EDITOR’S NOTE:

Dickie Bush works full-time as a hedge fund portfolio manager — and on the side, runs a cohort-based course teaching people how to start writing online with his business partner, Nicolas Cole.

It’s called Ship 30 for 30.

In this 440-word micro-interview, Dickie shares:

Why “own your own platform” is terrible advice for new writers…
How to learn the playbook for getting into the top 5% of any field…
An all-in-one guide to optimizing every pillar of your health.

And more…

Enjoy!

Thank you, Dickie.

Let’s get started.

1) “What’s your work routine?”

My goal is to write for 90 minutes every single day.
And I've found if I don't get that done first thing in the morning before the world wakes up and I'm hit with pings, messages, and notifications, it never gets done.
But I've found the same problem with exercise. If I try to push it later in the day, I never, ever do it consistently.
So my morning routine is exercise and writing.

2) “What do you know about your work now that you wish you’d known when you first started?”

I spent my first 9 months writing online publishing into the void on my own blog.
I thought I HAD to "own my platform” — and I think this is terrible advice for early writers.
You need to leverage platforms of aggregated attention, bring your content to that platform in a native format (NOT linking to your blog post, but repurposing it for that medium), and THEN, direct them to your blog.

3) “What did your biggest professional failure teach you?”

I tried to host a 300-person Zoom call from an iPad on shitty hotel wifi.
It was a disaster. Turns out, I hadn't upgraded our Zoom license to allow more than 100 people in a meeting. And I failed to research that you can't share your screen + use video at the same time on an iPad.
It taught me one important lesson: the importance of delegation.

4) “What’s the #1 thing that has helped you shorten your craft’s learning curve?”

Any time I step into a new game, I learn the 80/20 of playing it well as quickly as possible.
And the easiest way to learn the 80/20 is not to try and figure it out yourself, but to observe others.
This means observing two things:
• Who is already playing this game well?
• Why is it working?
Make a list of the ~10 people who are crushing it in your field and ask:
• What are they doing every day? every week?
• What are they doing that's *different* from others?
Chances are, the *playbook* for getting to the top 5% of whatever field you're stepping into is simple.
All you have to do is observe, distill, and execute.
Going from the top 5% to the top 1% takes innovation. And that innovation is what you want to spend your time working on.

5) “What book has helped you the most over your career?”

Own the Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus.
It's an all-in-one guide to optimizing every pillar of your health.

6) “And your parting piece of advice?”

Start before you're ready.

Learn more

Dickie Bush, Marketer