```table-of-contents ``` Society made you think that having multiple interests was a weakness. 社会让你觉得拥有多种兴趣是一种弱点。 Go to school. 上学。 Get a degree. 获得学位。 Get a job. 找份工作。 Retire at some point. 总有一天会退休的。 But there is so much wrong with that sequence of events. 但是,这一系列事件存在太多问题。 We don’t live in the Industrial Age anymore. Specializing in one skill is almost certain death. I feel like we all know by this point how dangerous mechanical living and siloed learning is for your psyche and soul. And people can feel that we’re going through a second renaissance. Your curiosity and love for learning are your advantages in today’s world, but there is something missing. 我们不再生活在工业时代了。只专注于一项技能几乎等同于自取灭亡。我想我们现在都明白,机械化的生活和封闭式的学习对精神和灵魂有多么危险。人们也能感受到我们正在经历第二次文艺复兴 。你的好奇心和对学习的热爱在当今世界是你的优势,但似乎还缺少些什么。 For the longest time, I learned and learned and learned. I was stuck in tutorial hell. Some may call it shiny object syndrome to point out your lack of focus. I got my dopamine from feeling smart, but my life didn’t change all that much. Honestly, I felt like I was just falling behind. I tried so many different things in college. I had dreams of doing my own thing... earning an income from something creative... but after spending 5 years “learning,” I was met with the reality that I had to get the best job I could find just so I could survive. 很长一段时间里,我一直在学习、学习、再学习,简直深陷于教程的泥潭。有些人可能会用“闪亮物体综合症”来形容我注意力不集中。虽然觉得自己很聪明,能获得多巴胺,但我的生活并没有发生太大的改变。说实话,我感觉自己一直在落后。大学期间,我尝试过很多不同的事情。我梦想着能做自己想做的事,靠创意赚钱……但五年“学习”之后,我却不得不面对现实:我必须找到一份最好的工作才能生存下去。 The missing piece was a vessel. 缺失的部分是一个容器 。 A vessel that would allow me to channel all of my interests into meaningful work that I could earn a decent income from. 一个能让我将所有兴趣投入到有意义的工作中,并从中获得体面收入的平台。 If you’ve ever felt guilty for not being able to pick one thing, if you’ve been told to niche down when your mind wants to expand, if you’ve wondered whether there’s a path you can take that doesn’t lead to the misery you see in everyone else’s eyes – this is the greatest time to be alive. 如果你曾经因为无法选择一件事而感到内疚,如果你被告知要缩小范围而你的思维却想要拓展,如果你想知道是否有一条路可以让你摆脱你在其他人眼中看到的痛苦——那么,现在是活着的最佳时代。 Here are 7 of the most compelling ideas I could come up with. We’ll start by understanding why having multiple interests is a superpower in today's world, then I’ll give you practical steps to turn that into your life’s work. We have a lot to talk about, so I hope you’re here for the ride. 以下是我能想到的七个最引人入胜的想法。我们首先会了解为什么在当今世界拥有多重兴趣是一种超能力,然后我会提供一些切实可行的步骤,帮助你将这种能力转化为毕生事业。我们有很多话题要聊,希望你能加入我们。 ## I – The 3 ingredients of individual success & the death of the expert 一 我——个人成功的三个要素及专家的消亡 > The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations... generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. — Adam Smith > 一个人如果一生只从事几项简单的操作……通常会变得愚蠢无知到极致。——亚当·斯密 Funny you say that Mr. Smith, because you created those people, and we’re still dealing with the backlash. 史密斯先生,您这话真有意思,因为这些人都是您一手造就的,而我们现在还在承受他们的反噬。 Specialization took over during industrialization because, in a pin factory, for example, one worker doing every step could make 20 pins a day. Then workers, each doing one step, could make 48,000. 工业化过程中出现了专业化分工,例如,在一家大头针工厂,一个工人负责所有步骤,一天可以生产 20 个大头针。而如果每个工人只负责一个步骤,一天就可以生产 48,000 个大头针。 So we built an entire world around this model. 于是,我们围绕这个模型构建了一个完整的世界。 Humans became assembly lines working 9 to 5 because frankly, governments don’t serve the national interest, they serve their own interest. Corporations don’t serve the employees interest, they serve their own. 人类沦为朝九晚五的流水线工人,坦白说,是因为政府并不服务于国家利益,而是服务于自身利益。公司也不服务于员工利益,而是服务于自身利益。 Schools were designed to serve that interest. Their sole purpose was to create factory workers who were punctual and obedient. 学校的设立正是为了服务于这种利益。它们唯一的目的就是培养守时听话的工厂工人。 But this is no way to live. 但这绝不是生活的正确方式。 If you want to have specialized knowledge so that you could never run an operation, especially your own operation, then be dependent on schools for your education and jobs for your wage. Be duped into believing the promise that specialization is what makes a human valuable when it is clear that the system does not need you, specifically, to perform that task. 如果你想拥有专业知识,却永远无法独立运营任何业务,尤其是你自己的业务,那么就只能依赖学校接受教育,依赖工作获得报酬。被“专业化才能使人有价值”的谎言蒙蔽,而实际上,这个系统并不需要你专门去执行某项任务。 In lies the distinction. 区别就在这里。 If pure specialization makes people stupid and dependent, what makes an individual smart and sovereign? 如果纯粹的专业化使人变得愚蠢和依赖,那么是什么使个人变得聪明和独立呢? Three ingredients: Self-education, self-interest, self-sufficiency. 三个要素 :自学、自利、自给自足。 Self-education is clear, because if you want to achieve a result different from that of traditional education, you must direct your own learning. 自学的意义很明确,因为如果你想获得与传统教育不同的结果,就必须自主学习。 Self-interest raises some flags. It sounds selfish and short-sighted, which many people view as bad without thinking through it, but it simply means “concern with one’s own interest,” because the only other option is to serve the interest of the organizations that compose society as it is, which we’ve discussed. In other words, follow your interest, because your interest can very well benefit others in a selfless way - depending on your level of cognitive and moral development. Oh, and by the way, indulging in short-lived pleasures (cheap dopamine) is usually not your interest, but the interest of corporations that benefit from your mindlessness. “利己主义”这个词本身就值得警惕。