Writing is the superpower to survive in the online world.
All online content starts with writing. A video begins with a script, a course with a series of posts, and a long post with a Tweet or short-form post.
And guess what? Marketing and sales start with writing, too. A landing page, an email sequence, a product description, and an ad.
That’s when copywriting comes into the picture. Copywriting means writing to make readers take action: like and subscribe, download a freebie, and ultimately buy.
This is my 3-step plan to learn enough copywriting to be safely dangerous.
1. Start by writing classics by hand
The #1 exercise I have found to learn to copywrite is copywork.
Copywork means recreating classic ads, sales letters, and good “copy” by hand. Yes, by hand. That’s the whole point. When we handwrite, we’re forced to slow down, read carefully, and pay attention to words and phrases.
I’m not new to this exercise. When I started writing coding tutorials, I copied Seth Godin’s posts. I noticed how he doesn’t use introductions or conclusions in his posts. Instead, the first sentence naturally follows the post title.
The goal of copywork isn’t to transcribe. It’s about noticing the structure, common phrases, and other patterns.
These are 3 posts where you can find samples to copywork:
I bought a notebook for my copywork and color pens. After I finish transcribing a copy, I use a pen with one color to notice words and phrases. Then, at the margins of the page, I use another pen to notice the overall structure and formulas.
And there’s one online course built around the idea of copywork: CopyHour. That’s 90 days of daily copywork—Even we can handwrite that landing page!
Everywhere I looked, I found references to this course. Definitely, I’m keeping an eye on the next enrollment.
2. Read the Boron Letters
Gary Halbert is one name that keeps popping up in any Google search about copywriting.
He is a legend in the copywriting world. He wrote sales letters and ads for well-known brands, making millions of dollars in sales. Think of him like Hemingway going the sales way.
The thing is, Gary Halbert ended up in jail. From there, he wrote a series of letters to his son, teaching him to make money through copywriting. Those letters became a book: The Boron Letters—named after the Boron Federal Penitentiary where Gary was.
After doing copywork, my next step is reading and studying The Boron Letters.
I picked up The Boron Letters years ago but didn’t finish it. At that time, I thought it was another writing book. I didn’t understand what copywriting was and its goal, and dropped it. I wasn’t ready yet.
All that I remember is the advice from someone in jail to eat a banana a day, exercise, and grow big arms because bullies don’t mess with people with big arms. That’s from the first two letters, by the way.
Since reading three books will put us ahead of 90% of people, here are another two copywriting books: “Writing That Works” and “The Adweek Copywriting Handbook.” Those books are on my to-read list after The Boron Letters.
3. Revisit my landing pages and calls to action
This is the dangerous part. Knowledge is only potential power unless it’s put into practice.
I don’t have that many sales pages yet, but a couple of landing pages for coding courses and freebies in my Gumroad account. I want to revisit those landing pages and the calls to action at the end of my posts.
Originally, I wrote them following what I saw online: “Click here” and “Join my course here.” I had no idea about copywriting and frameworks like Problem/Agitation/Solution.
One trick I’ve learned is to write in terms of benefits, not features. Always write with the reader in mind. That’s the difference between “1GB of storage” vs “carry 100 songs in your pockets wherever you go.”
With that trick in mind, I changed one of my CTAs from a simple “Join my free 7-day email course here” to something along the lines of “Join my free 7-day email course and save years and thousands of dollars’ worth of career mistakes.” And I got my first two subscribers after that change.
If there’s one skill you can master for the future, choose writing online. And don’t worry about ChatGPT or Copilot because they will always output average writing.
You don’t need to speed a DeLorean to 88mph to time travel. In fact, you’re already doing it.
Every time you go into your head to relive past situations, you’re time traveling. And every time you go into your head to anticipate future situations, you’re time traveling too.
I declare myself guilty of time traveling.
I’ve time traveled to the day when the ex-bosses “who let me go” finally realize how talented and smart I am and beg me to return. That probably will never happen. And I’ve only wasted time and mental energy time traveling.
By reading Choose Yourself by James Altucher, I learned to have a “Daily Practice:” A routine to work on my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self every day. We need to work on all of them to be healthy.
As part of the Daily Practice, James Altucher recommends stopping time traveling.
For some people, it means having moments of silence during the day to breathe and notice their thoughts.
I won’t call it “meditation.” Probably, when you hear that word, the first thing that comes to mind is a Buddhist monk sitting in impossible poses chanting. But it’s simpler than that.
When you notice you’re time traveling, repeat to yourself: “Stop, breathe, and get out of your mind.”
Time traveling only brings resentment. Stop doing it and get back to the present.
Phones are not just communication devices. They’re distraction machines with constant beeps and buzzes.
Keeping our phones around reduces our cognitive abilities, even when we’re not using them. I learned this from reading “The Anxious Generation,” by the way.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t use those beeps and buzzes to our advantage. They can be reminders of what we want to accomplish.
I have an alarm to unplug from work labeled “It’s time to relax.” During that time, I do anything I want outside work without feeling guilty. It’s one of the few sounds I allow my phone to make. All others are deactivated.
From reading The 3 Alarms by Eric Partaker, I learned to use alarms not only to schedule my downtime but also to improve the three main areas of our lives: health, work, and relationships.
