The Motley Fool
A financial media company that publishes investing advice and analysis for individual investors.
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Morgan Housel started at The Motley Fool in 2007 and wrote about 3,500 articles in nine years, three a day, each critiqued by hundreds of readers. He stood out by telling stories about finance while others published numbers and charts. He'd be proud of maybe five a year. Lesson: lead with story, and expect most output to miss.
- 1Write three a day3,500 articles in nine years
- 2Readers critique each oneHundreds of readers per article
- 3Expect most to fail29 of 30 things fail or don't matter
- 4Keep a fewProud of maybe five a year
From Morgan Housel on his Motley Fool years
What was said about The Motley Fool
The Motley Fool trained Morgan Housel through daily writing under heavy reader scrutiny. Housel started there in 2007 and wrote about 3,500 articles in nine years, three a day. Hundreds of readers critiqued each one.
He says he would be proud of maybe five articles a year from that run. His takeaway is that if you do 30 things, 29 will be irrelevant or fail and one may change everything, so new writers should expect to lose often.
Telling stories about finance set a Motley Fool writer apart from data writers. At The Motley Fool, Housel saw that thousands of writers were publishing numbers and charts, and that stories were how to stand out.
He finds the story first and then asks what broader lesson it carries, and he has never started with a lesson and hunted for a story to fit it. His books follow that shape: each chapter is a story, then the takeaway.
How to Write Insanely Well (Morgan Housel Interview)
Housel got his start there in 2007 and wrote about 3,500 articles in nine years, three a day, with hundreds of readers critiquing each. Telling stories about finance was how he stood out among data writers, and he'd be proud of maybe five articles a year.
The Motley Fool trained Morgan Housel through daily writing under heavy reader scrutiny. Housel started there in 2007 and wrote about 3,500 articles in nine years, three a day. Hundreds of readers critiqued each one.
He says he would be proud of maybe five articles a year from that run. His takeaway is that if you do 30 things, 29 will be irrelevant or fail and one may change everything, so new writers should expect to lose often.
Telling stories about finance set a Motley Fool writer apart from data writers. At The Motley Fool, Housel saw that thousands of writers were publishing numbers and charts, and that stories were how to stand out.
He finds the story first and then asks what broader lesson it carries, and he has never started with a lesson and hunted for a story to fit it. His books follow that shape: each chapter is a story, then the takeaway.
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