“90% Of Medium Writers Suck”, Here’s What’s More Important Than Talent

So, what am I? 90 or 10?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I know…. But wait a second!

I didn’t say that.

It’s, in fact, a quote from the great Tim Denning. If you want to read the whole story, here’s the Twitter thread that started with “90% of Medium writers suck.”

https://twitter.com/tim_denning/status/1514307181541273609?s=21&t=PVNu3o4fKVW780JNVBHe_g

While I don’t agree with every single point he makes in his Twitter thread about writing on Medium and why 90% of writers fail at it, it took me to one interesting conclusion:

Obsession is more important than talent.

No matter how good a writer you are, it’s the obsession with making it as a writer that leads to success. Don’t confuse obsession with perfectionism, though. Obsession means:

• not giving up even if your views suck, not worrying about quality and cringing at your earliest posts later on

• fearlessly promoting & marketing your content like there’s no tomorrow

• hustling on the side, collecting feedback in the form of claps, responses, reads, and read ratio

• working with stats, elaborating on your popular stories, finding trending topics, mastering tags

That’s obsession.

While others just write, hit publish, and then wait (and nothing happens).

Obsession means taking action.

Obsession is more important than talent.

Is that good? Well, probably not. But that’s how the internet works, right?

While perfection leads to an overflowing folder of unfinished drafts, obsession can take you all the way.

From 90 to 10.

Agree or disagree?