Monday Musings (5/20/19)

Quick update: I’m halfway done with my five-week online course called Write of Passage. To create the course, I compressed five years of learning into five weeks of live instruction. 

The internet is the largest legal wealth creation tool in human history. Unfortunately, most people aren’t using it properly. As a result, they’re missing out on the personal and career opportunities that come from writing online. 

By the end of the course, all 150 students will have a personal website, an email newsletter, and a body of written work. Spoiler alert: I have some outstanding students. Even better, they’re already leveling up. Three Write of Passage students have already reaped the positive benefits of writing online:

1. Packy McCormick (VP of Experience at Breather) has built his website, launched his email newsletter, and written an introduction to Ben Thompson’s tech analysis.

2. Lindsey Honari just did an 8-minute segment on an online radio show. Her answers were inspired by her “Start Here” page, which she created in the 2nd week of the course. 

3. I also liked Patrick Thomas’ email newsletter sign-up page. He’s the Head of Marketing Communications for Google EMEA and builds the narratives for their biggest product launch events. Look at that bio!

   

The course testimonials have been outstanding. One student wrote:

“The course is exceeding my expectations so far. I’m in a traditional finance career and not 100% sure how it will play out but wake up every day with a dozen exciting thought. Number one positive has been the density. It is obvious you both respect students time and have distilled a MASSIVE amount of info into ultra high quality content for us to consume. Thank you.”

Write of Passage will open up for sale again in the summer. It’s for serious people looking to seriously transform their career. If you’re interested in participating, you can sign up here to receive the latest information. 

Improving New York City

We can reduce crime if we change our thinking. Right now, when policymakers want to improve the safety of a dangerous neighborhood, they fall back on the intuitive solution: employ more police officers. In New York, where I live, they are everywhere. With 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian employees, the New York City Police department is the largest municipal police department in the United States.

A large police force is a terrible investment. The best investments compound in