In December 2014, I printed a draft of my book. It was 194 pages, 28 chapters, and 43,000 words.

Today—April 19th, 2024—for the first time in almost a decade, I’m staring at it. Right now, as I type this.

And I have tears in my eyes because I poured my heart and soul into that book, weaving together meaningful life lessons into a book on personal development I called “Amateur’s Quest”, but because of one person’s opinion, I buried the book.

For the past decade, I’ve hidden from the shame I felt from the feedback I received.

It came from a greasy $75/hour “rent-an-editor” I found on Google who had built up so much bitterness in his career that he reveled in diminishing the dreams of eager, naive authors like myself.

Are you wondering what he said? Well, I took good notes ;)

• You sound like the guy at the psych ward, lol, self-aggrandizement.
• Your title is insulting. Am I the amateur? Are you? Is this young adult?
• It's a terrible title for self-help. It’s like you’re telling me a convoluted joke.

Even if what he said wasn’t completely untrue, it was completely demoralizing. I basically paid a bitter man to kick me in the groin.

I stopped dreaming after that.

Switched careers and moved to LA a year later. Focused on working my way up in TV, first as a lowly production assistant, and last as part of the editing team on the final season of Better Call Saul. Loved rapidly learning and rising within the industry.

Fast-forward to March 2020, when I joined the brand new Obsidian forums in Discord. The pandemic just hit, so everyone was connecting online in new ways. Those were the best days in Discord for me. We were all geeking out on each new Obsidian update, and back then, the updates were blazingly fast. Like, you’ve never seen anything iterate like Obsidian did in 2020. Each update had us excitedly exploring the ramifications with each other.

Then in May 2020, I did the thing I hadn’t done in years: vulnerably share something to strangers. It was the very first version of the Ideaverse starter kit. But this time, no one said I should seek mental help.

Instead, the response was one of intrigue and curiosity. My community peers seemed to like it and had a lot of questions, so in between editing a TV pilot, I was answering questions in the forum and improving my starter kit.

I say this with 100% certainty:

They weren’t trying to be kind. They just were. And it nourished my bruised psyche back to health.

I want to create that space for you. I want to give that feeling to you.

We need you. Now, more than ever in this world of regurgitated writings, gross AI text, and false personas; we need you to be able to communicate as the Truest You—the Youest You—as you can possibly be. Because what you see here is the Me’est Me.

I want to help you unlock whatever it is that is getting in your way, whether it’s some psychological barrier or some practical problem or some combination of both.

I want to invite you to an event so rare it has never been seen before.

It's a free one-time event on Friday, July 18th at 9am Pacific (60 min). If you register, you will:

• Tap into your unique voice as you write
• Write as a gardener and as an architect
• Practice moving between writing to linking
• Practice 4 techniques to unstick 4 common sticking points
  • Freewrite to Insight
  • Insight to Rewrite
  • Rewrite with a Kickstarter
  • Link to Ignite

We have 2.5 goals for offering this experience:

• Get you to leave with an originally written work of 101 words (50 min)
• Introduce you to our new workshop Writing Original Works (10 min)
  • ....and give away one free 100% off ticket to the entire workshop 🎟️

If you want to learn more about the WOW workshop and how it might be right for you, you have to raise your hand to opt-in.

If you don’t opt-in and attend the live session, then you won’t be eligible for the winning ticket. That's fine, you can just register without getting exclusive WOW emails.

Since 2020, I’ve written so much I can’t even calculate the amount.

This isn’t a complete list, but it’s probably around...

• 2000 significantly original notes, 250 newsletters, 150 YouTube videos,
• 500 mini essays in a Choose Your Own Adventure format
• 200 live trainings, 200 educational course lessons,
• 10 in-person speeches, 2 short stories, 1 screenplay, 3 book proposals,…
• and in a little over two years, just you watch, a traditionally published book.

But don’t celebrate that! Celebrate the change. Because for the six years prior, I was too scared to write anything.

Yes, I was bursting with ideas, but I kept them buried until I found the right environment (the Obsidian forums)—and the right process (using linked notes)—to support my words until I fully found my voice.

And now I’ve finally found my voice!

Do you know the first two words in Linking Your Thinking’s mission statement?

To empower.

Along with our curious and kind community, I want to empower you with a robust and reliable writing process using linked notes to write the works that only you can.

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Seriously, stay connected friend,

Nick

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No PS’es this week. No Obsidian tips. No quick hits and interesting tidbits. They will return next week.

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