| Happy Sunday, everyone. I’ve got a new book coming, another one I co-wrote with my old friend and partner Brad Kearns (who, btw, has a fantastic grass-fed organ supplement and podcast among other ventures). A few of you have asked about this, so today I’m going to explain just how I “co-write” a book with Brad. We have a standing policy: calls at any hour are fine. So I’ll call him at 10 PM if I’m lying in bed and an idea comes to me. He’ll call me at 5 AM if inspiration strikes while he’s taking his daily ice bath in a converted chest freezer. It’s all allowed. It’s all encouraged. We’re in it together because that’s simply how serendipity works. You can’t plan for it. You just have to be open to it. We do this because transferring an idea from one brain to the other is like giving a plant fertilizer. It takes on a life of its own. It crystallizes the idea in you, because whenever you explain something to someone else you get better at thinking about it, and it breathes new life and a new perspective into the idea. Not only is the idea stronger in your head, it grows in the other’s head. And then you come together, hash things out, and see how much fruit the idea bears. After these calls, we’ll both write notes furiously and reconvene the next day to try to make sense of them and wring out some semblance of publishable prose. If we go hard enough, we’ll produce a legit rough draft in a few weeks, but that’s the easy part. After the rough draft comes the supporting research, the editing, the refining, more editing, and then we submit the draft to a trusted team of advisors, including contrarians and skeptics whom we respect but really have to “sell” the message to. If it passes that gauntlet, we know we’re golden. Back before COVID and my move to Miami, this process was easier because we could get together in person more often. But actually, I think the way we do it now might actually produce better work because we have to make our time together really count. As often as we can, I’ll fly out to California and get together with Brad for a few days of intense brainstorming. Lest you think we’re huddling around a desk in a conference room, it’s more like we’ll go for hikes, cook epic feasts, grab some workouts, and just see where things go. We have much better luck coming up with good ideas when we’re not trying. That’s why you have to meet in person: the energies coalesce and mingle and multiply. You never know what you’ll get, but it’s usually something great. And it’s always something you never would have received on your own. This is a real underrated economic danger of the pandemic. People are missing out on in-person hours with creative partners. Life finds a way, sure, but the real magic happens in person. Never forget that. Anyway, that’s how I write with Brad. How has COVID changed the way you work? Has anything improved? Gotten worse? Let me know in the comment section of Weekly Link Love. | 
