Pyramid Planning and Dan Blank’s “Be The Gateway”
I’m reading Dan Blank’s Be The Gateway at the moment, a book about author platform and writing that is probably as close to my own philosophy that I’ve come across thus far. There’s a focus on identities and how they shape reaction to our work, and why “just telling good stories that entertain people” is frequently a failure to understand what you’re really offering readers. What really caught me, reading through it this morning, was an exercise on judging the priorities in your life. In it, Blank advises getting a stack of index cards and writing down all the things that matter to you, whether it’s a single word (“Family”) or a long term goal (“Take better care of myself”). Once you’ve got everything down, try and arrange all your cards into a pyramid: one things goes at the top, representing your highest priority. Two cards go underneath it, then, three, then four. It may take time to get the