About
Power Essence takes the things people treat as innate talent and works out what the process underneath them actually is.
Most self-improvement writing has the same gap in it. It tells you that confident people are confident, that creative people have ideas, and that disciplined people stick at things, then leaves you to work out how any of that is supposed to help.
Power Essence starts one step further in. Every piece here takes something treated as a fixed trait and looks for the mechanism: the process that produces it, the parts that can be practised, and the specific bit most people are getting wrong.
The six themes
Everything published here sits in one of six areas:
- Mechanics of Creativity. Where ideas come from, why the first version is meant to be rough, and how to tell an idea from a decision.
- Building What Matters. Why bother building anything, and what makes a thing worth the years it takes.
- Social Craft. Humour, conversation and being easy to talk to, treated as skills with techniques.
- Environment Over Willpower. Your surroundings make most of your decisions before you get a say.
- Comfortable Lies. The stories we tell ourselves about confidence, busyness and working under pressure.
- Passion Is Built. Passion follows competence, and what to do when you have several interests or none.
Each theme has articles that work through one piece at a time, and an ebook that covers the whole thing in one sitting.
How it is published
Articles go up here and the newsletter goes out by email through Substack. The articles are free and will stay that way. The ebooks are the long versions, for when a subject needs more room than a single piece gives it.
If you want new writing as it goes out, subscribe to the newsletter. If you would rather pull than be pushed, there is an RSS feed.