#144 Welcome to GROW-Vember

Welcoming you to November with our GROWTH edition! 📈 

Plants may be shriveling, leaves may be falling, but we never stop growing. Rain, snow, sleet, hail - it doesn’t matter.

Let’s keep the energy high!

FLYING Into November With 🍂 

• The Search Bar: Perplexity, AI Investments, and Exploding Topics 📈 💰️🚀

• Say It Better: Is Your Writing on Parr with Sam’s? 📈💰️

• Content for Your Commute: Recs as Eclectic as Fall Colors 📈 💰️🚀

• November’s 2-DO LIST: One For Your Screen, One For Your Sanity 📈 🚀

THE SEARCH BAR 🔎

What’s Trend(a)ing Heading into November 2025

• Best NEW Way to Search: Perplexity Comet ☄️ is changing the game! It’s replaced Google Chrome for me, and I’m confident if you give it the chance, it’ll work wonders for you.

• 🤖 Top AI Trending Stocks (Daily Update) - Check out the hottest AI stocks to keep an eye on so you don’t miss out on the next Nvidia or Palantir!

• Top Trending Topics (October 2025) - Our favorite trends website, Explodingtopics.com, gives us the Top 100 trends in the US last month. After the full list, they go deeper on ten topics “worth keeping an eye on,” ranging from AI agents to creatine gummies to carbon-plated running shoes. A little something for everyone…

SAY IT BETTER 💯 

Come FALL into These Writing Tips with Prof Mike 🎓️ 

I came across this gem of a LinkedIn post from Sam Parr, someone whose success inspired me to get into the newsletter space. He sold his newsletter The Hustle for millions in 2021 and now hosts a podcast called My First Million and runs a company called Hampton.

But his first claim to fame was in writing / content creation, so when I saw this post, it really stood out. As someone who aspires to write better, I saved it immediately.

And then I thought of our own resident writing expert, Prof Mike, and what he might think. Here we go!

Thanks for the kind intro, Dan. My instinctive response was, “Just listen to the guy who made millions,” but then I read the post.

Woof.

I’ve been doing a lot of grading lately, so in that spirit, I give both the advice and the quality of the writing a C. And that might be generous.

Let’s start with the bullets and then circle back to that first line:

• Bullet 1:“Object then Action” - This is fine. It’s always better to have active sentences as opposed to passive sentences. Your subject should be doing the action more often than not.
  
  (Note: In the example “The boy hit the ball,” the boy is the subject, not the “object” as Parr said. The object is, in fact, the ball. Subject-verb-object. Sentence Writing 101.)
  

• Bullet 2: “Needless words” - Again, solid premise, but words don’t only exist “to make sense.” And in the sentence that serves as his example, he could’ve removed “still” and “then” and it STILL would’ve made sense!
  
  Sometimes we use extra words to appeal to a particular audience, to evoke a stronger emotion, to be more accurate or specific, etc. So yes, brevity is good, but if you cut every “useless” word, your sentences will lack style and persuasiveness.
  

• Bullet 3: “No adverbs” - Hate this advice. In fact, I hate it so much I need bullets to streamline my criticism:

  • In He ran fast, FAST IS AN ADVERB! (Very is also an adverb, but an adverb-less example would be “He ran,” which just sucks.

  • Stephen King recommends stronger, more accurate verbs so that you don’t need adverbs. For example: “sprinted” or “flew” replacing “ran,” because those are specific while “ran” is vague and requires additional description. King’s quote was taken out of context, which is pretty much Parr for the course on the internet.

  • Stephen King uses adverbs in his writing. Read any one of his books.
    

• Bullet 4: “Write simply” - Recent literacy stats claim 54% of American adults read at or below a 6th grade reading level, so this advice makes sense in that regard. If you’re writing for a general audience and trying to reach the most people possible, focus on clarity and simplicity.
  
  But if you have a specific audience in mind, and those people are more literate, writing to them like they’re children could cost you credibility and insult their intelligence.
  

• Bullet 5: “Hit the reader” - Maybe the best advice of the post, but still, pretty standard: it’s called a hook. Every piece of writing should begin with one. Funnily enough, his example is his first sentence…which isn’t even a sentence.

But it does clearly state the post’s main purpose: “How to write better than 99% of people.”

Why is that the goal? Most people don’t write, or don’t need to write for their careers. If you’re in a space that depends on writing / language / content creation, you need to be better than your competition, not the general population.

And the way to be “better” is to be more knowledgeable about or attentive to your target audience and write for them to the best of your ability.

(Also: proofread your work, something Sam clearly didn’t do before hitting post.)

From my POV, and as someone who aspires to get stronger at writing, I truly appreciate the breakdown from Prof! He’s extremely passionate about language and I’m glad he is apart of the team.

There’s a ton more to learn from someone who is a tenured college professor that has taught writing and public speaking for nearly 15 years.

CONTENT FOR YOUR COMMUTE 🚶🚆 ✈️ 

• ON FOOT: Want to learn from the #1 magician (and mentalist) in the world? Oz Pearlman “exposes how to read people, build trust, and win attention.” Head to Spotify and check out this incredible episode on Steven Barlett’s Podcast: The Diary of a CEO.

• TRAIN TIME: We need to stay Always Informed on AI news (not just when OTF covers it), so here’s a good round-up of AI news from last month.
  
  Preview: they’re talking about Perplexity Comet, too!

• FIRST CLASS: If you’re interested in writing, why not read the Stephen King book from Parr’s post? Or if you want something more in 2025 (and can get past the Forbes paywall), this list looks solid. Here’s one that stood out to me:

2-DO LIST💡 

November 2025

1. Check out Perplexity Comet - I’m going to talk more about this in next week’s Productivity Edition, but man this is an absolute game changer. Other browsers can glue themselves to the bench.

2. Lean Into The Fall Foliage - Look around you. See those leaves change. Lean into the change of season. Despite it getting dark faster and longer, there are silver-linings. Enjoy the scenery of the foliage when driving to your local grocer, visiting family, or simply taking a walk. It’s a beautiful world we live in - pick that head up from the phone (once you’re done reading OTF, of course) and take it all in.

Before You Go!

Thanks again for joining us! Next week, we’ll be back with November’s PRODUCTIVITY EDITION, featuring a perplexing Working With AI, Always Informed, and much more!

As always, see you next Tuesday 🤝 

Find Dan on LinkedIn

You are now On The Fly & In The Know.