Writing exposes your gaps

Mickey Mellen
2 min readNov 28, 2023

I’ve shared a few times on here that I often don’t know what I’m wrong about, so I work to try to expose those areas. Reading helps with that a lot, as does writing.

In Adam Grant’s new book “ Hidden Potential “, he shares:

I’ve seen many people shy away from writing because it doesn’t come naturally to them. What they overlook is that writing is more than a vehicle for communicating-it’s a tool for learning. Writing exposes gaps in your knowledge and logic. It pushes you to articulate assumptions and consider counterarguments. Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking. Or as Steve (Martin) himself quipped, “Some people have a way with words, and other people, uh . . . oh, not have a way.”

I’ve found that the people with the clearest minds tend to be the ones that write the most. It might be books or blog posts or even personal journals, but getting things out of your head is a fantastic way to clarify what you think.

I still believe that publishing in public helps more because it forces more polished thoughts, but any kind of writing that you can do will put your clarity of thought miles ahead of where it is right now.

Originally published at https://www.mickmel.com on November 28, 2023.

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Mickey Mellen

I’m a cofounder of @GreenMellen, and I’m into WordPress, blogging and seo. Love my two girls, gadgets, Google Earth, and I try to run when I can.