它听起来自私又短视,很多人不加思索就将其视为缺点,但它其实仅仅意味着“关注自身利益”,因为除此之外,我们别无选择,只能服务于构成社会的各个组织的利益,而这一点我们已经讨论过了。换句话说,追随你的利益,因为你的利益完全可以以一种无私的方式造福他人——这取决于你的认知和道德发展水平。哦,对了,顺便一提,沉溺于短暂的快乐(廉价的多巴胺)通常并非出于你的利益,而是那些从你的盲目中获利的企业的利益。 > The truly selfish person, in Ayn Rand’s view, is a self-respecting, self-supporting human being who neither sacrifices others to himself nor sacrifices himself to others. This rejects both the predator and the doormat. > 在安·兰德看来,真正自私的人是自尊自强的人,既不为己牺牲他人,也不为他人牺牲自己。这既否定了掠夺者 ,也否定了逆来顺受者。 Self-sufficiency is the refusal to outsource your judgment, learning, and agency. If self-education is the engine and self-interest is the compass, self-sufficiency is the foundation that prevents your life direction from being hijacked by another force. They collaborate, but are not fully dependent. 自立自强是指拒绝将你的判断力、学习能力和自主性外包。如果说自学是引擎,自身利益是指南针,那么自立自强就是防止你的人生方向被其他力量劫持的基石。它们相互协作,但并不完全依赖。 The generalist emerges naturally from this triad. 通才型人才自然而然地从这三位一体中涌现出来。 Self-interest motivates self-education. 自利促使人们进行自学。 You learn because it genuinely serves your flourishing, not because someone assigned it. 你学习是因为它确实有利于你的发展,而不是因为有人布置了这项任务。 Self-education enables self-sufficiency. 自学使人能够自给自足。 You can only be sovereign over domains you understand. 只有你了解的领域,你才能拥有主权。 Self-sufficiency clarifies self-interest. 自给自足能明确自身利益。 When you’re not dependent on others’ interpretations, you can actually perceive what serves you. Most people pursue multiple interests as an escape from their work. When your interests become your work, or your life’s work, most of them start to filter out. 当你不再依赖他人的解读时,你才能真正感知到什么对你有益。大多数人追求多种兴趣是为了逃避工作。但当你的兴趣变成工作,甚至是毕生事业时,大多数兴趣就会逐渐被淘汰。 When we look at every CEO, founder, or creative that we actually admire, they are generalists. 当我们审视我们真正欣赏的每一位 CEO、创始人或创意人士时,他们都是通才。 They understand enough about marketing to direct it, enough about product to build it, and enough about people to lead them. But they also need to direct the ship. They need to learn and adapt when circumstances change. 他们精通市场营销,足以指导市场营销;精通产品,足以打造产品;也足够了解人,足以领导团队。但他们还需要掌舵,当环境发生变化时,他们需要不断学习和调整。 More importantly, they understand that ideas across domains complement each other and create a unique way of viewing the world, which allows them to catch novel ideas from the aether and translate them into market value. 更重要的是,他们明白不同领域的思想可以相互补充,并创造出一种独特的看待世界的方式,这使他们能够从虚空中捕捉到新颖的想法,并将其转化为市场价值。 When we look at where the world is today, and if you understand the opportunities available to singular individuals, not just leaders, you will find that the options you have as a natural polymath are extensive. It should spark an immense amount of excitement in you. 当我们审视当今世界,并了解每个人(而不仅仅是领导者)所面临的机遇时,你会发现,作为一名天生的博学家,你的选择是极其广泛的。这应该会让你感到无比兴奋。 ## II – You are living through the second renaissance, take advantage of it 二、你正生活在第二次文艺复兴时期,要好好利用它。 > Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses—especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else. — Leonardo da Vinci > 研习艺术的科学,研习科学的艺术。培养你的感官——尤其要学会观察。要明白万物皆有联系。——列奥纳多·达·芬奇 The ultimate moat, or the final competitive edge worth paying for, in my opinion, is an opinion. 在我看来,最终的护城河,或者说最终值得付出代价的竞争优势,其实是一种观点。 A perspective that only you can see, because the uniqueness of your life experience created it. That may just be the last thing anyone else can replicate. 这是只有你才能看到的视角,因为它源于你独一无二的人生经历。这或许是任何人都无法复制的。 And since that’s always been the case, why not prioritize that now? Especially when automation is at our doorstep? 既然一直都是这样,为什么不现在优先考虑这件事呢?尤其是在自动化即将到来之际? But how do you prioritize it? How do you develop it? 但如何确定其优先级?如何进行开发? By pursuing multiple interests and building something with them. 通过追求多种兴趣并将它们结合起来创造一些东西。 You see, every interest you’ve ever pursued leaves behind a residue. Every interest increases the number of connections that can be made. Every interest expands and increases the complexity of how you model and interpret reality. The more complex your model of reality, the more problems you can solve, opportunities you can see, and value you can create. Specialism completely halts this process, and your shiny object syndrome has been trying to tell you this whole time. 你看,你曾经追求的每一个兴趣都会留下痕迹。每一个兴趣都会增加你能建立的联系数量。每一个兴趣都会拓展并增加你构建和解读现实的方式的复杂性。你的现实模型越复杂,你能解决的问题就越多,你能发现的机会就越多,你能创造的价值也就越多。而专精化会彻底阻碍这个过程,你的“闪亮物体综合症”其实一直在试图告诉你这一点。 From birth until now, you are cultivating a way of seeing things that others can’t. A way of seeing things that AI can only think if you tell it what to think. 从出生到现在,你一直在培养一种别人无法理解的视角。这种视角,人工智能只有在你告诉它该怎么想的时候才能理解。 A person who studied psychology and design sees user behavior differently from the pure designer. A person who learned sales and philosophy closes deals differently than the pure salesman. A person who understands fitness and business builds health companies that MBAs can’t comprehend. 学过心理学和设计的人看待用户行为的方式与纯粹的设计师截然不同。学过销售和哲学的人达成交易的方式也与纯粹的销售员大相径庭。懂健身和商业的人打造出的健康公司,是 MBA 都难以理解的。 