Your Way of Doing Something Might Just Be a Book! Even If You Are Not Stacey Abrams

Go read Stacey Abrams' Lead from the Outside¹.

Stacey Abrams' Lead from the Outside not only tells the impressive story of one of Abrams' rise in politics. Stacey Abrams seems to me to be one the most prolific organizers, leaders, and creatives (!) in the US political landscape today. The book is also an interesting case study of how we can simplify the daunting task of writing.

Go read the book for Stacey Abrams' story, stay for its structure.

Start with a simple formula, turn it into a framework

The formula proposed by Abrams is

Know what you want, why you want it, and learn how to get it 

Turning this formula into a framework, Stacey Abrams develops the entire book.

Fill the framework with personality by connecting it to your life

The strategies that expand on the framework that I noticed are

• Give a brief overview overview of the framework in principle
• Add your origin story that sets the stage for the framework and puts it in your personal context
• Repeat the three steps in detail by making them the anchors for chapters, always linking ideas and insights to personal stories
• The framework is fractal - a little insight off of a larger insight warrants an inserted smaller framework and more personal stories
• Finish strong: End excursions into the various topics with quotable / tweetable sentences that capture the essence of the topic

Only one of us can be Stacey Abrams but we can all learn about what we want, why we want it, and how to learn to get it.