Full Guide: How I Write About Deep Ideas & Still Go Viral

you can write about what you want and do well

This is a guide for those who:

• Are beginners who want to write about deeper ideas
• Are those who think nobody cares about what they have to say, so why bother starting
• Are seasoned writers who need a healthy dose of the reality that is social media
• Anyone who wants to make their ideas more impactful and worth following

As a heads up, this is for long form writing.

Newsletters, articles, YouTube scripts, etc.

I’ll talk about my content ecosystem in a future paid post, but this is how I write newsletters that I use for my YouTube scripts.

If you want my thought process for writing short-form posts, let me know, and I’ll put that on the list.

My writing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s garnered over 175k newsletter subs and over 1 million YouTube subs.

So, it works, if you stick with it.

How To Choose A Topic

This is the most important step because the ideas flow easily after.

The problem most writers/creators have is that they choose an idea they feel compelled to write about… and that’s it. They write about it. And it flops because nobody else cares about that idea.

Instead, we need to find the intersection of an idea you love and what people have shown they want.

In other words, you need to position the idea you want to write about in a way that has the potential to be seen by more people.

It’s all positioning.

Let’s say I’m studying cybernetics and the 9 stages of ego development.

If I were to choose those as the topic or headline, they probably wouldn’t do too well. Nobody wants to read “The 9 Stages Of Ego Development Explained.”

Some do, but not enough to grow in readers or subscribers consistently.

Now, if I were to:

• Go to YouTube
• Find 3-5 accounts in my niche
• Filter their videos by most popular
• Write down 3-5 of each account’s highest performing titles
• Figure out how to position my idea from one of those angles

Then I’m cooking.

This is exactly how my How To Become More Intelligent Than 99% Of People video was born.

I knew that “how to get ahead of 99% of people” was a validated topic that people consistently viewed.

I knew that cybernetics and the 9 stages of ego development could be tied together in some way, and that was by bringing a new view to “intelligence.”

One important point:

This is a sort of “training wheels” phase until you get the hang of what makes a high-performing topic.

You don’t have to endlessly study YouTube titles for this to work.

You simply have to train your mind to be able to position a mediocre idea as a great one.

The more you do this, the more your mind will be able to come up with truly unique and addictive topic choices based on even your weirdest ideas.

You also don’t need to do this through YouTube.

You can also filter Twitter accounts by their best tweets and threads (hooks often make for good topics).

Or you can save Substacks, reels, tweets, or other social posts as you see them go viral in real time (it always helps to have a database of validated topics).

To recap on topic choice:

• Read books and consume content that is different from what is often talked about in your niche or main areas of interest
• Find an idea (or two) that you feel compelled to take a lot of notes on
• Have a list of high-performing YouTube titles from accounts in your niche that you can use as angles for those ideas
• That way, you bring unique ideas to a space that already works

I personally like to choose YouTube because YouTube titles transfer over very well to newsletter or article headlines.

And, even more importantly, the way you grow on YouTube is by getting your content recommended to people who have watched similar videos.

So, if you have a similar title as a video that has a ton of views (or is growing rapidly in views) you are much much more likely to show up on those viewers home page and on the recommended sidebar as they are watching the video.

Now, to handle the main objection of this step:

“I don’t want to be like other people or play the same game.”

Then don’t.

You can ignore human nature and what people want to consume all you want, but you still haven’t (and won’t) solve the problem of people not caring about what you write.

You despise that motivational quotes and cheesy titles get thousands of likes, but you refuse to see that those thousands of likes are actual people.

And if you want to help people, they aren’t going to be at the same level as you, otherwise there’s no reason for them to read.

You aren’t somehow smarter than them, nor do you have better taste.

You’re just viewing the market from the lens of a creator, and I’ve seen plenty of creators dig themselves into a grave because they are too aware of the game.

By ignoring the fact that writing is a two-player game and only writing things that you like, you’re missing out on what it means to be a writer who transforms lives.

But, of course, topic choice is only one step in this process:

Why Frameworks Matter

I don’t care if you like writing without an outline or framework.

I don’t care how authentic you think it is to spit your jumbled thoughts on paper in a way that strokes your ego and doesn’t take the reader into account at all.

Remember, creativity thrives within constraints.

A framework doesn’t dampen your authenticity or creativity, it allows you to express it with more impact.

The reason people don’t want to read your “deep thoughts” is because:

1. 95% of people on the internet are beginners in the topics you talk about
2. People scrolling on the timeline aren’t looking to be educated, they’re looking to be entertained

The reason you don’t see much advanced information or esoteric wisdom on the timeline is that when people are on social media, they aren’t intentionally searching for information. They’re scrolling until something catches their attention.

The “golden advice” that you can find with minimal views on YouTube doesn’t go viral for that reason.

You need to hook the reader’s attention (which we’ve done with the topic choice).

Then, you need to guide the reader through some form of transformation.

Where they are to where they want to be… or at least one step toward where they want to be.

So, we need to include a few components along with your topic to accomplish this.

With your topic in mind, write these down as the initial ideation session of your writing:

• The big problem – the problem with where they are now and where that will lead them. If you can use a personal experience to illustrate this, even better.
• The desired outcome – the transformation they will go through if they learn, embody, or act on your writing.
• The AHA moment – the key insight that makes it click for them.
• The unique process – your key points or actionable steps (that you come up with personally) that will take them at least one step toward the desired outcome.
• Novel idea or concept – at least one little-known idea or concept. This is usually the idea you want to talk about that you turned into the topic.
• Optional: Timeframe – people love timeframes like 6 months, 2 weeks, 90 days or whatever it may be. It helps the reader see the value and needed effort.