Your edge lies more in intersection than it does in expertise. 你的优势更多在于跨领域知识,而非专业知识。 This is the exact pattern we see in the Renaissance that is coming back with a much stronger force now. 这正是我们在文艺复兴时期看到的模式,如今它正以更强大的力量卷土重来。 Consider what made it possible... 想想是什么让这一切成为可能…… Before the printing press, knowledge was scarce. 印刷术发明之前,知识十分匮乏。 Books were copied by hand. A single text could take a scribe months to reproduce. Libraries were rare. Literacy was rarer. If you wanted to learn something outside your trade, you either had access to a monastery or you didn’t learn it. 书籍都是手工抄写的。抄写一本文本可能需要抄写员花费数月时间。图书馆很少,识字的人更是凤毛麟角。如果你想学习本行以外的知识,要么能进入修道院,要么就根本学不到。 Then Gutenberg changed everything. 然后古腾堡改变了一切。 Within 50 years, 20 million books flooded Europe. Ideas that once took generations to spread now moved in months. Literacy exploded. The cost of knowledge collapsed. 短短五十年间,两千万册图书涌入欧洲。过去需要几代人才能传播的思想,如今几个月就能传遍四方。识字率呈爆炸式增长。知识成本骤降。 For the first time in history, a person could realistically pursue multiple domains of mastery in a single lifetime. 历史上第一次,一个人可以在一生中真正追求多个领域的精通。 The Renaissance was the result. 文艺复兴由此而来。 Da Vinci didn’t pick one thing. He painted, sculpted, engineered, studied anatomy, designed war machines, and mapped the human body. Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, architect, and poet. 达·芬奇并非只专注于某一方面。他绘画、雕塑、工程设计、研究解剖学、设计战争机器,还绘制了人体结构图。米开朗基罗则是画家、雕塑家、建筑师和诗人。 Unique minds are finally free to operate the way they are supposed to. 独特的思维终于可以自由地按照他们应有的方式运作了。 They were supposed to cross disciplines, synthesize connections, and follow curiosity wherever it led, but most of us never realized that. 他们本应跨越学科界限,融会贯通,并追随好奇心,无论它将他们引向何方,但我们大多数人从未意识到这一点。 The printing press was the catalyst for a new type of person to emerge. A person who could learn anything, combine everything, and create what no specialist ever could. 印刷术的出现催生了一种新型人才。这种人才能够学习任何知识,将任何事物融会贯通,创造出任何专家都无法创造出来的东西。 If you enjoy these letters, I send them out 1-2x a week. [Join here](https://letters.thedankoe.com/) if you want to be notified when they go out (because the algorithm probably won't show you them). 如果您喜欢这些信件,我每周会寄送 1-2 次。 [点击这里加入](https://letters.thedankoe.com/) 如果您想在他们外出时收到通知(因为算法可能不会向您显示他们)。 ## III – How to turn multiple interests into a lucrative way of life 三、如何将多种兴趣转化为一种有利可图的生活方式 There are a few things we know so far: 目前我们了解到的情况有几点: - You have multiple interests but feel like you can’t keep learning forever 你兴趣广泛,但感觉自己无法永远学习下去。 - You have a love for interest-based self-education but have to carve out time outside of your career to do it 你热爱基于兴趣的自学,但必须在工作之余挤出时间进行学习。 - You understand the need to become self-sufficient but you feel like you don’t have value worth paying for, yet 你明白自给自足的必要性,但你觉得自己没有值得付费的价值,然而 - You need to be able to adapt fast because we don’t know what the future of work looks like 你需要具备快速适应能力 ,因为我们不知道未来的工作会是什么样子。 The question then is, how do we combine all of these things into one way of life? 那么问题来了,我们如何将所有这些事物融合到一种生活方式中呢? How do we combine learning and earning into something you can do for work? 如何将学习和赚钱结合起来,让你能够以此为生? I’ll try to make this as logical as I can. 我会尽量把事情解释得合乎逻辑。 To make money from your interests, you need other people to become interested in them too. That part is trivial. If you became interested in something, other people can too, you simply must learn to persuade. 要想靠自己的兴趣赚钱,首先需要让其他人也对你的兴趣感兴趣。这一点很简单。如果你自己对某件事感兴趣,其他人也一样会感兴趣,你只需要学会如何说服他们。 Further, you need a way for them to pay you. In this context, that usually means you need to sell a product, because you probably aren’t going to find a job that allows you to express your interests, and investing in stocks or real estate (to any effective degree) requires a good amount of capital. 此外,你还需要一种支付报酬的方式。在这种情况下,通常意味着你需要销售产品,因为你可能找不到一份能让你表达兴趣的工作,而投资股票或房地产(达到任何有效程度)都需要相当多的资金。 In other words, you need attention. 换句话说,你需要关注。 Attention is one of the last moats. 注意力是最后的护城河之一。 Because when anyone can write anything or build any software, which ones are going to win? The ones that people know about. You can have the greatest product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, the person who can capture and hold attention will run laps around you. 因为当任何人都能编写任何代码或开发任何软件时,谁能胜出?是那些广为人知的产品 。 你可以拥有世界上最好的产品,但如果无人知晓,那么能够吸引并保持用户注意力的人将会遥遥领先于你。 As an aside, and if you’ve been keeping up with the tech space, no, I don’t think everyone will just “build their own software.” Most people don’t even spend 20 minutes cooking their own food. They would rather pay a few bucks for Uber Eats. And people have their own things they want to spend their time on. 顺便提一下,如果你一直关注科技领域,就会知道,我不认为每个人都会“自己开发软件”。大多数人甚至连20分钟都不愿意花在自己做饭上。他们宁愿花几块钱叫外卖。而且每个人都有自己想做的事情。 Back to the point: 回到正题: You need to become a creator. 你需要成为一名创造者。 Now, before you cringe and leave, I don’t exactly mean becoming a content creator (well… it’s complicated). 现在,在你感到尴尬并离开之前,我并不是说要你成为内容创作者(嗯……这很复杂)。 I mean that the solution to stop creating for someone else because you need them to give you a paycheck is to create for yourself. 我的意思是,如果你不再需要为别人创作才能获得报酬,那么解决之道就是为自己创作。 