Journaling Is Not Gay?
GM.
Quick question: When was the last time you actually sat with yourself?
Not scrolled. Not binged. Not distracted.
Just... sat.
If you're like most people, the answer is never. Or at least not since you were a kid.
And that's the problem.
See, everyone's out here digging for gold in someone else's mine and pocketwatching.
Buying courses on "finding your purpose." Reading books on "discovering your passion."
Following frameworks that worked for someone else's life.
Meanwhile, the richest archaeological site you'll ever encounter is collecting dust inside your own skull.
Today I'll share with you how journaling is a quick way to become a better copywriter.
Let me explain with two entrepreneurs.
First:
Robert Greene, the guy who wrote "The 48 Laws of Power," has this practice.
Every night, he journals, right before bed. And every morning, 40 minutes of meditation. No negotiation.
He also calls certain times of day his "golden hours", 4 PM to 7:30 PM, when his mind focuses at its best.
But here's what's interesting:
He didn't learn this from a guru or a $2,000 course.
He learned it by paying attention to himself.
By sitting still long enough to notice patterns. To excavate his own rhythms.
Most people never do this.
They force themselves to work at 6 AM because some productivity bro said so, then wonder why they're miserable and getting nothing done.
They're digging in the wrong spot.
And the tool they need to figure this out?
A pen and a piece of paper.
Before mediation and monk mode, all of the productivity culture crap, become comfortable with being alone with your own thoughts then writing your own thoughts down.
Second:
Multimillionaire Matt Furey, the combat conditioning coach turned Eastern martial arts copywriter, and one of my mentors in the copywriting space, has a method that sounds impossible.
He used to write most of his daily emails in just 10-12 minutes.
That's right, 10-12 minutes max.
No editing. No second-guessing. Just pure flow.
Journaling is the secret of how he built up to do it.
He didn't just sit down and start typing.
He used a journal first.
By hand. Every single day.
On paper or napkin if he was at lunch.
He gets into the right mental and emotional state before he ever touches a keyboard.
The journaling does the heavy lifting. It excavates his thoughts. Clears the mental debris. Connects him to what he actually wants to say.
By the time he opens his laptop, the words flow effortlessly onto the screen.
Because he's already done the archaeological work on paper.
Most copywriters do the opposite.
They sit down at their computer with a blank mind, trying to force creativity while staring at a blinking cursor.
Then they wonder why writing feels like pulling teeth.
They're trying to excavate and build at the same time.
That's like trying to uncover dinosaur bones while simultaneously building a museum around them.
Most copywriters and marketers are so busy consuming content about copywriting and marketing that they never excavate themselves.
They're reading threads about hooks while ignoring the fact they do their best thinking at 11 PM.
They're buying courses on "finding your voice" when they haven't written three pages in a journal to figure out what their actual voice sounds like.
They're optimizing their morning routine based on what worked for a guy in sunny California when they're a night owl like me who lives in Ohio.
Here's what I want you to do:
Buy a pocket journal. A physical one. Pen and paper.
Yeah, I know. It sounds woo-woo. It's not.
Start writing. By hand. Not on a computer.
Do it while on a walk, at work, at dinner, write, wherever you are.
You only get better at writing copy if you write everyday.
Use frameworks like Aida or Pastor, if you’re new, to structure your writing.
Hand-copy old pre-internet swipefile ads.
Like the stuff I shared with you on Ogilvy or Halberts “Boron Letters”.
But most importantly write about yourself:
- Your dreams (the sleeping kind and the ambitious kind)
- Your memories from childhood
- What made you weird as a kid
- What you were attracted to before anyone told you what to like
- Your golden hours (when do you actually feel sharp?)
- Your worst hours (when are you useless?)
The added benefit of whhen you write about yourself is that you're ideas are original and unique, making it easier to market yourself and standout from all copycats and from all the GPT AI slop out there.
All the data supports handwriting:
- A 2014 study published in Psychological Science found that handwriting activates regions of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory more than typing does.
- A 2020 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that people who journal regularly show significantly improved working memory and cognitive processing
- Research from the University of Texas showed that expressive writing (journaling about thoughts and feelings) reduces intrusive thoughts and improves sleep quality
- Neuroscientist Matthew Walker's research shows that REM sleep (where most dreams occur) is essential for emotional regulation and creative problem-solving, but most people ignore their dreams entirely
When you write by hand, you're forced to slow down. To think. To feel the words.
It's archaeological work.
You're using a brush to remove dirt. You see a little bit of bone. You ask more questions. Remove more dirt.
Memories come up. Patterns emerge. You start connecting to who you were before the world told you who to be.
Before you learned to perform.
Before you started digging in everyone else's mines.
You're sitting on a goldmine of insights about yourself.
Your patterns. Your rhythms. Your actual strengths (not the ones LinkedIn told you to have).
So yeah, journaling is not gay, but you're too busy scrolling through someone else's highlight reel and living vicariously through others to notice.
Next week:
I’m currently working on the final touches of a short ebook.
30+ pages on how to start a 6+ figure email marketing business.
It’s going to be totally free, being entirely funded by my Merchants Guild, my private, invite-only paid Clientless Copywriting community.
Where copywriters of all walks of life come to the Merchants Guild to share information, share client opportunities, become better at the craft of copy and MAKE MONEY!
It’ll be added to the welcome sequence as well so anyone new to The Clientless Copywriter newsletter will have the option to download a copy.
Tell your friends.
Also, as a favor to me and to gauge your interest, email me back with the words Merchants Guild.
Consider it an early holiday gift and don’t miss next week's email.
Fathi
