Multi 6-Figure Ghostwriter leads me to an epiphany

Yesterday I hopped on a call with Charlie Bennett from X.

If you don’t know Charlie…

…here’s a little “taste” of the things he’s done in the past 18 months:

• Said “fuck it” and quit his 9-5

• Earned over $200k as a Ghostwriter

• Generated $2.1M in client results

And, most importantly, he’s a top fucking lad.

Originally, we were only supposed to catch up for 30 mins or so.

But we ended up chatting shit for well over an hour. And I can honestly say I’ve met very few people in life more straight up (and knowledgable) than him.

We discussed a bunch of stuff:

Our favourite creators.

Our future plans (interestingly, we’re both going down the same business model, haha).

The REAL reason we think so many people struggle to land clients online.

And I’ll be writing emails about all that shit in the coming days and weeks.

But today, I want to cover something else we talked about.

Because, I admitted to Charlie I’d been struggling with something recently.

A problem:

I have ALWAYS known that writing with unwavering confidence is king.

After all, if you want to be a leader, you better have some strong-ass conviction behind your ideas.

And that has always come (relatively) naturally to me.

Which is why I’ve also always struggled to answer the question…

How do you teach people to write with confidence?

I’ve honestly ummed and ahhed over this question for longer than I care to admit.

After all — one of my main goals with this newsletter is to help you create better content.

And conviction is a HUGE part of that.

So if I can’t explain this fundamental point, then I’m fucking up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to solve this on the call with Charlie.

We both took a stab at it. But I don’t think either of us were particularly satisfied with our answers.

But…

One of the problems with the way my brain works is that, as soon as I’ve started thinking about a big problem, I become totally and utterly fucking obsessed with solving it. I cannot let it go. Ever.

Yesterday was no different.

So… down the rabbit hole I go.

I start ploughing through everything I’ve ever written.

I’m digging out my old shit.

I’m comparing it with the stuff I’ve written recently.

And I’m noticing how much more fucking conviction I write with today versus even a few months ago.

But the weird thing is…

The words themselves haven’t changed all that much.

My “voice” is pretty consistent.

All in all, there’s really not that much difference between how I used to write, and how I write now.

So…

Why does my new stuff feel so much more “alive”?

And that’s when a switch flips…

DING!

I look at my old writing.

I look at my recent writing.

And I realise one key thing:

The words haven’t changed. But the ideas behind them have.

And that’s when when I remember a line from David Ogivly (arguably the greatest advertiser of all time):

What you say is more important than how you say it.

It’s about the big picture.

It’s about the overall message.

It’s about the ideas behind the words.

And the only way you can deepen the ideas behind the words you write is to THINK, critically, about the problems you’re trying to solve. To question everything. To discern what works, from what doesn’t. To build your own theories on the way life and business works. And to connect with other players in your game so you can gleam the insights they’ve already had.

Put another way…

Confidence isn’t an input. Confidence is an output.

A natural by-product of the depth and understanding behind what you’re writing.

The deeper and more intensely you understand what you’re writing about, the more confident your writing will become.

You can try and “fake” it.

You can focus on the WORDS themselves.

You can listen to the people telling you to replace “should” with “must” (and other writing “hacks”).

But it won’t get you anywhere.

Because it’s like, yeah. I get what you’re saying. That shit does (kind of) matter. The words you write do impact the clarity of your writing.

But it’s the 1%.

It’s the cherry on the cake.

You want to see a REAL difference in the quality of your writing (and therefore the amount of attention, respect and clients you get)?

You simply need to LEARN MORE about the problems you’re trying to solve.

I wish I could tell you there was a shortcut here.

But I refuse to become one of those guys whose entire brand is built on quick fixes and shortcuts, rather than helping you cut to the ROOT CAUSE of your problems.

If you want someone to lie to you.

If you want someone to pretend like there’s a “hack” to getting results.

If you want someone to sugar coat the process.

Then you know where the unsubscribe button is — I ain’t your guy.

If, on the other hand, you want someone to say it as it is.

To be harsh, but fair.

And to give you advice that isn’t just regurgitated garbage, but GENUINE realisations and insights I’ve come to by deeply and obsessively thinking about how to cut to the CORE of your problems…

Then I might be able to help.

Because this lesson on confidence is no different.

Ultimately, confidence is a by-product of thinking critically about your market, figuring out for YOURSELF what gets results (and what doesn’t), and then bringing this back onto socials to share with your audience

As someone who’s been there and done it, trust me —

Doing shit in the real world is the biggest “content hack” you’ll ever experience.

Talk soon,

Harry

PS. Charlie’s newsletter is one of the few I genuinely enjoy reading.

You should check out his free client acquisition guide here: The Leads Not Like Micro-Course