Breath by Breath
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✏️ ON MY MIND
Today, I want to share a beautiful excerpt from the book "Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation" by Larry Rosenberg that has been resonating deeply with me.
It offers a profound teaching on life, transitions, and the wisdom we can gain from embracing impermanence.
I discovered this passage over a decade ago during a tough relationship breakup.
So there I was, standing in a second-hand book store in Toronto, Canada, scrambling to find some kind of truth or wisdom to help me deal with the pain of heartbreak.
Although the book wasn’t specifically about relationships, I picked it up and flipped it to a random page. (To be honest, I was in such a frantic state that my brain probably skipped the part about it being a book about meditation)
As fate would have it, I landed on the page with this passage on it…
“In many Buddhist temples, monasteries, and meditation centers, flower arrangements are part of the decor, and they not only beautify the setting but also offer a valuable teaching. On the first day the flowers are fresh and beautiful, vibrant and fragrant, and it heartens us to see them. On the second day, perhaps, they have lost some of their fragrance. Soon they begin to droop, the petals start to fall, and before long -- despite our admiration -- they go and die on us.
Do we conclude from that experience that we'll never enjoy a flower again, because they always wither and die and disappoint us? Or do we enjoy them while they're here, take them in fully when we're with them, and when they're gone, experience a moment's sadness and move on?”
~From “Breath by Breath” by Larry Rosenberg.
I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but I hope reading this is helpful to you in some way. Or perhaps you can forward this to a friend who is going through a tough time.
(This newsletter was drafted with the help of GPT-4 and edited by yours truly.)
🔨🧰 MARKETING TIP
Is your Content Marketing underperforming? Say hello to the Pyramid Principle.
Can you imagine writing in a way that allows your readers to fully comprehend your main ideas within just 30 seconds?
Back in 1973, a young consultant at McKinsey, Barbara Minto, had this brilliant realization: People at work tend to write backwards. Usually, people start by writing everything they know and figure out their main point at the end.
But Minto found a better way… and she wrote about it in her book “The Pyramid Principle”. This book has been one of the most influential books for business writing.
Minto developed the following visual to explain her principle.
Image credit: The CMO Who Never Wasted a Single Content Cent / Fenwick Media
You start with the most important point (the top of the pyramid) and then add supporting details (the base of the pyramid). This way, your reader can quickly understand what you're saying, and your writing becomes super clear and easy to follow.
The power of Minto’s framework is that it forces writers to start with the end in mind and narrow in on the main idea or problem their writing addresses for their audience BEFORE they begin writing.
So how can you apply this to improve your content marketing approach for better results?
The secret sauce here is beginning with the end in mind. Think about what problem your content is solving for your audience and focus on that from the get-go.
Call it out in the first sentence of the first paragraph of any content you write. Your readers will thank you for this crystal-clear, easy-to-follow approach.
Additional benefits of this approach:
User Relevance: Readers often scan the first sentence to determine if the article is relevant to their search query. So they’ll be more likely to read the rest of the content as they’ll understand the benefit for them to do so.
SEO Ranking: Combining this approach with including the primary keyword in the first sentence helps search engines quickly understand the article's topic and relevancy, potentially improving its ranking in search results.
Featured Snippets: If the primary keyword appears in the first paragraph, it enhances the chances of the article being featured in a rich snippet, driving more organic traffic.
Here are a few examples from popular brands:
(can you guess what the primary keywords are for each of these articles? pretty easy to work it out now that you know, right?)
Here are a couple of examples from content I worked on for clients:
You can apply this powerful framework not only to your own content creation but also to your marketing team.
By prioritizing your customer's problems and addressing them head-on in your content, you'll be crafting marketing messages that resonate deeply with your audience. That's the secret to creating content that hits the bullseye every time!
So, do your customer research, put on your writing hats, start with the end in mind, and let Minto's Pyramid Principle be your guide to marketing effectiveness.
Get ready to write content that matters and converts like never before.
👍 3 THINGS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
1/ Read: The CMO Who Never Wasted a Single Content Cent
What if you could stop wasting money on producing content? This brilliantly written piece will give you some food for thought.
(I learned about Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle from this article)
2/ Watch: Mastering Communication: The Key to Success in Life and Business
This is such a powerful conversation. Here’s a sneak peek…
Chris Do: I'm having a hard time reconciling in my mind how a person who's a performer, like a magician who's in the spotlight quite literally, can be invisible.
Vinh Giang: In the world of magic, you can lean on your technical sleight of hand to astonish. You can do this as designers, engineers, or doctors. You can become so technically good at what you do that you lean purely on the technical side of it. I've been able to achieve mediocre levels of success as a magician because I leaned purely on my technical ability. I didn't work on what magicians call showmanship, which is a fancy word for communication skills. I was completely underdeveloped in that area. I over-indexed on technical skill.
Chris Do: So, this person who didn't want to be seen at that point in time leaned in on the craft, the skill, the repetitions. You had a lot of technical skill, but you didn't really work on the person behind the skill. You were not quite ready to be seen that way.
3/ Watch: Deep Fakes are About to Change Everything
💸 WEALTH BUILDING TIP
The 6 BIGGEST Middle-Class Habits Keeping You in the Rat Race
Habit 1 (Mindset)
Habit 2 (Status Games)
Habit 3 (Materialistic Games)
Habit 4 (Input Scalability)
Habit 5 (Beliefs)
Habit 6 (The Most Important Thing)
🐦 COOL SOCIALS THIS WEEK
Looking for stories for my book ✍️
Have you ever consciously decided to do the bare minimum in one area of your life/work in order to excel in another one? Did that pay off?
Let me know below or directly in my DMs :)
Source: Josh Spilker / Linkedin
I've implemented @nathanbarry's content flywheel and it's crushing.
Upload new "public" coaching call 👉 Pin comment where creators can book their own 👉 Stripe booking notifications roll in shortly after publishing 👉 New content on auto pilot 🤩
— Justin Moore | Sponsorship Coach (@justinmooretfam)
Jul 18, 2023
🔧 TOOL OF THE WEEK
Bored of hearing from the same people in business media and events?
Antiquoted is looking to promote new voices with something to say.
Build your personal brand by providing quotes for articles or speaking at events or podcasts.
Sign up to contribute at Antiquoted
🤔 PARTING THOUGHTS
I'm starting to put together a list of folks to interview as part of a new special project I’m working on.
I’m looking for examples of Creators/YouTubers/entrepreneurs who built a 6 or 7-figure side hustle/biz while also:
raising a child (or two),
working part-time or full-time to pay off their mortgage
ideally Asian background (ok if not)
Know someone? Hit reply and let me know, or comment on my Linkedin post and tag them.
Anfernee Chansamooth
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