if the first three paragraphs are boring.

19. Don’t connect all the dots for the reader — let them have some fun.

20. The good news is you can write anything you want. That’s also the bad news.

21. Stop thinking in terms of good or bad. A piece of writing is for them or not. Some will love it, some will hate it.

22. If you’re writing for yourself you shouldn’t expect to attract an audience.

23. Authenticity is just as important as creativity.

24. The attention your writing gets is often the outcome of the curiosity your story’s premise triggers.

25. Write like no one’s listening and everyone needs to.

26. Your writing is a reflection of your environment — change the environment and you change the writing.

27. Writing should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

28. Writing has a rhythm to it. Great writing flows like music.

29. When in doubt, rummage through the most hidden drawers of your soul for what hurts the most.

30. To define means to place in a cage. Think in terms of verbs, not nouns.

31. If the blank page scares you, start with someone else’s words until you find your own.

32. Readers don’t resonate with what is original. They resonate with what’s familiar yet appears to be strange. Like experiencing a deja vu.

33. The creative brain is all about collective intelligence. Learn to deploy the frameworks of those who punched the keys before you.

34. Writing is a journey of self-discovery, both for you and who reads you.

On Productivity

35. Finishing one book is more important than starting 100.

36. Work expands to fill the time you give it.

37. Perfection is productivity’s nemesis.

38. If you’re not doing it, it’s not a priority.

39. The most valuable to-do list is a done list.

40. It’s easier to do something every day than once in a while.

41. The secret to productivity? Do it when you don’t feel like it.

42. You can only be productive if you’re clear on the result you hope to produce.

43. Productivity requires opposite skills: The ability to pay attention and ignore.

44. The more you do what you want, the more productive you’ll become.

45. The goal isn’t to do everything . Learn to delegate the tasks that don’t inspire you.

46. No one can make you do anything but yourself.

47. Every moment is an opportunity to quit. Or not.

48. The best productivity system is to do the work.

49. Busy is not the same as productive.

50. As the saying goes, “You can do anything — you just can’t do everything.”

51. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel — you can learn from the person who did.

52. The most important relationship in your life is the one you have with time.

53. The most effective productivity hack: Say no.

54. You’ll never run out of things to do (if you’re lucky).

55. You don’t manage your time, you spend it. Invest wisely.

On Marketing

56. Marketing is storytelling and the most interesting stories are true.

57. The best marketing strategy is to write a great book.

58. You can buy exposure, but you can’t buy attention.

59. To learn how to capture an audience’s attention, notice how someone captures yours.

60. The more your marketing sounds like marketing, the worse it will perform.

61. The most valuable marketing can’t be bought — it can only be earned.

62. You don’t need a big budget, you need a big story.

63. Great content and great marketing are the same thing.

64. You can’t have marketing hits without marketing misses.

65. Discounts are the white flags of marketing.

66. You can’t market to people you don’t understand.

67. Word of mouth marketing always happens — it’s just not always the words you want.

68. It’s easier to write the book readers want to read than to make people want to read your book.

69. There’s no marketing without repetition.

70. Email marketing represents the best and worst of what marketing can be.

71. Marketing’s more effective as a conversation than a lecture.

72. Marketing is connection.

On Building a Platform

73. Don’t confuse a newsletter with email marketing — one’s designed to provide value to an audience and the other to extract value from an audience.

74. You don’t need as many followers as you think to accomplish your goals.

75. Most writers fail because they’re trying to sell more than they’re trying to add value

76. If someone’s not opening your emails, they’re not in your audience — remove them from your list.

77. The more you know about your target audience, the better you’re able to serve them.

78. Don’t get bogged down trying to figure out your tech stack — it’s the least important element of a platform.

79. Email subscribers are more valuable than social media followers because when you share something with them it reaches more than 10% of them.

80. A blog creates an opportunity for the people who care what you have to say to reveal themselves.

81. Writing a blog about more than just updates on your books teaches you a lot of skills and enables you to connect with people who normally wouldn’t stick around.

82. Blogging is a two-way medium. Use it that way.

83. Just click publish.

On Social Media

84. When you post an image, don’t use the caption to tell your audience what it is— use it to explain why it should matter to THEM.

85. Make the most of all three opportunities you have to attract engagement in every post: The image/video, the caption, and the comments.

86. Don’t “Like” posts you don’t actually like just to be nice because doing so will train the social platform algorithms to show you more posts you won’t like.

87. Social media itself isn’t a goal — it’s a tool you use to accomplish your actual goals.

88. Break successful big pieces of content like blog posts and podcasts into multiple smaller pieces of content and expand small pieces of content like tweets that do well into bigger pieces of content.

