How to Prepare for Write of Passage: My Experience with David Perell’s Writing Course
Since taking David Perell's Write of Passage course in July 2020, I've gotten 4-5 questions on what it was like.
It's an expensive course. I get it.
This post isn't meant to be a full-blown review of the course. I just want to help you figure out whether it’s right for you or not. So I got permission to share this email exchange I had with a friend. In my email response to them, I talk about:
Whether to get the regular edition vs the lifetime edition (and what I bought)
How I prepared for the course to make sure it's not another guilt-inducing to-do item
How to make sure you're ready for the course (and not just throwing money at your desire to write online)
I also added a few notes after the fact to resources you can check out to learn more about the course.
TL;DR? I enjoyed the course because I prepared for it. But it's not for everyone.
A short message before we dive in: If you’re a fan of David’s, you’ll probably enjoy my weekly newsletter. Subscribe below to get more posts on web3, creativity, and the creator economy, or check out previous editions to “try before you buy”.
just wondering - what was your experience with Write of Passage course? Tymo mentioned you did it
I would love to do it - I want to be a better writer - but I saw it cost 2-4K USD??!! 🤯🤯🤯
Im fine spending money but that’s bananas lol
WDYT?
-- Cam
Heya!
WoP is great. Solid info that’s hard to find in other places, well-run with live cohorts, and just good smart people.
If you get it, I would suggest getting the premium edition (I did) so you can redo the course. 99% certain most people won’t get all of the lessons the first time around. I sure didn’t, and I already had a blog, published a weekly newsletter, and had been doing this for 6 years.
Before I purchased the course, I made sure I was gonna get a lot out of it. And that it won’t be just another course I’ll feel guilty about.
I did as much as work as I could before I bought it, including starting my newsletter and mastering my productivity and note taking systems. This way I could spend the 5 weeks of the live cohort learning to write faster and finding people to write with regularly (both of which I accomplished).
Because of the financial and time commitment, I wouldn’t suggest the course until ...
You’ve done Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain (or at least have a note taking system you’re supremely confident in).
Highly recommend Readwise -- it's what Tiago, David, and I use to automate our reading and note taking systems.You’ve started publishing online regularly. This means that you already have a website or a newsletter set up. I recommend Going into the course knowing which aspects of writing online challenge you the most.
In fact, David recommends only going to sessions that help you, and skipping the rest. This way you spend most of your time on the writing assignments — the most important outputs in the course — and not on your perfectionist tendency to get 100% attendance.
If you haven’t fulfilled both, I would suggest holding off. Use the information on David’s site and his YouTube channel to go as far as you can.
Tempting as it may be to throw money at a problem — don’t do it. Only after you get stuck trying to apply the free stuff are you mentally ready to commit to the course.
Hope this helps!
Final Recommendations
I recommend reading David’s essay on The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online. This is the entire course in a few thousand words. I used this to learn and apply 70% of the material before buying the course.
Also, check out David’s video with Nik Sharma where they draft a collaborative article live within an hour. Every Saturday during the live cohorts, David guides you through this exact fast-writing strategy. I’m planning on joining the next cohort just for this.
Finally, if you want to learn more about the kind of writing output the course generates, here are the posts I published during the 5-week course:
Why Asians Aren’t Drowning in Debt (But North Americans Are) (Best essay I’ve written after 6 years of writing online)