Those are the core building blocks of an engaging story.

When you have the topic you want to write about, write all of those out.

That’s what people want to read. The sentences, grammar, and other ideas you use to guide them through it are secondary.

As you write or review your full writing, you want to double-check that those are included at least somewhere in the post.

How I Think About Structuring My Writing

Before we go any further, I want to get this point across:

Most people have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

The only people who care about your deep or clever ideas are those who already agree with them, meaning you’re limited to a small group of experts who probably don’t benefit immensely from what you write about.

Again, 95% of people on the internet are beginners in your topic.

So, with each of these frameworks, and while you are writing, you need to write as if you are teaching your past self from scratch.

You have to act as if nobody knows what you are talking about.

You have to educate them in your writing so that they will understand the points you are trying to get across.

You need to get them up to speed with the deep or advanced topics you want to write about in each and every piece of your writing. Yes, it will seem repetitive, but everyone, even advanced people, can use a refresher.

If I want to talk about “psychic entropy” — knowing that I had no clue what that was just a few years ago — I need to introduce that topic in a way that the reader can understand with examples and 12-year-old level explanations.

This may make your writing longer than you are comfortable with, but the feeling of learning something new will keep the reader around.

I’ll write about this another time as a paid post, but by doing this, you don’t need a traditional niche.

You can effectively talk about whatever you want because you know how to make any idea both persuasive and engaging to almost anyone.

Okay, here’s how I think about structuring my writing:

1) The hook

This is what comes after the title / topic name.

For the first 200-500 words (sometimes it gets to a lengthy 750 if I have a lot to say), I try to attack the enemy (the big problem) and set the scene for the transformation.

“The enemy” in this case, can be any of the following:

• A past version of yourself
• A common perspective that you think is wrong
• What the average person does or how they think

You can illustrate this in the form of a personal story or just explain it with good ideas around the topic.

Supplementing with a quote doesn’t hurt either.

To set the scene for the transformation:

• Use an “If you” statement followed by a benefit and concrete first step like “If you want to have Jordan Peterson’s articulation or Alan Watt’s thinking, give yourself one year of practice
• Notice how I also incorporated the timeframe there (optional but effective)
• Illustrate the desired outcome based on what they’re going to learn

If you’d like, you can read the introduction of the How To Become More Intelligent Than 99% Of People here to see these in action.

I personally think that’s one of the best hooks I’ve written.

2) The key points

This part is difficult for me to articulate because “key points” can be anything from a concept to a list of actionable steps.

If you’re trying to write about something deep or complex, I like to keep the key points rather small. 2 or 3 of them max.

If you’re writing something practical, you can either just write about 1 key point or a plethora of them, like “13 business lessons in 30 minutes”

It’s really up to the topic you are trying to write about.

The outline for the “how to become more intelligent” piece is as follows:

• Hook
• Key point 1: Cybernetics – The Art Of Getting What You Want
  • Quote with big idea
  • Definition of cybernetics
  • Practical explanation for the reader
  • Examples to further understanding
  • How it applies to the reader’s life
  • Practical advice to implement it
• Key point 2: How Your Mind Interprets Reality
  • Quote with big idea
  • Unique explanation of how the mind interprets reality
  • Another quote to back it up
  • Continued explanation (to ensure anyone can understand it from scratch)
  • Metaphor to help with understanding
  • Practical examples for how it applies to the readers life
  • An entire section tying that in with cybernetics
• Key point 3: The Stages Of Psychological Development – Reaching The 1%
  • Quote with big idea
  • Reminder of desired outcome
  • Introduction of the theory
  • Walking through each stage with examples and steps

That is how I turned something that doesn’t get much attention into something that does.

There were 3 big and related key points that I had to cover in depth.

I feel like I’m going to start over explaining myself about key points, and I think you understand it by now (just write out key points that fulfill the topic and transformation), so I’ll leave it there.

3) How to keep writing

The last problem is that people get stuck and don’t know what to write next.

When I get stuck, I tend to think through the following until an idea surfaces:

• Pain point or problem – I tend to start the key point sections with a problem if I don’t have anything else to write. Problems help frame sections quite well and hold attention.
• Impactful quote – Quotes are also my go-to for starting a section, because I can easily work off of that to continue writing.
• Explanation – Can I include anything that would help the average person understand?
• Examples – Can I make the point more palatable by including a practical example?
• Metaphors – Again, can I further understanding with a metaphor? (You can ask AI for help on this, ask it to give you 3 metaphors)
• Statistics – Easy to throw in anywhere and adds a layer of authority (Ask AI again)
• Goal – Start with “If you want” or “If you don’t want” and see what words come after.
• Action steps – Can I give actionable steps at this point in my writing?

Those are the building blocks of most writing in general.

So, when you get stuck, start thinking through those options.

I’ll leave it at that.

If you learned something new, I’m grateful.

If you didn’t and are stuck in your head about how you know all of this already but still aren’t getting readers… allow me to be blunt for a moment.

Have you done all of this?

Consistently?

And if you didn’t get results, did you identify that as a problem you could solve through further experimentation with these fundamentals?

If you can’t succeed with the basics, or find value in reminding yourself of the basics, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Thanks for reading.