Humans, by nature, are creators who were convinced that being a machine would lead to the American Dream. We are tool builders at our core. We thrive in any niche because we create solutions to problems. If a lion were put in Alaska, it would not build shelter and clothing. It would die. A lion belongs in its own niche. 人类天生就是创造者,我们曾坚信成为机器就能实现美国梦。我们骨子里就是工具制造者。我们之所以能在任何领域蓬勃发展,是因为我们总能找到解决问题的方案。如果把狮子放到阿拉斯加,它不会建造住所和衣物,它只会饿死。狮子就应该待在它自己的生态位里。 The thing is, every business is a media business now. And remember, you need attention. Where is the attention? Mostly on social media until the next attention preference platform comes around - you’ll need to adapt at that point. So yes, if you have multiple interests, it would be wise to become a “content creator,” but it may be easier to think of social media as a mechanism to get your interests in front of other people. It is one piece of the puzzle to do independent work. 关键在于,如今每个企业都是媒体企业。记住,你需要关注。那么,关注点在哪里呢?目前主要集中在社交媒体上,直到下一个更受关注的平台出现——到那时,你就需要做出调整。所以,如果你兴趣广泛,成为“内容创作者”当然是明智之举,但或许更简单的方法是把社交媒体看作是让你的兴趣爱好被更多人看到的工具。它是独立创作过程中不可或缺的一部分。 Plus, that covers all of our bases. 此外,这涵盖了我们所有的需求。 You love learning? Great, reframe it as “research” and now that’s literally your main job. Most of the things I write about simply come from me learning about my interests and treating social media like I’m “taking notes in public.” 你热爱学习? 太好了,那就把它重新定义为“研究”,这样它就成了你的主要工作。我写的大部分内容都源于我对自身兴趣的探索,以及我把社交媒体当作“公开做笔记”来对待。 (You’re already spending time learning, now just spend that time learning in public and boom you have the foundation of a business). (你已经在花时间学习了,现在只需把这些时间花在公开场合学习,砰!你就拥有了创业的基础)。 You need to become self-sufficient? Well, you’d need a business to do that, and every business needs to attract customers, and you probably don’t give two f*cks about paid ads, SEO, or any other form of marketing. This is what trips many people up because they are only used to doing one specialized task within a business as an employee. 你想实现自给自足? 那你需要创办一家公司,而每家公司都需要吸引顾客,你可能根本不在乎付费广告、搜索引擎优化或其他任何形式的营销。很多人在这方面就容易犯错,因为他们习惯了作为员工在公司里只做一项特定的工作。 You need to be able to adapt? Amazing, you can build and launch new products to your audience as fast as you can build them. I have a solid audience, and if my next product were to fail, I have people who would be willing to invest, be a part of the team, or support the next product. You can build your little SaaS company, but if you don’t have distribution, you are putting in marathons of extra leg work into getting capital, finding talent, and getting things off the ground. 你需要具备适应能力? 太棒了!你可以像开发产品一样快速地开发并向你的受众推出新产品。我拥有稳定的受众群体,即使我的下一个产品失败了,也有人愿意投资、加入团队或支持下一个产品。你可以打造自己的小型 SaaS 公司,但如果没有分销渠道,你就需要在筹集资金、寻找人才和启动项目方面投入大量额外的精力。 No other job or business model allows you to do just that with so much freedom. 没有任何其他工作或商业模式能让你拥有如此大的自由去做这件事。 But how do you actually start building it? 但究竟该如何着手构建呢? How do you tie all of this together? 你如何将所有这些联系起来? ## IV – How to turn yourself into a business 第四部分——如何把自己变成一家企业 [ ](https://x.com/thedankoe/article/2010042119121957316/media/2010036069417529347) It’s unfortunate that “entrepreneurship” and “business” have become dirty words that make people think they aren’t qualified to take that path, so much so that when an opportunity comes up, they don’t even notice it. 很遗憾,“创业”和“经商”已经变成了贬义词,让人们认为自己没有资格走这条路,以至于当机会来临时,他们甚至都没有注意到。 > If you’ve ever helped someone with your interests, you’re qualified to start a business. > 如果你曾经帮助过别人实现自己的兴趣,你就有资格创业。 They no longer require upfront capital. They are not reserved for unethical elites. They are not only for people who want to make a lot of money. And they are not only for talented or special people. 它们不再需要前期投入资金。它们并非不道德精英的专属。它们并非只适合那些想赚大钱的人。它们也并非只适合有才华或特殊人士。 The reality is that entrepreneurship is in our nature. It is modern survival. We are wired to create and distribute value to a tribe of like-minded people. We are wired to hunt, explore the unknown, seek novelty, and never stagnate. Psychologically, this is the most enjoyable way of life, even if there are low periods, because those are what allow the (non-artificial) highs to exist. 事实上,创业精神根植于我们的天性之中,是现代人生存的根本。我们天生就渴望创造价值,并将其传递给志同道合的人群。我们天生就渴望探索未知,追求新奇,永不停歇。从心理学角度来看,这才是最令人愉悦的生活方式,即便其中不乏低谷,因为正是这些低谷孕育了(非人为的)巅峰时刻。 Further, the barrier of entry has collapsed. 此外,准入门槛已经降低。 All you really need is a laptop and internet connection. 你其实只需要一台笔记本电脑和网络连接就够了。 Distribution is now free thanks to social media (well, not free, but skill-based, which can be expensive in time). Anyone can post an idea that reaches millions, and if they have a product, those millions of eyes can result in millions of dollars if you know what you’re doing, and that’s a big if. Most people just love becoming really good at an interest or skill that doesn’t directly impact their success, potentially because they’re afraid of it. 如今,社交媒体让内容分发变得免费(当然,并非完全免费,而是需要技巧,而技巧本身可能耗时费力)。任何人都可以发布一个想法,触达数百万人。如果他们有产品,这数百万的关注度就能转化为数百万美元的收益——前提是你懂得如何运营,但这本身就是一个很大的未知数。大多数人只是热衷于钻研那些与自身成功并无直接关联的兴趣或技能,或许是因为他们害怕失败。 Tools and technology now handle what used to require teams of people. You have access to AI and a plethora of useful software. 如今,工具和技术可以处理过去需要团队协作才能完成的工作。您可以利用人工智能和大量实用软件。 Now, there are 2 paths you can take to start. 