If you asked me the hardest part of writing a book, it would be one word:

Stress.

But I wasn’t stressed because the writing was hard. Sure, it was challenging. But the key source of pain was that I was so attached to the outcome.

I’ve always wanted to be a successful author, so for the first year of Magnetic Writing, my mind was a mess. I constantly compared myself to best-selling authors. I worried endlessly that I would never be able to reach a fraction of their success. I would read my work and think that it would never be good enough to publish.

This made the journey almost impossible to walk.

I was exhausted, and desperate for the book to finish.

The problem with desire is that it arrives hand-in-hand with suffering. The irony is that the more you want something, the more you can become your own worst enemy. You waste most of your energy wrestling with fear and doubt when you should be investing it into chasing your dream.

Everything changed for me when a friend asked a simple question:

What does success actually look like?

We were on a call, and she could see I was rough around the edges from the book process. My mind first leapt to fame and glory: millions of books sold, a life where I only write, being taken seriously as an original thinker.

But as I thought about her question, I realised there was a healthier motivation being drowned out by my desire to impress:

I want to hold my book in my hand.

And I want to know that I could not have tried harder to write it.

It’s going to be so f**king badass to have a physical book that I am proud to have my name on. I cannot wait to take a selfie with Magnetic Writing and send it to my family, friends, and you. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to see it perform well. But I will not consider myself a failure if I end up falling short of some imaginary expectation.

The real win is having the courage to go after something you want.

This realisation shifted my north star, and the effect was amazing. As I entered the second year of writing the book, my energy skyrocketed. I started giving more and more time to my dream. I had no problem endlessly rewriting and obsessing over every sentence.

I wanted every word to earn its place and every chapter to be as crisp and concise as possible.

When I submitted the book to the publisher, I sat back satisfied knowing that I had taken care of what I could. When a friend asked if I was nervous about the launch, I realised I wasn’t. I had done what I had set out to do. The rest is just icing on the cake.

Warren Buffett once spoke about the importance of an internal scorecard. It is critical if you are trying to achieve something with your life.

Let me explain why.

The importance of an internal scorecard

The older I get, the more I appreciate that 90% of success is just mindset. It’s funny because I used to judge mindset advice as beginner hustle-porn. But once you’ve learned the tactics, it really does come back to how you view yourself and the world.

The harsh truth of success is that almost everything you try will fail.

You will look stupid as you put yourself out there and run the risk of rejection. You will feel small and insecure as you see other people get what you want while you get nothing. You will exhaust yourself in the endless dance of uncertainty that comes from doing something worthwhile.

But this brutality is beautiful.

You only develop a strong character by doing hard things. And society rewards the risk-takers because few people are willing to try, and even fewer see something through.

An internal scorecard is the answer. The best way to keep playing a game is to stop measuring your success by other people’s standards. Sure, you can spend your life running after other people, but there will always be someone faster, and there will always be something outside of your reach.

You must realise that any external definition of success is designed to keep a system running.

Fame, status, money. These are not bad things to want, but they are bad things to chase. They will pummel you into the ground until you are too tired to think. And anything that requires another person to give to you is outside of your control. If it can be given, it is not actually real. It is a story. Like spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said:

"Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to discover it, and to discover, there must be a state of mind in which there is direct perception.”

Only you get to live your life, so you get to decide what success means. To stay sane, it must be based in reality. So what is true?

Your effort.

Your output.

Your state of mind as you pursue success.

Your doing of the thing, not the fact that people love you for it.

These are things within your control. And when they become the scorecard, the game becomes your own. You may be recognised externally, in fact, probably even more so because outliers do not concern themselves with the crowd. But you are playing by your own rules. This is a much healthier and anti-fragile position to operate from.

The internal scorecard for writing

This point is so important that it is a topic in the first chapter of my book.

Here’s what I wrote:

I am not going to tell you that you can magically drop your belief that external success makes you better than other people. It takes a lot of inner work to snap out of the system, and you will constantly be pulled back in.

But external results are just a delayed measure of your internal drive. The longer and harder you work, the more you increase your chances of success. You can drink from a deep well of motivation when you learn to pat yourself on the back before the world does.

So let me ask you, my friend:

What are you pursuing right now?

Are you measuring by something outside of your control?

What can you do to shift the focus?

It takes strength to play your own game, but it is easier than the alternative.

To your freedom,

Kieran

P.S.

This is a lesson I constantly have to relearn.

I have struggled with a low sense of self-worth for much of my life. Any time I start a new venture, I begin with my head in the clouds about becoming someone special. But this thought pattern implies that you are not already special, that you must fulfil some condition before you can be loved.

…Which is all bullshit.

For example, my next objective is to launch the book.

I started trying to decide what would be a good aim. 1,000 copies? 10,000? Why not 100,000? After all, Hormozi sold close to 3 million in one day. Am I so untalented that I cannot do 1% of that?

But it doesn’t matter what number I decide. It only matters what levers I pull.

And neither am I Hormozi. I admire his effort, but man, I would hate to create that much content. I wanna be writing on a mountain somewhere by the time I am forty, not broadcasting my life in the race for relevance. So I do not deserve the audience he has, and I’m OK with that.

So my aim is now internal:

I want to know I gave the launch my all. That I was focused, disciplined, and as helpful as I could be to the people whom I want to serve. And again, the fear drops and the excitement begins.

So if this email has struck a chord, hit reply and let me know what you are up to. I respond to every email, and if I have anything to offer, even if just a sympathetic ear, then I shall.

It would also mean the world that you join 1,500+ people on the waitlist for Magnetic Writing. The launch is Jan 2027, and I plan to make it a no-brainer for those willing to invest.