Here’s how:
Start by setting 3 alarms on your phone.
Label each alarm with a reminder of who you want to become: the healthy parent, the focused solopreneur, or the supportive partner. You name it!
When the alarm rings, do something that takes you closer to that. It doesn’t have to be a huge action, just a small step.
When “the healthy parent” rings, get up and move your body. When “the focused solopreneur” rings, put all distractions away and work on your side business. When “the supportive partner” rings, call or text your partner.
Those small steps will create habits, and habits will reinforce who you want to become.
“Five times as many people read the headline as read the body.”
That’s a quote from David Ogilvy, “the father of advertising.” It applies to the copywriting world, as well as other forms of writing.
A good headline is like the welcome sign for the rest of your piece. People passing by will choose to read only after seeing a good headline. No matter how well written and insightful your content is, a poor headline will make people skip to the next piece in their feeds.
Apart from writing 10 headlines a day, the best piece of advice I’ve found to write better headlines is to look at YouTube headlines.
Following that advice, I sneaked into Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel. Here are the headlines of 10 of his most popular videos:
How I type REALLY fast (156 words per minute)
My evidence-based skincare routine
Why you’re always tired - 7 myths ruining your sleep
If I started a YouTube channel in 2025, I’d do this
The book that changed my financial life
What makes people successful?
How writing made me a millionaire
My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom
My favorite note-taking app for students - Notion
The best book I’ve ever read about making money
Those headlines follow a pattern:
How I “action”
My evidence-based “action”
“Question about pain” - n “promise”
If I “action”, I’d do this
The “resource” that “outcome”
How “action” made me “outcome”
My honest advice to “audience” who wants “result”
The best “resource” I’ve ever “action” about “subject”
That’s a good starting place to write better headlines.
That advice assumes we all have a single true passion we can find within ourselves.
I’ve always had trouble finding that one true passion ever since high school. I got good grades in all subjects, with more effort in some than others. Picking one thing wasn’t easy based on grades alone.
I struggled to choose what to study at university. I had many ideas: joining the Military, studying Biology, or taking the Engineering route.
I’ve always had trouble finding one specific thing as a software engineer and solopreneur.
All that stress started to fade away when I realized it’s okay not to have one single true passion.
Embrace Your Multiple Passions
The first counter-advice to “find your passion” I found was by watching Emilie Wapnick’s TED talk “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling.”
She shares her story of having multiple interests and struggling to answer “What do you do for a living?”
This intrigued me to the point of devouring most of the articles on her website.
The main lesson from Emilie’s work is to embrace our multiple interests and passions. She even coined a term for that: being a multipotentialite.
Based on the quiz on her site, I discovered I’m a mixed-multipotentialite: someone who balances two passions at a time instead of many unfinished projects. This realization helped me connect the dots.
I bought the idea of embracing my interests. But my first question was, “How can multipotentialites make a living? Who needs or hires them?” All the advice I had heard was to find one passion, one thing, or one niche.
Emilie surveyed her community and found four ways to balance work as a multipotentialite:
Einstein approach: A “boring” or “good enough” job pays the bills while you have something after hours. Einstein worked at the Patents Office while he started his Physics work.
Slash approach: A two-job career. I’m a “software engineer/writer.”
Group Hug approach: A multi-disciplinary job that allows you to combine your multiple passions or interests.
Phoenix approach: A seasonal approach, changing careers to follow one of your passions per season.
Don’t run from your multiple interests. Embrace them. There are always options to make a living from your multiple interests.
Don’t Be an Engineer, Be a Producer
My second counter-advice to finding a single true passion came from the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein.
An ex-boss recommended it during one of our 1-on-1s. It’s also one of Bill Gates’ recommendations on his YouTube channel. Not that he’s one of my ex-bosses or that I had 1-on-1s with him.
Gunpei Yokoi’s story is the one I remember the most from the book.
He didn’t have a single interest. He worked as a maintenance guy for card-making machines at Nintendo back in the ’60s. He spent most of his first days there playing with the company equipment.
One day, Nintendo’s president saw him playing with an extendable arm and asked him to turn it into a toy. The Nintendo Ultra Hand was born. It saved Nintendo from debt and started the Research and Development department at Nintendo.
Looking for creative ways to repurpose old technology, Yokoi’s team was responsible for many of Nintendo’s successes over the years. The Game Boy was one of them. Yes, the Game Boy!
When asked about his approach, Yokoi said “I don’t have any particular specialist skills, I have a sort of vague knowledge about everything.” He had a range of skills.
Yokoi taught his team to be producers, not engineers. An engineer focuses on the details. But a producer knows how to connect things.
Instead of following a single interest, be a scientist who follow hypotheses, runs experiments, and tests and learns. Build a range of skills.
“Be a flirt with your possible selves. Rather than a grand plan, find experiments that can be undertaken quickly.”-Range by David Epstein
Takeaways
Don’t worry about finding a single true passion and following it for the rest of your life.
It’s OK to have multiple interests and juggle between them. It’s OK to change passions. It’s OK not to have one single niche. It’s OK to be a generalist.
Having multiple passions brings a sense of curiosity and a desire to learn about the world around us.
The world needs both focused frogs and visionary birds-deep-focused specialists and “above the trees” generalists who can see the bigger picture.
