Be Like Mike

Dear you,

I convinced work this week to expense a $500 writing course so that you don’t have to. Here’s how I’m changing how I write my emails at work thanks to the founder of Letter of Intent (Aussie’s version of Morning Brew) and sharing what he learnt after 5 years at Macquarie Capital and selling 2x startups whilst living in San Fransisco and London.

1. Answer first - assume nobody reads past the first line. Think like you’re an executive almost exclusively opening and sending emails on your modern day blackberry and you don’t even have to open emails to find the answer you’re looking for ie. it’s implicit in the subject title of the email or the preview in the notification bar. Meanwhile your assistant reads your emails for you and if it’s that urgent, someone will call you

2. What, why and so what - support your answer but always finish with an action or outlining what next in the last line

3. Be concise - use numbers rather than adjectives and cut filler words. Use Hemingway which you can think of as next-level grammarly

4. Write like you talk - when someone reads your emails or texts, they should almost hear your voice aloud in their head. Add personality and flair. Don’t be boring

5. Format for impact - use titles, bold, italics, bullets and links to help the reader navigate and scan your email which they will according to eye tracking data (left to right, top to bottom)

There were two hooks that made me sign up to this course. The first was the fact that writing is indeed our most visible work product and almost all we do at work whether it’s in the form of emails, powerpoint, meeting minutes or memos (more on this in my last YouTube video if you skip to the newsletter timestamp at 21:59). The second was when the founder opened with “Be Like Mike” - a subtle basketball reference if you’ve seen Lil Bow Wow’s movie referencing Michael Jordan but more importantly Michael Ross in Suits.

⚖️ This past week in numbers

📲 Screen time:

• 6h 45m down by 18%. ~2h social apps (44m iMessage, 31m LinkedIn, 15m Snap) 

• 126 pick-ups down by 9%

Ps. I recently discovered google calendar > apple calendar but still think apple maps > google maps.. you’re welcome.

🍎 Step count: 3,384 which is low because I finally got a new car (!!)

💬 Made you think

As morbid as this sounds, I read this on Sahil Bloom’s Annual Planning Guide which I finally filled out for 2024 (despite it being almost Easter). He talks about anti-goals which is simply the list of things we don’t want to happen whilst working on our big audacious annual goals.

Sahil refers to something fancy called pyrrhic victory - a victory that takes such a toll on the winner that it may as well have been a defeat. In other words, you want to reach the summit but not at the expense of these anti-goals or non-negotiables. For example one of mine is being home for dinner by 6:30pm and ideally no screen time after eating. Fun fact, Harland from Manchester City FC eliminates blue light 3 hours before sleeping and credits this as his secret sauce to being 2023’s no.1 football player in the world.

What are your anti-goals?

Till next week,

Azam