Episode Details

Why do we struggle to write?

The ONE word? What's that? And why does it play such an incredibly important part in article writing? That's what we explore in this second part of what I've learned in article writing.

We also look at why we struggle to write—Yes, we seem to get in our own way most of the time. How do we get others to help us? Find out more here.

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In this episode Sean talks about

Part 1: Why the ONE word concept is your compass in the darkness Part 2: Why when we sit down to write, we often get into a state of randomness Part 3: How can you be sure you have the right 'One Word' ?

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Useful Resource

5000bc: If you suspect that your business could be bringing in a lot more revenue but you don't have a clue how to make that happen without hype or hassle, 5000bc is a must-have resource. Listen or read: Part 1 of Three Interesting Things I Know About Writing

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Element 3: Why the ONE word concept is your compass in the darkness

ALMOST half of the goals scored in football—or soccer—are virtually random! So says Martin Lames of the Technical University of Munich.

Raphael Honigstein's new book, "Das Reboot" talks about the non-random side of football. It talks about how a well-prepared team can rise from the depths and win the match, even the tournament. And especially if that team is Germany—which is considered to be a world-class team, but was at the bottom of the football heap in 2000.

Germany's randomness arose from complacency

In the European Championships in 2000, they failed to win a single game—and even lost to the English team (which was considered pretty terrible in the first place). And yet, 14 years later, Germany would rout Brazil 7-1 and make its way to the ultimate prize defeating Argentina in the World Cup final.

What Germany did—and did effectively—was reduce the randomness. Right after the 2000 Euro disaster, Germany's top professional clubs were ordered to set up academies—and this was a considerable cost to the clubs, so they actively resisted the directive. Ten years later, this move proved to be a boon saving the clubs millions of dollars in transfer fees, because more than half the players in the top division were academy graduates.

In short, the moment they got rid of their randomness, the German team started to see results. A similar concept applies to article writing.

When we sit down to write, we often get into a state of randomness

And you know it's random because you can't sum up the article in one word or one idea. The moment you have one idea—it becomes that wall around your article. You know exactly what you're going to write about, what are the sub-topics under that main topic—and how to get the stories and case studies to support the piece. For instance, this section is about why the article can't be random. Instead of starting the article with a boring line that says: "The worst thing you can do is write a random article", the article starts with a story of disaster—well, a disaster for the German football team, anyway.

Yet, most writers never sit down and write down their one word because they're not sure if it's the right word

There is no right word. The word is what you want to communicate. In the introduction, the story was about the journey. Well, that's where the story of Isambard Brunel came to light. The second part was about the coach—and we ran right into Wolfgang Amadeus' father—Johann Leopold Mozart. The third part was about why writing for yourself is so very hard, and the two female conductors told their story. And finally, w