现在,你可以选择两条途径开始。 Path 1) Skill-Based 路径 1)基于技能 This is what dominated the internet for the longest time. You “learn a marketable skill.” You teach that skill through content. Then you sell a product or service related to that skill. 这曾是互联网上长期占据主导地位的模式。你“学习一项市场认可的技能”,然后通过内容教授这项技能,最后销售与该技能相关的产品或服务。 The limitation here is the limitation of being a specialist. It is one-dimensional. You put yourself in a box. You “niche down” because you were told it is more profitable, and since you’re chasing profit over interest, you tend to build yourself into a second 9-5 where you do work you don’t care about for people you don’t care about. 这里的局限性在于成为专家的局限性。它是片面的。你把自己框在一个狭小的空间里。你“缩小范围”,因为有人告诉你这样更赚钱,而由于你追求的是利润而不是兴趣,你往往会把自己变成第二个朝九晚五的工作,做着你不在乎的工作,为你不在乎的人服务。 Path 2) Development-Based 路径二)基于发展的 The creators that win right now are those without a niche they can be pinned down to. Typically, they are focused on one of the 4 eternal markets: health, wealth, relationships, happiness. Or even all of them. Technically, everyone’s niche is self-actualization, they are just all taking infinitely unique paths to get there. 如今的成功创造者往往没有固定的细分市场。他们通常专注于四大永恒市场之一:健康、财富、人际关系、幸福,甚至可能同时涉足这四大领域。从本质上讲,每个人的细分市场都是自我实现,只不过他们实现目标的路径千差万别。 - They pursue your own goals (brand). 他们追求的是你自己的目标(品牌)。 - They teach what you learn (content). 他们教的是你学到的东西(内容)。 - They help others achieve the goal faster (product). 它们帮助他人更快地实现目标(产品)。 For those with multiple interests, I obviously recommend this path, because it goes a bit deeper. 对于有多种兴趣的人来说,我当然推荐这条路,因为它走得更深入一些。 First, when you take this path, you are also taking the first path. Because building your brand, content, and product requires you to become good at all of the relevant marketable skills, so even if you fail, you have something worth paying for. You are building your business, and you can help others with a specific part of theirs if you are good at it. 首先,当你选择这条路时,你也同时选择了第一条路。因为打造你的品牌、内容和产品需要你精通所有相关的市场技能,所以即使失败了,你也拥有一些值得付费的东西。 你在建立自己的事业,如果你擅长某个领域,你还可以帮助其他人解决他们事业中的特定问题。 Second, it flips the traditional model on its head. 其次,它颠覆了传统模式。 You don’t create a customer avatar so that you can niche down and only focus on that. You turn yourself into the customer avatar. 你创建客户画像不是为了缩小市场范围并只专注于某个细分领域,而是要把自己变成客户画像中的样子。 That makes things much more palatable. 这样一来,食物就更容易入口了。 You pursue your goals in life and develop yourself → you have already validated the usefulness of what you will offer → you help the past version of yourself reach that same goal. 你在生活中追求目标并不断提升自己 → 你已经验证了你所提供内容的价值 → 你帮助过去的自己实现同样的目标。 Don’t be a YouTube creator. 不要成为 YouTube 创作者。 Don’t be a personal brand. 不要打造个人品牌。 Don’t be an influencer. 不要当网红。 Be you. But in a place where your work can be discovered, followed, and supported. Right now and for the foreseeable future, that’s on the internet. 做你自己。但要在一个能让你的作品被发现、关注和支持的地方。目前以及在可预见的未来,这个地方就是互联网。 Jordan Peterson (or others like him) isn’t a “content creator,” even though that’s how it seems on the surface. 乔丹·彼得森(或像他一样的人)并不是“内容创作者”,尽管表面上看起来是这样。 He goes on tours, writes books, leverages social media as a base, and uses all of the tools at his disposal to spread his life’s work. He isn’t worried about the latest content idea trend. His mind outperforms any of those myopic growth strategies. The quality of his ideas is what sets him apart and changes people’s lives (regardless of your opinion on Peterson). 他巡回演讲、著书立说、利用社交媒体平台,并运用一切可用资源来传播他毕生的心血 。他并不在意最新的内容创意潮流。他的思维远胜于任何短视的增长策略。真正让他脱颖而出并改变人们生活(无论你对彼得森有何看法)的是他思想的品质。 With that, I want to provide a different perspective on brand, content, and product. That way you can use this as a vessel for your life’s work. 因此,我想提供一个关于品牌、内容和产品的全新视角。这样,你就可以把它作为你毕生事业的载体。 ## V – Brand is an environment V – 品牌是一种环境 Stop thinking of your brand as a profile picture and social media bio. 不要再把你的品牌仅仅看作是头像和社交媒体简介。 Brand is an environment where people come to transform. 品牌是一个人们前来寻求转变的环境。 Brand is the little world you are inviting others into. 品牌是你邀请他人进入的小世界。 Brand isn’t illustrated when a reader first visits your profile. 当读者首次访问您的个人资料时,品牌信息不会显示出来。 Brand is the accumulation of ideas in your reader’s mind after 3-6 months of following you. 品牌是读者关注你 3-6 个月后,在他们脑海中积累起来的印象。 You illustrate your worldview, story, and philosophy for life across every single touchpoint. Your banner, profile picture, bio, link in bio, landing page design, pinned content, posts, threads, newsletters, videos, and the rest. 你在每一个接触点上都展现着你的世界观、人生故事和哲学。你的横幅、头像、个人简介、简介中的链接、落地页设计、置顶内容、帖子、话题、新闻简报、视频等等。 In other words, your brand is this: 换句话说,你的品牌是这样的: [ ](https://x.com/thedankoe/article/2010042119121957316/media/2010035936432934912) Your brand is your story. 你的品牌就是你的故事。 It would help to spend a day writing out where you came from, the “low” points of your life, the experiences you’ve had and skills you’ve acquired, and how those things have helped you the most. 花一天时间写下你的出身、人生中的“低谷”、你经历过的事情和获得的技能,以及这些事情对你最大的帮助,这将对你有所帮助。 When you’re thinking of ideas, content, or products, you should filter them through your story. This doesn’t mean you have to talk about yourself all the time. It means you have to align what you’re saying so that your brand is cohesive. 