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Last week, I recorded one of my favorite podcast episodes to date - with Marcelo Calbucci, author of The PRFAQ Framework (listen or watch). While we dove into his book, what stuck with me most was the broader theme behind it: Amazon’s culture of writing.
Marcelo and I talked about how Amazon replaced PowerPoints with narratives to boost the innovation process, how writing isn't just a way to share ideas but a way to shape them, and how anyone can apply that same thinking to their own projects (even if you’re not building the next Alexa). This post is a continuation of that conversation. I want to touch on the power of writing to clarify, deepen, and drive what we do.
Tip of the Week: The next time you're unsure what to do - write it down. Decisions, dilemmas, or big ideas all get clearer when you force yourself to put them into words.
THE THEORY
Amazon writes to clarify thinking. At Amazon, narratives replaced slide decks to force deep thinking. Six-pagers, written in full prose, make it impossible to gloss over assumptions. When you write, you can’t hide behind a vague bullet point or a charismatic delivery, you have to confront your logic head-on. As Marcelo put it on the podcast, “The writing is the innovation process.”
Writing activates second-order thinking. Most of us make first-order decisions: What’s easiest? What’s next? Writing our thoughts down on paper forces second-order thinking: What happens after this? What are the trade-offs? What’s the risk of being wrong? When we write, we slow down enough to ask the questions that most fast-moving conversations skip. It’s uncomfortable...but that’s the point.
The best thinkers in history wrote for themselves. Long before productivity apps, thinkers used writing to make sense of the world. Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations as a personal journal. Leonardo da Vinci filled notebooks with diagrams and questions. Darwin’s theories evolved through writing long before he published a word. The act of writing was the thinking.
MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS
A doc can be your best mentor. Derek Sivers once said, “My best mentors don’t even know I exist” - and I’ve found that to be true. When I started doing solo work, no one was asking me to write six-pagers, but I wrote them anyway. The act of writing helped me clarify my thinking and gave me something concrete to share with people I admire... including my invisible mentors (thanks to ChatGPT). I highly recommend this practice. You’ll not only get thought-provoking feedback from uploading the doc to AI, but you can then create a Custom GPT trained on your own writing. This then becomes an incredible sounding board - one that holds you accountable to your own words.
HOW TO PUT THIS INTO PRACTICE
Write before you act. Before making a big decision, draft a simple one-pager: What’s the problem? What are the options? What are the pros and cons? Writing this out will give you surprising clarity (often faster than any meeting).
Start a thinking doc. Keep a running document where you capture questions, reflections, or ideas. It doesn’t have to be polished, just a space where your thoughts can take shape.
Write a letter to a mentor about a current dilemma. Choose someone you admire (even if they don’t know you exist) and write them a letter explaining what you’re struggling with and what you’ve learned from them. You’ll clarify your own thinking in the process.
Turn your writing into your own Custom GPT. Upload your past memos or journal entries to Custom GPTs to build a personal thinking partner trained on your voice and values. It becomes a mentor that reminds you what you believe.
Watch the podcast episode. Marcelo Calbucci breaks down exactly how Amazon uses writing to drive innovation through the PRFAQ method. If you want to see writing in action, this is the place to start. (listen or watch).
Sometimes, the best meetings happen between you and a blank page.
Penfully yours,
Jorge Luis Pando
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