89. Any time someone asks you a question, turn your answer into a social media post — they’re not the only one who had that question and your answer will provide value to your audience.

90. Most social media strategies fail because they chase attention instead of earning it by speaking to people’s needs, thoughts, fears, hopes, and experiences.

91. You have two audiences: People who know you and those who don’t.

92. Never follow someone on social media solely because they followed you, are related to you, work with you, or out of guilt.

93. You don’t have to be on every platform — do you really feel like any one platform doesn’t have enough people using it for you to build an audience and accomplish your goals?

94. True social media success is built not by being fake but by being more honest, authentic, vulnerable, and real than most people are willing to be.

95. Do the opposite of what celebrities do on social media: Use it to connect instead of promote, post about your audience more than yourself, reply as much as you post.

96. The best social media marketers and content creators are the ones who experiment the most.

97. Create content that will change the lives of the people who consume it.

98. Promise (and deliver) your audience a lot of value in a limited amount of time: You’re reading this in part because I’ve boiled the advice down to a collection of quick tips you know won’t take you long to get through.


99. Either find a way or make one.

Ultimately, success as a creative entrepreneur comes down to your willingness to either find a way or make one.

Adapt, overcome, and improvise.

Do what you can with what you have until you become so good they just can’t ignore you.

PERFORMANCE VIDS

Great access to free videos at the end of the article. Love “free”…but…nothing is free. Gotta put in the work.

https://trainright.com/products/video-downloads/

How to Stop Getting Dropped

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Getting dropped from cycling group rides is a probability all riders face. Sometimes it’s caused by inadequate fitness, but even fit riders get dropped when they have poor skills and habits. So, for the beginners and those we are welcoming back to group rides, here’s a guide to stop getting dropped.

Improve Fitness

No duh, right? Nonetheless, it has to be said. Fitness fixes most ills, or at least allows you to overcome a lot of mistakes. The ideal combination is great fitness and superior group riding skills, but if you’re fit you can at least stay in the group long enough to work on the skills.

Fitness is drawing riders back out onto the road (paved and gravel). It’s an unintended consequence of making indoor cycling more appealing. Cyclists who stopped going to the group ride or participating in events are riding more. As they get fit, they gain confidence and return to cycling group rides because they have the fitness to have fun. As membership numbers increase for virtual cycling platforms, indoor and outdoor cycling compliment each other more than ever.

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Unfortunately, elevated fitness and rusty skills result in getting dropped. So, in addition to building fitness, remember the following strategies and skills.

Don’t Start Like a Bat Out Of Hell

In the real world it’s not wise to go full gas right from the first pedal stroke. In a race you may need to start hard, but that should be after a long warmup. When you pull out of the parking lot for the Sunday group ride, keep your ego in check. Don’t let adrenaline or too much coffee lead you to burn all your matches in the first 30 minutes. Be patient. There will be much better places to expend that energy.

Stop Trying To Be A Hero

In a weird replay of high school gym class, some cyclists returning to the group ride feel the need to prove themselves to the regulars. They take longer pulls, accelerate around people to close gaps that are already closing, and push the pace on climbs. First of all, you don’t have anything to prove. Anyone who makes you feel that way is saying more about themselves than about you. Nonetheless, the best way to make a positive contribution to the group is to still be there in the final miles. That’s when your ability to share the workload will be greatly appreciated.

Stay out of the wind

I don’t think people who regularly ride cycling group rides fully appreciate how much we take drafting skills for granted. It takes practice to get comfortable with sitting inches off someone’s back wheel, but it’s worth it.

If you’re out of practice, make a concerted effort to notice the wind direction and your position in the group. If you’re a beginner, find an experienced rider who is steady and predictable and stay on their wheel. For all riders, remember to get back into a draft quickly after taking a pull. Stop hanging yourself out in the wind!

To learn more about drafting and group ride etiquette, read Group Ride Etiquette and Skills Every Cyclist Needs to Know and Top 3 Advanced Cycling Skills for Group Rides and Races.

Learn to fuel on the go

You can’t wait to eat until the group stops for a rest, a coffee shop, or even a stop light. Many cyclists are uncomfortable retrieving, unwrapping, and consuming food from their pockets while moving, but it’s an important skill.

To make fueling while cycling easier, pre-open the wrappers on bars and chews a little bit. Gels can be a simple solution because they’re easy to open with your teeth and eat one-handed. If you don’t feel confident eating in the middle of the group, wait until you’re at the back – just don’t get dropped!

