Writing Your Way to a Personal Monopoly
Writing and publishing online is the most powerful and generative means of self-discovery.
By writing and sharing our thoughts and ideas we can broadcast our one-of-a-kind perspectives based on skills, interests, and personality traits developed over our lifetime. Through this process, we can discover our personal monopoly.
A personal monopoly is the unique convergence of a person's innate talents, skills, life experience, and interests. It’s what gives each one of us our distinct voice and perspective.
Personal Monopoly graphic by Jack Butcher – Visualize Value
Building a personal monopoly is a process through which you can stand out, reach the audience yearning for the message or perspective you uniquely offer, and in turn connect with people and opportunities from your essence.
Or as Naval Ravikant describes it:
“This weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It's almost baked into your personality and your identity. Then you can hone it.”
The challenge with finding our personal monopoly is that we are often conditioned at a young age to compete with each other to see who can best fit into a non-descript box, usually comprised of the latest trend or cultural phenomenon. This type of competition impedes our discovery of the unique intersection of qualities, capabilities, and experiences that make us who we are and shape us into great thinkers, creators, and leaders.
If we are lucky enough to escape the competition trap, there is still another phenomenon to contend with. It is what Chip and Dan Heath refer to as the “Knowledge Curse” and describe it as follows:
"The problem is that once we know something—say, the melody of a song—we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. We have difficulty sharing it with others because we can’t readily re-create their state of mind."
I found it helpful early on to accept the fact that finding a personal monopoly isn’t supposed to be easy. It is so valuable precisely because it is hard to discover. It requires courage to break through the noise. Courage to connect with our essence and act from the heart. For me, this is best done through writing and publishing.
The Personal Monopoly journey. David Perell – writeofpassage.school
Writing consistently and of our own volition requires that we bring forth our true interests, showcase our skills, lean on our life experience and allow our personality to shine.
Publishing our writing on the internet, for the world to see, attracts like-minded people who resonate with our unique message. This is what David Perell refers to as serendipity.
As we continue to put our message out in the world the feedback we receive acts as a sieve to continually refine our ideas which helps define and narrow our specific niche. Niche specificity creates more serendipity as our authenticity shines through and readers and followers can resonate on a deeper level. As our niche becomes narrower, our personal monopoly becomes broader and more defined.
Naval Ravikant has popularized this concept which he refers to as Specific Knowledge. He offers this pearl of wisdom:
When we focus on developing our personal monopoly, instead of competing with others, we gain a tremendous amount of focus and energy that propels us forward towards new and exciting opportunities.
Finding a personal monopoly takes time, but it is time well spent that will feel more like play than work. Start by writing about ideas that are most captivating, pay attention to compliments and feedback from readers and iterate accordingly.
As David Perell, the person who introduced me to this concept says, “ When you build your Personal Monopoly, you say yes to playing a worldwide game that most people don’t even know exists.”
So, start now. Write and publish your unique perspective and watch the magic unfold as your personal monopoly materializes. Remember, no one can compete with you on being you.