当你构思创意、内容或产品时,应该用你的故事来筛选它们。这并不意味着你必须时时刻刻都在谈论自己,而是意味着你必须调整你的表达方式,使你的品牌保持一致性。 The difficult part is realizing that your story is worth telling, even if you think it’s boring or haven’t reflected on your growth. 最难的是意识到你的故事值得讲述,即使你认为它很无聊,或者还没有反思过自己的成长。 The point: 重点是: Your bio and profile picture do not matter. There are literal people with one word in their bio and a singular color for their profile picture. 你的个人简介和头像并不重要。有些人个人简介里只有一个词,头像也只用了一种颜色。 My recommendation: 我的建议: - Make a list of 5-10 people you respect online 列出5-10位你在网上尊重的人。 - Look at their profile picture, bio, and content 查看他们的头像、简介和内容 - Take mental note of patterns between them 注意它们之间的规律 - Start formulating what you should do for your own brand, with your own little spin 开始构思你应该如何打造自己的品牌,并融入你自己的独特风格。 In all honesty, I wouldn’t overcomplicate this or even worry about it. Your brand will take shape as you start writing content. We could even say that brand is content, so we need to get that right. 说实话,我觉得没必要把这件事想得太复杂,甚至不用为此担心。你的品牌会在你开始创作内容的过程中逐渐成型。我们甚至可以说,品牌本身就是内容,所以我们需要把这一点做好。 This article on the [content ecosystem to build your own](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/how-to-build-a-world-the-2-hour-content?lli=1) world may help. 本文是关于 [构建您自己的内容生态系统](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/how-to-build-a-world-the-2-hour-content?lli=1) 世界或许能提供帮助。 ## VI – Content is novel perspectives VI – 内容是新颖的视角 The internet is a fire hose of information. 互联网就像一个信息洪流。 AI is only adding more noise. 人工智能只会增加更多噪音。 That means trust and signal are more important than ever. 这意味着信任和信号比以往任何时候都更加重要。 In my opinion, the guiding light for your content should be to curate the best possible ideas in one place. Your brand is a collection of all the ideas you care about, in your own words, under one account on the internet. 我认为,内容创作的指导原则应该是将最优质的创意汇集于一处。 你的品牌就是你所珍视的所有创意的集合,用你自己的语言,呈现在互联网上的一个账号中。 If you have any plans to do podcasts or public speaking, notice how the best speakers always have 5-10 of their best arguments or ideas top of mind. They repeat these over and over and that’s how they build influence. If you don’t have a set of those 5-10 ideas, then you won’t be as impactful as you could be. Writing a truckload of content is how you discover those ideas. 如果你打算做播客或公开演讲,请注意,最优秀的演讲者总是能将5到10个最有力的论点或想法牢记于心。他们反复强调这些论点或想法,这就是他们建立影响力的秘诀。如果你没有这5到10个想法,你的影响力就不会像你本可以的那样大。而创作大量的内容正是你发现这些想法的途径。 Once the “idea density” of your content increases with time and effort, that’s what creates a brand worth following and paying for. 随着时间和精力的积累,你的内容“创意密度”不断提高,这才能打造出一个值得关注和付费的品牌。 The goal of curating ideas to include under your brand should fall at the intersection of: 精心挑选品牌相关创意的目标应该围绕以下几个方面展开: - Performance – the ideas have the potential to “do well.” This is the measure of how much other people will care. 表现 ——这些想法有“成功”的潜力。这衡量的是其他人会有多关注。 - Excitement – the ideas give you a sense of excitement to write about them. This is the measure of how much you care. 兴奋 ——这些想法让你充满写作的热情。这体现了你对它们的重视程度。 Art and business. 艺术与商业。 Metrics and performance shouldn’t determine everything, but they do mean something. 指标和绩效不应该决定一切,但它们确实具有一定的意义。 Step 1) Build an idea museum 第一步)建立一个创意博物馆 The secret of most creatives you love is that they keep a ruthless curation of notes, ideas, and sources of inspiration. 你所喜爱的大多数创意人士的秘诀在于,他们对笔记、想法和灵感来源进行了严格的整理和归档。 In other words, they have a “swipe file,” as marketers call it. 换句话说,他们有一个“素材库”,营销人员是这么称呼它的。 You can use [Eden](https://eden.so/) (if you have access), Apple Notes, Notion, or whatever else you want, but I want to make this very clear: 您可以使用 [伊甸园](https://eden.so/) (如果你有权限的话),可以用苹果备忘录、Notion 或其他任何你喜欢的软件,但我想把这一点说清楚: You need somewhere to jot down ideas as soon as they come to mind. 你需要一个地方来随时记下脑海中浮现的想法 。 This is a critical habit. 这是一个至关重要的习惯。 Whenever you find an idea that is useful, either now or in the near future, write it down. You don’t need content pillars or 2-3 topics to talk about. The ideas you curate should simply be important to you. That alone means they are relevant to a specific niche of a person: you. However, you can create a [content map](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/the-content-map-how-to-never-run) if you’d like. 每当你想到一个有用的想法,无论是现在还是不久的将来,都把它记下来。你不需要什么内容支柱或者两三个话题。你收集的想法只需要对你来说重要即可。仅此一点就足以说明它们与特定人群相关:那就是你。然而,你可以创建一个 [内容地图](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/the-content-map-how-to-never-run) 如果你愿意的话。 I don’t care how you structure this. It can be a neat and organized set of documents, or it can be a messy running note without structure. The habit matters more than the format. 我不在乎你如何组织这些内容。它可以是一套整齐有序的文档,也可以是毫无章法的杂乱笔记。习惯比格式更重要。 You gauge performance by glancing at the likes, views, or general engagement of a post to see if it has the potential to resonate. If the idea falls flat or does worse than their other content, it probably won’t do well for you. 你可以通过查看帖子的点赞数、浏览量或整体互动情况来判断其表现,看看它是否有可能引起共鸣。如果这个创意反响平平,或者表现不如他们的其他内容,那么它可能对你来说效果不佳。 You gauge excitement by noticing when you feel as if you are wasting something valuable if you don’t write it down. 