Don’t Waste Efforts

One final effort might cause you to get dropped, but hundreds of small behaviors set you up for that moment. Riders who are comfortable and confident in the pack stay off the brakes, maintain their momentum through corners, and avoid having to accelerate to close a gap by not letting it open in the first place. Drifting off the back on descents means you have to surge at the bottom to get back on a wheel. These small efforts add up until that one hard acceleration pops you off the back for good.

Group riding skills come back like, well… riding a bike. I think it’s helpful for riders returning to the pack to go in understanding the consequences of being aerobically fit and technically rusty. It’s also important for experienced group riders to welcome these riders back, which means exhibiting patience and humor instead of getting crabby.

By Chris Carmichael,
Founder and Head Coach of CTS
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PERFORMANCE FOUNDATION

TREMEDOUS tips to serve as a foundation for life.

ZONE 2 TRAINING

The Link Between Zone 2 Training, Fat Burning, and Performance

BY LANDRY BOBO

How do easy Zone 2 rides actually better your performance? Here’s a peek into the physiology of aerobic training and fat burning.

At face value, riding steadily at a relatively easy pace would not seem to help your racing. How does riding for hours on end in Zone 2 replicate shredding the field on the finishing climb in a road race or making the winning break in a criterium? While it may not seem like it, endurance rides are a requirement for successful training. One of the most important adaptations that you get from endurance rides is the ability to use fat more efficiently.

Why Fat Burning Matters in Cycling Races

Apart from explosive one-off events such as track racing, short time trials, and 5 ks, efficient fat burning is a major key that sets great racers apart from the rest of the pack. In professional cycling, there are lots of riders who can do a 5-minute or 20-minute power test on par with Grand Tour contenders; however, in real races, these riders are often pack-finishers and domestiques. Why? Racing tactics and skills play a large part, but another major key is the ability to burn fat.

At lower intensities, you burn mostly fat and some carbohydrates. The harder you ride, you begin burning an increasingly higher percentage of carbs and a decreasing percentage of fat. At around your lactate threshold and beyond, you burn almost entirely carbohydrates. If there are not enough carbs in your system (i.e., glycogen), you simply won’t be able to reach these intensities. You have surely felt this at the end of a long ride. It’s unlikely you would be able to do a 5-minute best after four hours of hard riding because there’s just not enough left in the legs.

Thus, it’s not just the riders with the highest FTP or VO2-max that end up winning a lot of races, but also those who can efficiently utilize fat as a fuel source and therefore better preserve their glycogen stores. Research has shown a correlation between the intensity at which the aerobic threshold occurs and performance in competitive cyclists. In other words, the riders who could burn fat the most efficiently perform better. You, too, can teach your body to burn fat more efficiently so that you can spare glycogen for when it matters most.

The Importance of Zone 2 Training

If you want to train your body’s fat-burning capabilities, you simply must train at the intensity where you burn the most fat! The commonly known “Zone 2” lies just below your aerobic threshold — an intensity at which you are burning large amounts of fat. Beyond this point, your body will begin to utilize more and more carbohydrates and then begin to decline in metabolic efficiency. Zone 2, therefore, is where you should spend a lot of your time training if you want to improve your fat-burning capability. 

As a coach, one of the most common problems that I find when working with new athletes is that they are riding too hard. Completing a proper Zone 2 ride requires lots of discipline. Many riders don’t like going slow and feel that if they aren’t riding hard, they aren’t getting any benefit. They often ride hard up the hills and coast on the descents. 

Maximize Fat Burning With Aerobic Training

The result is that almost all of their training is actually above their aerobic threshold. These types of riders are great at burning carbs, but not so good at using fat as a fuel source. Many of them have the raw numbers to be competitive in races, but they simply aren’t efficient enough to realize their full potential. They run out of juice before the end and cannot replicate the hard efforts when they matter the most.

If you find that you struggle to repeat hard efforts or feel as though you can’t reach peak numbers at the end of a race, it may be worth examining your training habits. How much of your training time is spent in Zone 1 and 2? Do you tend to go above these zones on endurance rides or in-between interval sets?

A proper Zone 2 ride should feel relatively easy and it should be very steady. Flatter routes that avoid steep climbs are ideal for these rides. You should try to eliminate coasting and surging. Any surges are defeating the purpose of the ride and every time you coast, you are also missing out on reps for your legs. By slowing down a bit, you will teach your body to burn fat more efficiently. You will also be able to recover faster from your rides and have more energy to properly execute intervals workouts.

“No pain, no gain” isn’t always true. Yes, you must be willing to suffer through intervals, but you must also have the discipline to train easy, too. Easy miles serve a very important purpose and are not a waste of time. For some riders, the best way to get faster is to first slow down.