A Write of Passage Review
An honest review of Write of Passage - the online writing course from David Perell
What this post will cover:
Why I took Write of Passage
The benefits of Write of Passage
Why Write of Passage may not be a good fit
Write of Passage cost
Is Write of Passage worth it?
TL;DR: If you’re reading this post, I imagine you’re considering taking the course. If you can afford to spend at least $3,995 and 10+ hours/week for five weeks (scroll down to the cost section for more info) I highly recommend it. It’s an investment in your future, and for me was more beneficial than my undergrad and master’s degrees combined… for a fraction of the cost.
On to the fun stuff!
Why I took Write of Passage (WoP)
I ran across David Perell from his Twitter account in late 2019. At the time, I wrote a blog post or two a year and rarely tweeted. I knew I wouldn’t commit to writing regularly unless I paid for the accountability, and David’s messaging around the importance of writing in the age of the internet and creating a ‘personal monopoly’ really spoke to me. Relative to other online courses like Visualize Value I’ve taken (and loved, btw), the structure and promises of David’s course felt like they were tailored specifically for me.
If you are anything like I was in 2019, you probably already write. You may have a journal, an old blog, or a semi-active Twitter (now X…) account. But you’ve always wanted to do more. You follow authors and writers that inspire you. You want to publish consistently. You want to write more compelling pieces. You want to have a regular newsletter that people actively engage with. You want to grow an audience.
But you never really knew how - or where - to start.
If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Everyone I met in the course (many of whom I still consider friends) had similar objectives.
The 5-week Write of Passage course is designed to help students:
1. Set up a writing infrastructure (website, email newsletter)
2. Shift their mindset from a consumer of content to a producer of content
3. Accelerate personal and professional opportunities by writing online
Write of Passage challenges students to take action and develop a repeatable process for generating new ideas, turning them into published pieces of writing, and getting them into the hands of like-minded people.
In fact, a fellow WoP student (Lev) and I used the tools we developed during the course to collaborate, write, and distribute the article you’re now reading. More importantly, we used the community of fellow writers (and now friends!) we established to help edit and refine this piece.
The Benefits of Write of Passage
"Make friends over the internet with people who are great at things you're interested in. The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it." - Patrick Collison
We are still in the early days of online communities. Establishing meaningful ‘virtual’ relationships is a challenging task when reaching out to like-minded people feels awkward and uncomfortable. But the smartest people we follow online write, share, and discuss their best ideas in public with other virtual connections. It was apparent that future friends, co-authors, or business partners were just a few conversations away.
One of my goals in taking an online course was to tap into a community of writers from all ages, countries, and industries. I discovered that learning in a live online format is fun and the social experience helps students learn faster. Through small feedback groups, relationships begin to form on the internet first, and then later in the ‘real world.’ Learning and community become one and the same.
Lev and I were placed in the same feedback group at the start of the course. Our small tribe got to know each other personally through critiquing each other's work and engaging in one-on-one feedback sessions. This made our large class of 200 people seem small.
Joining a community of people committed to writing better, learning faster, and motivating each other sharpened our thinking. Life is too short to try and learn everything on your own.
This brings us to the first major benefit of Write of Passage - the importance of accountability.
Benefit One: You’re not paying to write. You’re paying to be held accountable to write.
It’s easy to drive yourself to the gym, sit down at the piano to play, or open a notebook and write. Right?
All of these are easy… in theory.
In reality, we find ourselves saying things like “I just don’t have the time,” “I’m too tired,” “It’s too early,” or most often, life just gets in the way.
There’s a reason people pay personal trainers $50+ per hour to help them work out. There’s a reason people pay music teachers 3x/week for 30 minute practice sessions. And there’s a reason people like Lev and I paid $1,000 in 2020 for a 5-week writing course.
We paid for accountability and habit formation
The fact is that most of us need a system of accountability to accomplish activities that are mentally and physically challenging.
As it turns out, writing consistently is incredibly challenging. And before Write of Passage, this is the primary reason Lev and I found ourselves writing only when we had the energy - it’s really hard to write consistently when you’re tired, stressed, or not in the mood.
The class provided us with powerful tools that keep us accountable for writing and publishing consistently every week. Here are a few that have been the most impactful.
Benefit Two: Crossfit for Writing
Crossfit is an intense, ‘cult-like’ workout program. People pay $100+/month to complete notoriously difficult exercises in a small group setting. Each class is an hour or less and combines high intensity interval training with things like weight lifting, running, and jump roping.
During Write of Passage, students have the option to meet every Saturday to do Crossfit but for writing. The goal of the session is to create one piece of written content from scratch in less than two hours. And, if it’s ready, hit publish.
Anyone that’s been through one of these sessions knows how exhausting it is. It feels like you just did a grueling workout (I actually sweat). But having a system for creating content, receiving feedback, and publishing in under two hours is remarkable.
Lev and I, as well as many others, have continued these weekend Crossfit for Writing sessions since the course ended. What you’re reading right now was written over the course of one of these sessions.
It is the single best accountability tool we have to push our classmates to consistently publish content each and every week.
Benefit Three: Learn how to set up a newsletter and personal website
Another tool we created during the course was the infrastructure for a personal website and newsletter. This creates the ‘online home’ for all of your content and a place where people can go to engage with what you’ve written.
One of the best parts about this infrastructure is the awareness of how many people read your content and what they engage with. For Lev and I, this has created a ‘self-sustaining accountability loop’ where each time we publish we receive feedback from readers in the form of engagement (likes, follows, emails, subscribers, etc.), and this engagement encourages us to continue publishing:
This feedback loop has taken us from inconsistent, private writers to prolific, public ones. As an example, check out the piece Lev wrote on the future of online education. This was born out of a Crossfit for Writing session, published a few days later, and led to the most daily visits his site has seen to date.