你可以通过观察自己是否觉得如果不把某些有价值的东西写下来就会浪费掉来衡量兴奋程度。 Step 2) Curate based on idea density 步骤 2)根据创意密度进行筛选 How do you start filling your idea museum? 如何开始充实你的创意博物馆? You need 3-5 sources of information that have high idea density. 你需要 3-5 个信息密度高的信息来源。 When I say “idea density,” I mean an idea that is high signal. 我所说的“创意密度”,指的是信号强度高的想法。 It’s difficult to explain how to find something that is high signal, because that is subjective. It’s dependent on your level of development (what’s useful for you), your audience’s level of development (what’s useful for them), and your translation from one to another. 很难解释如何找到高信号,因为这很主观。它取决于你的发展水平(对你有用的信息)、你的受众的发展水平(对他们有用的信息),以及你如何将两者结合起来。 The most basic piece of advice could be the most valuable thing in the world for someone else, but it may seem like common knowledge to you. 一条最基本的建议,对别人来说可能是世界上最有价值的东西,但对你来说可能却是常识。 With time, you will tune your own signal-to-noise ratio by seeing what ideas resonate with your audience and which don’t. 随着时间的推移,你会通过观察哪些想法能引起受众的共鸣,哪些不能,来调整自己的信噪比。 The most idea-dense sources of information: 信息最丰富的来源: - Old or little-known books – I have 5 books that I reread over and over again because the ideas are so good. These are where the timeless principles live, untouched by trends. 老书或鲜为人知的书籍 ——我有五本书反复阅读,因为它们的思想非常精辟。这些书里蕴藏着永恒的原则,不受潮流的影响。 - Curated blogs, accounts, or books – Blogs like Farnam Street curate the best ideas from modern intellectuals. Accounts like Navalism curate Naval’s best ideas. Books like The Maxwell Daily Reader have one of Maxwell’s best ideas one day at a time for a year. These do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to pick and choose the best of the best. 精选博客、账号或书籍 ——例如 Farnam Street 这样的博客,汇集了当代知识分子最精彩的观点;Navalism 这样的账号,精选了 Naval 的最佳观点;而像 《麦克斯韦每日读本》 这样的书籍 ,则每天收录麦克斯韦的一个最佳观点,持续一年之久。这些资源为你省去了许多繁琐的工作,让你能够从中挑选出最精华的内容。 - Heavy-hitting social accounts – I have a list of maybe 5 social accounts that always post great ideas. If I don’t have something to write about, I’ll scroll through their page and find something I have an opinion on and write about that. 一些有影响力的社交账号 ——我关注的账号大概有五六个,它们总是发布一些很棒的想法。如果我没什么可写的,我就会浏览它们的页面,找到一些我感兴趣的内容,然后就写写看。 Finding these sources takes a few months of discovery. But the result of maintaining an idea museum of dense ideas leads to you creating idea-dense content. 找到这些灵感来源需要几个月的探索时间。但维护一个汇集丰富想法的“灵感库”最终会让你创作出充满想法的内容。 Your idea museum becomes a representation of the mind you are attempting to create. 你的创意博物馆将成为你试图创造的思维模式的体现。 That’s the ultimate goal. 这是最终目标。 To have a library of content so good that people can’t help but open your emails, turn on post notifications, share your ideas with friends, and think about your ideas often. 拥有一个内容如此丰富的库,以至于人们忍不住打开你的电子邮件、开启帖子通知、与朋友分享你的想法,并经常思考你的想法。 > You become a curator of ideas that people wouldn’t even think to ask AI for, and that people would never come across organically. > 你会成为那些人们甚至不会想到向人工智能寻求,也永远不会自然而然产生的创意的策展人 。 That’s how you become less dependent on the algorithm for your success. 这样你就能减少对算法的依赖,从而获得成功。 Step 3) Write 1 idea 1000 different ways 步骤 3)用 1000 种不同的方式写出 1 个想法 Becoming a good writer or speaker isn’t only about the idea, but how the idea is articulated. 成为一名优秀的作家或演说家,不仅在于拥有想法,还在于如何表达想法。 The idea does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the structure is what makes it engaging, unique, and impactful. 创意本身就足以支撑很多工作,但正是其结构使其引人入胜、独具特色且富有影响力。 Let me show you what I mean. 让我来解释一下我的意思。 Take this post structure: 以这样的帖子结构为例: > One pattern I’ve noticed in happy people: They’re obsessive about maintaining their mental clarity. > 我注意到快乐的人身上有一个共同点:他们非常注重保持头脑清醒。 The idea here is that happy people maintain their mental clarity. 这里的观点是,快乐的人更容易保持头脑清晰。 The structure is formatted in 2 parts: a hook in the form of an observation, and the delivery of what the observation is. 文章结构分为两部分:以观察为引子,以及对观察结果的阐述。 It seems simple, but the difference in the structure of an idea can make all the difference. 这看似简单,但思想结构的差异却能产生巨大的影响。 Now, if I take the same idea but use a “list” structure: 现在,如果我采用同样的思路,但使用“列表”结构: > Happy people are clear-minded people: – They take time for rest – They focus on one singular goal – They ruthlessly eliminate distractions In other words, happy people are obsessive about maintaining their mental clarity. > 快乐的人头脑清晰: 他们会抽出时间休息 他们专注于一个单一的目标 他们会毫不留情地消除干扰因素。 换句话说,快乐的人非常注重保持头脑清醒。 Same idea. Different structure. Different impact. 同样的理念,不同的结构,不同的影响。 If you wanted to, you could practice writing the same idea with every single post structure you come across. 如果你愿意的话,你可以练习用同样的思路去写你遇到的每一种文章结构。 Here’s how to practice this: 以下是练习方法: First, break down 3 ideas into their structure. 首先 ,将 3 个想法分解成它们的结构。 Choose 3 posts from your idea museum that resonated with you. Then, try to break down each part of the idea and write why it works. 从你的创意库中选择 3 篇引起你共鸣的文章。然后,尝试分析每个想法的各个部分,并阐述其有效的原因。 If you don’t have experience with content psychology, that’s okay. You learn it as you practice. 如果你没有内容心理学方面的经验,那也没关系。你可以在实践中学习。 This is the perfect time to employ AI for help. Try this prompt for each post: 现在正是利用人工智能提供帮助的最佳时机。