Howdy,

It feels unbelievably cringe to say that “I’m starting a blog” in the year of our lord 2025. It feels slightly less cringe to say “I’m starting a writing project”, so let’s go with that.

Skill Issue

I’m an engineer by background, so words are not my strong suit. Despite the fact that communication is arguably the most valuable part of my job (and life), engineering school failed to make any impact on my ability to actually convey what I’m thinking.

By the time I graduated, I could calculate the pressure differential across the wing of a supersonic jet and could draw the refrigeration cycle from memory, but I couldn’t talk about myself on a date or explain what I was looking for in a job interview.

As I’ve gained more work experience, parts of my communication have improved. Hundreds of client calls, thousands of emails, and way too many meetings forced me to. At my first job out of school, we only sold 4 things. Literally 4 things. When you have the same conversation every single day, you get pretty good at it. I’m smooth as silk on a logistics email and I can hold court during a project kickoff.

In my personal life, however, I find myself increasingly unable to actually say what I think. I don’t mean that I’m afraid to speak my mind or that I’m always agreeing with other people to save face, I mean that I actually can’t form the words with my mouth to convey my idea. Like I can’t connect the ideas coherently and present my thoughts in a way that other people can follow. You know, like a child.

I first noticed this last year after a disagreement with my fiancée. We were talking about something fitness related, a subject that I know way, way too much about. The details of the disagreement aren’t important, but it ended with us agreeing to disagree. She moved on, but my brain was stuck in a loop of frustration. The rest of the night and the following 2 days I was stuck in a bad mood, which is weird for me.

Several long walks and shower arguments later, I figured out what was wrong. I was frustrated because even though I knew the subject that we were talking about and I knew exactly what she should do to solve her problem, I couldn’t break my thoughts down enough for another person to follow my logic train. In my head, it made perfect sense. When it came out of my mouth, it was just word vomit.

Words Hard, What Do?

I’ve started to pay more attention and I’m noticing this happening everywhere. My stories aren’t as funny as they could be. The ideas that I learn about don’t sound half as interesting when I’m the one saying them. There are things that I want to share but I can’t seem to get them out quite right. You get the idea…

Why Can’t I Talk The Way I Do in My Mind

I came across this video by Dr. K at HealthyGamer that talks about this exact problem. I recommend the full video, but the gist is this: you can’t communicate because you don’t know what you’re trying to say. Our ideas aren’t thought out. They may make sense in our minds, but that’s because we already have all the context in which the ideas were formed. 

My mind has already watched 700 hours of fitness videos, so it fills in the blanks when I dont have the words. I lived my stories, so I know all the context about why this thing was so funny. The hard part is putting my thoughts into order such that another person can quickly follow what I’m saying. Words are hard!

The good news is that communication is a skill. And, like with all skills, you can improve! The bad news is that it takes a lot of practice and effort (gross). 

Nothing To It But To Do It

I grew up playing video gamesand, for me, it often helps to think about life like a game. You have skills, stats, levels, and rewards. You get XP for deliberately working on new skills. As you gain XP, you level up and your stats increase. One of my goals in life is to be as high level as I can. So when I find an important skill that has been lacking, I make it a priority. 

Thinking about it like a game makes the process more fun and digestible. Learning another language is a massive task. Framing it as farming Spanish XP after work, for some reason, is way more approachable.

Unlike games, however, there are very few skips and exploits in life. It takes a long time to reach a high level at anything. It takes hundreds of hours of gym time to get in shape, thousands of hours to master another language, and a decade of work and education to secure that dream job. Unlike games, I can’t just exploit the local gas station attendant to farm up my speech skill. I might actually have to learn how to use my words.

Anyone that spends time with me will figure out pretty quickly that I am stubbornly focused when I make something a priority. I almost always get what I want even if it almost kills me. Whether it’s losing weight, getting promoted, or even finding a wonderful life partner. 

(Side note: This also applies to stupid things. Like dumping 300 hours in 3 months into a competitive game because I was inspired by a YouTube video. Probably a topic for another time…)

I really want to be able to express myself and communicate effectively. And it seems like clear thinking precedes clear communication. The question, then, is how do you get better at thinking? What do I need to grind to think better?

The Tech Bros May Be Right

I’m a podcast fiend. According to my 2024 Spotify wrapped, I spent 34,207 minutes listening to podcasts last year. That comes out to about 2.3 hours per work day. On a normal work day with no meetings, I average 4-5 hours.

That’s a lot of pods…probably too many. Some of my favorite podcast hosts and guests include: Scott Galloway, Alex Hormozi, and Shaan Puri and Sam Parr of MFM. These guys all have one thing in common. 

No it’s not the fact that they all produce white noise for my tech bro, quarter life crisis. It’s that they all have original takes, communicate clearly, and are wonderful storytellers. Oh, and they all happen to write. A lot.

Scott Galloway has written 5 books since 2017 and a weekly newsletter since 2016. Alex Hormozi regularly spends 6 hours a day writing for months at a time and is known to throw away months of work if it’s not concise enough. The MFM guys both launched and sold newsletter companies. They also credit copywriting and storytelling for changing their lives.

(Side note: If one person you admire gives advice, you should look into it. If all the people you admire give the same advice, you should start doing it.)

They all have their own writing styles, but they’ve come to the same conclusion: good writing comes from good thinking. You have to cut through all the noise in your head and figure out what it is you’re trying to say. Not just in each sentence, but in the entire piece. The core idea needs to be presented in a way that someone else can pick up your work and understand. All the small ideas need to feed into the big one.

This is where a good writer would insert some quotes to drive their point home. I don’t have them on hand so imagine I put them here 🙂

Writing forces you to think clearly. Clear thoughts lead to clear communication. Clear communication opens the world, which is the goal.

So Now What?

“So what? You’re just going to write a bunch and hope that it makes me smarter? “

Yeah, pretty much.

I think that I can grind out 50 or so of these bad boys and we’ll see where that lands me. This one was fun to put together and hopefully they get better as I go. If I still don’t can’t use words good a year from now, then I’ll revert to pointing and grunting like God intended.

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