Benefit Four: Building a personal Colosseum of written work, brick by brick
One of the easiest ways to showcase thought leadership and authority is to write online. Writing immediately focuses your thinking and compresses ideas to their core.
As we first started the course, every bit of writing felt like an important piece of art. As we wrote more consistently we came to the realization that each piece is NOT a Rembrandt painting, but a brick. And slowly, brick by brick, your body of work starts taking shape and over time you build an intellectual Colosseum.
“Writing has a wonderful property: if the quality of the things you make is compelling, then the value of the things you make is compounding.” - Justin Mikolay
Traditional writing education strips away peoples’ ability to make their own choices and doesn’t hold them accountable for the words they write. Traditional writing is about not offending anyone.
But when you write online, you are responsible for your own writing and thinking. When you share your ideas publicly, and receive instant feedback on those ideas, the quality of your ideas don’t just become interesting, they have the potential to become transformative.
The internet gives people the power to both share and instantly refine their ideas; refining those ideas until they are so sharp that they pierce through mainstream conversations and spread through society like wildfire. Good writing means taking a stand and opening yourself up for critique. In this way, each person that interacts with your content challenges your ideas so they get sharper and stronger over time.
Eventually all of your written work becomes a personal ‘intellectual Colosseum’ that you can point to and say, “This is what I’ve built. This is the proving ground for my ideas.” You can then invite people into your Colosseum to appreciate, reflect upon, or challenge your work.
In practice this looks very ordinary - tweeting a link to a post you’ve written or sending a short newsletter to your family and friends. But over time those tweets, posts, and articles add up to a massive body of work that can reach anyone, at any time, forever.
Benefit Five: Creating a serendipity vehicle to leverage the power of the internet
One of the reasons David Perell encourages people to write online is to create a ‘serendipity vehicle’, a magnet for ideas, people, and opportunities from every corner of the globe.
The course started on February 19th and ended March 25th. How are these newly created serendipity vehicles working for us? Here are screenshots of our respective site statistics from October 2019 through April of 2020:
Both Lev and I have seen our unique visitors, total visits, and page views grow more than 10x since taking the course. But statistics don’t tell the complete story.
One of the biggest questions I had before writing online was how it would impact my professional life (positively and negatively). Publicly writing about embarrassing stories and failures can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, you want to write interesting and compelling content that people can engage with. On the other, sharing personal stories and challenges can harm your professional image and credibility.
So far, so good. The personal connections I’ve created since building my serendipity vehicle have been nothing short of magical. Here’s one of many examples of emails I’ve received from complete strangers wondering about the future of water:
I have also been surprised to find professional colleagues and clients engaged as well, even on Linkedin:
But it’s not just me. The engagement Lev has received since he started sharing his writing has been beyond his expectations. He wrote a post about his favorite finance blogger, Nick Maggiulli, who reached out to Lev thanking him for the post:
Austin Rief, co-founder of the newsletter Morning Brew shared his article about the future of education:
This is the power of the internet at work. This is serendipity coming to life. And it’s all because we started writing online.
Why Write of Passage may not be a good fit
This class is not for everyone. Students can struggle to keep up when the demands of a job, family, sickness, travel, etc. pop up. It requires as much energy as a 5 week college course, and the cost is significant enough that it shouldn’t be taken lightly.
There is one simple reason why Write of Passage may not be for you: you aren’t able to commit to at least 2 live sessions over the course of the five weeks.
The magic of this course is in the interaction with fellow classmates, lots of which happens in the live sessions, mentor hours, and Crossfit. You’ll still learn the principles of writing, how to create an online home, publish essays, etc… but the meaningful relationships require commitment.
You have to be open to the serendipity of meeting others from around the world and having your writing challenged in the public sphere. You need to be willing to engage with others who are on the same journey so that your writing and objectives become much more clear and within reach.
If you can’t commit to the process, I don’t recommend taking Write of Passage.
Write of Passage cost
The cost of Write of Passage - Fall of 2023
As you can see from the image above, paying anywhere from $3,995 on the low end to $8,995 on the high end is no joke. It’s a true investment.
Note: If you want to take the course but cannot afford the cost, the Write of Passage team does offer financing plans and scholarships that can help ease the financial burden.
Here are the benefits associated with each tier. I’d recommend starting with the low tier ($3,995) and then, if it’s an option like it has been in the past, upgrading later to a higher tier once you’ve seen the value.
Is Write of Passage worth it?
Spending thousands of dollars on an online writing course is not an easy decision to make; however, with real skin in the game you feel motivated to stay committed.
For me it’s proven to be a phenomenal investment. Since taking the class, I now have a water-focused newsletter that goes out to 3,600+ people that’s created incredible business opportunities. My LinkedIn profile has grown to 10k+ followers. I’ve been paid to speak on business & water related topics around the world and featured on podcasts like Entrepreneur.com and iHeart Radio.
But like anything, you get out of it what you put into it.
Those of us serious enough about writing continue to invest in the principles and tools we discussed. We continued to hold Crossfit on Saturdays for many months after the course was done, continue to write consistently, and continue to keep one another accountable to publish.
So, yes. Write of Passage is Worth it. But you have to be committed to the journey.
Looking back, I’d have major regrets if I hadn’t taken WoP. In fact, when a fellow classmate told David Perell that he wished he had started writing sooner, David responded with the perfect video:
If you enjoyed reading this piece you might also want to read about the time I started (and failed) at creating a 4 hour workweek.