I'm deep into the development of a high-performance writing system.

This email shares my first big breakthrough, a 3-dimensional "FFGAs" system for coming up with content ideas.

• Better than a topic matrix

• Guaranteed to emotionally resonate

• Never run out of content

It's CreatorBoost, the newsletter formerly known as Uncommon.

Today's read is a 4m59s...

—just enough time to shout, "Give me 5 minutes!" at anyone who tries to interrupt and actually mean it.

🔸 How to get dozens of epic writing ideas (even if you're blocked)

There are a lot of ideation and writing frameworks going around.

Chances are, if you've heard of them, I've tried them.

You might think up stories from your past using the first/last/weirdest + job/relationship/car trick.

Or take a general topic and apply one of 4 As to it (Action, Analytics, Aspirations, Anthropology).

And you probably have a swipe file of ideas to pull inspiration from.

Then, all you have to do is "take a core idea and sprinkle in your own perspective," right?

Wrong.

All these fall short, in my opinion.

People struggle to apply the above frameworks because they're missing the most important ingredient that makes content engaging.

They're missing the reader.

Your topic resonates when it matters to the reader

Content pops online when it appeals to your audience on a deep level.

The four main drivers of human behavior are:

• Fears

• Frustrations

• Goals

• Aspirations

I call these key motivators FFGAs.

You'll never get results better than mediocre if you aren't touching on an FFGA in your content. 

You might do a great job covering a topic with facts and information. But you haven't touched their hearts about why it matters to them.

Here's a better way to adapt how you write.

Use FFGAs to connect topics to emotions

Inspiration to write can come from so many places.

In the content system that I've built for myself, I have over 100 ideas.

Some examples of notes under the "Writing" category:

1. Writing prompts

2. Inspiration

3. How to write hooks

4. Copywork for tweets

5. Things I wish I knew when I was starting

6. Attributes of successful stories

All of these could be appealing topics for tweet threads or articles. I could also approach each a dozen different ways.

To really resonate with readers, before going further, connect your topic with their fears, frustrations, goals, and aspirations.

• Writing prompts so you never face a blank page (fears of writer's block)

• Habits to inspire ideas that no one else has thought of yet (aspirations of genius)

• How to write hooks that 100k+ tweet threads (goals to write X amount/week)

• Things I wish I knew - avoid these mistakes (frustrations with the process)

Just by connecting a topic with the audience, we are immediately on a better track.

Why stop? Pivot across all 4 FFGAs

You can take this a step further.Likely with any good topic, there are multiple fears, frustrations, goals, and aspirations.

If we take my first example topic, writing prompts, let's explore that further.Here's a quick brainstorm just for writing prompts.

Writing prompts ➝ Fears

• What if I can't come up with ideas? Am I a fake?

• If I use prompts am I unoriginal?

Writing prompts ➝ Frustrations

• I feel like I'm writing the same thing again. I want to write something new

• I have other things to do. I don't have time to write

• I've looked at writing prompts in the past, but didn't get inspired

Writing prompts ➝ Goals

• I want most of my posts scheduled far into the distance so I can focus on other things

• I want a system that I can just open and immediately get ideas from

Writing prompts ➝ Aspirations

• I want to have a reputation for writing the best content

• I want to be a fast writer so I have time for my relationships

We're now getting into ultra-specific ideas, expressed in our target audience's own language, that we can help help them achieve or avoid (depending on if good or bad).

Any of the above 8 emotions would make for a good post.

Apply a format or structure

At this point, you're finally ready to start thinking about the format of the post.

Pulling from Justin Welsh, Dickie Bush, Julian Shapiro, my own thoughts, and probably others, we end up with formats and structures like:

• Educate / Teach

• Tell a story

• List of tools

• How-to (Action)

• Make people think

• Motivate (Aspirations)

• Deep dive / deconstruct

• Review the data (Analytics)

• Why is this happening (Anthropology)

• Contrarian take / spiky point of view

• Run the problem through a mental model

At this step, you can also go into a swipe file or template database like creatorboost.xyz and hunt around for inspiration that way.

Both techniques create a third dimension of inspiration.

1/ Topic ➝

2/ FFGAs: Fears/frustrations/goals/aspirations ➝

3/ Format/structure/template

Instead of dozens of ideas per topic, now you can generate hundreds.

Helping the reader achieve transformation

Let's go back to the beginning again. The reader.

Appealing to something that truly resonates with them in the most important lesson here.

The framework of using FFGAs is just a mental shortcut to make that easy to do with your content every time.

Remove fears and frustrations. Inch them closer to goals and aspirations. This is how you transform people's lives, one step at a time.

And if you find yourself lacking FFGAs, you need to talk to your audience more. Get on chats, get on Zoom calls. Learn about what they're really struggling with.

Ultimately, if you help solve those most important problems over and over, you'll develop a fan base that will take you anywhere you want to go.

🔸 Whenever you're ready, 3 ways I can help

CreatorBoost - Find my tweet inspiration database and Twitter guides on creatorboost.xyz.

Zero to 10k Twitter Accelerator - Execute the 4-part Twitter growth system I used to hit 10,000 followers in 41 days. Guaranteed: Add at least 1,000 followers within 8 weeks or you can have your money back. Use code NEWSLETTER15 for 15% off.

Mastermind/1:1 Help - Single sessions for fixing your biggest problem, or an on-going program to accelerate your path to growing an monetizing your audience. Reply to this email if you have a problem I can help solve.

🔸 Tweets of the week

My top 4 threads from the last 7 days that you may have missed.

That's all for now. Catch up with you again soon.

—Rob Lennon