尝试在每篇文章中使用以下提示: > Do a comprehensive analysis on this social post. The overall idea, how the sentences are structured, and choice of words. Analyze why people engage with it, why it works so well, what psychological tactics are being used, and how I can replicate this style step-by-step with my own ideas. > 请对这篇社交媒体帖子进行全面分析,包括整体思路、句子结构和用词。分析人们为何会参与互动,为何这篇帖子如此有效,运用了哪些心理策略,以及我如何才能将这种风格与自己的想法一步步结合起来。 Then paste the post below the prompt. 然后将帖子内容粘贴到提示下方。 I’d recommend Claude as the model to use for this over ChatGPT or Gemini. 我建议使用 Claude 模型,而不是 ChatGPT 或 Gemini。 Continue doing this for any idea you find along your journey that you want to incorporate as part of your writing style. You can use this for videos as well, not just posts. 在你的写作过程中,如果你有任何想法想要融入到你的写作风格中,请继续这样做。这种方法不仅适用于文章,也适用于视频。 Second, rewrite 3 ideas with different structures. 第二 ,用不同的结构重写 3 个想法。 Go back to your idea museum and choose one idea you didn’t use in step one. 回到你的创意库,选择一个你在第一步中没有使用过的创意。 Then, try rewriting that idea with the 3 post structures you just broke down. 然后,尝试用你刚才分析的 3 种文章结构重写这个想法。 This is how you develop range. 这就是拓展射程的方法。 This is how you stop staring at blank screens. 这样你就能不再盯着空白屏幕发呆了。 This is how you turn one idea into a week’s worth of content. 这就是如何将一个想法转化为一周的内容。 Why are we doing this? 我们为什么要这样做? Well, you now have all of the secrets to creating content that stands out and coming up with good ideas. 好了,现在你已经掌握了创作出脱颖而出的内容和想出好点子的所有秘诀。 Seriously, those are the secrets. Any results that come from them are a matter of practice. 说真的,这就是秘诀。至于能否取得任何成果,都取决于实践。 ## VII – Systems are the new product 七 系统是新产品 Okay, this is getting long so I’m going to speed things up. 好了,篇幅有点长了,所以我加快速度。 And I have an entire guide on [creating your first product here](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/mega-guide-how-to-create-your-first) ... so don’t want to be redundant. 我还有一份完整的指南。 [在这里创建你的第一个产品](https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/mega-guide-how-to-create-your-first) 所以不想显得多余。 At this point in time, we are in a systems economy. 目前,我们处于系统经济时代。 People don’t want a solution to their problems. 人们并不想要解决问题的方案 。 They want your solution to their problems. 他们想要你为他们的问题提供解决方案。 There are tons of writing products out there, so what’s different about my 2 Hour Writer product, as an example? Or even Eden, the software that I’m building that could “easily be replaced by Google Drive or Dropbox,” according to super smart people who have definitely built successful products in the YouTube comments? 市面上有很多写作产品,那么我的“2 小时写作”产品有什么不同之处呢?或者,我正在开发的软件 Eden,根据 YouTube 评论区里那些打造过成功产品的“超级聪明人”的说法,它“很容易被 Google Drive 或 Dropbox 取代”? They’re systems that I created by getting results for myself. 这些系统是我通过自身实践获得成效而创建的。 2HW doesn’t teach a bunch of academic writing nonsense that doesn’t help you achieve our shared vision of living a creative and meaningful life. 2HW 不会教你一堆毫无意义的学术写作废话,这些废话并不能帮助你实现我们共同的愿景——过上富有创造力和意义的生活。 I had a few problems: 我遇到了一些问题: - I had trouble having an endless source of content ideas. 我一直苦于没有源源不断的创意素材。 - I didn’t want to waste a ton of time creating content for all different platforms. 我不想浪费大量时间为所有不同的平台创建内容。 So, I started experimenting with my own system. 于是,我开始试验自己的系统。 My goal for the system was clear: write all of the content I need to in under 2 hours a day. That way my audience growth is handled and I can focus on building better products and enjoying life. 我的目标很明确:每天用不到两小时的时间写完所有需要的内容。这样一来,我的受众增长就迎刃而解了,我可以专注于打造更好的产品,享受生活。 I started testing solutions to have more content ideas. 我开始尝试各种方法来获取更多的内容创意。 I created swipe files, steps to generate ideas, and templates if I still couldn’t think of anything. 如果还是想不出什么好点子,我会创建灵感库、产生想法的步骤说明和模板。 I mapped out exactly what I was going to attempt to write each week: 3 posts a day, 1 thread a week, and 1 newsletter a week. 我详细规划了每周要写的内容:每天 3 篇博文,每周 1 个主题帖,每周 1 封简报。 During that process, I realized I could cross-post my writing to all social platforms (this is public, you can see it). I also realized that threads could be turned into carousels, and newsletters could be turned into YouTube videos. 在这个过程中,我意识到我可以将我的文章同步发布到所有社交平台(这是公开的,任何人都可以看到)。我还意识到,帖子可以转换成轮播图,新闻简报可以转换成 YouTube 视频。 If the system didn’t flow, I would try new things the next week. 如果系统运行不畅,我会在下周尝试新的方法。 From there, I realized I could copy paste my newsletter to my blog, embed the YT video in that blog, promote my products in that blog, and turn that blog into more content ideas. 由此,我意识到我可以将我的新闻简报复制粘贴到我的博客中,将 YouTube 视频嵌入到该博客中,在该博客中推广我的产品,并将该博客转化为更多的内容创意。 Then, I could link that blog under my content each day. 这样,我就可以每天在我的内容下方添加那个博客的链接。 This led to more newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, and product sales. 这带来了更多的电子报订阅用户、YouTube 订阅用户和产品销量。 I realized that if everything I did was newsletter centric, that’s all I had to worry about for both growing my audience and promoting my products. 我意识到,如果我所做的一切都以新闻通讯为中心,那么在扩大受众群体和推广产品方面,我就只需要担心这一点了。 That’s how you stand out in a world of copy paste products. 在充斥着复制粘贴产品的时代,这就是你脱颖而出的方法。 Yes, it takes time and experience. 是的,这需要时间和经验。 But the end result is so worth it. 但最终的结果非常值得。 That’s it for this letter. 这封信就到这里了。 Thank you for reading. 感谢阅读。 – Dan