We recently crossed the astounding milestone of 100,000 copies sold of my book Building a Second Brain! That’s just in the U.S. and UK, and over the next few months, it will go on sale in 20+ other countries and languages around the world. I have to be honest: every goal that I ever imagined for this book has been fulfilled.
Over the past few weeks, we completed our first rigorous cost-cutting exercise in the 10 years Forte Labs has been in business. Cost-cutting is a strange subject to talk about as a creator-led business. We’re not supposed to worry about those pesky annoyances called “expenses” or “profitability.” We’re on the Internet, and the Internet is…
This research project started with a simple question that has crossed every author’s mind: How can I tell which books are successful? TV shows have Nielsen ratings, music albums have the Billboard Top 100, and movies regularly publicize their box office earnings, but not books. Bestseller lists like The New York Times are notoriously subjective, while more objective ones like Amazon and The Wall Street Journal only provide rankings, not raw numbers.
The modern era didn’t start with the invention of the car, the television, or the internet. It was the arrival of the humble filing cabinet – a simple metal box with drawers that held pieces of paper on their edge – that changed everything. As Craig Robertson argues in his book The Filing Cabinet: A…
About a decade ago, I came across a video on YouTube that profoundly shaped my view of how culture works. Everything Is A Remix by documentary filmmaker Kirby Ferguson argues that all new creative works are built from preexisting ones in an endless process of what he calls “remixing.” From music to movies to video…
For years I’ve heard about a phenomenon called intergenerational trauma – the idea that the impact of traumatic events can be passed down from one generation to the next. I have to admit I never believed it was a real thing. I had only heard about it in very woo-woo circles in San Francisco, and…
As I was researching and writing my book Building a Second Brain, I picked up another book to read on the side: The Bullet Journal Method (affiliate link) by Ryder Carroll. There aren’t many books on effective notetaking for the modern world, especially ones that have been as successful as BuJo (as it’s affectionately called)….
Publishing my book has been the experience of a lifetime. I’ve learned so much about myself, discovered new horizons of creativity, met so many fascinating people, and heard stories from all over the world about how my message has made a difference for others. Writing a book gave me the opportunity to dig deep into…
If you set out to create an educational system with the goal of preventing people from acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in today’s world, you would create the modern schooling system. Before they start school, children learn at a pace that is simply mind-blowing. They come into the world burning to learn…
Popular productivity YouTuber and Ali Abdaal summarized Building a Second Brain in this 15-minute video. This is an incredible distillation and expression of the book’s core principles. Ali discussed: What is a Second Brain and why should you have one The CODE method: my 4-step process for knowledge management and creative work How having a Second Brain…
My book Building a Second Brain is now released and available for sale to the world.
I put everything I know and everything I am into it. This book is the end result of 17 years of wanting to write a book, 10 years of building a business, 6 years of teaching a course, and 3 years of writing.
In 21 short days, the 4-year project of bringing Building a Second Brain to life will come to a conclusion.
We will find out once and for all how much potential this idea has to enter the mainstream conversation around what it means to be productive and creative in today’s world…
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