During my senior year of high school, my good friend Brian and I both applied for a scholarship that was sponsored by the company where our parents worked.
The application required a short essay. The prompt was “who is your biggest inspiration?”
I really wanted this scholarship. It was a ton of money. I was determined to do whatever it took to win it.
So I decided to write the application in a way that would please the reader as much as possible.
The company my mom worked for was a large corporation that manufactured commercial vehicles like semi-trucks, worldwide.
So I wrote an essay about Thomas Edison. About how he hadn’t failed, but “found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” About how “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
About how this spirit is what put America on the map in the 20th century and paved the way for American industrial greatness.
And how he inspired me to work hard and to want to do great things with my life.
Brian wrote an essay about Jesus.
I got the scholarship.
Thomas Edison was not my biggest inspiration at the time. But to be fair, I didn’t have a lot of people I could look up to back then so I don’t feel bad about writing an essay about him. (I only came to know years later that Thomas Edison was probably not the best man to take inspiration from.)
Now, you can say that I Brian’s essay was more genuine, and represented an actual inspiration to his life. That he probably deserved the scholarship more than I did based on the prompt.
But the scholarship wasn’t about the depth of inspiration, or about the prompt at all.
The lesson here is that if you can please your reader you will wield influence over them. In this case I was able to persuade them to give me the award by writing something that was engaging within the context of our parents’ workplace. If they worked at a religious organization his essay would have beat out mine (but then again, I also would have written a much different essay).
Whenever I write, whether it’s a highly technical design document, a YouTube script, or an email newsletter, I always prioritize delighting my reader. What do they expect to see? What do they want to see? What would make them smile and want to devour the entire thing? Do that.
My advice is to write at the service of your reader, not the other way around. It’s the key to influencing people through your writing, whether that’s an email, an online post, or a system design document. It will always guide you the right way.
Unlike an essay about Jesus submitted to an industrial commercial truck manufacturer.
If you’re on my Discord you know that I’ve been interviewing industry insiders. I decided to make the recordings of these talks available on my Patreon as a new perk. These recordings have previously only been available to members of Speedrun To Promotion.
I’ve uploaded the third in this series, a conversation with Ryan Peterman. Ryan is a Meta staff engineer that was promoted to the next level three years in a row—an absolutely stunning achievement. We dive into how he was able to accomplish this in our conversation, along with a ton of questions from the audience.
Patrons also get an archive of previous newsletters and other goodies. If you’re in a position to help, I would really appreciate your support.
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