214: A Weirdly Brilliant FAQ

Happy Saturday! I write to you from Brooklyn, damp from the remnants of Hurricane Debby.

1. Where have you been?

Apologies for my absence.

Outside of my coaching work and watching the Paris Olympics, I have spent all of July working on a 30 Day Book Challenge which resulted in the publication of my book:

Weirdly Brilliant

How Ambitious Outliers Can Swing Big, Own Their Genius, and Play a Different Game

By Jason Shen

Buy on Amazon

2. What is the book about?

Weirdly Brilliant is a book of advice for ambitious outliers—brilliant misfits and creative troublemakers who have massive talents coupled with major deficits. These people may be immigrants, neurodivergent, founders, creators, and beyond. There is no specific job title or demographic they fall neatly into.

Weirdly Brilliant is a love letter to the clients I work with and anyone who wants to reach greatness and doesn't feel at home in the systems and institutions that dominate our world.

In the book I talk about what it means to be an outlier, how The System both abhors and desperately needs them, and the 5 contrarian strategies that successful outliers leverage to put a dent in the universe:

1. Redefine your ambition—choose a target that matters to you personally
2. Develop your talents—figure out what you're great at and triple down
3. Find your place—migrate to a Frontier where your talents will be valued
4. Tell your story—help people understand your talents and your journey
5. Grow your circle—connect to allies, supporters, and champions along the way

If those ideas intrigue you, get the book to learn more!

3. Why would anyone try to write a book in 30 days?

Challenges are a form of antidiscipline (#180) for me that combine creativity with challenge. You set a fixed deadline and commit to shipping a complete experience by the end of the month.

Kelly pulled together a lovely cohort of people and invited guest speakers like Anne Laure Le Cunff and Paul Millerd, both authors in their own right, to share their publishing journeys.

30 days is a beautiful constraint, a focusing mechanism that creates a sense of urgency through a deadline (#189) to help make things happen.

Here was the tweet I posted on Day 1 (initially had a different title in mind) and here's the final tweet I posted at the end of the challenge:

4. What was your takeaway from the experience?

I really loved putting this book together.

I knew I wanted the book to be very visually compelling. I was inspired by a short cheeky book I read in college called It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be and chose to design the whole thing in Canva.

Here's all the pages laid out:

I leveraged several illustration collections from Creative Market which I think really enhanced the overall look and feel.

5. Can I read the book?

I would love that very much. You can order it here.

The top of the line "director's cut" experience is the $25 paperback version. It's expensive because I chose the premium full-color printing option.

There's also an $8 Kindle version that I laid out using a new (to me) tool called Vellum. I was able to load some of the images into the ebook so you get some of the visual flavor but it's not quite as good.

If you buy either version I'd be happy to send you a PDF copy of the book as well that's full color and visual (unlike the Kindle version).

Bonus: What's happening with the newsletter?

After sending 13 editions of the newsletter under the new format (multiple times a week, link roundup), I'm not sure I can sustain this style and pace.

I find tracking what links I've shared, which ones I want to share, what I'm promoting, etc to be more hassle than it is worth. I'm sure I could hire someone to help me or build out some automations, but I don't feel it's worth it right now.

I started this newsletter to express my own ideas, not point to other people's thoughts.

I do love the name and concept still—tools, resources, and advice for outliers. But this format has got to go.

Writing the book helped me see that too—that I need to make the newsletter work for me, even if strategically I could see the value of the other format.

So what can you expect instead? Long form essays and articles, with a greater focus on:

• Lessons and insights from my coaching practice
• Practical advice written specifically with outliers in mind
• Excerpts from Weirdly Brilliant and my other book The Path to Pivot
• Mind maps of content I've found highly insightful and valuable
• Longer form video content about the above topics

A more infrequent cadence—2x a month is more reasonable than 2x a week and will result in higher quality material.