There is a lot of pressure in the writing and publishing worlds to create the “right” words—words that are moving, effective, emotional, and whatever other superlatives we want to put on them.

Is it important to impact the reader and make a big difference? Sure. But you don’t get the gold unless you dig for it.

This means we have to adopt the discipline that miners have. We show up and we dig. We produce the words. We do the work of writing every day, or at least, as often as we can.

There is a lot to be said for creating a set amount of words, even if they are not the “best” words. Many times, you’ll put something out there that you think is just okay, and people love it. And the opposite happens, too. You’ll put something out there you think is great, and it flops. This it totally normal.

For example, the pop star Billie Eilish put out a book recently. I’m sure she got a massive advance from the publisher. However, the book has flopped. It wasn’t a hit. (My own opinion is that her publisher made the false assumption that her massive number of social media followers would translate into book purchases, which doesn’t make any sense because they’re not a book-buying crowd . . . but all that is beside the point.)

There’s much value to having a regular gateway to creating something—like a weekly blog or daily podcast, or whatever—that forces you to create the words, then figure out what is connecting. We all want gold, but we have to dig for it. We have to put in the work.

Daily Question: Are you willing to put the work in and do the digging every day in order to extract the gold?